Social Security Advisory Committee: Winter Fuel Payment

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

The previous Government promised 13 years ago to merge housing benefit with pension credit, which would be a significant advance towards improvements. We are introducing that in January. We will have been in power for only six months, but we will have done more than the previous Government did in 14 years.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Many pensioners are terrified of going into debt and do not want to switch on their heating in case they end up with massive bills. Temperatures will drop below freezing in Scotland at the beginning of next week, so will the Minister apologise to those pensioners across Scotland who will not be able to put the heating on because they fear going into debt?

[Emma Reynolds]

I urge the hon. Lady to look at the support available to low income households through the warm homes discount scheme, the extension of the household support fund and our commitment to the triple lock, which will ensure that 12 million pensioners see a rise in their pension of up to £470 next year, and £1,900 over the course of this Parliament. In the longer term, I urge her to look at the detail of the warm homes plan, which will transform homes across the country by making them cleaner and cheaper to heat.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Temperatures are set to drop to zero across Scotland by next weekend. Many pensioners are scared to put on their heating, with the Big Issue reporting a three-month delay in claims for pension credit. Can the Minister let us know what she is doing to ensure that those claims are processed as quickly as possible so that people can get the money into their pockets?

[Emma Reynolds]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We want people who are eligible to get support, and we have redeployed 500 staff to process those claims. I can assure her that that is something that we are focused on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point about learning the lessons from the last time we were in government and lifted more than 600,000 children out of poverty, and looking at similarities and differences, not least that there are more children growing up in poverty in households, whether in the private rented sector or in social housing, and that there are more children growing up poor in a household where somebody works. Getting and creating more good quality jobs, and helping families into those jobs, is absolutely a crucial part of our child poverty plan.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Yet we have a situation where families with more children are impacted by the two-child cap and the benefit cap, and the Government are refusing to get rid of those things. At a stroke, they could lift thousands of children out of poverty and improve, overnight, their life chances. I appreciate the fact that the Government have the child poverty taskforce, but that is not making a difference to these children today, is it?

[Liz Kendall]

I am under no illusion about the impact 14 years of the Conservatives and the social security system has had on child poverty. That is why we are determined to take action across government to increase family incomes, drive down costs and, crucially, put in place long-term support, particularly in the early years. We will produce the strategy by spring. I am absolutely sure that every part of the plan will lift more children out of poverty.

Social Security

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Some 860,000 pensioners in Scotland are set to lose this benefit. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have chosen to cut the pensioner cost of living payment. They have chosen to cut the winter fuel allowance. They have made the political choice to scrap those payments.

The UK Labour Government are desperate to meet their self-imposed fiscal targets, but make no mistake: this is a political choice. They are trying to meet those targets by balancing the books on the backs of pensioners. Who out there in the real world voted for that?

This is a key test for Anas Sarwar and Labour MPs from Scotland. Anas Sarwar said:

“Read my lips: no austerity under Labour.”

If that is what he believes, the platform he put to the people of Scotland and what Scottish Labour MPs were voted in on, how can they possibly back the Government today? Who is the master of Scottish Labour MPs? Is it the Prime Minister, is it the Labour party, or is it the people who elected them—the people who put them here—who will go cold this winter because of their Government’s decisions?

This is not the change that people voted for. The UK Government are trailing broken promises behind them. They are refusing to scrap the two-child cap. They are refusing to allow pensioners the money to heat their homes this winter. That is not what people in Scotland voted for, and they will be devastated if their Scottish Labour MPs support the Government today.

Health and Disability Reform

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much indeed for that question and for raising the issue of her constituent. The reassurance I can give her is that we are aiming for the best outcomes. There will be a number of ways in which those best outcomes may be achieved—that is the purpose of the consultation—but it is reasonable to at least explore the issue of whether cash transfer payments are always the right solution, particularly given the growth in mental health conditions we have seen in recent times. The final point I would make is that we are absolutely interested in examples of situations where people have lifelong regressive illnesses from which, unfortunately, they are not going to recover, and to ask whether, under those circumstances, it is right to require them to go through re-assessments.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Following today’s statement, the announcement made a couple of weeks ago and all the proposed changes, people are scared. They are scared because they rely on these payments, which have changed their lives. They have been able to access support that they otherwise would not have been able to get. It is very clear that the announced changes are not being created by disabled people, with disabled people at their heart of the decision-making process. This is a Government consultation and then people are being asked to input into it. It is totally different from the situation in Scotland, where the adult disability payment was created with disabled people in the room talking about the best way to make the payments work and the best way to have assessment processes. Basically, the answer that came back was, “Do not do them anything like the assessment processes for PIP.”

