Support for Kinship Carers

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing the debate, and I welcome everyone with an interest in kinship care who has made the journey to Westminster to hear it. Anybody who has done so or who is watching cannot fail to be moved by the powerful speeches that have been made by all the Members who have contributed substantively or made interventions to share their perspective.

I dare say I could fill a speech 10 times over with stories of the love, care and benefit that kinship carers bring to relationships. The only time I have had to consider this issue in my own context was in a discussion with my then partner about who, in an ideal world, we would like to look after our children if we ever found ourselves, for whatever reason, unable to do so. That was a challenging enough discussion, so I cannot adequately express my gratitude and admiration for those who step up when they are called on to do so, as we have just heard.

The UK Government are set to publish their strategy for kinship carers later in the year. The Scottish Government have published a number of strategies, which they are in the process of implementing. This is not a matter of geography, because the best place for a child to be brought up is not about geography. The best place for a child to live when they need to leave their birth parents is, wherever possible, in that wider family setting, if it is safe and in the child’s best interests to do so. Kinship care helps a child retain that sense of identity, family, heritage and background and can help them—in ways that other settings, with the best will in the world, simply cannot—to feel safe, protected and valued.

We have already heard about some of the challenges that kinship carers face—the number of legal processes as well as the financial expenses associated with taking on these important responsibilities—and often they did not plan to spend their future years fulfilling those responsibilities. All too often, despite the best efforts of Governments and agencies, the available support is not—and can never be—commensurate with the responsibilities that kinship carers are asked to fulfil.

The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) gave an honourable mention to an organisation in his constituency. My good and hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) specifically asked me to mention Airdrie Kinship Carers, and the vital network it provides across north Lanarkshire to support kinship carers. It is important that Governments do all they can to ensure not only that individual kinship carers and wider family units are supported, but that the support networks out there are well funded and can operate within a framework of best practice.

Back in 2020, the Scottish Government committed to something that has been called “The Promise”. That was the report of the independent care review, which had the aim of ensuring that Scotland could be one of the best places in the world for care-experienced children and young people to grow up. That is an extremely high ambition, but it starts from a place of knowing that improvement was needed. In the seven preceding years, there had been six reviews of how Scotland cared for children, yet the recommendations—even though they were based on a range of evidence, knowledge and understanding—did not lead to the kind of wholesale change that was necessary.

In publishing “The Promise”, Fiona Duncan—the chair of the independent care review—spoke to the chairs of those previous reviews to take on their perspective on what had stalled things. The answers that came back are probably depressingly familiar: a lack of buy-in for change; insufficient resources invested in enabling the necessary change; in some cases, restrictive rules preventing change; people simply not knowing how to make the change; and much more.

That care review had to be different, and it started with an unwavering commitment to making sure that the care experience community would be at the very heart of its considerations, to ensure as full and proper an understanding as possible of not only how the care system operates, but how it feels to those in it and what children and their families truly need to flourish. On concluding its deliberations, the care review had listened to over 5,500 experiences. Over half of the voices were those of children and young people with experience of the care system. The review took into account the experiences of adults who had lived in care and lots of different types of families. The remaining voices came from the paid and unpaid workforce, whose stories guided the review and whose experiences shaped all its conclusions. As the UK Government set off down their own path of considering similar issues, I commend the work encapsulated by that document, and the resulting action plan, which might inform their work in taking forward the areas for which they are responsible.

As the chair, Fiona Duncan, said:

“It is clear that Scotland must not aim to fix a broken system but set a higher collective ambition that enables loving, supportive and nurturing relationships as a basis on which to thrive.”

Last year, the implementation plan was published. The Scottish Government’s approach reflected “The Fundamentals” set out in “The Promise”, which were:

“To do what matters to children and families

To listen and embed what we have heard from children and families

To tackle poverty and the forces that push families into it

To respect children’s rights

To improve our language”

when we are talking about the care settings.

