Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, November 20, 2014

Official Report 880KB pdf

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Child Poverty

The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-11213, in the name of John Wilson, on child poverty figures increasing. The debate will be concluded without any question being put, and I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak button either now or as soon as possible. I also invite those who are leaving the chamber and, indeed, the gallery to do so quickly and quietly.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament notes End Child Poverty’s Child Poverty Map of the UK, in which it highlights the increasing levels of child poverty throughout the country; notes what it considers the worrying levels of child poverty in Central Scotland, in which North Lanarkshire is thought to have a child poverty rate of 25% after housing costs, with South Lanarkshire as high as 20%, and Falkirk 21%; considers that these figures show that more must be done to reverse this disturbing trend, and notes the view that tackling child poverty should include finding effective ways of offsetting the recent changes to the welfare system as well as rising energy and food prices that have pushed families further into financial decline.

12:32  

I thank those members across the chamber who signed my motion and enabled this debate to take place. I also put on record my appreciation of Children 1st, the Child Poverty Action Group, Barnardo’s Scotland, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Save the Children, among others, for their briefings for the debate.

As my motion states in no uncertain terms, child poverty in Scotland is rising, and End Child Poverty’s child poverty map shows increasingly shocking levels of poverty. For example, the new town of East Kilbride in the South Lanarkshire Council area is quite rightly regarded as a prosperous location, but figures indicate 25 per cent child poverty in the East Kilbride South ward. In another part of South Lanarkshire, Larkhall, the figure for child poverty is 26.46 per cent.

It is important to realise that behind those statistics are children and young adults who are going without food and the bare essentials. Poverty is totally unacceptable in a modern, prosperous Scotland and, in many ways, it is sad that we find ourselves once again having to discuss the continued blight of child poverty in Scotland.

The awful truth is that, according to End Child Poverty, one child in five in Scotland is living in poverty. I am aware that, over the past 15 years, members in this chamber have initiated various debates on the subject of poverty. Its effects should not be underestimated. It leaves a deep scar on those who live in it, and it impacts on our people’s educational attainment, with many failing to develop their life chances.

Poverty, but particularly child poverty, is a mark of our lack of collective ambition for future generations. It is estimated that 11 per cent of pupils in the most deprived areas leave school without any qualifications, compared with 3 per cent in the rest of Scotland.

Following the new First Minister’s conference announcement at the weekend that addressing child poverty was going to be central to the new plan, does the member share my surprise that only two Scottish National Party backbenchers are interested in this debate? Is that not a surprise to the member?

I cannot comment on Mr Findlay’s observations, but it is disappointing that there are few members in the chamber from all sides taking part in the debate.

The factors that drive poverty are diverse, but they are more challenging than ever. For far too long we have relied on various schemes simply to ameliorate poverty. End Child Poverty has called on the United Kingdom Government to rethink welfare benefit policies and taxation policy. On the back of that, we must acknowledge the need to reconsider our outlook on welfare policy. In that regard, in his recently published book “Good Times, Bad Times: the Welfare Myth of Them and Us” and in his article in The Guardian on 12 November, John Hills dispels the myths that have been peddled about a them-and-us society—people rely on the welfare system at various times throughout their lives. In addition, researchers at Loughborough University have taken account of housing costs, which are an important consideration in real day-to-day living costs.

Poverty is careless in the extreme, as the problems that it creates mean that, as a society, we are regularly trying to play catch-up, creating various ad hoc projects to tackle the symptoms instead of really tackling the root causes.

Will Mr Wilson take an intervention?

Sorry, but I do not have time to take further interventions.

The new First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has clearly highlighted that one of her objectives is to eradicate poverty in Scotland. I, for one, look forward to her Government’s proposals on tackling poverty. However, it is a poor sign of today’s society that in my lifetime food banks are being used almost as the norm by an increasing number of people in work. That clearly impacts on the family and on the individual’s emotional development and general wellbeing. Local citizens advice bureaux and Department for Work and Pensions offices throughout Central Scotland, for example, have to refer families to food banks on a daily basis. The situation cannot be allowed to continue to blight our society.

The onset of Christmas brings us the usual cheap marketing techniques utilised by payday loan companies, which are no doubt a factor in how people spend their limited financial means. It is also worth noting that energy companies regularly withdraw discount tariffs for the most vulnerable groups in society. With the onset of winter, people will again face an unmanageable hike in energy prices, despite the real-terms fall in wholesale energy prices.

Any economic strategy worth its salt has to recognise that opportunities will come about only if we also acknowledge the need for economic and social justice. That is a pre-requisite if all the people of Scotland are to flourish, especially our future generations. I hope that the Smith commission will deliver a framework for further powers for this Parliament that can assist the delivery of policies that will reduce the growing income gaps in our society and provide better cohesion. Devolving welfare powers is a necessary factor in the policy mix.

