Scotland (Poverty)

Debate between Ann McKechin and Anne McGuire

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Robertson, and may I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) on securing this important debate and providing an opportunity for all of us to reflect that the scale of the problem of poverty in our own country deserves much more time and attention than it receives. In a month when it was reported that the number of pauper funerals in Scotland exceeded 5,500 in the past year, and when a report from the university of Sheffield Hallam stated that Glasgow was the worst area in the United Kingdom for incidences of hunger, it is truly remarkable that we have not one but two Administrations who barely feel able to mention the subject in any of their pronouncements—one largely because of their indifference, and the other in sole pursuit of their one goal, so that if anyone dares make a critical reflection they are talking Scotland down. I do not believe that either serves our country well. Only when we start to talk openly again about poverty will we be able to rise to the challenge.

I would like to focus my remarks today on a couple of points that I believe must be urgently reconsidered by the Government if we do not wish the poverty figures to rise even further. I will start on housing, and in particular the impending changes in housing benefit. The majority on this form of benefit are not on unemployment benefit, but they do represent fairly accurately those who are on the lowest level of income. Shelter Scotland reports that this year only one in eight of all housing benefit claimants is unemployed. The rest includes pensioners, carers and disabled people unable to work. In Scotland, about 19% of people in receipt of local housing allowance are in employment.

The vast majority of those in receipt of the benefit in Scotland are living in rented social housing, and a good percentage of those who are renting privately are occupying former social housing. Prior to introducing the new regulations, which will commence in stages from this year until 2013, the UK Government conducted absolutely no evaluation of the rented housing sector in Scotland, be it the availability in each local authority area of multi-occupancy property or the availability of one- bedroom houses. If I asked anyone living in Scotland, however, to take even a wild guess about what may or may not be available I would imagine just about everyone could anticipate that, outside the major cities, there would be very little multi-occupancy households and that most social housing in Scotland consisted of houses with two bedrooms or more.

Lord Freud in the other place apparently believes in some imaginary world where suitable property will spring from the bowels of the earth in a wonderful free market to allow housing benefit recipients to comply with the new regime rather than live in what he believes is “luxury”. Unfortunately, I remain unconvinced, and so do the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations; Shelter; the Scottish Government; and many other informed groups who I have met over the last year to discuss this issue.

If I take just the change in the age threshold for claiming the single room rate, which will be increased from 25 to 35 in April next year, according to figures I requested from the House of Commons Library in January, there are only, for example, 20 multi-occupancy registered homes in the entire Angus council area, but, according to an official answer from the Scottish Government, as of last year there were 100 single people aged 25 to 34 years in receipt of local housing allowance in that area. In North Ayrshire the figures are even worse. There are seven houses of multiple occupancy and 280 people aged 25 to 34 years in receipt of LHA. Where are these people—about 7,500 throughout Scotland—expected to stay?

[Mrs McGuire]

Does my hon. Friend also accept that the pressure on multiple-occupancy housing is even greater in a city such as Stirling that has a university population? Those who look to conform to the new housing regulations will find themselves in even worse straits than she has indicated in other areas.

[Ann McKechin]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct—that is a point I am about to make. I, too, represent an area that has a university community, and we continually have difficulties about multi-occupancy. Again, the UK Government have completely failed to consider new regulations put in place as a result of legislation that has gone through the Scottish Parliament.

Many local authorities and social landlords have progressively moved away from multi-occupancy lets due to problems with management and its unpopularity with other tenants and communities. In Angus, the difference between the rental level for a one-bedroom home and a shared home rate is £20.77 a week. For people who are unlucky enough to live in rural Aberdeenshire, it is £49.61 a week, because they are sitting in the midst of an oil economy, with rentals to match. Inevitably, people will be pushed into our cities, regardless of where their job is, in a desperate effort to find accommodation.

As I have mentioned, the UK Government have given no thought as to how local communities may feel about the expansion of multi-occupancy housing in their areas. I know from experience in my constituency that there have been examples of the dumping of people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation from other local authority areas, because those areas had no or very few such places available. I can only imagine where all those hundreds of people in north Ayrshire, for example, will have to go—I think that most of them will end up in Glasgow.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Ann McKechin and Anne McGuire

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ann McKechin]

What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that we are aware that the McCluskey review is ongoing, and we will wish to consider its conclusions carefully when it reports. We will return to further analysis of the report in the Lords, which I hope will be available by the time this Bill reaches the other place.

We cannot continue this evening without mentioning the extraordinary attack that the First Minister and his Secretary for Justice made on both the Supreme Court and individual Scottish judges who sit in it, when they stated that the UK courts should have no jurisdiction in Scottish criminal cases. Let us be clear: no one is attacking the right for Scotland to retain its unique criminal legal system—I declare an interest, as a non-practising member of the Law Society of Scotland. However, on the other hand, those attacks smack of a political establishment that is too ready to attack anyone who dares to contradict its mantra, rather than one that is prepared robustly to tackle institutional complacency. It is entirely demeaning to Scotland’s international reputation when Scotland’s leading politician uses the language of the playground bully when describing the key relationship between the Executive and the judiciary. Mr MacAskill has referred to the UK Supreme Court as an “ambulance-chasing court”, despite it hearing on average only one Scottish case a year since devolution, and he has ignored the fact—or perhaps he was totally ignorant of it—that his own Scottish Crown Office is making referrals to the very same court.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the furore about the Supreme Court over the past few weeks smacks of opportunism, when what she describes has been the situation since the Scotland Act 1998 was passed by this House more than 12 years ago?

Scotland Bill

Debate between Ann McKechin and Anne McGuire

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs McGuire]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that the situation can be further complicated if one asks where they come from?

[Ann McKechin]

Yes, indeed.

That brings us to how the questions are phrased on any self-assessment form and the guidance that is provided to individual taxpayers and to their employers. Obviously, employers will have a high level of responsibility in advising their staff about whether they will be covered. The Minister cited the example of a travelling salesman, but there are many other examples of staff who travel the country from time to time. Some people’s lives are entirely peripatetic—entertainers, for instance. I remember many years ago, when I was a lawyer, acting for entertainers who spent the summer season living down in Blackpool and then came back up to Scotland for the winter season.