Some key policy commitments have come out of this plan, including to invest £500 million in preventive spend over the course of the parliamentary Session through the whole family wellbeing fund. That is designed to deliver transformational change and service redesign in the totality of family support, with the aim of reducing the crisis intervention that needs to take place and contributing to the improvement of lives across a wide range of areas, including, but not limited to, child and adolescent mental health, child poverty, alcohol and drug use, and educational attainment.

There are also measures to support local areas to implement the national guidance on child protection, with £10 million invested per annum through the care experience grant—a new £200 annual grant for young people aged 16 to 25 who have care experience. The grant is intended to provide additional financial security for those young people and to help reduce some of the barriers they face in their transition to adulthood and more independent living.

As much as we would like to, it is not always possible for SNP spokespersons to stand up and say how much better we think we are doing, because we know that that is sometimes simply not the case. One area where we have been playing catch-up is in having a standard national allowance. Prior to its introduction, Scotland was the only part of the UK with no national minimum allowance for care support grants for kinship carers—allowances were provided by local authorities, but there was variability. That floor has now been set, which does not mean that local authorities cannot continue to pay more, but there is now a baseline in place. These payments can help people to meet the costs of clothing, hobbies and funding activities and school trips—all the things that help young people to feel included, and not excluded or in any way different. There is also the expansion of the legal definition of “kinship carer”, which has allowed more carers to benefit from the Scottish child payment. We can already see the difference that that is making to the lives of many, whether they are in kinship care or not.

I am acutely aware of the time; nevertheless, it would be remiss of me not to conclude with the words of Scotland’s then Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, in responding on behalf of the Scottish Government to the independent report. He gave this message to the children of Scotland:

“We want you to be safe with the people that you know and love. We want you to be healthy. We want to give you a good education. We want you to know and feel that you are loved.”

As we have heard, the role that kinship carers play in helping to secure those outcomes cannot be overestimated. I very much look forward to listening to the rest of this debate.

Scottish Referendum Legislation: Supreme Court Decision

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack]

I agree that the benefits are apparent to everybody. The right hon. Gentleman makes good points. The Supreme Court looked at and opined on the Scotland Act 1998, and today agreed that this matter is reserved to the Westminster Parliament.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I will give the Secretary of State the opportunity to say something interesting. If this Union is genuinely based on consent, how can the people of Scotland demonstrate that they have withdrawn that consent?

[Mr Jack]

The hon. Gentleman will be disappointed with my answer, which is that I refer him to the remarks I made earlier.

Scottish Independence and the Scottish Economy

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I start out in this debate on Scottish independence and the Scottish economy from the fundamental and irreducible point of principle that the best people to govern Scotland are those who have chosen to make their lives there.

I first started taking an interest in politics growing up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and that was quite a heady political time. It was before there was a Scottish Parliament of any kind. We were seeing the deindustrialisation process at the end of the Thatcherite economic experiment and the ramifications of the poll tax. It was the end of the cold war and the collapse of the iron curtain, with historic realignments as old nations emerged from the stifling power politics of the cold war. Of course, closer to home we had a debate about Scottish self-governance—not just about whether there should be a Scottish Parliament, but about how much power that Parliament should have and, indeed, whether it should be an independent Parliament.

In my particular journey to supporting independence for Scotland, I remember vividly a debate that took place in early 1992 in the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, where the four leaders of the Scottish parties at that time clashed with each other in a major public debate sponsored by The Scotsman newspaper. In the aftermath of that clash of visions, Scotland returned 12 Conservative MPs in the general election later that year, in contrast to the 60 non-Conservative MPs, yet still we had a Conservative Government running us with a Secretary of State and his team of Ministers coming under parliamentary scrutiny once every four weeks for half an hour ahead of Prime Minister’s Question Time, which seemed to me to be thoroughly unsatisfactory. Looking back to those times, I have a pet theory that if only we could get every single adult Scot of voting age to come down here, sit in the Public Gallery and watch Scottish questions followed by Prime Minister’s Question Time, we would not be having another referendum with a 55% vote to stay in the UK, but a near unanimous vote to become independent. That formative set of experiences and references led me to conclude, as Jim Sillars subsequently described it, that Scottish independence is simply the constitutional settlement that is superior to all others. I have been an enthusiastic proponent of that point of view ever since, and I am happy to debate it with all comers. Indeed, I am sorry that the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) is no longer in her seat, as I have happy memories of debating against her in Victoria Hall in Ellon ahead of the 2014 referendum, before either of us were elected. I am not so sure that the hon. Lady has quite such happy memories of the debate that night as I do, but it was nevertheless a robust act of civic political engagement, which was all to the good.