I thank End Child Poverty, which continues to raise awareness of its campaign and make useful contributions to the debate on ending child poverty in Scotland once and for all. I look forward to the day that this Parliament can say that we have eradicated the child poverty that is in our midst.

I inform members that we are pretty tight for time today, with many members wishing to speak. With members’ help, I would like to confine them to their allotted time.

I call Jackie Baillie, to be followed by Alison Johnstone. Four minutes, please.

12:39  

I congratulate John Wilson on securing time for this debate and on the tone and content of his speech. I know that he cares passionately about the issue. Like him, I have been motivated for all my working life by the values of social justice, fairness and equality—the values that brought me into politics in the first place.

There is no greater cause than tackling child poverty, and Labour’s ambition for Scotland is quite simply to end it. Like everybody else, I suspect, I want to live in a society where every child is given the best possible start in life and no one is left behind.

I used to work in some of the poorest areas of the west of Scotland, so I have seen the impact of poverty at first hand—the children whose life chances are determined before they reach the age of three; the parents who have been in and out of low-paid, temporary jobs; and the despondency and lack of hope that is visited on some neighbourhoods. Equally, however, I have seen the resilience and determination of people and communities to fight back.

In the decade to 2007-08, when Labour was in office, absolute child poverty fell from 39 per cent to 19 per cent. More than 1 million children across the UK and more than 200,000 children in Scotland alone were lifted out of poverty. Since that time, the decline has been much slower. In recent years, progress has stalled and we are now in danger of going the wrong way.

The lesson here is that levels of child poverty dropped more significantly in Scotland than in any other part of the UK and by 2007 we had the lowest level in the UK, despite the greater starting point. That was about political will and determination to change people’s lives for the better, and we can and must do that again.

We already have control over a number of key areas—health, housing, education, childcare and more—and there is much that we can do ourselves. The Government’s child poverty strategy is a reasonable one, but until recently there appeared to be no additional money earmarked for such a pressing problem, there was no monitoring framework in place and there was little idea of whether some of the inputs from Government were leading to the right outcomes and actually making a difference. If we are serious about this, we need to get so much better at doing all of that.

The scale of the challenge that we face is increasing. Almost 65,000 more children face poverty due to the welfare cuts proposed by the Conservatives. That is a political failure, not a failure of the constitution, and I make no secret of my desire to vote them out.

I turn to in-work poverty, because that has an impact on child poverty. In-work poverty is rising. The minimum income standard shows that, in the past five years, prices have risen by 25 per cent at the same time as wages have declined in real terms. We are facing a cost-of-living crisis the likes of which we have not seen for decades.

I want to make sure that work pays. It was Labour that proudly introduced the national minimum wage and it is Labour that has led the argument for the living wage in this Parliament. The Scottish National Party says—it said it just recently—that it shares our ambition, so I am genuinely disappointed that it rejected the opportunity to do something in the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Bill for the 400,000 low-paid workers in Scotland. It did that at a time when it also rejected removing zero-hours contracts and introducing equal pay audits, both of which would have made a difference.

We know that poor employment practices have a disproportionate effect on women. Almost 64 per cent of those who are paid less than the living wage are women.

You must draw to a close, please.

Women are also more likely to be on zero-hours contracts and in part-time work.

There are areas in which this Government can already make a huge difference. I do not think that we are using all the powers that we have to do that. I urge the minister, in her summation, to talk more about what the Scottish Government can do to make a difference.

12:44  

I thank John Wilson for giving us the opportunity to debate this important issue. I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in the debate and apologise for having to leave before the minister responds.

Too much of a child’s life is set by the happenstance of where they are born, yet we know that children who are born into low-income families do not start without high aspirations. Some 97 per cent of mothers in low-income families want their children to attend university, but there is a continuing and persistent attainment gap and immense barriers to what we call social mobility.

Of course, the vast majority of people who are born into poverty make a brilliant success of their lives. They become dedicated partners, loving parents or great friends and they have successful careers. No one should be stigmatised because of the economic situation into which they are born, but it is important to look at the barriers that children face.

Looked-after children provide a stark example. Care leavers have poorer educational qualifications than their peers and poorer health outcomes and are notably more likely to have contact with the criminal justice system. That is not the case in Finland, where the attainment gap for looked-after children is far less stark. That achievement is likely down to a complex mix of reasons, but one that is highlighted is the education system’s focus on support for teacher attainment and qualifications. We have to learn from good practice in other countries.

The child poverty map of the United Kingdom is a useful way to see how child poverty plays out across the country. For a decade we saw a notable drop in child poverty, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others, but as we know, that improvement is being reversed rapidly: we are going backwards. Child poverty is predicted to rise and an estimated 600,000 more children will live in poverty by 2015-16.

The motion refers to

“finding effective ways of offsetting the recent changes to the welfare system”.

