Still pushing for positive change
The Scotland Act in 2016 made the Scottish Parliament one of the most powerful devolved assemblies in the whole world.
The Act ensured that Holyrood had new powers to legislate on tax, air passenger duty, and welfare.
As a result, the Scottish Government had to introduce a new Social Security Bill for Parliament to agree, which we did at the end of last month.
While I supported the Bill, in order to really tackle the inequality in our society and provide a safety net for everyone, Scottish Labour believed that it could have been bolder and more radical. That is why we brought forward amendments to strengthen the Bill and deliver a social security system that best suits the needs of Scotland and builds a fundamentally fairer system than the current one implemented by the Conservatives at Westminster.
In recent years, the increase in foodbank use is an example of the chaos of the current system as constituents face punitive sanctions and delays, pushing them into crisis situations.
Scottish Labour put forward an amendment to ensure that Universal Credit is automatically split, so payments can go directly to women. This is right and fair.
The current system sees a single payment being made, predominately to the male in a relationship and, as a result, fails to ensure financial autonomy and security for both partners. As we work towards gender equality, we as a Parliament should not be passing a bill that diminishes the woman in a relationship.
One of the benefits of automatically splitting payments is helping those in abusive relationships.
With split payments, women experiencing domestic abuse will be ensured that money goes directly to them, rather than straight to their partner and is why our amendment was supported by organisations such as Engender and Scottish Women’s Aid.
With the number of domestic abuse incidents in Scotland rising last year, up to 58,810 recorded incidents, we still need to work as a Parliament to tackle that in any way we can. Whilst on the face of it, this bill doesn’t do that to the extent of the recent Domestic Abuse Act, such amendments show that we must be alert to the less obvious consequences of the decision and make changes that can make a big difference.
I am pleased to say that this amendment was passed unanimously. Despite being in opposition Scottish Labour still has the ability to make real positive changes and we will continue to try and achieve this wherever we can.
However, to do so we need support from other parties and sadly this doesn’t always happen.
Another amendment we brought forward for the Social Security Bill was to deliver a £5 weekly increase in child benefit.
This simple change comes from the‘Give Me 5’ campaign, which is supported by a coalition of charities and anti-poverty groups. If the Bill had included this increase it would have seen over 30,000 children in Scotland lifted out of poverty, and is judged as an equitable use of resources.
Yet, in the week in which it was announced that foodbank usage in Scotland is at record levels the Scottish Government, their SNP backbenchers and the Scottish Tories joined together to vote it down. This was deeply disappointing and shows that despite all their bluff and bluster from the SNP Government about standing up for Scotland and doing things differently, it is only Scottish Labour that is truly prepared to take the action needed to invest in a fairer Scotland.