Chamber and committees

I thank Jeremy Balfour for that intervention, as it allows me to turn the focus back on to why we have spiralling inflation, with mortgage costs hitting a point at which it might not be sustainable for some landlords to continue. There is provision in the bill for landlords who face being unable to afford such increases. We can see from those protections that the Government has listened to the private landlord sector.

People are experiencing a contraction in their income the likes of which most have never experienced before. Many of us came through the financial crash of 2008, but at that point our food and energy bills did not skyrocket to the alarming extent that we see now, and our incomes had yet to suffer a decade of austerity at that point.

We know that those who rent their property spend a disproportionately large part of their income on rent and have lower incomes overall. Those who are in the private rented sector spend a significantly higher percentage of their income on rent. The cost can be much higher if the local housing allowance does not cover all their housing costs due to local pressures, meaning that they will be required to use some of their universal credit towards rent. If we add that to the disproportionately large increase to the living costs of those with limited incomes, we can see an impending crisis over the winter months.

I will take one more intervention.

The combination of the emergency measures with increases to the tenant grant fund and discretionary housing payments, and flexibilities to allow cost of living and fuel poverty issues to be considered, means that there is support for people who cannot afford to cover all their housing costs at this time. It is vital that those funds, as well as the Scottish welfare fund, are publicised and maximised at every opportunity. I welcome Mark Griffin’s suggestion that we write to all registered social landlords to ensure that they do that.

With regard to the proportionate measures that have been set out to protect landlords facing financial difficulties, I ask that we work to ensure that, when a landlord needs to sell their property, they are supported to do so with a sitting tenant and that, if appropriate, local authorities or registered social landlords consider buying back as many of those properties as they are able to. That would also protect tenants by allowing them to continue to live in their home without disruption.

Housing is about much more than bricks and mortar. It is about feeling safe and secure. It is about wellbeing and warmth. I look forward to the substantive housing bill to come, but, in this immediate emergency situation, I urge members to support this bill.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thank you, too, for pronouncing my name correctly—every time that is done in the chamber, I get very excited.

I thank all the members, across most parties, who signed my motion, to allow us to debate the important yearly event that is challenge poverty week. I express my sincere thanks to the Poverty Alliance—a couple of its staff members are in the gallery—and all organisations, across all sectors, that work so hard to challenge the insidious, pernicious, anxiety provoking and hugely damaging social and economic construct that is poverty.

Since 2013, #ChallengePovertyWeek has acted as a platform for sharing ideas about how we as a country—across all spheres of government, all sectors and civic society—can turn our shared values of justice and compassion into concrete action to release people from the grip of poverty.

Since its inception, challenge poverty week has grown year on year. In 2021, more than 350 organisations took part and there were more than 900 separate activities. This year, there is a clear focus on the current cost of living crisis and the threat that it poses to people who live on low incomes. It is hoped that this week will bring attention to the support that exists for solving poverty, including support for policies that aim to ensure that no one in Scotland has to live in the grip of poverty.

I have worked in the third sector directly with people who were experiencing the worst of multiple disadvantage and I have seen the most extreme poverty up close, in all its horrific technicolour. I helped women and children who fled domestic abuse taking only what they stood up in. I supported people who were in the grip of trauma-induced addiction as they tried to navigate a hostile benefits system that was all too often ready to fling a punitive sanction at their feet, and a criminal justice system that all too often neglected to look at the underlying trauma that precipitated offending behaviour or at how incarceration causes and exacerbates homelessness and family breakdown, further entrenching poverty in communities. The situation was always made worse by systems that do not speak to each other and leave folk trying to join up the pieces themselves at a time when their resilience is at its lowest.

When I was a child in Canada, my family relied on food banks and voluntary agencies for a time, after my dad was paid off and we had no support network around us to help to pick up the pieces that sudden poverty brings. My relationship with food is, to this day, coloured by that experience. What a difference something like the Scottish child payment would have made to little eight-year-old me and my wee brother. Perhaps my mum would not have had to forgo food herself to eke out the sustenance that was available for her kids.

As an adult here, in Scotland, I have been in receipt of social security at several points and have found myself—to quote part of the title of our Social Justice and Social Security Committee’s recent inquiry report—

“Robbing Peter to pay Paul”.

I have even hidden behind the sofa lest the door-to-door loan operative from Provident see that I was at home with nowt but coppers in my purse and no way to cover the week’s instalment. When my son was small, I used charity shops and clothing banks to ensure that he was kitted out and that my money stretched.

I know from my lived and work experience that the people who are in entrenched poverty at this time—and the people who have just been tipped into poverty—will be facing sleepless nights and suffering an exponential decline in their mental and physical wellbeing.

Challenge poverty week’s theme this year is #TurnTheTide, and it involves a range of asks. The first is that we

“Redesign our economy to make jobs work for people through being flexible, secure, environmentally minded and paying at least the real Living Wage; affording everyone enough to live a dignified life.”

The second ask is that we

“Ensure our social security system provides a strong and adequate lifeline for all of us, when we need it.”