Everybody should have the income to live with dignity, whether or not they are able to work. I am massively concerned by the comments that the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister allegedly made about people with mental health difficulties only facing the “ordinary difficulties of life”. It is very clear that anybody who is able to say that has not suffered from depression, and has not felt that absolute energy-sapping that comes alongside suffering depression or anxiety. These are real conditions. These are real things that people are struggling with. And the lack of the ability to work is just as serious for people with mental health conditions as it can be for people with physical health conditions.

I have a couple of specific questions. In relation to universal credit, it is a gateway benefit. Will the Secretary of State assure us that any changes that might be made to eligibility criteria around universal credit will be fully consulted on and fully discussed, particularly with anybody who administers benefits that are allowed through those gateway benefits?

Has the Secretary of State spoken to the Scottish Government about the creation of the adult disability payment with disabled people in the room, ensuring that at the forefront of every decision is dignity and respect? Those are the two key columns of the Scottish benefits system. The Secretary of State could learn a lot from that approach.

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for her response to my statement. I reassure her that disabled people will be very much involved in the process and the consultation. It will be a 12-week consultation and of course we will take them, their comments and representative organisations extremely seriously.

The hon. Lady’s comment about the importance of recognising that many, many people unfortunately suffer from very serious mental health challenges is extremely well made. I am absolutely determined that whatever conclusions we draw from the consultation, they should lead us to a position where the Government are better able to support people who are in those circumstances.

On whether there will be questions in the consultation on the passporting of PIP into other benefits, the answer is yes. That is something we are most certainly consulting on.

On the Scottish equivalent of PIP—this is, of course, a devolved matter—yes, the Department has been in discussions with the equivalent officials in the civil service and the Scottish Government. We are looking forward to considering, as I know the Scottish Government will be, the independent review of that benefit, which is being conducted at the present time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Research from the Trussell Trust reveals the devastating truth: more than half of people receiving universal credit ran out of food in January and could not afford more, and 2.4 million universal credit claimants have fallen into debt because they could not keep up with essential bills. Will the Secretary of State back the Trussell Trust’s joint campaign with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and commit to legislate for an essentials guarantee in universal credit to reduce food bank use and ensure that everyone has a protected minimum amount of support in order to afford life’s essentials—yes or no?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

The Resolution Foundation highlights that scrapping the two-child limit would be one of the most efficient ways to drive down child poverty rates, and would lift 490,000 children out of poverty overnight. Surely one child growing up in poverty is one child too many. The Secretary of State should reverse course on this, and the Labour party should also commit to scrapping the two-child limit. Does the Secretary of State agree that no child should grow up in poverty, and will he take action to ensure that that stops now?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady raises the same point as her colleague, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), about the two-child limit. I will not detain the House by repeating exactly the same answer, other than to agree passionately with her that one child in poverty is one too many, and to say that, although we have further to go, it is important to recognise that we have reduced the number of children in absolute poverty, after housing costs, by 400,000 since 2010.

British Sign Language

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Thank you for chairing this debate, Ms McVey. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) on securing it. I think this is the right time to discuss this issue and to ask the Minister pertinent questions that need answers.

I am not going to do what I often do and talk about how dreadful a job the UK Government are doing, because this is genuinely really good progress. This is a really good report highlighting the issues and making clear what needs to be done to get to a better place. All Governments have more to do in this regard.

Let me take a moment to celebrate the fact that next week will be the eighth anniversary of the passage of the historic British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 by the Scottish Parliament. Our strategy, which ran from 2017 until this year—it is about to be superseded by the next one—contained 70 actions across 10 long-term BSL ambitions.