The constitution is not the only political issue that has animated me over that time. I have also been striving for fairness in our economy, for social justice and equality in our society, and to improve and invest in our infrastructure. I have of course been seized of the urgent need to tackle climate change, and embrace the considerable renewable opportunities that we have in Scotland. Unlike others of different political stamps, for me it is impossible to ignore the clear link between the condition of Scotland and its constitution, and how decisions are taken, by whom, and off the back of what mandate. I do not believe it is possible to separate the need to improve the condition of Scotland from the reality that that constitutional status acts as a huge impediment to doing so. No matter how good an idea, or what people vote to endorse in elections, unless it happens to be compatible with prevailing political ideas at Westminster, and the parameters that sets for policy and also budgetary frameworks, it simply does not happen.

That is not to say that good things have not happened in Scotland since devolution. Since 1999, Scotland has been governed by a Lib-Lab coalition, then by an SNP minority and an SNP majority, and it is currently governed by a coalition between the SNP and the Greens. Each Government have taken and are taking Scotland forward in their way, and I have no hesitation in saying that whatever their stamp, each of those Governments helped to put Scotland into a better condition at the end of their period in government than it was in when they took office, despite the lack of tax, borrowing and welfare powers, which restricted the ability of Governments of all kinds to act as they might have wished over that time.

There is a rather partisan argument that gets made, but it is a bit too clever-clever for my liking. It usually comes from elements in the Labour party, and it states that devolution and independence are different constitutional processes, with no common ground possible between the two. I do not think the people of Scotland have ever seen it in such stark terms, because the immediate point of common ground that I have with anyone who wants devolution, is that every power they wish to be exercised from a Scottish Parliament, I want as well. The difference is that I do not believe that devolution can ever satisfactorily address how to resolve the conflict that inevitably arises whenever the choices and interests of people in Scotland do not coincide with choices made elsewhere in the UK, or the priorities that are divined from that by the UK Government of the day.

In his opening remarks the Secretary of State said that we had a referendum in 2014, and indeed we did. I say to him as gently as I can, however, that things have moved on quite a bit since then. I remember speaking in another debate during the 2014 referendum, not in Ellon but as part of a panel for a debate in Peterhead in the constituency of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid). It was in no less a place than the ballroom of the Palace Hotel, and it was extremely busy—again, I have very happy memories of that night, perhaps happier than those on the no side. I was confronted in my summing up by a familiar argument that an independent Scotland would somehow find itself outside the European Union. It was all part of a trope—by that stage it was pretty familiar—of fears and smears, and that somehow an independent Scotland would find itself on the outside, isolated from all that was good and at the mercy of all that was bad.

It was getting late in the evening, so I decided to dispatch that argument as quickly, as cleanly and as humanely as I could by saying that the only way in which we would be in danger of being outside the European Union in the near future was if people voted no to independence and afterwards the Boris and Nigel show was allowed to take over. Now, I freely admit that, when I said that, I thought that I was using a little exaggeration to make the point as best I could—it was an argument that did not seem to have any basis in political reality. Little could I have imagined that, just over two years later, it had turned into the ghoulish, nightmarish reality.