I agree that we need to do that. The economics of austerity and welfare cuts are having a particular impact on women and on children as a result. The Fawcett Society tells us that a fifth of British women’s income comes from benefits, whereas for men the figure is a tenth, so the loss of benefits and services hits women hardest. Women are more likely to be employed in public sector jobs that are at risk of austerity cuts. As state services are withdrawn, women tend to fill the gap as, for example, unpaid carers.

A fair social security system is vital and social security should be devolved, but welfare is not the core solution to poverty. We have to think about poverty in terms of equality and the redistribution of power and money to close the gap between rich and poor. We need political will to tackle zero-hours contracts and we must address fuel poverty. Affordable heating and affordable rents are essential.

We know that for the first time more than half of people in poverty live in a working family. People are working, often in demanding jobs, but are being paid wages that keep them in poverty. Governments subsidise that situation and the companies that pay poverty wages with corporate welfare.

The fair solution is a living wage. The national minimum wage needs to be raised to living wage levels immediately. The living wage commission estimated that that would benefit 5.2 million people across the UK, or 17 per cent of the working population. Our election manifesto will include a new minimum wage of £10 an hour for everyone by 2020, a wealth tax on the top 1 per cent and company-wide pay ratios. That is a package of measures to truly tackle the UK’s persistent inequality and poverty. We need to create a fair and sustainable society for all our children.

12:48  

I, too, thank John Wilson for securing the debate—if “thank” is the right term, given the subject matter. I appreciate that he has brought the debate before us.

In 21st century resource-rich Scotland, the fact that any children live in poverty—let alone the numbers that we see—is a disgrace. There are far too many, and the problem is particularly acute in some parts of Scotland, as John Wilson’s motion says. For example, the local authority area in which my Cumbernauld and Kilsyth constituency is located—North Lanarkshire—has a particular issue regarding the numbers of children who live in poverty.

We know that poverty in the early years can limit life chances. Save the Children reminds us that children who live in poverty are twice as likely to be born underweight and more likely to experience bad health, live in a cold home, miss out on regular healthy meals, fall behind in the early years and achieve less well than other children at school. Those outcomes are determined by the happenstance of birth that Alison Johnstone spoke of. She is correct to say that we should not pigeonhole or stereotype people, but it would be wrong to ignore those statistical correlations.

The presence of food banks, which John Wilson referred to, is a visible demonstration that we have child poverty in our midst and that the UK Government’s welfare reforms have failed. As the Welfare Reform Committee’s deputy convener, I am particularly aware of that issue. We know that the welfare reforms are impacting on children in particular. Save the Children reminds us that 22,000 children accessed food banks in Scotland in the past year. Just this week, CPAG, Oxfam, the Trussell Trust and the Church of England published a report stating that they found that gaps in the social safety net are forcing people to turn to food banks for help.

When the Welfare Reform Committee reported on food banks, its findings were similar. Sadly, the UK Government has refused to acknowledge that point. Neil Couling, a DWP official, came before our committee and told us that food banks are demand led. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland came before our committee and blithely said that more research is needed into the causes of uptake at food banks, although the UK Government will not take forward such research. Food banks and the children and families who use them are a visible demonstration of our society’s failure to do enough to ensure that people can feed themselves.

I will close—as ever in members’ business debates, we do not get a lot of time—by saying that, although I said that child poverty limits life chances, we should not think of it as limiting the ambitions, hopes and dreams of the children who are in poverty. Children 1st has published its new report, “Wishes for Scotland’s Children”. It gathered the wishes, hopes and aspirations of the children and families it works with. I will read out a few of the wishes:

“‘take away poverty’

‘A culture that prioritises family rather than the economy—the gap between rich and poor to be reduced’

‘That no child should go to bed hungry’ ...

‘All children would have enough living space indoors and outdoors’

‘Enough to eat, enough love and nurture, enough play, warm and comfortable homes’”.

We have to commit our efforts to making sure that those hopes, ambitions and aspirations can come true.

12:52  

It does not surprise me that John Wilson lodged a motion on this topic. I have known him for well over 30 years. In all that time, he has retained his passion and his determination to tackle issues such as child poverty and inequalities in our society.

Jackie Baillie mentioned a number of areas across the west of Scotland where she worked. Like her, I worked in that area for a number of years, in the 1980s—a time of massive deindustrialisation and huge increases in poverty. I worked as a welfare rights officer in communities such as Pollok and Priesthill, in Dumbarton and the Vale of Leven, in Greenock and Port Glasgow, and in Drumchapel. It was stark in those days to see just what poverty was doing to decent men, women and children across the west of Scotland. Of course, the west of Scotland was no different from other parts of Scotland. It was debilitating, it was demoralising and it was dehumanising.

