Scottish Welfare Powers

Stephen Kerr Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Bill Grant]

That progress is fairly slow, but I welcome it.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

Reference was just made to the Scottish Social Security Committee report. In its conclusions, it in fact states:

“There have been a number of consistent concerns raised about the Bill, in particular the balance between what is contained in the Bill and what will be in regulations.”

The distinct lack of detail in the Bill is causing parliamentarians and outside interest groups grave concern.

[Bill Grant]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Grant]

My apologies. I checked with the office. Cumnock jobcentre went live on 25 October last year, and in February this year the two other jobcentres in my constituency, Ayr and Girvan, went live. I think we have had six inquiries in total in that time. By the time my office staff got back to them, I think two or three of them had self-resolved and the system had resolved the others. The dark side of universal credit in terms of the changes is not self-evident.

[Stephen Kerr]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his generosity. Surely the whole point of this debate is not the issue raised in the previous intervention by the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), but what will happen to social security in Scotland in future. That is what my constituents have grave concerns over.

[Bill Grant]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. It may be prudent for us to focus on the purpose of the debate. The SNP appears to be unprepared for the powers it has demanded for so long. It has repeatedly demanded powers—it could be called a power grab—and it has now been granted them. We urgently need to know whether the Scottish Government will be ready to take on responsibility for welfare by 2020, as is planned, or whether they will have to ask the UK Government to delay the process. I hope that later in the debate the Minister will touch on some of the contingency plans we must have, as we cannot allow the Scottish Government’s delays to impact on those who rely on these benefits.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Rosindell, for your expert chairmanship of the debate. We have had a spirited introduction from the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant), with some interesting re-writing of history regarding the Tory party’s legacy when it comes to defence of the welfare state in Scotland.

At every stage of the process of devolution, it is Labour that has led the charge. During the passage of the Scotland Act 2016, although the welfare provisions were agreed by the Smith commission, it was only the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) that extended the new benefits in devolved areas, and top-ups in reserved areas. It was only his action that forced that change in the Lords, and pressure from the Labour party that ensured that that provision was included in the Act.

A huge opportunity has been presented to the Scottish Government with the extension of welfare powers. That is exactly what devolution was intended to do. Remember that the spirit of devolution was set up in the face of rampant Thatcherism and the rolling back of the industrial and welfare settlement that Scotland had enjoyed since the end of the second world war.

[Stephen Kerr]

On a point of information, Mrs Thatcher left office in 1990. The devolution settlement the hon. Gentleman is referring to occurred under Tony Blair’s Government, eight years later.

[Mr Sweeney]

I think I referred to the “spirit” of devolution. If the hon. Gentleman recalls his history, devolution, which of course the Tories implacably opposed throughout, was born in the 1980s. Likewise, the popular campaign for a Scottish Parliament was born out of the 1980s and the reaction against Thatcherism, the policies of which were anathema to the Scottish people. Devolution was born in the face of Thatcherism. If I am not mistaken, it was the former Secretary of State for Scotland, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who referred to Thatcher as the midwife of the Scottish Parliament.

Clearly, Labour led the charge at every stage in the process. Although there is a great opportunity for the Scottish Parliament to be what it was designed to be—a bulwark against Tory austerity, not a conveyor belt for it—we have seen a weakness in the Social Security (Scotland) Bill, which was built on empty rhetoric, not substance. Again, it has been Labour pressure that has led the charge against the SNP pulling off an audacious power grab, without any scrutiny or accountability, in the Bill’s development in the Scottish Parliament.

Scotland has the powers to create its own social security system, to change the lives of disabled people, to tackle poverty, and to reinforce the safety net, but there is still so much missing from the Bill. The Bill at stage 3, as it goes through the Scottish Parliament, will be very different from the form it was issued in last June. That has been achieved through campaigners lobbying, and Labour holding its ground, seeking to deliver real change to improve the lives of the people of Scotland. I want to be clear about how it has progressed through the Scottish Parliament, for the avoidance of any doubt and any rewriting of history.

