Benefit Cap

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[David Linden]

It is a question on which I find myself reflecting an awful lot. We all come into politics for different reasons. As I outlined at the beginning of this debate, the Minister and I have very different ideological views on the merits of the social security system and perhaps, even in his case, on what role the state should have in people’s lives. We are all constituency MPs, and on Friday morning we will go back to our constituencies and sit in those cold, draughty community centres and talk to people who are impacted by these policies. I find it very difficult to believe that the Minister, who represents Macclesfield, does not have constituents coming to him and saying that the benefit cap is putting them in a very difficult position. This may be a case of Ministers focusing too much on policy, but in this instance I think it is a case of Ministers, and indeed the Government, not focusing enough on their day job or on the correspondence that they receive from their constituents, which overwhelmingly says that the benefit cap must go.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case as to why the benefit cap must go. One thing that we have not discussed is the pandemic, which has affected so many families in Scotland and right across the UK. I think that it is 88% of households in Renfrewshire that have been affected by the benefit cap. Does that very fact not highlight the callousness of this policy and the fact that it needs to go?

[David Linden]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend is a doughty champion of the children of Renfrewshire. This is a topic that we discuss regularly in our policy teams. He is right to place on record the extreme challenges that that poses to his constituents. I am sure that his constituents will reflect on the fact that the only way of ensuring that we do not have things like the benefit cap is to secure the powers of Scottish independence.

I was saying how often it feels like groundhog day in Westminster. While we on these Benches are focused on the people of Scotland, the Tories are far too focused on naval gazing and internal party politics. Indeed, the Chancellor seems more interested in preparing his suite of Instagram graphics for his next leadership bid than resourcing appropriately our social security system.

The fact of the matter is that the entire system is in desperate need of reform—reform that the Tories will not implement because it does not fit their political game of pitting people against each other in our community. While 85% of welfare policy remains reserved to the Westminster Government, we should only expect further policies that encourage poverty and austerity. From where I am standing, it is clearer than ever that the only way to protect Scotland’s interests and to build that fair and equal society that we all want to see is for Scotland to become a normal independent country. I am absolutely clear that we are on that path and that we will get there, but there is recognition, even on these Benches, that it will not happen overnight. That is why Ministers must act now, and that is why Ministers must scrap the cap.