Hansard

The timing of this debate is very welcome, following the UK Government’s budget and Esther McVey’s statement, but it seems that the UK Government thinks that the debate about universal credit can be put to bed for this year. As we welcome the UN special rapporteur, I hope that we can make it clear today that more must be done and that both MPs and MSPs must act to help people who are suffering.

Although much of what I will say today will focus on universal credit, I thank third sector organisations for their briefings, which cover all aspects of welfare reform. The MS Society again makes an urgent call to end the 20m rule for personal independence payments and Inclusion Scotland makes a broader point about how disabled people have been targeted by reforms. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Human Rights Consortium Scotland remind us to take a broader view of poverty and human rights.

Scottish Labour will support the Government’s motion, but we want to amend it to urge MPs to vote down the managed migration regulations, and to urge Holyrood to look at how it can go further.

The Scottish Government often claims that we cannot mitigate all of Westminster’s cuts and that it would be better if all welfare powers were devolved. However, neither of those claims help the 120,000 people who have suffered the roll-out of universal credit to date, or the 90,000 people who have gone to food banks since April. Scottish Labour’s amendment calls for cross-party talks about what we can do right now. Looking at last week’s budget and yesterday’s announcement, it is clear that the UK Government has not gone far enough: Philip Hammond’s £1,000 boost to work allowances and Esther McVey’s failure to tackle brutal, systemic flaws are a set of fudges that do not fix universal credit.

In my Central Scotland region, 21,000 people have moved on to universal credit over the past year. They are suffering rent arrears, which have quadrupled; they are having to pay back almost £8 million in advances at a rate of 40 per cent; and they are suffering a brutal conditionality system, which is forcing workers to find more work. Those people need support now—they do not need constitutional rhetoric or for the DWP to take years’ more time.

On its own, the £1,000 partial uplift to work allowances is a welcome improvement, but it will help some people more than others. The Resolution Foundation points out that lone parents and disabled people who are toiling to pay a mortgage or do not get help paying their rent will still be worse off by £2,000 and £1,200 respectively.

Mirroring UK Labour’s 10-point action plan on universal credit, the Poverty Alliance calls for the lifting of the £370 million benefit freeze, the ending of the two-child cap and the ending of sanctions, conditionality and weeks of waiting. All those moves are urgently needed to cut through the misery of universal credit.

Yesterday’s announcement that there will be help for the self-employed and that a new lower 30 per cent collection rate will be implemented was welcome. However, although the two-week run-on payments shorten the initial wait to three weeks, people in receipt of child tax credits—again, lone parents and the working poor—are penalised, because those run-on payments will not apply to them. The delay in the implementation of those changes will not help any of the people who have already moved on to universal credit.

MPs must halt the Tories’ managed migration because, bluntly, there is nothing managed about it. There will now be more time to claim or to have payments backdated, but inherent to the design of the process is an attempt to catch people out. People on tax credits will get a time-limited invitation to apply. If they do not do so, they risk losing their transitional protection. Surely the process has to be better than that.

Here in Scotland, we should have serious, thorough discussion about how we can make people’s lives easier. Call it mitigation, but people have to be reassured that Holyrood will act and is better than this callous Tory Government. A child benefit top-up is a starting point that the give me five coalition advocates, although I know that the SNP refuses to support that call. We could also consider fast-tracking the income supplement for lone parents and the disabled—those who are still losing out because of George Osborne’s work allowance cuts.

Last week’s figures on the Scottish welfare fund and Scottish choices show that they are being well used by families across the country. We should heed the call of the Social Security Committee and increase the funding that is available in that regard—not through an uprating but through a substantial increase that not only reverses the real-terms cuts that there have been since 2014 but ensures that people in crisis can get the support that they need.

The fact that, after being asked, half of people in receipt of universal credit have taken up universal credit flexibility is good progress but, with arrears still growing, the Government must look to improve that further. The cabinet secretary mentioned split payments, but should landlord payments not be automatic, with an opt-out?

On the two-child cap, I was not here for the debate when Michelle Ballantyne set out her reasons for supporting that, but I watched it later. As I did so, I reflected on my family’s circumstances. I was one of four children. My parents worked hard—my father as a welder and my mother as a bank clerk—to support the family that they chose to have. My dad was diagnosed with a serious heart condition at the age of 37 and was unable to carry on doing the work that he was trying to do and had been doing for 20 years. Who plans for such situations when they plan to have more than two children? Who in Dundee planned for the situation that they have woken up to this morning? Where is the support network? Where is the state support that children depend on day in, day out when circumstances change beyond anyone’s comprehension?

In the talks that flow out of today’s debate, we must look at how we can use our new powers to either eradicate welfare reforms or depart from the UK Government’s direction. Just as we have banned the private sector from involvement in assessments, thereby securing dignity and respect for the terminally ill, we should consider ending the 20m rule in relation to PIP and putting in place the certainty of automatic entitlement. We should be looking to lift the earnings limit and allow full-time carers to access full-time education, providing real freedom to work and study.

Today, we can condemn the Tory Government as we have many times before. However, I hope that MPs of all parties act on the issue of managed migration. We should do so, too.

I move amendment S5M-14621.2, to insert after “roll-out of this;”:

“further agrees that MPs must act to halt the Universal Credit managed migration; notes the contribution of Scottish Choices, the Scottish Welfare Fund and mitigation of the so-called bedroom tax to help counter the impact of welfare reform; believes that cross-party talks should now take place to consider the extent to which the income supplement can protect people from the Conservative administration’s welfare reform, and how Scotland’s new powers will be best used to support carers, older people and disabled people;”.