The fact is, in 2014, the no campaign made a number of bold pledges about how being in the UK was a guarantee of economic stability, that we would be progressing to something as close to federalism as possible over that time and that, of course—this is the real pearler—the only way to guarantee our EU membership was through a no vote, when in fact that was what deprived us of it. Practically every single rhetorical plague of locusts or horsemen of the apocalypse prophesised in that campaign as a result of voting yes has come to pass as part of Brexit Britain, so much so that the entire Better Together prospectus to persuade Scots to vote no has been put through the shredder. It is hardly surprising that support for independence has moved in the direction that it has since then.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) could not have been clearer about where he stands. The Labour party now supports Brexit, and it tells us that it will not reverse it. While he is content to excoriate the record of the Conservatives in office, and rightly so, it seems that he would rather persevere with a political system, which over the course of the last century has seen the Conservatives in power for two years out of every three—a party rejected continually by Scotland at the ballot box—simply for the distant prize that he and his party might hold power for one year in every three. That might be good enough for him, but it is certainly not good enough for me—and increasingly, it is not good enough for people in Scotland.

Why independence? Why not try to reform from within? Labour has made it clear that it has no interest in meaningful reform of our decision making process. It will keep the House of Lords and it wants to keep the voting system, because, as I said, having that untrammelled power one year in every three seems to make everything else worth while.

The Lib Dems talk about moving nearer to federalism. Of course, they have spoken about that since the days of William Ewart Gladstone—[Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for Edinburgh West say, “Why don’t we do it?” Quite simply, there is no coherent, credible plan for it. Perhaps she could intervene and tell me how the Lib Dems plan to do it. Will there be an English Parliament? Will it be like “Strictly Come Dancing”? BBC regions? How will they do it?

[Christine Jardine]

Actually, the Campbell commission came up with a report on exactly how it could be done and, to give the Labour party credit, Gordon Brown has now issued his proposals, and Scotland’s Futures is working together. The hon. Member asked how we would do it. We would have assemblies for the other parts of the United Kingdom. The metropolitan Mayors are moving towards a more representative approach. It can be done and, if we had the SNP’s support, perhaps we could do it.

[Richard Thomson]

That is the trouble—there is no support for it. I am willing to believe that the hon. Lady has not made a single speech or argument or delivered a single leaflet about that in any of the regions in England that she plans to create. I suspect that, were I to go to the south-east, the south-west or any region of England, it would come as an enormous surprise to people to find out that that is being planned.

The Lib Dems were in coalition Government with the Conservatives from 2010. They had a referendum that was supposed to be on proportional representation, but they could not even get a form of proportional representation on to the ballot paper, and now we are being invited to believe that, somehow, just because Gordon Brown says so, we will be able to rewire the entirety of the British constitution in a way that will satisfy aspirations. I do not believe that. It is just another dead end which Scots would be well advised to avoid.

I return to my central point. The best people to run Scotland and to decide how Scotland should be run are those who have chosen to make their lives there. As the UK post-Brexit turns in upon itself and away from its closest neighbours and the alliances that have served it so well since it joined the European Union, Scotland has a choice: to continue to attach itself to that British Brexit decline, or to take its place on the world stage as an independent country with Governments we elect who are limited only by the constraints of our own resources, the limits of our own imaginations, the limits of our own democratic choices, and by constraints set by nowhere else.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There is a lot of pressure on me to dish out yet another hospital from this Dispatch Box. But I can tell my hon. Friend that we are reviewing all applications for the next eight hospitals in our new hospital programme, which is the biggest in a generation. That is only possible because we have a strong economy. My hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner for his constituents. We will make a final decision later this year.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

Q12. On 26 February, a private charter flight to Moscow was allowed to take off from Inverness airport, in an apparent breach of a UK ban on flights of that nature that had come into effect from midnight the day before. Air traffic control transcripts published this week in the Press and Journal newspaper have revealed that, despite being informed of the intended flight, no attempt was made by the UK Government or their agencies to prevent the plane from taking off. Will the Prime Minister commit to informing the House at the earliest opportunity who was travelling on that flight? Why, despite being informed in advance of the flight, was no attempt made by the UK Government to keep the plane on the ground? What will the Prime Minister personally do to try to prevent any similar breaches of sanctions from happening?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not know the answer to the hon. Member’s question, but as soon as we can get some information about that, I will make sure that the House is properly informed.

Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Perkins]

It is a matter for the UK Government. It would be one thing for the SNP to go into a general election campaign saying, “A vote for us is about independence,” but it is not the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament, so it is very odd for the SNP to ask people to re-elect it on that basis.

The question I ask SNP Members is, how should someone vote this May if they want independence but think we should have a referendum in a few years’ time, rather than now? Should they vote for the SNP, knowing that the SNP will claim that that is a vote in favour of a referendum? We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) about many of the failings of the SNP Administration in Edinburgh. What about someone who thinks that the SNP is doing a good job and wants to carry on electing an SNP Government to run the Scottish Parliament but does not want independence? How should they vote, given that they know that, if they vote for the SNP because they want Nicola Sturgeon to continue being First Minister, that will be taken as a vote for independence? I am not getting any interventions on this. I am asking: how should these people vote?

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

The answer in both cases is surely to vote SNP, because the decision about independence is a separate one—for a separate referendum. It is to decouple the issues. That is why we support a referendum.

[Mr Perkins]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for that point; it is a really important one. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) was saying earlier, “If they vote SNP, they know what they are voting for: they’re voting for an independence referendum”, but the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) is saying, “No, if they want an SNP Government, they should vote for us and the referendum is a question on another day.” The mandate that the hon. Member for Edinburgh East was claiming at the start is not actually a legitimate one because it will actually lead to exactly what has just been said. I am grateful for that clarification.

In the event that Scotland leaves the United Kingdom, there will be a huge economic hit to Scotland. There will also be a huge hit to England. I have businesses in my constituency that have just discovered how difficult it now is to sell into the European Union as a result of Brexit. That is exactly what will happen to businesses attempting to trade either side of the Scottish border in the event that Scotland goes independent.

My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South listed a variety of questions about independence that we never have a debate on and that remain unanswered. I was totally against Brexit, the things that we warned about in that respect are in many ways coming true, and there is no question but that it makes Scottish independence far more economically reckless than it would have been back in 2014. The idea that we would impose that on either English or Scottish businesses is a terrible mistake.

I really look forward to the elections in May. I hope that the Scottish people will look at the Labour party anew under the leadership of Anas Sarwar, who has started absolutely fantastically. I really hope that they will consider very carefully what they have just heard—that is, if they do not want an independence referendum right now, they should not vote SNP, because their vote will be taken as support for that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack]

The simple reason is that not only do we have a strong Bank of England underpinning a strong currency, in the pound, but we are one country with one currency and because we have a strong economy, we are able to borrow money at much better rates.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

What discussions he has had with (a) the Scottish Government and (b) Cabinet colleagues on the effect of the delay to the autumn Budget 2020 on the finances of the devolved Administrations.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

What discussions he has had with (a) the Scottish Government and (b) Cabinet colleagues on the effect of the delay to the autumn Budget 2020 on the finances of the devolved Administrations.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)]

I have regular discussions with my ministerial colleagues and Scottish Government Ministers on economic and fiscal matters. The Treasury has made an unprecedented up-front guarantee to the devolved Administrations, guaranteeing that Scotland will receive at least £6.5 billion in additional funding this year on top of its Budget 2020 funding.

[Richard Thomson]

Last year’s delay to the UK Budget saw knock-on delays in the Scottish Government and local government being able to set their own budgets, with the result that many local authorities were forced to separate setting their council tax rate from settling their revenue budgets. Given this year’s delay, which has united devolved Finance Ministers in condemnation across these islands, would the Minister like to take this opportunity to apologise for the further uncertainty and risk that his Government are about to inflict on local and national Government in Scotland?

[Iain Stewart]

First, I repeat the point made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that we have heard this “cry wolf” story before from the Scottish Government. The fact of the matter is that, as well as the guaranteed minimum funding for this year, the Chancellor has asked the Office for Budget Responsibility to provide forecasts next month. Together with the spending review, which will happen this autumn, that will give the Scottish Government plenty of certainty in setting their budgets.