Before I go into some of the actions we are taking in Scotland, I will take a moment to recognise how unique British Sign Language is. For many people, English is not their first language; BSL is, and those are not people who have come from another country. BSL is an indigenous language throughout these islands. The Scottish Government have continued to promote and support the teaching of BSL, because it is one of Scotland’s vibrant indigenous languages. We have said that we want to make Scotland the best place in the world for a BSL user to live, work and visit, which means that people whose first or preferred language is BSL will be fully involved in daily and public life in Scotland as active, healthy citizens, and will be able to make informed choices about every aspect of their life.

As I said, we have taken 70 different actions. We have not made the progress that we would like on all of them, and there is definitely significantly more to do. As the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) mentioned, we are trying to ensure that the principle of “nothing about us without us” is enshrined in everything we do. When the Scottish social security system replaced the personal independence payment with the adult disability payment, we ensured that people with lived experience were at the table, telling us how they wanted the system improved. We are ensuring that when we consult on the new progress and action plan on British Sign Language, the deaf community will be as involved as possible, making the case for the action and improvement that they want. No Government can make good decisions if they do not have an adequate amount of lived experience informing those decisions.

We took some of our actions during the covid pandemic. For example, our former First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said that she

“couldn’t have done my job over the past few years”

without BSL interpreters. She said:

“They were crucial in making sure that we were able to communicate properly and fully the public health messages that were so essential in the country during that time.”

We are also taking action in relation to schools and learning. The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) mentioned the possibility of creating a GCSE in BSL. I am not entirely sure what the equivalent is, but we in Scotland have SCQF qualifications available in British Sign Language at a number of levels. Edinburgh University is looking into introducing a primary teaching degree that includes British Sign Language, to help tackle the decline in the number of teachers who are able to teach in BSL. It is incredibly important that at all levels—whether at pre-school, primary school or secondary school, in the workplace or public life, or even in accessing shops and services—we do everything that we can to ensure that people who use BSL have access to it. We have ensured that all our colleges and universities in Scotland have a BSL plan in place, which is available both in English and in sign language.

We are also ensuring that each of our local authorities —we are not there yet—does what it can to increase access to the services they provide. In 2021, 24 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities taught BSL in primary schools—a total of 113 schools across Scotland. Obviously, we would like BSL to be taught in all 32 local authorities; as part of the action plans, our local authorities are working towards that.

I want to take this opportunity to celebrate this vibrant, dynamic and exciting language that so many of our constituents use, and to make it clear that we all have the same direction of travel. We are all trying to improve access to services, to public life and to information for users of British Sign Language. Any work that the Minister wants to do with Scotland, either to promote good practice on the part of the Government, or to learn from good practice in Scotland, would be wholly welcomed by my Scottish Government ministerial colleagues in Holyrood.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I can understand why, when it comes to policies on spending, on tax and on the Budget, we have an ideological divide across this Chamber. I can understand that the Conservatives want to go down a different route to those of us who are left of centre, but I cannot understand the experiential divide that seems to occur. I do not understand how those of us on the Opposition Benches are being approached by constituents who have lost all hope, who have nothing to look forward to and who are looking at their energy bills wondering how they are possibly going to make it through the next few days, let alone through the next few months, yet those on the Government Benches do not seem to be experiencing that. The hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) said that her constituents had not lost all hope. A number of Members seem to be standing up talking about things that do not affect or are not the highest priorities for our constituents.

I have been representing communities and individuals in Aberdeen in an elected role for the past 15 years, and I have never seen such levels of desperation as those we currently face. I have never seen the numbers of people who are contacting our surgery or our office talking about suicide. I have never seen these levels of worry and debt—and I was an MP for Aberdeen when the oil price crashed, when we saw major impacts and job losses in our city.

The fact is that an absolute lack of hope is being offered, and this week’s Budget could have done something to alleviate that. The Government should have gone far further than a freeze on energy prices. They should have been looking at what people’s energy bills were previously and working to reduce them, not simply freezing them. As our leader in Westminster, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) said yesterday, the reality for people in Scotland is not that an average household is paying £2,500—in Scotland, it is £3,500. One of the Conservative Members yesterday stood up and talked about the fact that we had had a warm winter. It was -8˚C in Scotland this week in some places. It absolutely has not been a warm winter. People are freezing, unable to afford their energy bills.

