Cost of Living in Scotland

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[David Linden]

Absolutely. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who I know does a power of work on this issue and is an active member of the Lanarkshire forum on poverty. She is right. We know that there is evidence suggesting that people with a disability experience £950 a month more living costs, not to mention the fact that the UK Government so cruelly overlooked the 2.5 million legacy benefit claimants during the pandemic, who did not get their £20 uplift.

I know that my hon. Friend did not see my speech in advance, but she touched on a point that I want to come to next, which is about the impact on physical and mental health. That is an issue that impacts people across all of these islands. Indeed, the Mental Health Foundation found that almost one third of Scottish adults reported feeling anxious about their financial situation in the last month, with one in 10 feeling hopeless about it. I guess that that goes back to the point made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross: in one of the richest economies in the world, people feeling hopeless due to financial precarity is simply unacceptable.

These statistics are only reinforced by the findings of the charity Pregnant Then Screwed, who revealed in their recent survey that over half of parents reported experiencing high levels of anxiety relating to money. That is in addition to the almost two thirds of mothers with a child under 12 months who reported that they either have cut short or will cut short their maternity leave due to cost of living pressures. From the Scottish Women’s Budget Group, we know that women are the shock absorbers of poverty; during a cost of living crisis, I am afraid that that problem is only exacerbated.

If we take a look at the impact across demographics in Scotland, we also know, from Age Scotland, that 43% of over-50s identified as living in fuel poverty, with 9% of over-50s skipping meals. The very fact that so many people are living in fuel poverty and that that has an impact on many constituents in the Easterhouse area of my constituency is, I know, a huge area of concern for my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin), who I think was seeking to catch my eye to make an intervention on this point.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I was waiting for the appropriate moment. I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate, but also for allowing me to make a couple of points. I wonder whether my hon. Friend shares my absolute horror at the yesterday’s news that Ofgem has said that Scottish Power are fit and proper persons to force-fit prepayment meters once again. We know that there was a consultation and that Ofgem said, “Well, okay, you can all do it if you meet these criteria and follow these rules”—one of the rules being that you cannot do it to somebody over the age of 75. My hon. Friend and I both represent the east end of Glasgow, where in some areas the life expectancy is considerably lower than that, so that is a real concern. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is never a reason to force somebody onto a prepayment meter simply because they are poor?

[David Linden]

Absolutely, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her work on this particular issue. She and I have the privilege of representing the community of Carntyne, both north and south. It will be bittersweet for me, but after the boundary changes, I very much hope that she will be able to take on the south Carntyne part of the constituency. We should be aware that it is an area with a lot of older residents. The forced fitting of prepayment meters was in the news yesterday, which I know is an issue of huge concern for constituents there. The only thing I would say is that they should take heart that in my hon. Friend they will have a doughty champion to continue campaigning on that.

It cannot be the case that so many people are affected to the point of hunger, anxiety and destitution, when the Government hold the power to shield people from those very things. The most recent report from the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, titled, “It’s Your Life’s Opportunities”, makes a number of recommendations. It talks about how this cost of living crisis is impacting social tenants in Scotland, who are amongst the very hardest hit by this crisis. Due to the nature of the social housing sector, people on the lowest incomes, with varying needs—for example, refugees or those who were previously homeless—came into the cost of living crisis already struggling. I regularly seek to make the point to Ministers that for many of my constituents the cost of living crisis is not necessarily a new thing. It is a continuation of an already challenging circumstance that they found themselves in.

As of September last year, less than one in 10 social tenants felt as though the cost of living crisis was easing, as we headed into the winter period. Looking particularly at West of Scotland Housing Association tenants, some of whom are my own constituents, 44% reported missing meals because of the crisis, with 65% stating that the price of food limits the extent to which they can buy healthy foods for their households.