Budget Resolutions

Mhairi Black Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

The Tories have a habit of announcing policies that are backed by arguments that, in a sentence, quite often can sound reasonable. However, the minute we scratch beneath the surface we see that every policy is soaked in ideology and backed by mistruths that are unrecognisable in the real world. I want to give a few examples.

We have had umpteen debates in this House explaining in great detail why universal credit is not fit for purpose as it stands. Even this month I have had constituents live off nothing but £70. The Chancellor has announced a boost to the work allowance as an answer to these problems, and he expects credit for that, but, again, if we scratch beneath the surface, we find that this boost only reverses half of the cuts that were made in the 2015 Budget.

Secondly, Tories often say that the best way out of poverty is through work. They preach that they were the Government who introduced a “living wage” and they arrogantly pat themselves on the back for raising it in this Budget. Again, if we scratch beneath the surface we discover they have introduced nothing of the sort. They have slightly increased the minimum wage, which still does not meet the cost of living. No amount of rebranding will make anyone forget that. Further, we see nothing in this Budget to address the age discrimination that is entrenched in the minimum wage structure.

[David Linden]

In the Budget the Government have managed to increase the minimum wage for apprentices to just £3.90 an hour. Given that that lot on the Conservative Benches will not do anything on this, will my hon. Friend join me in making sure they devolve relevant legislation to Scotland so we can deliver a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay?

[Mhairi Black]

Funnily enough, I could not agree more, and I have to say as a 24-year-old that I would challenge any Member to justify why I should be paid less than anyone else in this place. If the law does not apply to me, why should it apply to anyone else out there?

My third example is the two-child cap. This is the claim that really sticks in my craw. If it were true that the Chancellor is supporting families, he would not make women prove they were raped in order to get benefits for their children. I see that not many Tories are giving me eye contact at the minute. Over 73,000 households are receiving less tax credits than before and the Government’s response was that people on welfare need to make decisions about the number of children they may or may not have. That statement is as barbaric as it is downright stupid; it is nothing more than an ignorant, cruel and deliberate misconception to hide behind.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mhairi Black]

I will not.

Life does not happen like that. There is no telling how or when an individual’s circumstances will change, and this Government know that. It is children who are paying the price.

I want to mention the very people I am sure the Chancellor would love to forget—those WASPI women who refuse to disappear quietly. I have noticed that any time we on these Benches highlight problems such as WASPI or universal credit, we are told to use our shining new powers in the Scottish Parliament to fix them. Let us take universal credit as an example. The Scottish Government listened to the experts who said that fortnightly payments would be much more flexible for claimants. We used the little influence that we have to at least try to make the system slightly better for people. Actually, few people are aware that the Scottish Government have to pay Westminster for the luxury of trying to protect people from the very worst of these policies. So I am afraid that I will take no lectures from the Conservative and Labour parties, which fought tooth and nail to make sure that Scotland did not get the powers required to fix these problems. We were told that employment law and pensions were too important to be devolved and that we were better together, so do not dare to turn around and say that Scottish people should fork out more money to plug holes in policies they did not vote for in the first place.

Let us be clear that this Budget delivers austerity and simply gives it a different name. If this is “better together”, then the Scotland I want to live in is, and deserves, better than this.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Mhairi Black Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman]

I want to talk about a few issues, many of which have been brought up during the debate. The first is the subject of new clauses 1 and 5, both of which I support, and the way in which they have been written. I stress to the Government, and particularly to the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), that the reason why the new clauses call for reviews is that we have no amendment of the law resolution, which means that we cannot put forward more robust amendments that ask the Government to do things. If we could have tabled more robust amendments, we would have done so, and I am sure that the Labour party would have done so as well. The Government have chosen to hamstring us and, as I have said before, when Conservative Members are sitting on the Opposition Benches, they will regret this behaviour. The fact that they chose not to move an amendment of the law motion makes it much more difficult for us to table any substantive amendments, but we are doing our best.

The things that we have managed to do during these Finance Bill debates are unparalleled in the Scottish National party’s history. We have managed to have two substantive amendments accepted to the Bill. I had two amendments accepted to the previous Finance Bill, but they were particularly minor. These ones are much more substantive and call for reviews. One of those amendments fits nicely in this section of our proceedings, as it relates to the public health effects of gambling. I am pleased that that amendment continues to be in the Bill, and I look forward to the Minister bringing forward that review in the next six months, as we have called for him to do.

There are various reasons why a Government can choose to change or introduce taxes. They can choose to have a tax to raise funds for the Government. They can choose to have a tax relief to encourage positive behaviour, or a tax to discourage negative behaviour. They can choose to have a tax to do one of the things that the Opposition and the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) have been keen to talk about. They can choose their priorities. They can choose to have a tax system that aims to reduce child poverty, reduce inequality and increase life expectancy, and we are asking for that to be the Government’s focus when they are setting taxes.

The Government should be looking at the life chances of the citizens who live on these islands and doing what they can to improve those life chances. That is the most important thing—it is why these reviews are being asked for. Whether or not the taxes that the Government have set are appropriate, we are asking for a change of focus and a change of priority, and I think the hon. Member for North Dorset was agreeing with that.

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

Forgive me if I am stating the obvious, but do we not also need these reviews because we have Brexit coming up, and we have to be able to reflect on and evidence things?

[Kirsty Blackman]

That is correct. One of the difficult things about looking at the potential outcomes of Brexit is that those stats do not exist. It is all well and good to talk about the fact that there are reviews sitting on shelves gathering dust, but we need stats. We need stats to be able to prove that Government policy does what it says on the tin.

The Minister can stand up and say, “This policy will raise £100 million for the Government,” but I would like to see not only the working beforehand, but the review afterwards that proves that the policy did what the Government intended it to do. I have been clear on a number of occasions that I do not think the Government do enough of that evidencing. The reviews being asked for would allow the Government to provide us with that evidence. Evidence written by the Government, rather than an independent individual, is still a legitimate thing that we can look at. The hon. Member for Torbay seemed to suggest that we would doubt information were it to come from the Chancellor of the Exchequer—surely not! It would be good for him to provide that.

I want to talk about a few things that the SNP has been doing in Scotland and the changes we have chosen to make to not only our tax system, but other systems, and particularly those that affect the issues raised in new clauses 1 and 5. We have mitigated the bedroom tax, which has been a major factor in us having the lowest child poverty rate of any country in the UK. We have increased the number of people from disadvantaged areas who are going to university. We are making major changes to the care system for looked-after children. Those young people have had some of the poorest life chances in the past, and what the Scottish Government are doing on that is hugely important for ensuring that their life chances are improved.

We have increased the pregnancy and baby grant to £600. We are improving access to childcare, and we have the baby box scheme. We are the best country in the UK at paying the living wage—not the pretendy living wage, but the real living wage. People working in Scotland are more likely to be paid the living wage than those working in England. About half of taxpayers in England pay more than they would if they lived in Scotland, and that is the half of taxpayers who are earning the least. We think that that is a progressive measure that is assisting people to get out of poverty.