Meeting of the Parliament 23 November 2022
I am pleased to speak for my party in this important debate and I congratulate Mark Griffin on securing time for it.
It is undeniable that the cost of living crisis is having a huge impact on the budgets of households throughout the country. The Conservative Government’s disastrous mini-budget under Truss and Kwarteng brought chaos to the markets and exacerbated the crisis at the worst possible moment.
It is left to ordinary people to pick up the pieces and pay the price. Dreadful Conservative mismanagement of the economy has caused mortgages to skyrocket. Recent estimates—we heard some today—suggest that a typical family will see a staggering annual increase of around £3,000 in their mortgage payments when they come to renegotiate their deals.
Struggling households face a crippling triple whammy in the form of rising food costs, energy bills and housing costs, particularly for mortgages. This month, a poll revealed that home owners are worried about defaulting on their mortgage payments or being forced to cut down on food, while one in four even fear losing their homes due to unpaid bills. It is hard to overstate the toll that that sort of worry must take.
When people are struggling so much that some even face the threat of homelessness, it is appalling that we are, yet again, in the middle of an unwanted independence merry-go-round. Instead of making sure that vulnerable Scots make it through the winter with their homes and health intact, the SNP-Green Government is yet again wasting its energy and our time and focus on more failed attempts and efforts to break up our United Kingdom. That is tedious, arrogant and morally indefensible. The people of Scotland are trapped between Tory incompetence at Westminster and SNP-Green disinterest at Holyrood. People need to know that they can heat their homes, feed their children and afford their bills. We should offer them some help by extending the reach of the home owners support fund to ensure that it is fit to address inflation and the rise in interest rates.