Social Security (Additional Payments) (No. 2) Bill

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

It is great to see you back in the Chair, Dame Eleanor.

We are all broadly united in this Chamber today, in that we recognise that our constituents need additional financial support, but the reality is that we are here today because of 12 years of Tory austerity. The cost of living crisis has occurred because of Brexit and because of the policies of austerity, so it is welcome that we are having a debate on this Bill if even so we can go over broader DWP failings and mismanagement.

One example is that a very recent 38 Degrees poll found that 20% of my constituents fear that they may have to use a food bank. I am not convinced that these payments will help with that figure at all. This Government are giving our constituents the additional payments outlined in the Bill, yet they still impose the benefit cap, the bedroom tax, the rape clause and cuts to universal credit. Naturally, the British Government will sit here today hoping for a round of applause for these additional payments, but frankly, these pennies are nowhere near enough to make up for the grossly flawed benefit system that this Government preside over. This support is a start, and it needs to be just that. In the face of a Tory-made, Brexit-induced cost of living crisis, we need this Government to step up and step up more, again and again.

I have previously spoken in this House about my constituent Stacey, who I met in hospital while we recovered from our strokes together. Stacey and her family struggle to make ends meet. The Government will be aware of the significantly increased costs that disabled people face, so I would be keen to hear exactly what difference the Government think this £150 payment will make to them. I also echo the call of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) that an assessment should be made of the fact that legacy benefits were not uplifted during the pandemic in the way that universal credit was. It would be revealing to see the impact that has had, particularly on disabled people.

My constituents and people across Scotland are being failed by this Tory Government. Week by week, this Government try to steer conversation towards one topic or the next, but when I speak to my constituents, the issues caused by this Government’s failing, broken social security system are consistent. Dignity and the basic living conditions of our constituents are simply not a priority for this Government but an afterthought, hence them not bringing forward the uprating of benefits to before April. The House of Commons Library has published information showing that inflation is being felt worse than ever, and also that it is usual or the norm for this uprating to occur in April, but that no Government are bound by that; it is just common practice. These are not normal times we are living through, and support should be accelerated, instead of civil servants’ time being wasted applying the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. I would also appreciate some clarity on the timing of these additional payments—that should have been laid out before now.

Amendment 2 would fix a flaw in the Bill as it stands. It seems utterly unreasonable that any one of our constituents could miss out on this additional support because they have been sanctioned under this Government’s cruel sanctions regime.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend speaks about sanctions. Does she share my concern that in probably one of the grimmest league tables around, my constituents are No. 4 in Scotland for the number of people being sanctioned? Some 10% of claimants are being sanctioned, and one reason is public transport. We have significant challenges with public transport, because we cannot get enough bus drivers, and we cannot get enough bus drivers because of Brexit. Those constituents are facing a triple whammy—from the cost of living crisis, from being sanctioned because they cannot get there, and from the increasing cost of living and energy costs—because of the policies this Government have pursued.

[Amy Callaghan]

Unfortunately, my constituency of East Dunbartonshire rivals my hon. Friend’s and has a similar statistic for sanctions. It is not a position we want to be in, especially when we know that many of our constituents are sanctioned due to legitimate reasons, such as transport issues or potentially having to take their children to school.

Any Member walking through the Lobby tonight to vote against amendment 2 is condoning the Government’s sanctions regime—in fact, they are breathing more life into it by denying the most vulnerable much-needed support. We on the SNP Benches always welcome additional support for our constituents, especially in these times, but will the Government consider whether they are offering enough? What about the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign? Those women have been continuously let down by the failings of this British Government. They have run an incredibly powerful campaign so that politicians will listen. Are they supposed to be appeased by this additional payment? I know with certainty that they will not be.

What about UK pensioners living overseas? Will their pensions be uprated this time around? Will they receive this additional support? What about our pensioners who have remained in the UK? Additional support for them is of course welcome, but it highlights a glaring need for a concerted effort, or a more concerted effort, around the uptake of pension credit, of which £3 million goes unclaimed each year in my constituency of East Dunbartonshire alone. Hopefully that will be less this year, given the effort by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin). When will we see a much more active campaign directly reaching out to pensioners, encouraging them to sign up for pension credit?

What about single-parent families, already discriminated against by the British Government’s child maintenance system, which charges them to access money they are entitled to and places vulnerable women at further risk of manipulation and abuse? Where is the relief from their deductions? What about young parents on universal credit? They face the young parent penalty, denying them the same level of social security as parents over 25. Where is the relief from their deductions?

These additional payments are welcome, particularly against the backdrop of this Tory cost of living crisis and a fundamentally broken social security system, but these payments need to be made with the highest degree of urgency, and a timescale would be much appreciated. If the Government wanted to make a real difference, they could reintroduce the uplift to universal credit and extend it this time to legacy benefits. I urge Members to vote for our amendment 2 tonight, to stop our constituents missing out on this much-needed support due to sanctions being imposed upon them.