The irony is that in those days, bad as we thought it was, we had a more flexible benefits system. There were single payments and weekly additions to basic benefits, and social work departments could afford to use sections 10 and 12 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 to help the families in the worst circumstances, whereas now, when we see increases in poverty, we find that local authorities are constrained financially and that the benefits system is becoming much more rigorous and is harder on the poorest families.

In those circumstances, it is in some respects harder for families living in poverty to cope now than it has ever been. Alison Johnstone—it is unfortunate that she has had to leave—mentioned that, for a decade, child poverty dropped. However, she should have reflected on Jackie Baillie’s comment that that drop did not come about by accident. It came about because of political will and political determination by a Labour Government to do something about it.

It is no accident that child poverty is increasing yet again now that the Labour Party is out of power at Westminster and out of power in Scotland. We now have two Administrations that are complacent about the rise in child poverty and which pay lip service to tackling it.

If there is one criticism that I would make of John Wilson, it is that he should have used his opportunity to speak to prick the cosy consensus that exists in here on child poverty. In a debate in October, Patrick Harvie accused me of one of the worst examples of cynicism that he had ever heard in this Parliament. That was because I pointed out that, since 2007, each and every one of us sitting in this chamber has done very well from the decisions that the Scottish Government has made, but the people I represent—the people on maximum council tax benefit, for example—have not received a single extra penny of help.

Politicians who talk about tackling child poverty but fail to realise that it is the result of political decisions and political will are the cynical ones if they simply say that they are willing to do something about it but do the opposite by their actions or do nothing. That is the challenge for each and every one of us.

12:56  

It is not always easy, but I would like to continue the spirit of consensus that we have had today in the Scottish Parliament.

There are key issues surrounding poverty, and child poverty in particular, to which I think it is vital that we pay some attention during the course of this debate. One of the things that I have taken from looking at the poverty map is the surprising level of child poverty that exists across the whole of Scotland. Certainly there are areas where it is more serious—members have spoken about their areas where it is a problem—but it came as something of a surprise to me to see the significant levels that exist in some of the wealthiest areas of Scotland, such as the area that I represent, particularly when we take into account housing costs, which of course can be higher in such areas.

At the same time, we have to understand what we are talking about. Some of the Labour Party members have been slightly disingenuous during their contributions. Jackie Baillie highlighted the excellent figures for child poverty that existed in 2007, which was at the end of 15 years of continuous economic growth and only three years before the Labour Party left office in Westminster with the key under the mat and an empty purse on the sideboard. Given the recession that we experienced then and the recovery that we are now only tentatively beginning to see, it is perhaps dishonest to claim that there were political reasons for that change, when the Labour Party was responsible for some of the economic reasons for the problems that we face.

Other issues have been raised here, such as the suggestion that perhaps the devolution of welfare powers will somehow get us over the problem that we face and reverse the trend. I suggest that the devolution of those powers might simply move the fiscal constraints that currently exist at Westminster right into the hands of a Scottish finance minister and a Scottish welfare minister—and fiscal constraints there will continue to be.

My concern is about how we deal with poverty. I commend the Scottish Government for the work that it has done in difficult circumstances to find additional resources to alleviate some of the problems that it has identified. I also pay tribute to the work of third sector organisations that have done a great deal to overcome these problems. However, I am concerned that too often we talk about how we solve these problems in the short term and how we make up the difference that is required to bring people up to an acceptable level. Perhaps too often the outcomes of that are welfare dependency and a further continuation of the cycle of poverty.

Will the member take an intervention?

The member is in his last minute.

Along with the hard work that is being done by the Government and others, we must never forget that we need to ensure that those who are growing up in some of the most difficult areas in Scotland enjoy equality of opportunity, and that the chance will exist for those who go to some of Scotland’s less well-performing schools to eventually achieve the results at school that give them the opportunity to go on in education and training.

You should draw to a close please.

We need the flexibility that will deliver labour mobility to ensure that those who are in our high unemployment areas can take up the jobs that we are creating in Scotland but are unable to get our unemployed to move to take up.

There are so many opportunities, so, in spite of the failures that have been described, we have the opportunity to go ahead and make a difference in the long term.

In view of the number of members who wish to speak in today’s debate, I am minded to accept a motion under rule 8.14 to extend the time allowed.

Motion moved,

That, under Rule 8.14.3, the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes.—[John Wilson.]

Motion agreed to.

13:01  

There is no subject more important than child poverty, and I congratulate John Wilson on securing the debate and all the work he has done over many years on the subject of poverty.

One of the things that brought me the greatest pleasure during the early years of the Labour Government was when Tony Blair announced that child poverty would be abolished in 20 years. Good progress was made from 2000 to 2012, which went right into the years of recession. I do not have time to rebut everything that Alex Johnstone said but, given that poverty is a relative measure, there is no excuse for it being derailed by recession.

