Scottish Welfare Powers
Debate between Luke Graham and Andrew Rosindell(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
I will try to keep my remarks as close to one minute as I possibly can. Welfare is one of the key elements of the modern British state. We launched the NHS together and we built the welfare state together. It started at the turn of the 20th century and was built throughout the last 100 years. Beveridge was the son of a Scottish civil servant and helped lay the infrastructure in which we operate today.
Welfare is also one of the biggest issues that I have experienced as an MP. Constituents regularly come to me with a whole range of welfare issues and my staff and I work incredibly hard to make sure that we resolve them. We have been able to successfully resolve 94% of the universal credit inquiries we have had in just a few days. The greatest concern when we get into the politics of the devolution of welfare powers is the impact on constituents. I have already had constituents coming to me in a state of confusion because they do not know whether to go to the local authority, the MSP or the MP, and that is just with the current system, before we create a whole other agency with a whole other bureaucracy and the costs that go with that.
The Smith commission put the powers in—
Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)
Order. I apologise. I call Patricia Gibson.