If we want to talk about and think about boosting employment, boosting jobs and boosting growth—boosting employment and boosting jobs are two different things—we need to make changes. The UK Government need to make changes in their approach. The first thing they could do, given the amount of in-work poverty, is increase the minimum wage to something that people can actually afford to live on and pay their bills with.

The reality is that that real living wage is going to have to go up, because inflation is going up. We can take the total measure of inflation and look at that, but food prices are going through the roof. The Government and the Bank of England can do what they like to reduce inflation, but no matter by how much mortgages are rising and how much people are squeezed, they will still have to buy pasta, rice and potatoes. They will not be able to stop buying those things. Inflation will continue on the things that matter the most to people, even if we manage to discourage some incredibly rich people from buying yet another fancy sports car—that is brilliant; that will really reduce inflation! That will not reduce the costs for our constituents that are currently spiralling, and it will not reduce the costs where it matters.

We need to see a proper increase in universal credit. We need to see that money that was taken away—the uplift introduced during the pandemic—reinstated. We need to see proper decision making by this Government, not their saying, “Universal credit is broken so we will increase the number of sanctions.” That does not help my constituents who are having to go to food banks or those who are working and having to have their wages topped up by universal credit. It costs the Government money to top up those wages, by the way. We could be in a situation where they increase the national minimum wage to a better level, and then they would get more tax as a result and end up in a situation where fewer people required universal credit. I do not see why that is not a win-win for the UK Government.

To create the jobs and growth that we need to see, one of the biggest things that the UK Government could do is to encourage immigration. Brexit has done what it can to reduce the number of people working in our NHS. People are talking about not being able to get a doctor’s appointment, but that is not because too many people are coming into the country; it is because of the exodus from our NHS as a result of Brexit and the way that the UK Government continue to treat doctors, nurses and anybody who comes here from another country. The Illegal Migration Bill will only add to the hostile environment that has been created.

The changes to post-study work visas will do the same. They create investment in our country, which is wonderful, so reducing them would be a significant problem. We need the Government to rethink immigration. For example, if asylum seekers, many of whom are highly qualified, are escaping desperate circumstances and want to work, were allowed to work, it would help some of our communities where there is a lack of people working.

I am pleased to see the changes that allow NHS doctors to have their pensions, but those changes should have been restricted to NHS workers—not for all doctors in the private sector or people in other roles. All the issues that I have heard from my constituents relate specifically to doctors, and that is the issue that we have raised.

On CCS, I am pleased to hear that something is happening, but the previous version of the Acorn Project was pulled by the Chancellor during a Budget speech 10 years ago. We need investment in the Acorn Project in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire.

Social Security Support for Children

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I thank you, Sir Christopher, for chairing the debate today. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) on bringing forward the debate and I thank all hon. Members for taking part.

My hon. Friend made some points about individual organisations in her constituency. I absolutely agree that we should thank those organisations for all the hard work they do, because they are absolutely necessary, but we can do that at the same time as saying they should absolutely not be necessary. It was good to hear about Paul’s Parcels and the work that my colleague is doing to support those organisations and the eradication of poverty in her constituency. I hope that all hon. Members are doing what they can in their constituencies, as well as putting pressure on the UK Government to try and ensure a sufficiency of social security.

Social security is about security; it is about having a secure situation where people can have positive mental health—the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about people’s mental health—rather than spending every moment worrying about whether they are going to be able to feed their children tomorrow, next week or next month, and whether they will be able to afford food. We need the social security system to work and provide the safety net that it is supposed to. After a decade of Tory Government, it continues to fail and it is not getting better.

I have less optimism now for the futures of my constituents than I have ever had at any point in this job and in my previous job as a city councillor. In about 15 years in an elected role, I have never seen the levels of hardship that I see coming through the door in my constituency office, on the news and in our communities. This has not happened before.

The problem is that there is no light at the end of the tunnel right now, no matter what the Government have announced in terms of inflationary upgrades, for example. As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) mentioned, that is a temporary measure; it is not permanent and does not provide the level of structural reform people need to afford to live. What could be more important than ensuring that kids are fed and warm? There is nothing more important.