Now, however, the figure has gone into reverse and we can see the appalling levels of child poverty in Scotland and across the United Kingdom. It was interesting to see the recent figures that nine of the 16 worst constituencies for child poverty are in London. Of course, connected with child poverty is a whole range of appalling disadvantages as highlighted by the Save the Children briefing. Poorer children are more likely to experience bad health, to live in a cold house, to miss out on regular healthy meals, to fall behind in their early years, to achieve less well than other children in school, and so on.

One of the new features of child poverty is the fact that we can no longer say that the route out of poverty is work. Of the children who live in poverty, 59 per cent live in families in which at least one parent is working. That is where issues such as the living wage are so crucial. One example of a way of stemming the decline is to support the introduction of the living wage, and members know that Labour has been campaigning on that for a number of years.

The living wage is one of the tools that can be used to raise earnings, but does the member accept that the current benefits and tax credit system penalises those who might benefit from the living wage?

I am going to go on to talk about the benefits system because I am critical of that as well. However, it is important to repeat the point about the living wage and the action that we have called for to change public sector procurement contracts to include a duty for employers to pay the living wage across all public contracts. That is very important.

The changes to the benefits system have also adversely affected families who have children. Children in low-income families are among the groups that are losing the most as a result of cuts to benefits and tax credits, and I am certainly very critical of that.

The other factor that is driving up child poverty and has most impact on children is costs, and food is the most obvious of those costs. We are all appalled by the rise of food banks. Contrary to what some Conservatives say about welfare having nothing to do with that, we read today that the sanctions that are applied to many parents in the benefits system are a key factor in driving people to food banks.

There is plenty of action for the UK Government to take but there is also much for the Scottish Government to do. We have the Scottish Government’s strategy against child poverty. However, although Save the Children has welcomed individual measures in the strategy, it highlights a lack of detail on who will play key roles in delivering the strategy over the next three years and on what the overarching goals are. In short, Save the Children thinks that the vision is yet to be

“turned into practical action”.

Without measurement of progress at ground level, it is difficult to assess how policy is benefiting each area. As Save the Children pointed out,

“There is an emerging trend towards the development of strategies at a local level ... this is welcome but we must ensure there is drive and progress in all local areas, given the child poverty map showed child poverty existed across Scotland.”

The development of reliable data on delivery and progress at a local level will be key, and I look forward to that happening as the strategy moves forward.

You need to come to a close, please.

The UK social mobility and child poverty commission and Save the Children have both highlighted inequality in attainment. Save the Children points out that part of tackling the long-term cyclical issue of child poverty is to ensure that it is prevented, and it recommends that the Scottish Government focus on that.

My time is up, so I will conclude on that note.

13:06  

Child poverty is a subject to which we keep coming back. Many of us wish that we did not need to do that, but it is right that we continue to talk about the issue as long as it exists—and, sadly, child poverty shows no sign of going away. I thank John Wilson for securing the debate.

Last night I attended the graduation ceremony at Glasgow Kelvin College, at which Henry McLeish spoke very well. He said that inequality is poisoning our society—a phrase that I thought was excellent.

The Child Poverty Act 2010, which was passed while I was at Westminster, contained a commitment to abolish or eradicate child poverty by 2020. Even at the time, there was major disappointment with the Labour legislation. First, achieving the target on abolition or eradication would still mean that 10 per cent of children were left in poverty. Secondly, there were no new resources to make that happen. I think that that is the kind of lip service to which Hugh Henry referred.

Four years later, I fear that there has not been much progress. More than one in five children in Scotland—some 220,000 children—are officially recognised as living in poverty. The level is significantly higher than the level in many other European countries. In 2012-13 the proportion of children in Scotland who were experiencing poverty increased from 19 to 22 per cent. The most recent modelling by the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that up to 100,000 more children will be pushed into poverty by 2020, with the proportion of children who live in poverty in Scotland forecast to increase to 26.2 per cent by 2020.

What are the effects of all that? As we heard, by the age of five, children in poverty lag between 10 and 13 months behind their more affluent peers in terms of school readiness and attainment. Three-year-olds in households with incomes below £10,000 are two and a half times more likely to suffer chronic illness than children in households with incomes above £52,000. Children who live in low-income households are also nearly three times more likely to suffer mental health problems than their more affluent peers.

There used to be an assumption that work was a certain route out of poverty. However, as members said, it is clear that that is no longer the case. I am sure that paying the living wage more widely would make inroads into poverty at all ages. However, although the approach has maximum support from the public sector, it remains voluntary for large sections of employment.

At best, a voluntary living wage can be only an interim step. The longer-term answer has to be an increase in the statutory minimum wage, not just to £8 by 2020, as Labour disappointingly suggested—

Will the member give way?

No, I am sorry, but I do not have enough time.

