Food Banks (Scotland)

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) on securing the debate. It is timely, given that we are looking ahead to enjoying ourselves over Christmas and new year. It is important that we spend some time reflecting on the circumstances of those who are perhaps not quite so fortunate. Perhaps more importantly, we also need to look at what we can do to renew our efforts to deal with this issue when we return to Parliament next year.

This morning on the BBC, I heard a report about the number of children—particularly primary-age children—being fed by schoolteachers, and I am sure my hon. Friend will be familiar with that, given his background in education. From my contact with many primary teachers in my local area and further afield in Scotland, I know that that is not uncommon. For many years, teachers simply would not see children going without a packed lunch or a meal, so it was quite shocking to discover the number of parents in my area who are in arrears with their school meals charges; indeed, that caused a particular problem in the primary school in the village I live in. That is a real concern, because people who are not entitled to free meals, but who are none the less on relatively low incomes, are finding they cannot pay for a school meal for their child. That is a big worry.

In some ways, food banks have made the problem much more visible. For many years, families and the wider community helped out where they could, but the problem now is that many people simply do not have those local networks. Similarly, families do not have the resources to help out, and the grannies, the aunties or whoever would traditionally have helped out may now find that the cuts to benefits and pensions, and the other things that are impacting on them, mean they are unable to help out in the same way.

No one would have wanted to see food banks being set up. For many years, I worked in social work, and I had to go to homes to deliver food parcels on many occasions. It was not a part of the job that I enjoyed, because it was sometimes difficult for the people on the receiving end to ask for help and to feel that they were obliged to others for the help they had been given. However, I recognise that those who have set up food banks are those who have decided they will not simply pass by on the other side of the street, let others take on the responsibility or watch as others suffer.

The sixth food bank to open in Scotland under the auspices of the Trussell Trust was set up in my area of East Ayrshire by Cheryl Forbes and her now husband Gordon Cree. They are well known in my community, and Cheryl is a renowned opera singer. Her background was not particularly well off, but she has done extremely well for herself. Like many people from such a background, she was determined to put something back. When she talked about setting up the food bank in an interview in the local Kilmarnock Standard, she said she remembered vividly how her granny went without so that she could have a meal, following a change in the family’s circumstances, and that has stayed with her.

Many of us would recognise that personally or from the experiences of others we know. Indeed, I was recalling with someone just the other day how we as kids did not actually believe that women ate or sat down at family meals. Quite often, the children would be fed, but the mother or the granny would disappear into the kitchen, saying, “I’ll get something later.” It was only years afterwards that we understood that they never really got something later, because the children were fed, but the mother or the granny went without.

Cheryl set up the food bank, and she has recruited a number of volunteers. The organisation is now very successful, although, ironically, that does not give her and the volunteers a great deal of pleasure. It is doing well—it has recruited the volunteers, got the donations and regularly been out collecting—but it is seeing increasing numbers of people coming for help.

From a very small start in the village of Darvel, with support from the local church, the service has expanded to cover the whole of East Ayrshire, which includes rural communities. It now needs a delivery service to take food out to people in emergency situations in some rural areas. As we have heard, many of those people are not necessarily the ones who have been on low incomes or on benefits for years—ironically, some of those people can manage their money, despite their limited income, because they know exactly how much they have coming in. The people who come to the food bank are those on low wages who have experienced some problem—either, as has been suggested, because of delay in the payment of in-work benefits, child maintenance or something of that kind, or because of unexpected outlay from family income. That could be something as simple as a child needing new shoes or a coat for the winter, so that the family budget for that period is suddenly blown. The people who come to the food bank are of course in a crisis, and need help there and then.

I spent some time with local volunteers and particularly wanted to mention the help that we had. Those helping in the past few months have included Sainsbury’s, the Co-op, Asda and Tesco. The volunteers I was out with a couple of weeks ago, making collections at Tesco, were Rob Hamilton, Linda Nagle and Elaine Haining, who is a Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers representative at Tesco—and, indeed, Tesco staff. There were people who came quietly up to me—some of them on very low incomes themselves—to hand over a couple of tins or a couple of packets of pasta, because they know what it is like not to know where the next meal is coming from and whether they can feed their children.

