Cost of Living Increases

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[David Linden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I agree that it is important that we invest in renewable energy. That is why we on the SNP Benches are fully committed to that. It is only a shame that the official Opposition have such a bizarre fascination with investing in nuclear, but perhaps he will reflect on that.

The current Tory austerity policies do absolutely nothing to relieve the suffering of people who are impacted by the cost of living crisis. In the last year alone, the British Government cut the £20 a week uplift to universal credit. Indeed, they refused to extend the £20 uplift to the 2.5 million disabled people on legacy benefits. That is subject to proceedings in the High Court at the moment. The Government battled against extending free school meals to the poorest children in society. We learned only at the weekend about the allegations that the then Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) personally threatened Members of this House who dared to vote for that with the withdrawal of funding from their constituencies. The Government scrapped the triple lock for pensioners who already have one of the worst pensions in the OECD.

All of that is important, because those cuts only deepen and cement the inequalities in our society. They will impact the lives of the poorest people we represent for decades to come. The British Government must reflect on that. When people fall into destitution, it is other parts of the state, almost certainly councils, that have to bear those eye-watering costs. We know that destitution is bad for the economy. It is not good for the economy for people to be unable to afford their weekly food shop or heating bills. Let me be especially clear to the Government that a proliferation of foodbanks is not a sign of the big society; it is a sign of bad policy from people who think that spending £840 on a roll of wallpaper is somehow normal.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a number of excellent points about the damaging nature of UK Tory policy. Does he agree that the benefit cap is one of those problems as well? Is he happy today to put on record the SNP’s support for the Poverty Alliance “Scrap the Cap” campaign?

[David Linden]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Yes, absolutely. The SNP has stood on successive election manifestos with a commitment to scrap the cap: both the benefit cap and the welfare cap. I am only disappointed that the SNP had to lead the charge against the welfare cap in a vote only a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps when people in Scotland are considering who best serves them, whether it is Westminster or the Government they elect in Scotland, they will reflect on that. My hon. Friend makes a very good point.

It is imperative that the Government bring forward solutions to address the cost of living crisis and lift millions of people from experiencing poverty this year, just as we have set out in the motion. The Government must introduce an emergency package to boost household incomes and reverse rising poverty levels across these islands. We want the Chancellor to launch a multi-billion-pound Brexit recovery fund to mitigate the worst, and growing, costs of Brexit.

Those solutions should go hand in hand with other suggestions to tackle rising energy prices. We need a one-off payment to low-income households, which could be identified by way of the council tax reduction mechanism. We must increase and extend the warm homes discount, delivered through customers’ bills and funded by the UK Government. We need the child payment, as seen in Scotland, to be rolled out right across these islands. We need the April benefits uprating to better reflect inflation rates and to reinstate the £20 a week uplift to universal credit which so many of our constituents described as a lifeline.

There is no shortage of suggestions to Ministers for how we can alleviate family income pressures, but there is, I am afraid, a shortage of urgency and energy on the part of a Government distracted by their own internal wrangling. I have a huge amount of respect for the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, but the fact that, on a day when we have another debate about the cost of living increase, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is nowhere to be seen raises a lot of questions about what he is doing.

In contrast to the cruel policies in Westminster, the Scottish National party Government have committed to relieving poverty wherever they have the power to do so. That is why we have doubled the Scottish child payment, rolled out 11 benefits—seven of them brand new—extended free school meals and are working actively to reduce poverty and inequality, and all the while Westminster undermines those efforts. However, the constitutional reality is that, with limited tax-raising powers, no borrowing powers and 85% of welfare spending still controlled in this place, those policies can only go so far when they are continually undermined by Tories and Tory Governments whom Scotland did not elect.

Since being elected four years ago, I have stood in this Chamber warning the Government about the impact of their policies that make life so much harder for my constituents in Garthamlock, Craigend and Easterhouse. When I make those pleas, it is not from a purely dogmatic or ideological point of view. I do so because every Friday morning at my surgeries I meet people who, because of the way life has panned out, rely on the safety net of the social security system, to which we all contribute and which is frankly no longer able to cope. I appreciate that a Tory MP in the home counties probably does not have much care for, or cause to interact with, the Department for Work and Pensions on a daily basis.