The statutory minimum wage should be raised to the level of the living wage, and that should happen as soon as possible. The country can afford to do that. As it says in one of our briefings, this is a country in which the most affluent households in Scotland are 273 times richer than the poorest ones. Something very wrong is going on here.

Jamie Hepburn referred to the report by Children 1st, “Wishes for Scotland’s Children”, which I think has just been published. The report sets out a range of children’s wishes, ranging from the humorous to the deadly serious, especially in the “Included” section, from which Jamie Hepburn quoted.

Good things are happening, not just in relation to finances. For example, the getting it right for every child policy will facilitate a more joined-up approach to supporting children and vulnerable families. In particular, I welcome the named person approach, which I think can help families from poorer backgrounds to pin down the person who can answer their questions.

I fear that this will not be the last time that we debate child poverty. We certainly need to keep such topics on the table. I hope that we will see progress.

13:10  

I add to others’ my congratulations to John Wilson on securing the debate. As other members have done, I express my mixed feelings that we are once again having to have a debate about how we tackle child poverty in today’s Scotland.

Earlier in the week, I had the enormous privilege of hosting the Home-Start reception here in the Scottish Parliament. At that event, which marked the launch of Home-Start’s first-ever policy manifesto for Scotland, we heard from Professor Phil Hanlon, who is a professor of public health at the University of Glasgow, and from Home-Start UK’s chief executive, Rob Parkinson, both of whom spoke about the challenges facing public services and the people who work in them. They spoke about addressing the twin challenges of having to provide support to families whose lives have been devastated by poverty and inequality while at the same time being able to make the investments and interventions that have been proven to make a difference and which will therefore, in the long run, reduce the human and financial cost of poverty in the future.

There followed a more powerful contribution from women whose families had been supported by Home-Start volunteers and whose lives had been changed by that help. Those women had been able to move forward, not only to become Home-Start volunteers but, crucially, to develop in their own right as individuals, with the confidence and self-worth to want to grow and to effect positive change for themselves, their families and their communities.

If my fellow MSPs have not yet had a chance to read the Home-Start policy manifesto, I urge them to do so. It highlights three main priorities: that all children should have safe places to live and play, that all children with a parent suffering from a mental illness should be supported, and that all children should be well nourished and protected from hunger and poor nutrition.

Achieving that will require a co-ordinated and sustained effort by government at all levels, and a willingness to think beyond departments or budget headings and to put tackling child poverty at the heart of service planning and delivery for all public agencies.

Reading the Home-Start manifesto, we find the same distressing and familiar roll-call of statistics, many of which mirror the findings of End Child Poverty as shown in its child poverty map. The manifesto cites the figure of 30,000 children living in families who cannot afford to eat properly.

John Wilson rightly highlighted the child poverty rate in Central Scotland, which is as shocking as the rate in Mid Scotland and Fife. I am alarmed to see that in some parts of Fife the child poverty rate is higher than 30 per cent.

The concerns about the changes to the welfare systems and the challenges of rising food and energy prices for families across Scotland are well rehearsed, but it is vital that we repeat those concerns often and loudly, and that we never let ourselves become inured to such statistics, because every piece of data describes someone’s life. If you are that person, the experience for you is not a statistic—it is your reality.

Nelson Mandela said:

“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice ... poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.”

That includes us in this chamber.

We live in a country where 350,000 children will live in cold homes this winter. For 200,000 children, those homes will be damp. That is a shame on all of us, and I sincerely hope that we begin to make progress in reversing the rising tide of child poverty in this country.

Back in March, we debated the Scottish Government’s poverty strategy. I will not repeat my words from that debate, nor will I reiterate my amendments to the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill, which sought to put tackling child poverty at the heart of service planning and delivery for all public agencies. However, I again highlight the need for the guidance accompanying the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 to address the vital links that are needed between children’s services and tackling child poverty. It would be great to hear from the minister on that point at the close of the debate, so I look forward to her contribution.

13:14  

I, too, congratulate my colleague, John Wilson, on securing the debate. It is, however, with some frustration that I find myself debating the subject because we live in a very wealthy country in which there is absolutely no reason why there should be poverty.

I am happy to pay credit to those who have made efforts in the past to improve the situation, but we know that the United Kingdom is one of the most unequal countries in the world, and we know that that inequality is growing. That is reflected in the figures that we are discussing today. That said, it is absolutely the responsibility of everyone—the United Kingdom Government, the Scottish Government, local authorities and the national health service—to play their part.

It is clear that my preference would have been for independence and for Scotland taking full charge of its own affairs. We saw from the example of how the chamber dealt with the bedroom tax the consensus that can be built across it. I think that independence would have brought about a more humane regime.

We know that there are a number of contributory factors to the situation. I, too, thank the various organisations that have provided very helpful briefings to us. Low wages, for instance, are a contributory factor. My colleague John Wilson was quite right to highlight his constituency, because rurality compounds many of the factors that we are debating. Underemployment has been referred to as a contributory factor, and transport costs also have a significant implication.