Our Scottish Government are now into their second child poverty action plan. We had “Every child, every chance”, which ran from 2018 to 2022; we now have “Best start, bright futures” from ’22 to ’26. These plans are about putting tackling child poverty at the heart of the decision-making processes of the Scottish Government. I do not think it is too much to ask that the UK Government replicate that, and say that they care about eradicating child poverty, and therefore will have a strategy to do that and make it a central aim of their plans.

[David Linden]

More fundamental to that, though, would be if the UK Government could even start measuring child poverty, which is part of the issue. Yes, it would be great if they had a strategy to deal with it—that would be absolutely fantastic—but does my hon. Friend agree that it is alarming that the Government do not even measure child poverty? They do not realise the scale of it, other than by measuring it anecdotally, as I am sure the Minister does in his Hexham constituency when people come through the doors at his surgery on a Friday morning.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I agree. The fact that the Government are unwilling to even measure child poverty shows the lack of importance they give to this issue. If they cared as much about it as they should, they should be willing to explain, “This is what the current situation is. This is the measurement. This is how bad it is. This is how many people are suffering and how many children are in poverty in the UK in 2022”—in the UK in 2022! How can we be saying this? The UK Government need to stand up, hold up their hands and say, “This is the current situation and this is how we are going to improve it.”

I want to set out a few specific asks, some of which have been made already. As my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts mentioned, 87% of those affected by the benefit cap are families with children. The benefit cap would need to increase by £942 to reverse the loss since 2013. Despite the fact that the Government are looking to increase it, this is only the fourth time that social security payments have risen with inflation in 10 years. If we in Scotland can find an extra £25 a week in order to provide the Scottish child payment, the UK Government, with their far vaster budget and flexibility in dealing with their fiscal situation, can surely afford to do the same. They can afford it, but they choose not to match the payments we are making in Scotland.

There is the issue of the sufficiency of social security. One in four people on social security skipped meals this summer. That was in the summer—before the additional price cap increase on electricity and gas; before the upcoming winter months when people will need to put their heating on; before people had to buy school uniforms for their children when school started again in August or September. That situation is set only to get worse, and the promise of a temporary increase in universal credit will not fix it. There is currently no way out of this. We have no certainty that there is not going to be a cost of living crisis next year. Certainly none of my constituents has that level of certainty.

Let me turn to the issue of debt repayment deductions that are made from universal credit and other benefits. We have a situation where the UK Government can take 25% off the standard allowance to reclaim debts. Sometimes, those debts are caused by overpayments that are no fault of the person, but entirely the fault of poor decision making in the DWP or job centres. To be fair, that does not happen all the time; I am just saying that sometimes it is an issue.

If the UK Government have done an assessment of social security payments and believe them to be sufficient—that people can afford to live on them—how can they justify putting in place a benefit cap or taking 25% off the standard allowance? They are saying, “This is what we believe is sufficient for people to live on, but we are just going to take a quarter of it away.” It does not make any sense. People already cannot afford to live on the social security payments they are receiving. When the amount people are getting each month is reduced because of those reductions or the benefit cap, it is even less sufficient. Again, the conditionality and sanctions in place reduce that basic minimum level of payment that people should be entitled to.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. There have been occasions where overpayments have been made to my constituents. The money has to be paid back, and they understand that. Reducing payments by 25% is very unfair. In the past, my staff and I have managed to negotiate a reduction of 10%. That option is more manageable and should be given to the person at an early stage. Does the hon. Lady feel that is the right way forward?

[Kirsty Blackman]

I am glad that the hon. Member has managed that on behalf of his constituents. That is actually not the preferred route that I would take. I would prefer to look at whether people can afford payments rather than coming up with an arbitrary percentage, which is the UK Government’s preferred choice. I would look at affordability. How much are their outgoings and incomings? Can they afford to make the debt repayments? That is what we do, and when organisations like StepChange are managing debt, they look at whether people can afford it.

[David Linden]

In my time working for Glasgow Credit Union before I was a politician, one of the things we regularly had to do when determining whether someone was eligible to borrow loans was calculate their debt ratio. Although that is required by the Financial Conduct Authority and imposed on things like credit unions, part of the problem is that the DWP does not routinely look at people’s income and expenditure. Does the hon. Member agree that the Minister should look at a debt ratio when making these decisions?

