Hansard

The words

“punitive, mean-spirited and often callous”

are damning, to say the least, as is a reference to “unnecessarily” inflicting “great misery”. Those are not my words, but the words of the UN special rapporteur, in his report on the UK Government’s welfare cuts.

The Tories come to the chamber day in and day out, week in and week out, and month in and month out, calling for more money to be invested in a range of policy areas, despite their budget proposals last year, which would have cut £500 million of expenditure. The proposed tax cuts for the richest would have made the less well-off even worse off. That is an example of how the Tories do not want a fairer Scotland for everyone.

Another example is the comments of Michelle Ballantyne, the Tories’ welfare spokesperson, who said:

“There is no such thing as a bedroom tax”.—[Official Report, Social Security Committee, 21 February 2019; c 24.]

She also said that the rape clause is “fair”, because

“people on benefits cannot have as many children as they like”.—[Official Report, 24 October 2018; c 52.]

I do not understand how the Tories can think that their approach delivers a fairer Scotland. It could be argued that they are writing off many children and people who are on benefits at an early stage. I do not know whether any of the Tories who are in the chamber at the moment support Michelle Ballantyne’s comments. I would be happy to give way if any of them wanted to make an intervention. I see that there are only two, and that they do not want to.

I became involved in politics because I want my community and country to be better and fairer. I grew up in Port Glasgow and saw the devastating effects of the Tory Government’s policies on my community. Thousands left—they had to get on their bike, as Tebbit declared at the time—and there was an increase in alcohol and drugs misuse, which still afflicts my community today.

Annabelle Ewing spoke about the root cause. The root cause of many of the challenges that my constituency faces today started under previous Tory Governments. Those challenges have not been overturned in a few years by the Scottish Parliament with its limited powers, but the SNP Government is taking action, as the cabinet secretary set out in her opening remarks. However, while the majority of tax and spend policies and welfare powers remain at Westminster, Scotland will be at the mercy of those in charge there.

I was the first MSP to raise the issue of food banks in this chamber, and I will always support them. When we are presented with the evidence about how universal credit is affecting people, it ill behoves any Tory politician to defend a policy that is pushing more and more people into poverty and desperation. There will also be other effects on people’s physical and mental health.

The Trussell Trust highlights that, on average, there has been a 52 per cent increase in food bank referrals when universal credit has gone live. In the past year alone, there has been a 23 per cent increase in emergency food parcel handouts. How is that making Scotland fairer? It is not. When constituents come to my office looking for assistance to get food not to thrive but to survive, that clearly highlights a failure in the UK Government’s social policy.

From 3 September 2012 to 30 September 2019, Inverclyde Foodbank recorded the following statistics: there were 19,220 referrals, involving 24,996 adults and 8,630 children—that is 33,626 people. If the Tories think that that is fair, that says a lot about the world in which they live and about how out of touch the Scottish and UK Tories are. With the likes of Johnson, Jacob Rees Mogg—who has disappeared from the election campaign—and Priti Patel wanting to continue in Government after next week, the dystopian nightmare that thousands of people face, in my Inverclyde constituency and across Scotland and the rest of the UK, will only get worse if the Tories are successful. The annual report on welfare reforms estimates that the UK Government’s social security spending in Scotland will be slashed by up to £3.7 billion by 2020-21, which indicates that more of the same poverty and desperation will continue. How will that make Scotland fairer?

Without the actions of the Scottish Government, the situation in my constituency in this year alone would have been so much worse. If Ferguson Marine had not been taken over, 300-plus jobs would have gone, which would have resulted in those people going on the dole and 300 more families being adversely affected.

Earlier this year, Texas Instruments announced that it was closing its Inverclyde plant. However, thanks to the actions of the Scottish Government and the task force that was set up, Diodes Inc took over the plant. If that solution had not been found, more than 300 highly paid and highly skilled jobs in my community would have been lost. That would have meant more people getting on their bike to go somewhere else and, potentially, more people signing on. There would also have been implications for other public policy areas, such as health.

The Scottish Government is delivering to make Scotland fairer. There is still more to do—there will always be more to do—but the draconian policies of a Westminster elite with absolutely no consideration for the working class will only exacerbate the lack of fairness in my constituency and across Scotland.