Mhairi Black
Why should Scotland pay twice to mitigate brutal Tory policies?
REMEMBER 2014? Scotland was having a real debate about our future. One of the most heated areas of debate was welfare and pensions.
The Yes campaign argued – based on spending figures north and south of the Border – that the social security system would be more affordable in an independent Scotland.
The Labour-Tory No campaign argued that it was only by “pooling and sharing” our resources across the UK that pensions would continue to be paid.
That argument now seems forgotten.
Thanks to the Tories and their Lib Dem partners, by the time all cuts in benefits are in place by 2021, Scotland will face a reduction of £2billion. Every year.
That is not including the hundreds of thousands of women born in the 1950s who are being deprived of their pensions and being told they must carry on working until they are 65.
Although we agree on the need to equalise pension age, it is the greatly accelerated timetable that is unfair.
The inspirational WASPI campaign – Women Against State Pension Inequality – have highlighted this injustice.
In Holyrood and at Westminster, the SNP support their campaign. That campaign would have more momentum if other political parties in Scotland got behind it.
Labour have been taken in by bogus Tory claims that the Scottish Parliament have the powers to mitigate this. We have looked carefully at whether we could step in, as we have done in the past, such as ensuring no one in Scotland has to pay the Bedroom Tax.
We’re now spending well over £100million a year mitigating some of the worst of the Westminster welfare cuts.
But nowhere in the devolved settlement offers a practical, workable solution to deal with the narrow definition of women who are facing this injustice. But even if it could, should it?
Filling this gap means money being diverted from elsewhere. Do you think the WASPI women, who have paid into the Treasury for decades and expected their state pension, want to see money not going to Scots schools or hospitals because the Tories in Westminster won’t do the right thing?
Why do Scottish Labour think people in Scotland should pay twice to get social security from the Westminster system they have paid into?
We’ve been here before with the Rape Clause, a despicable policy that requires women who became pregnant through rape to demonstrate that to an official in order to receive tax credits.
Ruth Davidson said taxpayers in Scotland should mitigate this policy.
If Labour and the Tories believe the Scottish Parliament should be responsible for funding these policies – and I agree with them – they should devolve the funding that goes with them. Instead, at every turn, they have sought to let Westminster off the hook.
The Rape Clause? Westminster’s mess, but the Scottish Parliament should fix it at Scottish taxpayers’ expense.
Depriving women of their state pensions? Westminster’s mess, but the Scottish Parliament should fix it at Scottish taxpayers’ expense.
Presumably, if the Tories were to say they were ending pension payments in Scotland altogether, Scottish Labour would say that Holyrood should step in to fill the gap. ●Nicola Sturgeon is on holiday
NO ONE can deny Neymar’s talent – and he would be welcome at Firhill any day.
But is any footballer really worth £515,000 a week – that’s £73,500 a day – as the Brazilian star will be?
Something has changed after this bumper deal.
Maybe, just maybe, we will see clubs realising it’s all too much.