[Kirsty Blackman]

I absolutely agree. That is the way this should be taken forward, rather than setting an arbitrary percentage—whether it is 25%, 10% or whatever level. It should be done on the basis of affordability, and a debt ratio would be the preferred method; it would make sense.

One thing that I do not think has been mentioned yet is those people with no recourse to public funds. They are not in receipt of social security payments or the vast majority of payments that are available to others. We are seeing the most drastic and extreme levels of poverty experienced by some of those families, particularly refugee and asylum-seeking families. We are seeing children and families who literally cannot afford any food, and I just cannot believe that the UK Government are unwilling to make any change to the system of no recourse to public funds, because what people are going through is horrendous.

The UK Government stand up and say, “Oh well, it’s fine. They can just go home to whatever country they came from.” Generally, people who are here having made an asylum or human rights claim are here because it is worse in the country they came from and because their children are in danger if they go back. In fact, no recourse to public funds sometimes applies to people who are stateless—they have no country to go back to. It is a horrendous situation, and the UK Government need to fix it.

[Ms Qaisar]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent contribution. On that specific point, I recently visited Manston and saw harrowing scenes of a tent full of families with young children. Those kids should have been playing in nursery; they should have been in a safe area. Instead, they were with dozens of other children in one tent. Does my hon. Friend agree that the wider issue at play is that the UK Government are spending their time othering communities? They are pitting communities against one another—whether they are refugees, working class, gay, lesbian or trans—when in actual fact we should all be uniting and campaigning to get that lot of Conservatives out.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I absolutely agree; I could not have put it better. No matter where they were born, the colour of their skin, their religion, their sexuality or gender identity, those children and families deserve a basic level of human dignity and fairness. That point about dignity, fairness and respect was made earlier. The UK is, in all our names, failing to provide that. It is choosing to make a differentiation between those people who are in slightly different communities and to treat them differently, and it is therefore trying to make that okay.

In Scotland, we are putting wellbeing at the heart of what we do. We are one of the founding members of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. We are not choosing to levy austerity on the most vulnerable people in our society; we are choosing to provide respect, dignity and fairness. We are choosing to provide as much as we possibly can within our limited budgets. Our five family payments, including the Scottish child payment, can be worth over £10,000 by the time a first child turns six, and £9,700 for subsequent children. That compares to £1,800 for an eligible family’s first child in England and Wales, and under £1,300 for subsequent children. The difference is £8,200, and it highlights the Scottish Government’s major support in the early years for low-income families.

This is an incredibly important debate. We need a social security safety net that works. I would rather our social security system accidently pay the few people who are not eligible—who do not meet the criteria—than miss any one child who should be receiving those security payments and that Government support. The ideological choice that I and the SNP would make is to put dignity, fairness and respect at the heart of the decision-making process. We need to make sure that children are not in poverty, and that our guiding mission and our choices go towards eradicating child poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Lady has obviously pre-read my speech and the comments that I will make, because my fifth point was going to be about childcare. There are a variety of points, which I will address in their totality; I will then try to deal with the specifics, particularly for those on universal credit.

It is patently obvious that for some parents childcare costs present challenges—at the very least—to entering employment. As the father of a 15-and-a-half-week-old child, I can testify to the bitter experience of that. The Government’s 13 hours of free childcare offer entitles all parents of three to four-year-olds in England to 570 hours of free childcare per year, with many children also entitled to the additional 15 hours of free childcare for 38 weeks per year. In addition to helping parents to manage childcare costs and working patterns, free childcare supports children’s development.

I will deal in particular with universal credit and childcare, in respect of which there is a massive role for Members of Parliament. Bluntly, those on universal credit are entitled to a massive amount of childcare, but the take-up of that offer is not good.

[Kirsty Blackman]

They are entitled to 85% of childcare costs—that is absolutely true—but is the Minister aware that the caps set in 2005 have not been uprated, despite the fact that childcare costs have since increased dramatically? Will he take a look at those numbers?

[Guy Opperman]

The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), and I have had a preliminary meeting. The country wants to try to assist parents who want to go back to work. There is a real desire to address childcare on a long-term basis to ensure that parents who wish to can go back to work.

