Hansard

The member will be aware that we are introducing a new rental strategy and, of course, affordability of rents is part of what we have to consider. I am happy to meet with her about that issue, as I want to work with the chamber on all these things.

We want to deliver a further 100,000 affordable homes by 2032, and our aim is that at least 70 per cent of those homes will be for social rent to help tackle child poverty and homelessness.

To tackle poverty effectively, however, we must deliver a fair work future for Scotland. We are working hard to do that now, but we are constrained in the powers that are available to us. We cannot accept a future in which two thirds of children who live in poverty come from working households and people are forced to rely on benefits to top up their earnings. We have to transform workplaces to tackle poverty and long-standing labour market inequalities, such as the disability employment gap and the barriers to employment that people from minority ethnic backgrounds face.

With full powers over employment, we could as a minimum ensure that all employees receive the real living wage and that their wages represent the true cost of living; outlaw unfair fire-and-hire tactics to prohibit employers from dismissing employees and subsequently re-employing them on diminished terms and conditions; and ban inappropriate and exploitative use of zero-hour contracts to give people certainty about their working hours and to ensure that they can plan their lives and incomes. That is why I have asked all party leaders to support our request to the UK Government for the full devolution to this Parliament of employment powers, so that we can make the changes that are needed if we are to tackle poverty.

Social security, too, is an important tool in tackling poverty. Again, the powers in that regard do not all lie in our hands. Some 85 per cent of spending remains at Westminster, alongside income replacement benefits such as universal credit and employment and support allowance.

The pandemic provided further evidence—if evidence was needed—that the UK welfare system is not fit for purpose and risks undermining hard-won progress. It is the system on which people in Scotland have to rely, and we should not have to mitigate the effect of policies with which we disagree. For example, last year we spent £80 million on discretionary housing payments, to mitigate in full the bedroom tax and support people with their housing. We could be investing that money in other measures. We need to move beyond mitigation, and if we had the powers here, we would be able to do so.

The removal of the £20 uplift to universal credit will be a callous act, which will push 60,000 families in Scotland, including 20,000 children, into poverty. It will result in families who are unable to work receiving, on average, £1,600 less per year than they would have received in 2011—a decade ago. That is a massive threat to the progress that we can make here. We could double the Scottish child payment, on one hand, only to see, on the other, the money removed by Westminster welfare policies. Surely no one in this Parliament thinks that that is in any way a good idea or a fair system. We need to make significant investment, putting money into the pockets of the people who need it most. That is why the Scottish child payment is so important; it does just that.

We have urged the UK Government to make the changes that are needed and to scrap harmful policies such as the two-child cap, the rape clause, the benefit cap and the five-week wait for universal credit. It is unfortunate that our calls, as well as those of many charities and organisations and even the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, have been ignored.

It is time for full powers to come to this Parliament, so that we can make a difference. We have shown what a difference we can make, with a public service that is based on human rights, has respect and dignity at its heart and is viewed as an investment in the people of Scotland—we enshrined those principles in law. We are using our powers to tackle poverty head on. The Scottish child payment is currently £40 every four weeks for every eligible child under six, and we are committed to doubling the payment to £80 so that it has an even greater impact. That, alongside our best start grant and best start food cards, means that we provide more than £5,300 of direct financial support to a family by the time their first child turns six—and there is further support for subsequent children, because we do not put a cap on the number of eligible children.

Those payments are making a difference to low-income families and helping them to access the essentials that they need. The support is unmatched anywhere else in the UK.