Hansard

I agree with Elena Whitham on that and, as I have said in committee, I hope that the UK Government can look at the issue. We have heard evidence that that needs to change. I am happy to accept that.

People with lived experience have provided the committee with a lot of key thinking on issues that we need to take forward. There is a lot that the Scottish Parliament and councils need to do to change, and I want to focus on our role.

It is important and incredibly concerning that Scottish National Party and Green ministers have now targeted employability schemes for some of the largest budget cuts without any information about the impact of that or, indeed, without providing any assurances on what the schemes will look like and whether they will be restarted. We need to ensure that ministers monitor and consider the unintended consequences of that.

SNP and Green ministers have highlighted digital exclusion in the past. That was also highlighted by Siobhian Brown, from her committee’s work. We have not seen enough on that for people who live in poverty in rural communities, in which advice services are not necessarily local. Access to those services and to the online services that are provided by many charities across the country needs to be improved. That is something that has not been touched on yet, and we need to see action on it.

Ultimately, we need to see action from every level of government. Our local councils need to be properly resourced to be able to play their role, and both Governments need to work together to deliver on the targets that we all signed up to.

Parliament has previously debated the need for more to be done to tackle child poverty in Scotland. The Audit Scotland report in September pointed to the need for the Scottish Government to take a better strategic planning approach. Audit Scotland concluded that SNP ministers need to focus on a more long-term strategy to prevent children from falling into poverty. All of us agree that it is not acceptable in 21st century Scotland to see such numbers of children living in poverty, but how we work together across the Parliament to deliver on that is important.

I make no apology for highlighting that the number of children who still live in temporary accommodation is increasing, especially in the capital. The Scottish Government is simply not doing enough to provide resources to councils to help to prevent that or to rethink policy around that area. I have asked the cabinet secretary to act on that previously. We have seen the situation getting worse, not better.

The committee heard that an area in which the greatest difference can be made is access to free school meals. The cabinet secretary touched on that earlier. We are not seeing the agreed progress on delivering that policy. There were clear commitments in the programme for government that are now not being met. I hope that, if anything comes out of this debate, it is the need for leadership from the Scottish Government on that issue and for delivery of that promise. If the Scottish ministers and local authorities respond to the issue in the same way as they did during the pandemic, for example, the policy could be delivered without further delay.

Scottish Conservatives support the delivery of free school meals. We believe that all primary school and special school children should be given free breakfast and lunch. We also support continued provision for eligible children during the school holidays. We have seen the evidence that that is a crucial way of preventing people on low incomes from dropping under the poverty line and of ensuring that children from the most deprived backgrounds are cared for and receive access to nutritious food. We have all signed up to that but we need a focus on delivering it. I had hoped that we would have seen that before the winter.

I call on the cabinet secretary to make that happen. She could chair a free school meals delivery group with COSLA to drive delivery of the policy before Christmas. I hope that she will take that on board and consider it.

Yesterday, I visited Fedcap Scotland in Livingston to learn more about the employability support schemes that it provides. I was hugely impressed by the work that it is doing and the support that it provides, which genuinely takes a person-centred approach. We often talk about that, but what does it mean? For many of the people who are furthest away from the employment market, their mental wellbeing also needs to be considered, so I was impressed with what Fedcap is doing. I do not have time to expand on the point in this debate, but we also need to consider generational unemployment in Scotland and what additional support can be given to families.

If we aspire to be a just, fair Scotland, we must afford all our citizens fair and equal opportunities. The Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine are two of the chief reasons why we are now witnessing global cost of living increases and seeing more people in Scotland and across the UK fall into debt problems and face significant living costs. We want the Scottish Government, Westminster and local authorities to work together to take on that unprecedented crisis and try to provide solutions for all our people.

I hope that local authorities and, importantly, the Scottish Government can implement the report’s actions and recommendations. There is a lot of good work in the report, and I look forward to ensuring that the committee continues to pursue it.