There are many discussions about all aspects of how we reform, improve and expand childcare in this country. The bit that I control is the ability of somebody on universal credit to access and take childcare. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts and I will go and look at that, but the blunt truth is that the take-up is low. That is the first problem. I am genuinely of the view that there is not sufficient knowledge that individuals on universal credit can claim 85% of their registered childcare costs each month, regardless of the number of hours they work. That is a significant increase on the previous 70% of costs that could be claimed back on legacy benefits.

Parents can claim up to a maximum of £646.35 per month for one child and £1,108.04 per month for two or more children. For families with two or more children, that could be worth over £13,000 a year. I take the hon. Lady’s point on board and will go away and look at that, but that is still £13,000 of subsidised childcare paid for by the state in circumstances. That support is also available to all lone parents and couples who satisfy both the childcare cost and the work conditions to qualify for help with childcare costs.

I am conscious that there is an issue with prepayment of childcare. Various support funds are used up and down the country. In my three-and-a-half week journey of understanding this issue, there seems to be patchy take-up, but I urge all local areas and individual job centres that are assisting parents in this process to ensure that the various support funds available can be provided. It is not a grant, but it is a provision to pay for the childcare deposit. That is definitely happening up and down the country and we should try to encourage and nurture that on an ongoing basis.

I am conscious of time and the desire to deal with a large number of other matters. The autumn statement saw £26 billion in total, as part of further support in 2023-24, to provide around 8 million households on means-tested benefits such as universal credit with payments of up to £900 to help their income stretch further. That is on top of the £37 billion of cost of living support for households in 2022-23. In addition, there are benefits increases in line with September inflation of 10.1%, worth £11 billion, to working-age households and disabled people. There is also the triple lock and support for pensioners.

We will continue to provide support to all households through the energy price guarantee, which caps the price paid for each unit of energy, saving the average UK household £500 next year. For those who require extra support, we are providing an additional £1 billion to help with the cost of household essentials next year, bringing total funding for this support to £2.5 billion since October 2021. In England, that includes an extension to the household support fund backed by £842 million for the 2023-24 financial year. Devolved Administrations will receive £158 million through the Barnett formula. I could go into detail about support for free school meals across England and about the Healthy Start scheme.

I will briefly touch on the funding and powers in Scotland. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts highlighted the extension to the Scottish child payment. The Scotland Act 2016 devolved significant social security and employment support powers to the Scottish Parliament, worth around £3 billion, as well as providing additional powers to create new benefits in areas of devolved responsibility, top up reserved benefits and provide discretionary payments. The UK Government provided the Scottish Government with a record £41 billion per year Barnett-based settlement at the 2021 spending review. That is the largest settlement since devolution. That record settlement provides the Scottish Government with around 25% more funding per person than equivalent UK Government spending in other parts of the UK.

In respect of various other matters, I will endeavour to write to colleagues. To conclude, I welcome today’s debate. I will attempt to work with colleagues on an ongoing basis. It is my job to ensure that there is ongoing support for children through the social security budget that operates throughout the United Kingdom. I commend the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts on her first Westminster Hall debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I welcome the new ministerial team to their place. I hope to meet the new Secretary of State in early course; it was quite difficult to secure a meeting with some of his predecessors, unfortunately. The new Prime Minister spoke of the difficult decisions that will have to be made, but the real difficult decisions are those being forced on our constituents—people on low incomes struggling to afford the basics, pay their bills, heat their homes or feed their children. Let us not forget the reality of the tragic human cost of over a decade of Tory austerity, which urgently needs to end. Does the Minister agree that uprating benefits in line with inflation is not a difficult decision, but is instead the only moral course of action?

[Mims Davies]

That is not a matter for me, but I would like to reiterate at the Dispatch Box that the Government fully understand the pressures we are all facing. We all have constituents facing these matters, and it is absolutely right that we take that decisive action to support people with their bills. Members are talking as if we are not supporting people, but there is £37 billion of help with the cost of living, including the £400 of non-repayable discounts to eligible households provided by the energy bills support scheme. In addition to the benefits calculator and the cost of living webpage on gov.uk, I would ask people please to reach out to their councils. Members are talking this afternoon as if there is no help, and it is important that our constituents know that that is far from the case.