Chamber and committees

Thank you for that information, minister. You talked about the primary prevention work that is going on. I am very familiar with some of that, especially the work in schools. Has there been any attempt to co-ordinate the continuation of that work into further and higher education? I know that the fearless projects in Glasgow and Edinburgh are well off the ground across university campuses, but it is important to have an overview of that work and ensure that White Ribbon Scotland is involved.

We also need to ensure that that work is done not only in the central belt but across universities and college campuses elsewhere, because they function within the same patriarchal system as the rest of us do. Do you have any comments on connections more widely with our further and higher education institutions?

Super. That is reassuring.

On the monitoring, which you mentioned, we heard last week that the accommodation fund is really welcome but that it has come quite slowly and there is not always follow-up to ensure that it is being spent in appropriate ways. Would one way to help that work be to include a statutory requirement for public bodies, such as local authorities and health boards, to set out delivery plans? We heard that recommendation from one of our witnesses last week. Enshrining such a duty would emphasise that such work was not just a nice to have, but an essential part of what our public agencies and public bodies need to do to help to complete the circle and ensure that there is clear follow-through and delivery.

Good morning, minister. I am really happy to see you with us this morning. Welcome to our committee.

Thank you for opening your remarks by talking about the Gypsy and Roma Traveller communities. Last week’s session was a really important part of the committee’s work. Several concerns were expressed by witnesses last week about the long-term sustainability of Gypsy Traveller communities. Some of those concerns are not new. Davie Donaldson, in particular, said that, five years ago, people were talking about stagnation on work on the action plan and other support.

One thing came out quite strongly. At the start of Covid, there was clear co-ordination across services, but that has now fallen away. Can you comment on how, collectively, we can ensure that the partnership working and the overarching, holistic approach that are needed are not piecemeal but reach into the different areas of policy and support in an effective way that secures the long-term sustainability of Gypsy communities?

I thank the minister for his statement and for the helpful discussions that we have had about the strategy prior to today.

We are all aware of the challenges of automation in relation to job destruction, so I am pleased to see that the strategy discusses opportunities for automation to drive up product standards and reduce waste. Will the minister outline his thinking about how automation can also improve working conditions in retail and help us to meet wider sustainability goals? Can he also confirm what trade union representation there will be on the industry leadership group?

Of course; my apologies. Can the minister confirm what trade union representation there will be on the industry leadership group?

In his withering assessment of the impact of the UK Government’s policies on extreme poverty, Philip Alston of the United Nations called poverty “a political choice.” It is a choice. It was a choice when the UK Government cut off child tax credit support for families who have more than two children while spending a quarter of a billion pounds on a new royal yacht, and it was a choice yesterday to cut fuel duty by 5 per cent, inflate the profit margins of fossil fuel corporations and make it cheaper for the rich to drive gas guzzlers, with no effect on the millions of low-income families with no access to a car.

Where have those choices got us? According to the latest data, 24 per cent of our children—240,000 of them—are in poverty.

If poverty is a choice, we can choose differently. That is what the Scottish Parliament was set up to do: to make different and better choices for Scotland.

“Best Start, Bright Futures: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022-2026”, which was published today, is not a perfect plan, but it should give us confidence that we will make progress towards a Scotland that is free from child poverty and meet the targets that Parliament set itself five years ago. The pledge to increase the Scottish child payment to £25 is welcome, and I was pleased to hear that it is now part of an additional £10,000 per first child within the initial six years of a child’s life.

However, we must be constantly alive to new opportunities to use the social security system to reduce child poverty. As we have seen from the several fairly rapid increases in the child payment and the cabinet secretary’s assurance that they will lift 50,000 children out of poverty, it is a powerful tool. We need to keep exploring how it can be used even more. The Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland has estimated that disability and lone parent premiums of £10 a week added on to the payment would lift an additional 20,000 children out of poverty. I know that the cabinet secretary will keep that and similar proposals under active consideration.

However, to be frank, extra entitlements are useless if people are not supported to claim them. Too many households still do not claim what they are entitled to, whether because they have been put off by decades of denigration of benefit claimants from successive UK Governments of all colours or because they simply are not aware of what they can receive. Therefore, it is good that a substantive part of the plan focuses on income maximisation. For instance, there will be social security training for all health visitors by the end of 2024 to ensure that all new parents have access to money advice if they need it. Reaffirmation of the commitment to placing money advisers in up to 150 general practices in some of Scotland’s most deprived areas is also very welcome.