Surely, despite all the effort that has been put into setting up food banks, that is an indictment: in the 21st century we have a situation that I believed—years ago, when I was involved in social work—we could eradicate, by ensuring that there was a safety net. The problem now is that the safety net is being unravelled bit by bit, and the real terms cuts in in-work benefits in the autumn statement mean that more people will have to rely on food banks in future. I praise the volunteers and everyone who does not walk by, so that people are fed, but I cannot see that that is a good thing in 21st-century Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Brown]

I identify where the hon. Lady’s loyalty lies, but a question that she and her colleagues in the Scottish Government need to answer is: why were we seeing cuts to local government in Scotland three years before the block grant was cut? There was no need for that whatever. I know that the money was not as great as she might have expected, but we saw cuts three years before the block grant was reduced.

In conclusion, the dilemma that families face—some of which I hope we share—will only be compounded as we move through the next 12 months. There will be universal credit for those in receipt of benefits, and it will be delivered directly to them, so housing benefit and council tax credit will be delivered to the person applying, rather than going directly to where it should be going. Families will get the money, and then the dilemma for them will be: will they pay their rent, or their council tax?

[Cathy Jamieson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the bedroom tax is already having an impact, and that it will also be a major feature?

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will compound the problem when people have to make choices. Is it a meal on the table, a pair of shoes for the son or daughter, or paying the rent? I, thankfully, do not have to make those choices, but I am there with people who have to make such difficult decisions.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Betts.

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) on securing this timely debate and on speaking with such eloquence and passion about the real picture affecting his constituents in Fife. I also praise the contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for Livingston (Graeme Morrice), for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie), for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) and for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown), and I commend the contribution of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford).

As people across the country prepare to celebrate the festive season, it is right that we all consider the effects of policy on those who are struggling to make ends meet. Sadly, this year the number of people struggling in food poverty has risen dramatically. I hope the Minister, unlike the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) in a debate in this Chamber last week, will acknowledge that food poverty is a growing and distinct social problem and will work to produce a strategy across Government to overcome it.

We should also remember the work of the Trussell Trust and other organisations that are filling the gap in society that this Government are so shamefully leaving behind. The Library of the House informed me on Monday that 6,196 people, including nearly 2,000 children, have been fed by Trussell Trust food banks in Scotland since April 2012. The difficulty in putting together the whole picture is caused by the Government failing to keep proper data on the prevalence of food banks, and I hope the Minister will at least remedy that following this debate.

The Scottish Government are not helping with the cuts they are making to the fuel poverty budgets, which threaten to abandon 800,000 people in Scotland to the scourge of fuel poverty. In addition, progress on child and family poverty has stalled under the present Scottish Government. I do not regard the investment made by the previous Labour Government in the tax credit system, which the Resolution Foundation has established was the principal driver of living standards being sustained to any extent beyond 2003, as throwing money at a problem; it was important as a means of keeping families in good living standards through a difficult period. However, I will focus my remarks on the current Government’s policies, which are causing the surge in the use of food banks.

Yesterday’s inflation figures were striking in pointing to the 3.9% rise in the cost of food compared with a year ago, whereas the consumer prices index measure of inflation is 2.7%.

[Cathy Jamieson]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. Does he agree that it is significant that, within food pricing, bread and vegetables are the items that are most affected?

[Mr Bain]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. The price of fruit and vegetables is rising particularly strongly. Fruit is up 3.9% in the past year, and vegetables are up 8.1%, all of which is contributing to what has been described as a nutritional recession, with people cutting back on the purchase of fresh food and relying more on cheaper processed food instead.