In June 2017, a briefing was circulated to all MSPs highlighting that the Bill contained no top-up to child benefit, no rules setting out how the Government should create new benefits in devolved areas, and no ban on the private sector, going back on the Scottish Government’s word from April 2017. There was also no hard commitment on uprating, going back on their word from June 2016, and no scrutiny through the legislative process. By the end of that summer, during stage 1 Labour had secured the following concessions in the Bill: scrutiny and parliamentary procedure, a right to independent advocacy, a right to payment cash as default, and a statutory duty to maximise incomes.

However, the Minister for Social Security in Scotland continued to block protections for recovering overpayments made by office errors, which is more onerous than the UK system. She also blocked inflationary uprating—that is to say, the Minister wanted to do less than the UK system—and redeterminations, as they wanted to replicate the UK system. She also blocked the banning of the private sector, and the setting of binding targets to encourage the uptake of £2 billion in unclaimed benefits. However, since January we have seen a U-turn on all those issues, by laying or supporting amendments and seeking Labour’s support, while antagonising the third sector and civic society in the process.

During stage 2 of the Bill, the SNP and the Tories voted down amendments to secure human rights in the Bill. For months, a key and fundamental part of SNP rhetoric focused on how the system would be built on dignity and respect, yet when put to a vote they teamed up with the Tories to vote that down. That rightly angered the third sector, and some of the Scottish Government’s key supporters, who have long called for the right to social security to be part of the legislation. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations said in response to this issue:

“This ‘due regard’ amendment...was to ensure that the principles in the Bill, something we have heard a lot about from the Scottish Government, could be realised in practice.

Astoundingly, despite the Scottish Governments rhetoric around a social security system based on human rights, the amendment was not agreed and no such duty will exist in the Bill.

Confused? You should be.”

That is a shameful indictment of the Scottish Government’s true commitment on this issue.

[Stephen Kerr]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. I congratulate him on his powerful speech, even though I do not agree with everything that he is saying. Does he agree that the evidence that he is presenting shows how difficult it is for the Scottish Government to get their arms around the issue of providing a social security system in Scotland? It is a complex issue, is it not?

[Mr Sweeney]

I agree that the complexity of the social security system should not be underestimated, but none the less we should have committed at the outset to the objectives and the vision that we wanted to see, which we share. Surely they should live up to their rhetoric on this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

Having made a number of interventions, I will take a few seconds simply to say that what concerns me most about the passage of the Social Security (Scotland) Bill, as outlined by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney), is the disregard that the Scottish National party in Government in Scotland show to due parliamentary process. They are reluctant to expose their legislation in detail. They are reluctant to allow that legislation to be properly scrutinised. They make bad laws. They have a consistent record of making bad laws. They ram legislation through the Parliament. We have an example right now with the wrecking Bill that is going through Parliament with very little time for scrutiny. This is another typical example. The Social Security (Scotland) Bill as it was originally presented included enormous powers reserved to Ministers—called Henry VIII powers here. They are practitioners of reserving powers to Ministers for regulations of the highest order and that is why sometimes when they speak in this place, their actions in Government in Scotland should be set against what they say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. So far we have been subjected to what one can only call buzzword bingo. I am only waiting on one from either the Labour or Conservative Benches.

The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) complained, on the one hand, that not enough was being done and then, on the other hand, complained about what has already been announced. It is incredible behaviour. It can be summed up like this: the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities has criticised the UK Government for grave and systematic violations of the conventions on the rights of persons with disabilities and, at the same time, it has praised the Scottish Government for engaging with disabled people and the organisations that represent them.

If we are building a social security system—not a welfare system as the Conservatives talk about, as if it is some sort of handout—

[Stephen Kerr]

No. That is not—

[Chris Stephens]

It is not a handout; it is a human right. Language is important. The hon. Member for Stirling can shout all he likes—it is social security we should be talking about, not welfare. That is a big difference between my party and his in terms of how we view the issues. We need to ensure—