Scotland Bill

Debate between Ian Murray and Graham Allen

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

New clause 31 allows the Scottish Parliament to top up any reserved benefit in the UK and create any benefit in devolved areas, so there would be an ability to create a system that mitigates the reduction in tax credits. As I understand it, tax credits are not a benefit in terms of the system; they are done through the income tax system, so topping up tax credits would be outwith the scope of this arrangement, but there is no reason why under new clause 31 an additional benefit could not be put in place for people who are in work and have children, for example.

I am very pleased that we have managed to get cross-party support for new clause 31 and if the Government agree it, it would give the Scottish Parliament full autonomy on the welfare state, which I think is what the Scottish people and Scottish Parliament want. If the Government are going to support any amendment, I urge them to make it new clause 31, although I also recommend our other amendments.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

This is an interesting debate and a wide range of points have been made on welfare and benefits in general. I will try to stick to the two detailed amendments I have tabled, but I cannot resist making the general point that I see this as Scotland pioneering many of the things that should be commonplace throughout the Union. I hope that, if we are successful in proposing some of these amendments and progressive ideas, they will be available to everybody else in the Union.

This is the federal Parliament; this is the Parliament of all the four nations. The success of one nation within that Union should lead to the success of all. Those who wish to do this in Wales, Northern Ireland or parts of England should have that opportunity.

I hope we can tie this to the local government and devolution Bill currently in the other place. Its proposals will enable large parts of England—many of the constituent parts are actually larger than Scotland by combined authorities—through effective devolution from the massive, over-centralised state in Whitehall, or through regionally banding together to create their own units, to deploy some of the things that many found commonplace before 2010. I well remember the work programme put forward by my local city council. It was immensely successful but was then abolished by the incoming Government in 2010. I hope very much that places around the Union will be able to use these useful precedents of freedom and liberation at the lowest possible level—in this case at a national or even a sub-national level—to ensure the good welfare of people in their areas.

I have tabled amendments 129 and 132. Exception 6 in clause 22 requires those receiving discretionary housing payments to be also receiving housing benefit at the same time. Amendment 129 removes that prior requirement; it removes that restriction so that those people can receive discretionary housing payments without having first to claim housing benefit. What that does is quite simple: it allows people in the relevant place to make a judgment on this, rather than some “superbrain” in Whitehall. In this case, the Scottish Parliament would have the chance to work out its own manifesto commitments—Labour party manifesto commitments and Scottish National party manifesto commitments to scrap the bedroom tax. [Interruption.] Forgive me, but I think the important part of that sentence was “scrap the bedroom tax”, which we can probably agree on; I hope the SNP will agree with that.

I will not make this consensus fragile by referring to all those SNP Members who voted with the Conservatives last night. That would be to do something that has been pointed in my direction in the past, so I do not want to raise that sensitive issue. We are dealing with an issue—the bedroom tax—where people of good will throughout the Committee can rattle off examples in their own constituencies about how it has been an appalling thing visited on many of our constituents, with most of them being the most vulnerable and least able to look after themselves, and where some with chronic disability have been targeted. The phraseology we always hear—we heard it a little earlier—relates to the idea that people on benefits are scroungers. Never do we hear about the fact that most people on benefits are pensioners who have worked most of their lives to get their pension or are people who have suffered from the chronic nature of their disability and need help—in any civilised society, we would all expect to help each other. Anything, even the limited change I am proposing to mitigate the worst effects of the bedroom tax, will, I hope, be welcomed by all those parties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

The whole sanction regime needs a proper and thorough review, and it should be based on evidence of the sort the hon. Gentleman brings, as I can, rather than on prejudice and electoral gain. Although it may, sadly, go down well in certain leafy suburbs, those of us who have relatives who are pensioners or people with a disability, and those of us who represent people who are suffering because of the bedroom tax, have a slightly different perspective. I am trying to share it with some Government Members, but, sadly, this is with a mixed degree of success.

On amendment 132, exception 6 uses the example of non-compliance, but if someone’s claim had been wrongly suspended—the point the hon. Gentleman makes and I fully support—they would be put in a worse position as they would also lose discretionary housing payments. If the rhetoric about trying to get people back into work and about making work pay is meant, making people suffer a double disbenefit flies in the face of trying to help individuals back into work. It is a catch-all and a broad brush, and it is insensitive.

One of the best ways to tackle those problems, which we all encounter in government, is to make government as close to people as is humanly possible. My suggestion in this case is that that should be within the province of the Scottish Parliament, but in other cases we may even be talking about a lower tier of government. I wish briefly to deal with the question of double devolution, which was raised from the Front Bench by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), but just to finish on amendment 132 let me say that it would remove the provisions and the possibility I have described altogether. In summary, it would give the Scottish Parliament the ability to pay the discretionary benefit when a person cannot be paid a reserved benefit such as housing benefit. That is relatively straightforward and I hope I have put it as succinctly as possible.

[Ian Murray]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly important speech, and I just wanted to clarify something for him. The reason we have not signed his amendment is that we had an amendment to devolve the entirety of housing benefit, which would of course take into account all those discretionary housing benefit levels. That is why we have not supported his amendment; it is purely because we have the overarching devolution amendment.

[Mr Allen]

I totally understood that and I see why my hon. Friend has done what he has done. I hope we will get a broader consensus in the Committee as a result.

I wish to make one final point on this couple of detailed amendments, and it relates to double devolution. Again, I am not trying to tread on any sensitivities. I am an irregular visitor to Scotland, but when I go there, as I did over the weekend, I often hear people talk about local government in Scotland being centralised, not, for once, to Whitehall, but to Holyrood. I hope that my good friends in the Scottish National party will be clear when they speak in this debate that they reject a recentralisation of power from Whitehall to Holyrood. Such a recentralisation would fly in the face of proper devolution.

I know that the SNP’s long-term agenda is not devolution but separation of Scotland from the rest of the Union. Separation is the long-term goal of SNP Members. That time may never come, or it may come in some number of years. I do not know; none of us can predict. In the interim, I ask parties of all descriptions in Scotland to put themselves at the service of the Scottish people so that they can get the fullest possible benefit from the devolution proposals. Devolution should not merely transfer the ability to tell people what to do from Whitehall—which I resent—to a Scottish Parliament that has accumulated power. Once power has been fought for, granted from the centre and taken down to the lowest level possible, all of us who believe in devolution must avoid the temptation to look at people on the ground and say, “I wonder what we could have from them? I wonder how we can tell them what to do?”

There are some wonderful precedents in Scotland for the other nations of the Union. I hope that all my friends of different political complexions in Scotland will fight as strongly as they fought for their own Parliament to push as much power down to the local level as is humanly possible. I think that we all agree about the need to be sensitive and help people, but it must be done by people as intimately connected with them as possible. That will be another step of progress.