Last week the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published a study, which included evidence from Scottish households, showing that households in the lowest two income deciles are spending more of their income on food than they were five years ago—such spending is now 16.6% of their income—but their purchases of fresh fruit and vegetables have slumped because of soaring prices and the squeeze on household finances.

There is no doubt that some of the principal underlying causes are the squeeze on real wages in Scotland—down 7.4% in the first two years of this Government—the excessive pace of fiscal tightening, annual energy bills rising by an average of £300 since 2010 and the tax rises being imposed on ordinary people by this Government, not least the hike in VAT, which on average is costing ordinary families £480 a year in extra tax. As we predicted, the effect of those policies has been to strip demand from the economy, particularly from the poorest communities.

Three themes have emerged from this debate. First, the Government have no policy to counter the downward spiral of real wages. Under this Government, people are worse off than they were a decade ago. The effects of continuing with their policies were put starkly by the Resolution Foundation in its recent report, “Gaining from Growth”. Under this Government’s policies, real wages are likely to be no higher in 2017 than in 1999. People will be on average £1,700 a year worse off at the end of that period. With living standards in the UK declining at a faster rate than for some of our major European partners, perhaps seeing us drop to sixth in the European living standards league will focus minds in the Treasury a little more than has so far been the case.

Secondly, underemployment is affecting the disposable income that people in Scotland are taking home and are able to spend on food and other social necessities. More than 270,000 people in Scotland are trapped in involuntary part-time work or self-employment. There is a huge amount of evidence demonstrating the link between underemployment and low pay.

Thirdly, the Government’s policies on tax and benefits will increase reliance on food banks still further. We know that one major driver of the use of food banks among the jobless and those on low incomes is short-term cash-flow difficulties and problems accessing the social fund. Should this Government persist in introducing a real-terms benefit and tax credit cut over the next three years, they will accelerate the process by which people fall into debt problems and extreme poverty.

We need only consider the warning from history about where such policies take society. The cuts in the 1930s contributed to a situation described by Beveridge as one in which social evils such as want were on the rise. Surely we have moved beyond a situation where Conservative and Liberal Democrat Ministers—sadly, no Liberal or Conservative Back Benchers were willing to come to this debate to support their Minister or to defend these outrageous policies—would inflict that on the country once again, in the face of all the evidence on how destructive it would be to fragile economic demand and how it would endanger our social fabric.

The Chancellor said in relation to his emergency Budget of June 2010 that he would not seek to balance the books on the “backs of the poor.” He has at least kept part of that pledge, because with borrowing £212 billion higher at the end of this Parliament, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, and debt higher, not lower, as a share of GDP, the Chancellor is not balancing the books; but he is making the poorest hurt the most through that policy. The Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that the policies announced in the autumn statement will hit the bottom 40% of the income scale harder as a share of income than the top 10% next April while removing work incentives for millions of people. Sixty per cent. of the Chancellor’s welfare cuts will affect people in work, and 76% of the cuts in tax credits in Scotland will hammer families in which someone works.

In the Minister’s constituency, which I have researched, 83% of the tax credit cuts will affect people in work. In the constituency of the Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore), 82% of the tax credit cuts will hammer people in work. How on earth is that defensible?

The politics behind what the Government are doing are equally contemptible. The Scottish National party Government are attempting to divide us geographically from the rest of the UK, but this Government are attempting to divide people socially and economically form their neighbours.

This has been a good debate, but now it requires a proper response from the Government, who must answer why, in a rich country, they are prepared to tolerate the return of involuntary reliance on charity rather than adopt a proper policy to tackle food poverty and boost wages and living standards. They must answer why they are prepared to demonise the poor rather than join the rest of Scottish society in ending poverty. They must answer why, in losing their battle to recapture lost economic growth, they risk losing something even bigger: their sense of morality and what makes Scotland a good society.

Unemployment in Scotland

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) on a superb speech, full of passion for not only her constituents but the people of Scotland more widely, particularly those facing unemployment.