On social security benefits, the universal credit is being trialled in Inverness, which is in my area. We also know about the sanctions. Simple things such as the cost of a telephone call have significant implications for individuals, and zero-hours contracts bring about the real dilemma of in-work poverty. I certainly do not think that it should be the state’s purpose to subsidise abusing employers who pay levels of wages such as they pay to their staff. To my mind, that is a catch-22 situation, as is the cost of childcare. We know, of course, that in the past six years, the cost of childcare has gone up by 44 per cent. Indeed, the minimum cost of raising a child—that might seem to many to be an unusual phrase—has gone up by 8 per cent since 2012 and by 11 per cent for a lone parent. During that period, there has been no rise in family benefits, of course.

Benefits are the subject of a lot of ill-informed comment. I want to comment on the level of unclaimed benefits in the UK. There is £10 billion of unclaimed benefits, half of which would go to working-age families. That money could be in individuals’ pockets and spent in communities. The effect of that money not being used is not only on individuals, but on our communities and local economies. Whose interests are served by that? Those of the people whom we are charged with representing certainly are not.

I commend the other steps that have been taken—free school meals, for instance, although there are capacity issues for local authorities with respect to them.

I want to touch on fuel poverty in the short time that I have left. Our new First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said in relation to a report on fuel poverty:

“There is no place for fuel poverty”.

That is absolutely right. We know that there is fuel poverty if 10 per cent or more of income is spent on meeting heating standards. There is the much talked about situation in which people have to make the terrible choice between switching on the heating or the cooker. The growth in food banks is an unacceptable issue that is being faced across the country.

The national performance framework includes the phrase:

“Our children have the best start in life and are ready to succeed”.

That will happen only if there is genuine redistribution of wealth. A living wage is a part of that and progressive taxation is another important part of it.

We must do everything with the powers that we have to eradicate child poverty.

13:18  

I thank Mr Wilson for securing the debate.

I believe that poverty is the greatest blight on our society, bar none. It is a scandal, a shame and a national embarrassment that one in five of our children is officially recognised as living in poverty. An example in that context is a lone parent with two children with less than £269 a week to live on.

As members have mentioned, the numbers continue to rise. We are now up to 22 per cent of children in Scotland living in poverty.

It is not difficult to identify the source of the problems, of course, nor, indeed, the solutions to them. For example, unemployment saps morale, eats away at people’s relationships and destroys community cohesion.

When I worked as a housing officer in Livingston and Edinburgh, I saw grinding poverty at close quarters. Families were unable to buy clothes for their children or to pay for school events or trips. Most disturbing of all was that families were unable to buy the basics, such as food and heating. Too many people felt that the system was working to deny them opportunities, and not to help them to get on. The bedroom tax is, of course, the most vindictive example of that.

When people are able to get into employment, they need some stability; they need to feel that they have some worth and value, and some job security. The zero-hours low-pay culture that sees a person as just another cog in the corporate machine, to be hired and fired on a whim, is demoralising. I spoke to a constituent recently who received a text from Jobcentre Plus to tell her to go to work in a food factory. When she turned up, she was employed for a few hours and then tapped on the shoulder and told that she was no longer required. She was asked whether she could go home and return later that evening for another few hours’ work. She lives 20 miles from the factory and her public transport costs would have been £20 a day. That is not the way to help people to get back in to work. We have to end that sort of zero-hours exploitation. It is bad not only for people, but for our economy.

We have seen the Tories’ ideological war on the poor, which has painted people as skivers and has relied on the politics of division. We have seen benefit cuts for the poor and tax cuts for the rich. Is not it ironic that, as the Public and Commercial Services union tells us, 40 per cent of the people who administer universal credit will themselves have to claim it because of low pay? We need a benefits system that helps people into employment and does not punish children for being poor. What on earth do Cameron, Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith know about poverty? They have not got a clue.

We need the Scottish Government to use the powers that it has and the powers that it will get to put an attack on poverty, and child poverty in particular, at the heart of every Government policy. It cannot tackle child poverty if it will not redistribute wealth and power, and it cannot do it if it centralises power.

We cannot challenge child poverty without a living wage. It is to this Government’s shame that it refused to act when the bill that became the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 was going through Parliament, and we should never forget that the new First Minister was the lead minister who took that bill through.

It is not possible to challenge child poverty by giving tax cuts to corporations, nor at a time when local government budgets are being savaged.

I bow to no one in my contempt for the Tory party, but there is a huge amount that this Parliament can do to address child poverty. We will see whether the new First Minister’s conference rhetoric is matched by action.

13:22  

Given that child poverty is such an important issue, which affects all our communities, I would have hoped that we could have had a bit more consensus from some Opposition members. I will respond to some of the comments, but first—

Will the minister take an intervention on that point?