The benefit cap is a fundamental distortion of our social security system. It draws an entirely arbitrary limit on household entitlement, regardless of need. In effect, the UK Government pays households even less than its own assessment says they require to meet basic needs. On average, families lose £235 a month, but some lose far more: 15 per cent of capped families lose out on more than £400 a month and recent figures show that 10 Scots families are losing between £900 and £1,000 a month. Worst of all, the cap laser targets children for cuts, as the vast majority of affected households have at least one child. Because most of the households that are impacted are lone parent families and such families experience a poverty rate 14 per cent higher than the average, it is imperative that we do all that we can to mitigate the impact of the cap.

In a recent report, the Child Poverty Action Group estimates that scrapping the benefit cap, which only the UK Government can do in full, would lift 175,000 children out of poverty across the UK. Even the architect of the Welfare Reform Act 2012, which introduced the cap, David Freud, has called for it to be abolished. Greens have raised that point in Parliament and with the Scottish Government for many years, including through the co-operation agreement, so I am pleased to see a commitment in the plan to mitigate the benefit cap as much as possible, backed by £10 million.

Thousands of families are hit by the benefit cap right now. We should aim to find every last one of them and get them the support to which they are entitled. Along with the new system of rent controls that is being designed by Greens in government and will take effect during the lifetime of the plan, action against the benefit cap is an important part of the new deal for renters that the Greens also champion.

The Greens welcome the delivery plan. I thank Shona Robison and others for the constructive conversations that we have had about it up to this point. It is not a perfect plan. For example, I would have liked more focus on what more we can do to support people who are impacted by the UK Government’s cruel no recourse to public funds regime. I think that we will see additional asks on that as the crisis in Ukraine worsens.

Although the Scottish Government projects that the interim target for relative poverty reduction will be met and exceeded, which is welcome, the projections state that the absolute poverty target will be missed. That shows how much more work we have to do, but it is clear from the plan that we are choosing a different Scotland: one that redistributes wealth to support people on low incomes, not one that grinds them into poverty; one that makes it easier, not harder, for them to access support; and one where no child should ever grow up in poverty.

The recent appalling behaviour by the bosses at P&O Ferries highlights the weaknesses of poor management and poor oversight of vital transport services, and points to the need for strong industrial relations. The cabinet secretary mentioned regular meetings with trade union representatives and their clear skills and expertise. How can we ensure that these workers play a key role in future work that is vital for the long-term sustainability of the yard and their jobs? How can we reassure people who rely on lifeline ferry services that the deprioritisation of service support in next year’s budget will not have a negative impact on the delays and cost escalations that were announced today?

Thanks—that is really clear.

Convener, I will be guided by you. I know that Suzanne Munday wants to come back in briefly, but I am conscious that I have maybe hogged the questions, so we should move on.

Thank you—that is helpful.

Davie, you challenged us to move away from gesture politics. I have heard you and others speak about that before. One of the obvious questions is—[Inaudible.]—and what do we need to do differently? Do we need to do something different in our direct engagement with Gypsy Travelling communities? You spoke about the sustainability and continuity of funding being key. There is obviously a gap, disconnect or hole, intentional or otherwise. What are your thoughts on some of the ways through that for us?

Good morning to our witnesses and thank you for giving up your time to join the committee. Thank you for your opening remarks. There is a lot of challenge in what you have already said and there are many areas for the committee and, as Davie Donaldson said in his final comments, for the Government and the country more generally to work on.

Many of the witnesses have talked about the work that local authorities do and the services that they provide, whether that is individually or through COSLA. The action plan mentions the need for close partnership working. There are different levels of responsibility between local government and the Scottish Government, but third sector organisations also play a crucial role.

What are we getting right with partnership working and, more importantly, what are we getting wrong, and what do we need to fix? I will ask each of you in turn. A couple of you have already talked about monitoring and evaluation needing to be comparable across the country, for example. I am interested in specific examples, if you have them and are prepared to talk about them. I will go to Suzanne Munday first.