I want to take a few moments to highlight issues in my constituency, some of which will be familiar to the Minister because I have raised them previously. Jobs and employment is the biggest issue that I hear about when I speak to people on the doorsteps or when they come to see me. There are concerns about the number of young people who are unable to secure a job after they have completed a college course. We have a good local college—Kilmarnock college—working extremely hard to encourage more people to take up training opportunities, notwithstanding the difficulties of the cuts to college funding in Scotland. In the not-too-distant future, it will benefit from a new campus in Kilmarnock. Many young people are supported through college courses and their hopes built up, only to have those hopes dashed once they finish college and cannot find employment in their chosen field.

People coming to my surgeries are increasingly raising concerns at the other end of the spectrum—people in their late 40s or early 50s, who did not expect to have a job for life but certainly expected to be able to use their skills to move from one job to another. They now find it extremely difficult to find work. Many people who have built up skills over time expected to move to another job, only to find when they are unemployed that the job vacancies are simply not there.

The Government have to look at the figures. In response to a parliamentary question, I was told that in October 2012, 355 full-time and 77 part-time vacancies were advertised in the Jobcentre Plus office in my constituency. The claimant count figures for the same period show that 3,432 people were claiming jobseeker’s allowance in Kilmarnock and Loudoun. I also asked about the proportion of people aged 18 to 64 who are not in work or claiming benefits—those I describe as the “hidden unemployed” because they do not show up in the JSA figures. The Office for National Statistics, as part of work undertaken for the annual population survey, estimates that 4,000 people were in that category in Kilmarnock and Loudoun. The Minister is aware that many such estimates are qualified as likely to be imprecise or not reliable enough for what the ONS describes as “practical purposes”. That estimate, however, is one of those “considered acceptable”—to use the ONS’s term.

Those in their late 40s and early 50s are too young to retire. Many have worked hard and built up savings, but will have found themselves using up those savings to keep their heads above water for a year or so and ensure that they are able to get back into the job market. They are now finding difficulties in paying their mortgage, fuel bills and so on. Their savings have gone and the grind of looking for work every day is extremely difficult. We will see many more such people coming to us in the not-too-distant future.

The number of those claiming JSA for more than 12 months in my constituency has gone up from 635 in October 2011 to 1,125 in October 2012. More people are unemployed for longer. The problem is at both ends: the very young, coming out of college and school looking for their first job, and those at the other end of the spectrum.

Just in the past 48 hours we have heard of another blow to jobs in Kilmarnock. I am not sure whether the Minister is aware of it yet, but he knows of my concerns over the MAHLE Group plant in Kilmarnock. To be fair, Ministers responded the last time there were difficulties in the plant. This week, we heard that there are likely to be 82 redundancies, out of a work force of about 400, in the next three months. That is a significant blow to the local economy in Kilmarnock and comes on the back of the inability to replace the lost Diageo jobs.

That may sound like a picture of doom and gloom, but I do not want to sell Kilmarnock and my constituency as all doom and gloom, because it is far from it. There are businesses, many of which I met over the summer, that want to take on more employees, but find that some of the programmes the Government are offering, such as Working Links or the Work programme, do not necessarily deliver what they want as employers. They tell me that schemes such as the national insurance contribution holiday are too difficult to access and are not designed to meet their needs. I have raised that with Ministers before.

My constituency was not considered an area suitable to become an enterprise zone. It is great that North Ayrshire and Arran, the next-door constituency, can benefit from the scheme, but why could not the whole of Ayrshire have been looked at with a sensible, joined-up approach, given the numbers of people who could commute to work within it? The Governments in both Scotland and the UK could do more. At some stage, we have to rise above one person or one Government blaming another for the problem. The people expect us to work together to do something about it.

I was disappointed with another answer to a parliamentary question I received—the Minister might think that all I do is table parliamentary questions. Such answers are important, because they get to the heart of what the Government are doing and are part of how we hold them to account. I tabled a question at the end of November:

“To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, when he last met Ministers in the Scottish Government to discuss the Scottish manufacturing and construction sectors; and when he plans next to meet Ministers in the Scottish Government for such discussions.”

