Hansard

I welcome you to your new role, Presiding Officer. I also welcome the cabinet secretary to her new role.

I am proud to be standing here in our Parliament to give my first speech on a matter that is extremely close to my heart. Before I go on, I give a heartfelt thanks to the people who made that possible: my family, my fantastic campaign team and all the voters. I am honoured to represent the constituency in which I have lived my whole life and that I love so much.

Renfrewshire North and West is a beautiful constituency. It is rich in history, from Erskine, on the banks of the Clyde, to the historic town of Renfrew, and it contains many beautiful villages, from Kilmacolm to Bishopton. However, it is the people of Renfrewshire North and West who make it such a wonderful place.

In relation to today’s debate, poverty stretches right across my constituency. People are impacted deeply by poverty, whether they are in Gallowhill or Bridge of Weir. I am pleased to see the huge steps that the Scottish Government is taking to eradicate poverty, with real targets and policies that benefit people’s lives. There is certainly more to do, but introducing the Scottish child payment, free school meals and best start payments, widening access to childcare, removing financial barriers to education and empowering and enabling women to take up employment are just some of the ways that we are raising the bar. I am thrilled that the Scottish National Party won an election standing on bold policies such as introducing a citizens basic income and a minimum citizens wage guarantee. Such policies will genuinely make our country fairer and make a real difference to people’s lives.

However, while we give to families through the Scottish child payment, Westminster takes money away from the same families through the removal of the £20 uplift to universal credit, which is set to plunge even more children in this country into poverty.

I believe that we all want to raise attainment, tackle drug and alcohol abuse, protect jobs, improve mental health and create a greener environment. Those progressive moves will become more achievable not if but when we eradicate poverty, and we can do that only with full powers over welfare, employment, drug policy, defence and many other matters. When someone is living meal to meal, day to day, with no money, life is a struggle. Planning every penny really takes it out of someone, and too often that impacts on other parts of life. Living in poverty is tiring. What should be simple things in life, such as weekly shops and buying clothes for the kids, become hard, laborious and, at times, impossible tasks. It is no wonder that poverty can lead to addiction, mental health problems and even suicide.

We can take our climate emergency, which is the most pressing issue on our planet right now, as an example. For someone who has just been sanctioned for being late to the job centre, or who is fighting addiction after years of neglect or mental health problems, I am sure that recycling is not always a top priority.

We must also consider the children who are living in poverty. How many members know how hard it is to keep your mind on your schoolwork when you are worrying about where your dinner is coming from that night, or what state your parents will be in when you get home from school? How fast does that make a child have to grow up?

Poverty is not a choice, and it is certainly not inevitable. It is a lifestyle that is inflicted on people. No child should grow up hungry in Scotland. We have food banks and homeless people while the United Kingdom spends billions of pounds on palaces, boats and nuclear missiles. That is 21st century Great Britain for you.

Tony Blair did not end child poverty, David Cameron and Nick Clegg normalised it and now Boris Johnson encourages it. We will never see an end to child poverty while we are tied to the UK Government.

The Scottish Government can make bold move after bold move, but we cannot mitigate everything. That is why it must be our mission in our Scottish Parliament to give the people what they voted for—an independence referendum—so that we can get those vital powers away from out-of-touch politicians in London and into the hands of the people of Scotland.

I will finish by saying this to anyone who has experienced or is experiencing poverty, anyone going to food banks, anyone from a bad background, any child who does not understand why this is happening to them and who questions why they were born into this life, and anyone who thinks that the system is against them: please do not give up. I am living proof that you can make it out the other side of the UK Government’s complete neglect of Scotland’s working class and its underclass. I will not abstain on you. Until we see an end to child poverty in an independent Scotland, I promise that I have your back and I am fighting for you.