In Parliament

In recent years, the UK’s “cost of living crisis” has become a well-used phrase. The danger is that we use the expression as a throwaway phrase, that we normalise it and that we accept the consequences that flow from it. It is not and should not be a throwaway phrase. Our Scottish Government has no intention of normalising the UK’s cost of living crisis. We will do all that we can to improve the lived experience of many families who are impacted by the cost of living pressures.

The Scottish Government is doing its bit—let me put that on the record. We spend £1.3 billion more on social security protections than we receive from the UK Government. We spend £6.9 billion in total, with £644 million for entitlements that struggling Scots can access but that are not available anywhere else in the UK. When families in Scotland—many of whom are working households—claim universal credit, they really struggle. The benefit is not fit for purpose. That is why the Scottish Government has invested £470 million in the Scottish child payment this year, putting money into the pockets of families of 333,000 children and keeping 60,000 children out of poverty.

Many other Scottish Government measures are often completely overlooked due to the heft and impact of their big brother, the Scottish child payment. I will mention two that make a real difference at the root of the problem: best start foods and the best start grant, which provide food and provisions at a key time in the lives of young children and families. In the round, that has prevented 100,000 children from falling into poverty. That is real action on cost of living pressures.

How does that connect to cost of living pressures? Let us be frank. It means that families can buy a bit more food when they go to the supermarket, despite soaring prices. It means that they have a better chance of heating their homes, despite rising energy prices under the UK Labour Government. That is the impact that our constituents want to see.

However, that is where the credibility of Labour is quickly shredded. As the Scottish Government is putting money into the pockets of Scottish families, the UK Labour Government is cutting holes in those same pockets. That applies to those who will lose their jobs due to the rise in employer national insurance contributions—which is a jobs tax—and to those who will see, due to Labour action, their incomes slashed and cost of living pressures like never before.

Where people lose their jobs, they will enter the world of social security entitlements, which they might not have had to use before. I say to people who are questioning whether we should provide all those measures that that social protection will be there for those workers if—or when—they unfortunately lose their jobs due to Labour’s jobs tax.

The UK Labour Government is also dipping the pockets of 900,000 Scottish pensioners. That will not help pensioners to get their messages in or pay their fuel bills. That leaves it to the SNP to restore a universal winter fuel payment that was robbed from Scottish pensioners, which will return to Scotland next year. Everyone will get a guaranteed £100, and the amount will increase to £200 or £300, depending on income levels.

Labour is discovering that being in Government is challenging, which I appreciate. It might find that it is better to cope with those challenges by having underlying principles and sticking to them when in Government. When we lose our underlying principles, we have nothing.

Labour is still insisting that it will lower energy bills by £300, but since it came to power, there have been energy price rises of £149 per year in October, £21 per year in January and another £111 per year from April this year. Labour appears to be in denial. Indeed, it is still putting out leaflets that claim that it is making pensioners £400 better off by lowering energy bills. Labour is in denial; potentially, it is deliberately trying to hoodwink voters in forthcoming by-elections in Glasgow, where those leaflets still circulate today, which is shameless.

In the time that I have left, I want to say a little bit about getting people into work. I agree with others that that should be preferably full-time work and work that pays. We sometimes forget about the early groundwork that the Scottish Government did. For example, take the family nurse partnerships, whereby nurses work with young mums. They put in intensive support, which allows those mums to be economically active and contribute to society, despite their challenges. That on-going good work makes a difference.

We are building on our childcare commitments in relation to breakfast clubs and after-school care. There is a call to be hugely flexible in relation to such provision, because sometimes the issue is not unemployment but underemployment, and flexibility in childcare is absolutely key.

I want to comment on getting back into work people who are on benefits and who are not seeking work due to their disabilities or their underlying health conditions. I note that the position some time ago—I think that it was in the 1980s, under a Conservative Government—was that if someone felt able to work despite all of their challenges but then, for whatever reason, that work broke down, because, for example, they were made redundant, they lost their job or they just could not cope with their underlying health issues, they were put back on to their underlying benefit, no questions asked.

The problem with the Labour UK Government is that it is not encouraging people with disabilities into work; it is forcing, compelling and sanctioning people into work. That is not the way to do it. It is not the Scottish way, and I will have no part in it.