Meeting of the Parliament 20 February 2024
Third time lucky, Presiding Officer.
I am pleased to open today’s debate to highlight the Scottish Government’s proposals for a fairer and more dignified social security system in an independent Scotland.
Social security is one of the most important responsibilities of any Government. It demonstrates where that Government’s priorities lie and how it values its people. It should protect us all through life’s ups and downs, and it is vital for the wellbeing of any society.
For too long, the Westminster approach to social security has been to provide inadequate levels of financial support, using arbitrary caps and limits to reduce the support that is available to children and families, and to unfairly stigmatise the most vulnerable people. The reckless and cruel decision making at Westminster can be summed up by the choice to scrap the universal credit £20 uplift just as the cost of living crisis was gripping households. That was a Westminster decision to rip away support when the Scottish Government was introducing the Scottish child payment. It is a tale of two Governments with different values and radically different prospectuses.
In its “UK Poverty 2024” report, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation clearly states that six successive United Kingdom Prime Ministers have overseen deepening poverty over the past 20 years. It comments:
“This is social failure at scale ... This is a story of moral and fiscal irresponsibility”
It is an affront to the dignity of people who are living in hardship. The report goes on to say that poverty levels in Scotland, when compared to those in England and Wales, remain much lower, which is
“likely to be due, at least in part, to the Scottish Child Payment.”
I will say more about that later.
When it compares Britain to Europe, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is clear: poverty levels and inequality are higher in the UK than they are in other independent European countries and are the highest in north-west Europe. The rate of unemployment benefits is also substantially lower in the UK than it is in other countries in north-west Europe.
It is clear that the UK social security system under Conservative, coalition and Labour Governments has not protected, and will not protect, people as it should. In just two weeks, the UK Government’s budget is expected to fail, once again, to deliver any investment in our public services, our people or our future.