We need to uprate benefits in line with inflation. We need to scrap the cap, including the hated rape clause. We need to scrap the five-week wait and the dreaded sanctions regime.

The third ask is that we

“Accelerate actions to tackle both the climate crisis and poverty.”

The recent cap on energy prices will not be felt equally by all. I watched a wee video today about Carolyn Hunter, a carer who provides unpaid intensive care to her daughter Freya. The family has lived with fuel poverty for years, because Freya’s needs are such that the family has to use a lot of energy. Despite the additional measures from Social Security Scotland, the family is experiencing unrelenting and crushing fuel poverty. More must be done to protect people who are in such a situation.

The fourth ask is for

“Communities most affected by poverty in Scotland to have more power and resources to bring about change.”

Real and lasting change is needed. It is vital that we mainstream participatory budgeting, provide communities with the support that they need to realise their goals and roll out the principles of community wealth building.

The links between poverty and poor health are profound and significant. The fifth ask is that we

“Ensure all of us have access to good quality, timely health and care services that meet our physical and mental needs.”

We should strive to embed community link workers and mental health workers in health centres across the whole of Scotland.

The sixth ask is that we

“Redesign our public services so that they are affordable, accessible and work for everyone.”

Services such as transport, childcare and digital inclusion are vital to successful participation in society and crucial in supporting us all to live decent lives. The ask extends to ensuring that our housing system is such that homes are affordable and warm for all, that homelessness is eradicated and that rents are at a level that does not entrench poverty.

We must also recognise and act purposefully to address the gendered nature of poverty and structural inequality.

Free school meal provision should be increased and rolled out at pace. School meal debt should be written off, as is happening in more and more council areas across the country. Weans need to eat.

Last week’s announcements rocked the very foundations of our economy. We must work together to ensure that the people who have the least do not bear the brunt of decisions that are made by those with the most. Let us all challenge poverty and work to turn the tide.

Thank you very much, Presiding Officer.

We can always cherry pick the evidence. We must look more widely than at our immediate neighbours. A lot of places on the continent of Europe have quite stringent rent controls and a really buoyant private rented sector. We cannot just choose the evidence that suits our narrative. I urge the member to look into that in his own time.

Social justice and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe, the bootstrap cook, drew attention to author Terry Pratchett’s concept of the boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness according to Discworld character Sam Vimes. Pratchett wrote:

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money ... Take boots, for example ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars.”

Someone

“who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping”

their

“feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor”

person

“who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time?and would still have wet feet.”

With rent increases in the private rented sector of up to 40 per cent in the recent past, the feet of Scottish tenants are wringing. That evaluation of socioeconomic unfairness is hugely pertinent today as we see our most vulnerable bear the brunt of austerity and, frankly, economically illiterate fiscal events in another place. That is why it is right that we have a bill before us today that seeks to place a cap on rent increases at zero per cent and that re-introduces a moratorium on evictions until the end of March 2023.

Folk with the least are paying the most, as a percentage of their income, for essentials. Women, people with disabilities and people from black and minority ethnic communities are facing the starkest of choices, and it is incumbent on us in this place to ensure that they do not face rent increases that could lead to homelessness during a cost of living crisis—that would be a humanitarian crisis in every community.

Although the Scottish Government does not have control over energy policy or inflation, it has, with a largely limited budget, sought to mitigate the worst effects of the situation to the tune of £3 billion every year.

Pam, do you have any further questions? Members and the Auditor General have helpfully discussed quite a few questions that were coming down the line, so I want to check whether you want to come back in.

Our second agenda item is another decision on taking business in private. Are we agreed to discuss our work programme in private at future meetings?

Members indicated agreement.

Agenda item 3 is our main item of business. On 15 September, we were due to hear from the Auditor General for Scotland about Audit Scotland’s report on the implementation of the social security programme and its annual audit report on Social Security Scotland. That session was postponed, and we have rescheduled the session.

I welcome Stephen Boyle, the Auditor General for Scotland, and Kirsty Ridd, the audit manager at Audit Scotland. We will be discussing themes around transparency and accountability, agile approaches, workforce, implementation costs, the remaining work and the key risks ahead of us.

Stephen and Kirsty, please wait a few seconds for broadcasting to turn on your microphones before answering questions. I ask members to direct their questions to Stephen, who will bring in Kirsty as needed.

Before I bring in Paul McLennan, who has another question, I will pick up on something that you said, Auditor General. I take you back to the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s comments on data gaps, which we have touched on. The issue is how we will understand whether policy implementation has realised the intended outcome. Our committee’s concern is about the missing pieces of data. How will we know whether the policy has achieved its objective if we do not have robust data, which is what we are being told? I am sorry to bring us back to that topic, but we are quite focused on it.

Thank you, Auditor General. I thank you both for attending quite early on a Monday morning and helping us to facilitate this rescheduled meeting. That was very helpful. If there is anything that you need to follow up in writing, please do so. You can leave the meeting by pressing the wee red telephone button up in the corner of the screen when you are ready to do so.