I was disappointed to get the response:

“There have been no recent discussions at ministerial level about these specific issues with the Scottish Government, and none are planned”.

What does that tell us, and what signal does that send to the people of Scotland who are out of work and desperately want to work, and to those in the manufacturing sector who want to continue their work and take advantage of export as well as domestic markets? However, the answer also stated that

“BIS officials are in regular contact with officials in the Scottish Government on a wide-range of issues affecting the manufacturing and construction sectors.”—[Official Report, 27 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 298W.]

May I gently ask the Minister to use his good offices to get people together in a room at ministerial level to start such talks, and to begin to look at what more can be done in Scotland to support the positive initiatives that exist?

The Minister may be aware of the Entrepreneurial Spark—ESpark—initiative, which both UK Ministers and some Scottish Ministers have been keen to champion, which encourages people to start their own businesses. Several very innovative projects have arisen as a result, as I have seen in Ayrshire. Businesses that have been started up ought to be enabled to grow and to take on other employees, so what more can the two Governments do to ensure that?

[Ann McKechin]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments, and she has made some good points. Does she agree that both Governments should concentrate on procurement, because many local businesses find it difficult to work through complex procurement systems? The Work programme system is one, and the Forth road bridge—for which most of the steel will be manufactured in China—is another example of local businesses being unable to compete because of the design of the procurement process.

[Cathy Jamieson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. This may come up later in the debate—I am not sure—but the whole issue of the Scottish Government’s intentions on procurement, and those of the UK Government, is important. Will the Minister give us information about how the two Governments are working together to ensure that tendering processes are available to local firms?

[David Mundell]

On that point, the hon. Lady may be aware that the Secretary of State has announced that there will be a Scottish Employability Forum, which will bring together the Scottish Secretary, the Scottish Government represented by John Swinney, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities represented by Councillor Harry McGuigan from North Lanarkshire council and a range of other stakeholders. That forum will address exactly the issues highlighted by her and the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle). It will ensure that the two Governments and local government, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire, actually work together; local government has an extremely important role. I therefore believe that there is significant progress.

[Cathy Jamieson]

I welcome what the Minister says. However, to pick up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire, for many people currently out of work, the issue is not employability, because they are employable and are desperate to be employed; the simple problem is that the jobs are not there.

To return to the figures, with some 366 people chasing every vacancy in East Ayrshire, one person gets the job, while the other 365 are employable, want to work and are desperate to get that start. They are desperate either to get their foot in the door by having a first job or to return to work to support their family. That has to be considered, and the question is how firms can be encouraged to take people on and to expand. There is still more that both the Scottish Government and the UK Government could do, and they should look to build on the successful companies that exist and, wherever possible, to maintain and save jobs. In that context, I hope that the Minister will offer his support for ways of helping to retain the jobs currently under threat in my constituency.

I have probably taken up my fair share of time. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. I again make the plea that both Governments should recognise that this issue is about people’s real-life situations; it is not a political football to be battered back and forth.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Cathy Jamieson]

That is probably exactly what the hon. Gentleman is about to do; I hope not.

[Mr MacNeil]

I, too, hope that we find some agreement. Does the hon. Lady agree that it might help if the Scottish Government had capital borrowing powers to enable them to stimulate the economy and create jobs in Scotland?

[Cathy Jamieson]

The hon. Gentleman always takes an opportunity to have a moan about what the Scottish Government do not have or cannot do, rather than to look at the levers and powers that they have. The important question is: what can the Scottish Government do? They have plenty of powers at their disposal, as do the UK Government. It is for both of them to work together, and that is what I hope comes out of this morning’s debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Mundell]

Indeed. I will leave the economy to my colleague the Chancellor, who will no doubt respond to the exact issue raised by the hon. Member for Livingston (Graeme Morrice).

