Meeting of the Parliament 01 November 2022
I acknowledge the work of the review group so far. However, as the minister acknowledged in his intervention, the detail of phase 3 has not yet been set out and we still do not know when that work will continue. Families are facing crisis today.
In expediting the review of the Scottish welfare fund, the Government should consider mechanisms to speed up the turnaround times for crisis applications, to allow for quicker decision making. That currently takes around 48 hours, which is a long time for anyone who is cold and hungry.
Scottish Labour has repeatedly called for more money to be directed towards the Scottish welfare fund. The committee heard that the money available is being spent really quickly. As more and more people turn to crisis grants, there is simply not enough to go round. Those solutions are just sticking plasters. The Scottish welfare fund is meant to be an emergency lever, not the long-term answer to financial difficulty.
The money advisers to whom we spoke were clear that people are using the fund to cover the absolute basics. We can see that in the fact that more than a third of applications are refused because they are repeat applications. If things continue as they are, people will not be able to hold out for much longer. The Government must take further action with the future in mind.
One thing that the Government could do is review the law around the amount of money that sheriff officers are able to arrest from a person’s account. As of today, the minimum protected balance stands at £1,000, regardless of the source of income, which means that people even lose money that they receive specifically for childcare or housing costs via universal credit. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that a single person needs the equivalent of £1,768.53 in take-home pay per month for a decent standard of living. Current rules mean that people who have their money arrested could be left with just over half that amount. That is before we even consider family circumstances or the potential additional costs of being a disabled person or having caring responsibilities, so it is no wonder that people find themselves in perpetual crisis.
The Government must consider making money advice a mandatory service, and it must also give the protection of long-term funding. Not doing so means that an alarming number of staff are short-term funded, project funded or funded to deal with specific challenges, which limits the number of people who are available to deal with the wider context and prevents forward planning, because services are unable to be sure about future staffing levels.
Scottish Labour is a strong advocate of the breathing space policy, which allows people who face a mental health crisis to have some time free of being chased by creditors. We are disappointed that the Government did not acknowledge that in its response to the committee’s report. I strongly urge it to reconsider and, in doing so, note the impact on mental health services and the NHS of not acting.
The report that we are discussing, of which I am proud, went further in its recommendations, and I am sure that my colleagues will speak about them. Scottish Labour is proud to give the recommendations our support. However, we note that the Government has suggested that it is working towards many of them, so we are looking for a quick update from the Government on all those areas.
One such area relates to school meal debt, which we have heard about already. I am proud that, in the absence of Government leadership, Scottish Labour-led South Lanarkshire Council has pushed ahead to wipe off that debt.