Meeting of the Parliament 01 November 2022
As Jeremy Balfour will be aware, the free school meal provision in Scotland is way in excess of that offered anywhere else in these islands—particularly England, where his party is in power.
The fact that pupils are already receiving free school meals in primaries 1 to 5 is saving parents £400 per eligible child per year. We continue to work with our partners in local authorities to plan for expansion of that provision to pupils in primaries 6 and 7. That is being supported by £30 million of capital investment.
We will get on with supporting families in as many ways as we can.
Our actions show that the Scottish Government will always do what it can to help those in need and take action to tackle child poverty, reduce inequalities, and help households to maximise their money. Through up to £86 million in discretionary housing payments, we are fully mitigating the bedroom tax for 91,000 households this year, supporting tenancies and reducing the chances of getting into debt and rent arrears. We have now committed to additional funding to mitigate the benefit cap as far as we are able for up to 4,000 families.
That is a clear commitment in our tackling child poverty delivery plan and an example of our track record of using all of the powers available to us to soften the blow of the worst of the UK Government’s policy decisions. We also recently announced that local authorities can use their discretionary housing payments budget to support households with energy bills—we have committed an additional £5 million for that.
Financial pressures are often felt most acutely by people who rent their home. That is why we took action through the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022, which came into force last week, to help tenants through the challenging months ahead by freezing rents and preventing evictions.
When people are in need of a safety net, our Scottish social security system, built on the principles of fairness, dignity and respect, provides 12 benefits, seven of which are unique to Scotland. In just over a week, our package of five family payments will be worth more than £10,000 for eligible families by the time that their first child turns six. That package includes the Scottish child payment, which we doubled to £20 per week per child in April and will increase again to £25 when we extend it to under-16s on 14 November. That is a 150 per cent rise in eight months, which is way ahead of anything available anywhere else on these islands.
In addition, our child winter heating assistance supports the families of almost 20,000 severely disabled children and young people, with payments totalling around £4 million each year. This year’s payment of £214.10 is already reaching people. Again, that is a Scottish benefit that is available only to those in Scotland, as is our new winter heating payment, which will replace the UK cold weather payments. That guaranteed £50 annual payment will be paid from next February to around 400,000 low-income households. That is backed by investment of £20 million and is guaranteed help with winter fuel bills for thousands of people in need.