Some important points have been raised, and hon. Members have taken the opportunity to highlight what is being done in their local authority areas. We have to recognise what an important role local government plays in taking forward the jobs agenda.

I am pleased to confirm the work of the Scottish Employability Forum. Although the title includes the word “employability,” the forum actually focuses on all employment issues, because as the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) made clear in an intervention, things are not working as well as they could be for the Scottish Government in their partnerships with both local government and the UK Government. In fact, people in the Work programme in Scotland are being refused training, which is a great concern to us all.

[Cathy Jamieson]

I thank the Minister for confirming that the Scottish Employability Forum will consider all aspects of employment. Will he give us further information on any specific actions that that forum will take? When will the forum report, and when will it make recommendations on its outcomes?

[David Mundell]

The forum will meet for the first time early in the new year, and its prime focus will be to co-ordinate the different interests and to ensure that there is a seamless programme of support for people looking for work, thereby ensuring that they are neither passed around nor a victim of conflicting agendas. The forum has an important role to play, because it is quite clear that we have to bring together more close working.

I am concerned about a couple of issues that were raised.

Referendum (Scotland)

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

Clearly, all Acts of the Scottish Parliament can be subjected to legal challenge. It is quite clear, however, that were the Scottish Government to reject the views of the Electoral Commission concerning the question—the latter having carried out the thorough scrutiny it has done for previous referendum questions—they would pay a high political price, and the hon. Gentleman and others, in this House and the Scottish Parliament, would waste no time in pointing that out to the Scottish people.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wish briefly to return to the issue of the franchise. In the detailed discussions that have taken place, was any account taken of the experience in Scotland of the health board elections in relation to under-18s? Does the Minister agree that it is incumbent on the Scottish Government to say exactly what the franchise would be—whether it would include all 16 and 17-year-olds or be done on the basis of the current electoral register?

[David Mundell]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady: it is now incumbent on the Scottish Government to come forward with their proposals. It is also incumbent on those who have a view on the matter to take the debate to Scotland and the Scottish Parliament. I hope that this issue will show the Scottish Parliament at its best, scrutinising in great detail the proposals that are brought forward and giving a fair and objective assessment of them.

Scottish Separation

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Dr Whiteford]

The Scottish Government have introduced a living wage for all public sector jobs for which they are responsible, and I welcome everybody who supports decent pay for working people. I did not hear my hon. Friend’s speech last week, so I cannot explain its context. I think, however, that we have to tackle inequality, and particularly women’s inequality in the workplace, which has been a long-standing problem in Scotland.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Whiteford]

I will not give way just at the moment, although I will in a bit. The problem of inequality is particularly frustrating because, in spite of a period of unprecedented growth in the global economy, the previous UK Government missed a genuine opportunity to deliver a more prosperous and fairer society. It is hard not to reach the conclusion that those opportunities for growth were squandered by an unsustainable boom that had too few beneficiaries.

[Dr Whiteford]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I am slightly confused. My understanding is that according to almost every indicator—whether unemployment, employment or foreign direct investment—the Scottish economy is outperforming the UK economy. It would behove the hon. Gentleman well not to make too much play of the previous Administration’s record. Even in recent weeks, we have seen the debts that have been stacked up through poor private finance initiative investments. The Labour party took on the mantle of its Tory predecessors, and stacked up £31 billion in PFI debt. The chickens have fairly come home to roost in the past few weeks, and we are seeing NHS trusts starting to go bankrupt. Those choices left us sharply exposed to the worst financial crisis for a generation, and now the present Government’s austerity measures are strangling recovery and pushing more of our citizens below the breadline.

The failure of successive Westminster Governments to make economic policy decisions for Scotland that help our economy grow and resonate with the values of the people of Scotland has convinced me that we need the opportunity to bring decision-making powers home to Scotland so that we can set better priorities and maximise our economic potential.