I will take an intervention from Neil Findlay later, but I will get into my speech first.

I congratulate John Wilson on bringing the debate to the chamber, as tackling poverty and inequality is central to the Scottish Government’s vision of making Scotland a successful and more prosperous country. I assure every member in the chamber and everyone in the country that we are determined to address the root causes of poverty. We are not paying lip service to that—we are absolutely determined to do so in order to help people to overcome the barriers that prevent them from achieving their potential.

I have no problem working with anyone consensually where consensus exists. However, we tried to build consensus on the living wage and the Government did not want to know. Where no consensus exists, the minister should not try to fabricate some.

I will respond to that point now, although I would have come to it later in my speech. I make it clear that the Scottish Government is committed to the living wage. We are promoting the living wage, and we have funded the Poverty Alliance to do so.

We have made this Government’s view on the living wage clear in the statutory guidance on the procurement process. We dealt with the issue legally. Neil Findlay can argue about it as much as he likes, but we could not put the living wage in the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 in the way that he wanted. However, we have made clear our position on the living wage. We want powers to come to this Parliament on the minimum wage so that we can increase it in line with inflation and, we hope, to the level of the living wage. That is important, because neither the previous Labour Government nor the current coalition increased the minimum wage in line with inflation after it was introduced in the UK. Families in Scotland are already more than £600 a year worse off simply by virtue of the minimum wage not being increased in line with inflation. The Scottish Government would very much want to do that.

We have heard how the changes to benefits will impact on those on the lowest incomes and how further austerity measures are predicted to put a further 50,000 to 100,000 children into poverty. Of course that is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to me that any Government can propose policies in the full knowledge that more of our children will end up in poverty. At Westminster, all the parties have signed up to austerity, which simply means that the poorest households will pay the highest price.

The minister talks of the changes to the welfare system. Does she agree that there is a certain inconsistency between Labour MSPs criticising those changes and a Labour spokesperson on welfare, in the shape of Rachel Reeves, saying that she would be tougher on welfare than the Tories?

Jamie Hepburn highlights the difficulty that the Labour Party has because it says something different in Scotland from what its masters in London say. What is happening on the ground and what the Labour Party does and says throughout the UK do not match what it says in the Scottish Parliament.

I will say some of the positive things that we are doing on child poverty in Scotland. The revised child poverty strategy for Scotland is important. All the key players, such as the Child Poverty Action Group and Barnardo’s Scotland—all the organisations that are on the front line of dealing with poverty—helped us to develop it.

The strategy has three key areas. It is about maximising household incomes. Unclaimed benefits, which John Finnie mentioned, are part of that. We need to ensure that households get everything to which they are entitled, and we have put resources into that. The strategy is about improving life chances and opportunities. We have done a lot on that through our preventative work on our early years strategy and will continue to do more. It is also about providing well-designed, sustainable places. We have put another £200 million into the housing budget for affordable housing.

A number of members mentioned fuel poverty. We are contributing £79 million for energy efficiency measures throughout Scotland. Again, that helps the poorest in our society. We are also challenging the UK Government’s changes to the energy company obligation because of the impact on rural areas.

The budget that John Swinney set out last week had three clear aims: to make Scotland a more prosperous country, to tackle inequalities and to protect and reform public services. That will shape everything. Every portfolio in the Government is about tackling inequalities, making Scotland a more prosperous country and protecting services.

John Swinney set out commitments to tackle the poverty and inequality that blight our society by maintaining spending on welfare reform mitigation measures—more than £296 million. That includes £23 million to help the most vulnerable who are in receipt of council tax benefit. If we had not stepped in with that, those people would be expected to pay more council tax.

We also have our Scottish social wage and the increased provision of free nursery education. We heard today that the First Minister is absolutely committed to increasing free nursery education to 30 hours a week if the Scottish National Party is re-elected in 2016. That is a huge commitment. It is about helping to reduce poverty and inequalities.

I wanted to say a lot more on that but I will say a bit about our proposals to the Smith commission. We want full fiscal autonomy and full powers over welfare and employment. We want those to enable us to ensure policy coherence so that welfare, employment policy and taxation can operate in harmony with one another. We need more powers in Scotland to ensure that work pays—we are all agreed on that—so we should be able to determine tax credit and benefit rates and the minimum wage. Finally, we need the ability to protect the most vulnerable in our society; we also need the power to create a fairer welfare system instead of spending money mitigating UK policies.

We want to create opportunities that meet distinctive Scottish priorities; we want to equip the Scottish Parliament with the powers to create more jobs, tackle inequality and protect public services. Instead of seeing tens of thousands more children grow up in poverty, we want to use the additional powers to give Scotland’s children the very best possible start in life in a fairer, more prosperous country. I am sure that we all want that.

13:30 Meeting suspended.  

14:30 On resuming—