Hansard

People in every neighbourhood across Scotland are struggling to make ends meet. Middle-income households are squeezed, and people on low incomes and those who cannot work are being pushed further into poverty. This cost of living crisis is an emergency, it is set to get even worse and both of Scotland’s Governments are letting us down. Their failures and inaction mean that choosing between heating and eating is now a reality for thousands of people in Scotland. Neither Government is doing enough and, in some cases, they are actively making things worse.

The spring statement package from the Chancellor of the Exchequer was frankly insulting. On the same day that the independent Office for Budget Responsibility confirmed the biggest hit to household incomes on record, Rishi Sunak announced measures that will barely scratch the surface, failing to heed Labour’s calls on the necessary steps to ease the cost of living crisis.

Instead of siding with Labour and introducing a windfall tax on big energy companies, Rishi Sunak and the SNP refused to target energy giants that are raking in profits of £44,000 a minute. The Tory response was pathetic, but the SNP is not doing enough either. Its motion today passes the blame to Westminster yet, when it came down to it, its flagship cost of living action plan was simply to tweak the Tories’ offering, handing households a pitiful £4 a week off their bills.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Labour Party and our colleagues in Westminster have been doing the jobs of both the SNP and Tory Governments for them. Here in Scotland we presented a fully costed plan, which would provide more than £1,000 of support to those who need it the most. By using the powers of this Parliament, we can reduce costs for everyone and we can put money in the pockets of the people who need it most. We can cap bus fares and we can use the powers of the newly nationalised ScotRail to cut rail fares by a third over the next three months. We can reverse the rise in water charges and give every household a £100 rebate. Crucially, we can target a £400 payment to households who are hardest hit, using data that the Government already holds to ensure that families with a disabled person in them, older people, unpaid carers and people on a low income receive the help that they desperately need now—as well as increasing the Scottish welfare fund, so that local authorities have the resources to lift up those who might fall through the cracks.

Instead, the SNP copied the Tories. In doing so, it has, in some cases, lined the pockets of the most well-off people in the country by using the same scattergun approach based on the unfair and outdated council tax that the SNP promised to scrap when it first took office. Fifteen years later, there is no sign of a new system. The one thing that the SNP has a good record on is breaking promises. It did the same when it came to a publicly owned energy firm, right when we needed it the most.

Fuel poverty is higher in Scotland than in the rest of the UK, and it is a looming reality for many more. It is high time that the SNP took real, tangible action to tackle it. Instead, it is on track to miss its targets by seven years. The SNP should now stick to its word: it should deliver on the promise to replace the council tax with a system that is actually based on property value and ability to pay, and it should urgently create a publicly owned energy company that protects us for the future against unfair fuel rises and an overreliance on big, private energy corporations.

Rather than coming here today and asking for more powers, the SNP should be properly using the ones that it has. That starts by addressing the failures with the Scottish child payment. In the absence of a full roll-out, the SNP Government is short-changing children by £5 million a week. It also includes addressing the eligibility and adequacy of newly devolved benefits. Instead, however, the Scottish Government is again copying the Tories.

Changing where a benefit is paid from is not an improvement in itself. It is not enough. We have an opportunity to create a whole new system, and that is what devolution is for. We should use it. We need real radical action now to tackle the rising costs that are raining down on households today—energy price hikes, food price rises, increased water charges and higher public transport costs.

That can be done, by this Parliament and by this Government, and Scottish Labour’s plan is clear on how to do it. We have even identified the money to pay for it. Our policies would help people to make ends meet today and would also tackle long-term structural poverty and inequality, which, for so many, has meant that this crisis has not just caused a tightening of the purse strings but has left them not a stone’s throw away from destitution.

This is an emergency. We need more action now.

I move amendment S6M-04050.2, to insert at end:

“; further calls for the Scottish Government to support households struggling to pay their bills with a targeted fuel costs payment and a top up to the Welfare Fund; believes that the cash surplus stored up by Scottish Water should be utilised to give every household a £100 rebate on their water charges, and calls on the Scottish Government to cut ScotRail fares for three months to help address the cost of living crisis.”