[Cathy Jamieson]

I welcome the opportunity to make a brief point about the living wage. The hon. Lady has suggested bringing decision making closer to home. Will she explain why the East Ayrshire council SNP administration has yet again refused to pay the living wage to council employees?

[Dr Whiteford]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. However, across Scotland, the Scottish Government have shown their commitment to living standards through a range of measures including on pay, prescriptions and all kinds of things that Labour could have dealt with when it was in power and chose not to.

There are various myths about Scotland’s economic position, some of which we have already heard this morning. I am glad that we have not heard too much about the biggest myth of all: that Scotland cannot pay its way. That is simply because the evidence just does not stack up. The reality is that the official Government expenditure and revenue figures show that Scotland has a smaller fiscal deficit than the UK as a whole—not just this year or last year but over the past five years. Even when North sea oil revenues fell by 50% in 2009-10, Scotland’s fiscal position remained stronger than that of the UK as a whole. In the most recent figures for 2010-11, Scotland accounted for 9.3% of UK public spending but 9.6% of UK tax revenue. Our 9.6% of UK tax was generated with just 8.4% of the population, which adds up to £1,300 for every man, woman and child in Scotland.

However, despite the relative strength of the public finances, as a result of the financial crisis and the fiscal mismanagement of successive UK Governments, the UK has a legacy of debt—as, indeed, the hon. Member for Livingston pointed out. Scotland will have to deal with that debt, whether we are independent or not. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that if UK public debt was allocated on a per capita basis, for 2010-11—the last year for which figures are available—Scotland’s net debt would be 51% of GDP compared with 60% for the UK as a whole. Let us not pretend that that is good, but it is certainly not as bad as some people might think. We must consider the reality of the current situation without necessarily looking at Scotland in pure isolation.

Scotland’s fiscal position is stronger than that of the UK, and it will remain so if we remain committed to utilising Scotland’s strong economic foundations and asset base to ensure fiscal responsibility. Recent figures published by the Office for National Statistics showed that, in 2010, Scotland was the third richest part of the UK—behind London and the south-east—with a gross value added per head of 99% of the UK average. That is excluding oil and gas output. If Scotland’s geographical share of oil and gas is included—the internationally recognised way to distribute such a resource—the GVA adds up to 115% of the UK average. That makes us approximately the 6th highest in the OECD.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Moore]

I think it is wrong for the Labour party to be complacent about its record on the economy, which landed us in this mess in the first place. The shadow Defence Secretary, one of my predecessors as Scottish Secretary, said this week that Labour has to face up to the realities of the economy and the deficit, and the hon. Gentleman should do that, too. We want to work with everybody so that we can reduce youth unemployment, and I invite him to look at the youth contract in more detail.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. What assessment he has made of the effect of the autumn statement on levels of poverty in Scotland.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)]

The Government took action at the autumn statement to build a stronger and more balanced economy. As a result, more than £500 million has been added to the existing Scottish budget by the UK Government, which provides the Scottish Government with additional resources in these uncertain times.

[Cathy Jamieson]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Does he agree that one of the most important ways of tackling poverty is ensuring full employment? Does he therefore share my concern that Mahle Engine Systems in my constituency seems set to remove jobs from an area hit by high unemployment, taking those jobs out of Scotland and out of the UK?

[David Mundell]

I would be very disappointed if that were the case. I know that the hon. Lady is a doughty campaigner for employment in her constituency. We must continue to stress the benefits of employers remaining in Scotland, which is why the current constitutional uncertainty is so damaging.

Scotland’s Constitutional Future

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Moore]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

There has been a great deal of speculation in advance of this statement about so-called sunset clauses. Will the Secretary of State make it absolutely clear whether he has completely ruled out setting a date or setting some time scale within the order that transfers responsibility to the Scottish Government?

