Social Security

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), a fellow member of the Work and Pensions Committee.

I stand here with a somewhat renewed sense of frustration following the release of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s “UK Poverty 2024” report, which I will refer to throughout the course of my contribution. I find myself again speaking in this Parliament against a backdrop of a truly dire situation characterised by destitution. I wonder what more can be said or done to make the British Government realise the true extent of the hardship they have inflicted on people across these islands. The SNP will not oppose the orders for 2024-25, but to keep it plain and simple: the damage has already been done. No amount of uprating will address the long-term consequences of entrenched destitution inflicted on households as a result of the British Government, who, I would argue, have been asleep at the wheel now for 14 years.

Although the Government’s announcement to uprate social security benefits means that shortfalls should not increase any further this year, the orders still fail to undo any of the cumulative impact of years of cuts to social security that households across these islands have endured. While the British Government have been asleep at the wheel, people across the country have been kept awake at night due to the sheer amount of stress and anxiety, wondering how they will feed themselves and their families, and how they can afford—they often cannot afford them—the essentials. We are faced with an horrendous picture, but that is the stark reality of living with this Westminster Government. Young children, school children, pensioners, young adults, those in and out of work—no one is left unscathed when they have the misfortune of interacting with the UK’s social security system.

As the Minister comes back to the Dispatch Box, I am sure full of civil service-inspired lines that do not meet the reality outside Whitehall, we are faced with a cold hard truth from which we cannot escape: people are suffering, and will only continue to suffer as long as this Government refuse to fix the known policy issues, on which I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) will elaborate.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

We are debating what is supposed to be an adequate payment for social security. The Government’s case is completely weakened, is it not, by the ridiculous system of loans and reductions? My hon. Friend’s constituents in Glasgow East and mine in Glasgow South West are, on average, having their universal credit payments deducted by £60 a month because of this ridiculous system.

[David Linden]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who is an assiduous questioner of the Government through Work and Pensions questions on the issue of debt and deductions. He is right to cite the figures in Glasgow, which are well known—local citizens advice bureaux all over our constituencies refer to them—but of course, we are not the only Members whose constituents are impacted by the debt and deductions policy of this Government, which is often found wanting. If the Minister could touch on debt and deductions when he sums up, that would be helpful.

In a Westminster Hall debate I held three weeks ago on the cost of living crisis, I compared the UK’s social security system, which used to be hailed as a safety net for those who needed it, to something that now resembles nothing more than a frayed rope, unable to bear the weight of the individuals who rely on it as a lifeline. After reading the new report and statistics produced by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, I have never been more assured in my assessment of the state of the social security policies enforced by this Westminster Government.

The JRF report outlines that more than one in five people in the UK were in poverty in 2021-22. That is 14.4 million people, 4.2 million of whom were children and 2.1 million were pensioners. Just as the statistics from Save the Children and Age Scotland show—I will outline them shortly—the JRF report has to be a wake-up call for this Government, and indeed the Government who may follow, if we are to make any tangible change to the broken system that lies before us. In its report, the graph that illustrates the percentage of people in poverty is broken down into the following categories: in poverty, but not in deep poverty; in deep poverty, but not in very deep poverty; and, in very deep poverty. I must be honest: I find it completely surreal that we have reached a point at which statistical analysis has to be broken down into such categories to illustrate the situation that people are having to endure. It is utterly shameful that such categories even have to exist in one of the richest countries on the planet.

I understand that to Members who are present today I seem frustrated, but that is because I am. The statistics in this report are not just numbers; they are the very reality of people in the communities that I represent, such as Parkhead and Shettleston, and those, such as Mosspark or Cardonald, that are represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West. They are truly harrowing findings.

I want to say something about universal credit, which was also raised by the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). This policy is failing the very people whom it is, in theory, supposed to support: rather than supporting them, it drives destitution and food bank usage. It has been reported that 68% of people referred to a Trussell Trust food bank in Scotland who are in receipt of universal credit have money automatically deducted from their payments to repay debts, such as a DWP advance—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West. Moreover, food banks in the Trussell Trust network distributed about 3 million emergency food parcels across the UK in 2022-23, more than 1 million of which were for children.

The Government also refuse to scrap abhorrent policies such as the two-child cap and the associated rape clause. The DWP’s own figures show that in April last year, 1.5 million children were affected by the two-child limit—and I say that in the context of those 1 million children who were in receipt of food parcels. This is in addition to data from Save the Children, which found that 60% of households affected by the two-child cap included at least one adult in paid employment. No doubt the Minister will stand up and say that the two-child cap is about making sure that people get into work, but the fact is that it has an impact on people who are already in work. Punitive sanctions, deductions, the two-child limit and the five-week wait are all defining characteristics that are inherent in this British Government's social security system—policies that have caused, and continue to cause, hardship to so many.

Although I could stand here and generate endless amounts of research and statistics for the Minister, my plea is simple. Social security does not have to be done this way: we do not have to continue down this road of sanctions, deductions, rape clauses and five-week waits. It is an undeniable fact that the Scottish Government cannot make any tangible change to these policies while 85% of welfare expenditure and income-related benefits remains reserved to the Government here in Westminster. For every step forward that the Scottish Government try to make, Westminster drags us back two.

The Scottish Government desperately need the opportunity to create a system, one designed to tackle poverty actively and empower those who interact with the system, without one hand being tied behind their back. When we have had the power to do so, we have introduced game-changing policies, such as the Scottish child payment. Analysis shows that the Scottish child payment could lift up to 50,000 children out of relative poverty in 2023-24, which is because the Scottish Government choose to prioritise that. Child poverty rates in Scotland sit at 24%, which is still far too high, but they should be seen in the context of the 31% rate in England and the 28% rate in Wales. That is likely to be due, at least in part, to the Scottish child payment.

Fundamentally, it is a political choice to lift children out of poverty. If this Westminster Government are unwilling to make that choice, I simply ask them to hand over the reins of power to the Scottish Government, who are more than willing, and certainly ready, to implement a system that will allow people to thrive rather than being punished for their circumstances. Until that happens, the Scottish Government are left fighting an uphill battle against a Westminster social security system that is broken beyond repair. Again, I am left wondering how different things might be if Scotland were able to take all the legislative and fiscal responsibility for these issues through the normal powers of independence.

Whether it is the British Government’s cruel sanctions regime or their refusal to fix known policy failures that only push people further into hardship, we are seeing what will sadly be one of the defining legacies of this Tory Government. As a result, poverty no longer just exists within our society. It is deepening, it is ingrained, and it is causing insurmountable pain to people right across these islands. As we are faced with the reality of more food parcels than ever being delivered through the Trussell Trust networks and shockingly high levels of child poverty, the only conclusion I can draw is that these are all signs of a Government, and indeed a Union, that the people in Scotland must escape if they are to have any hope of a fair and prosperous future.