[Michael Moore]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. We have said in the consultation paper—I have said it many times already—that we want this sooner rather than later. We have shown in the draft section 30 order that it would be possible to include a date by which this should be completed. What we have not done is say what that date should be, or the time period leading up to that from the point when we debate it. So we will get on with that process, but it is important that we agree that.

Public Sector Pensions

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. It reinforces what all of us who are aware of day-to-day Scottish politics know, which is that the SNP Government in Scotland speak with one word but their deeds are quite different.

I return to what I was discussing before the interventions. The Government accepted Lord Hutton’s recommendations in full and can reassure the House that the reformed public—

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister has made much of Hutton’s report and fairness, but does he not agree it seems odd that the Government jumped the gun by announcing the 3% increase before Hutton’s final report? How does that demonstrate fairness?

[David Mundell]

I know that the hon. Lady was not in the House at the time, but the 3% figure is broadly equivalent to the sum that her Government had identified in the pre-Budget report in 2009.

Scotland (Poverty)

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Sandra Osborne]

That is the whole point of raising this debate today.

All this has happened despite the fact that when the Chancellor announced the rise in tax credits he said that it would support 4 million lower-income families, helping to ensure that there would be no adverse impact on child poverty. As the Minister knows, there is now a law relating to child poverty. The Chancellor has now taken that extra support away from the 4 million families. In its distributional analysis of yesterday’s measures, the Treasury has admitted that, as a result of the decisions taken by the Government, the number of children living in households with incomes below 60% of the median will increase by 100,000 in 2012-13—which will mean more children living in poverty.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for securing this debate. When we talk about big numbers, medians and so on, it can sometimes be difficult for people to understand how changes impact on their lives. Is my hon. Friend aware of research done by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers which shows that, already, some £989 has been taken from a low to middle-income family as a result of changes to tax credits? That is even before this latest broken promise, with £110 being taken from child credits.

[Sandra Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are concerned about the impact on ordinary people. The quicker they realise exactly what this Government are up to, the better.

Who are these people? Alongside children, certain groups are at particular risk of poverty. They include lone parents, women, people who are not working, people affected by disability and people from ethnic minorities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises a serious issue—[Interruption.] I can hear, and I can sense, a bit of resistance, which is perhaps not surprising when 85% of Labour’s money comes from the trade unions. When we discuss legislation in this House, we should be bringing our judgment, our ideas and our arguments, not just picking up a tired old brief from a trade union.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q14. In my constituency of Kilmarnock and Loudoun there are over 3,000 people claiming jobseeker’s allowance, but the latest figures show that there were only 300 job vacancies available. Jobs are being lost in the public sector and the private sector. How high does unemployment have to go before the Prime Minister will accept that his economic policies are simply not working?

[The Prime Minister]

Unemployment is too high today, and I want to see it come down from its already high levels. What we have to do to make that happen is to put resources into the apprenticeship scheme and into the Work programme to make sure that we do all the things that help businesses to employ people. That is what this Government are doing. We are cutting corporation tax, introducing enterprise zones and doing everything we can to help businesses. We will do that in the hon. Lady’s constituency and throughout the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cathy Jamieson Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Moore]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the critical issue of access to finance. Unless we get enough lending to small and medium-sized businesses, among others, we will not get the economy growing again. That is why creating the conditions in which businesses start, grow and invest appropriately is central to “The Plan for Growth”, and it is why Project Merlin sets out very tough targets for lending to businesses across the UK.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that businesses’ access to fast broadband is also essential for business growth? Does he share my concern that many constituencies in Scotland, such as mine, do not have such access? What discussions has he had with the Scottish Government regarding that?

[Michael Moore]

That was one of the key issues that the hon. Lady wanted to raise when I met her a week or so ago to discuss the economy in Ayrshire. As a Government, we are committed to the implementation of superfast broadband across the United Kingdom, and we are in discussions with the Scottish Government on how they should go about that in Scotland. Such provision is vital in Ayrshire, the borders and all parts of the country. I am happy to work with her and others, including the Scottish Government, to ensure that we achieve it.