McVey attacked over rape clause

Scotland’s first minister has branded the work and pensions secretary “out of touch” for claiming the rape clause could help support rape victims.

Giving evidence to a Holyrood Committee, Esther McVey was heckled as she spoke on the rape clause, where women have to prove conception through non-consensual sex to qualify for tax credits for a third child.

She said this offers women potentially “double support” through money and an opportunity to talk they may have “never had before”.

Speaking after her speech at the STUC annual congress, Nicola Sturgeon said: “To me that

“I think most people think the rape clause is just abhorrent”

just illustrates how out of touch Esther McVey and the Tory government are on these really sensitive issues of social security policy.

“I think most people think the rape clause is just abhorrent – the very notion of asking a woman or expecting a woman to prove she has been raped in order to access benefits for her children, no woman should even have to contemplate that”

Labour said Ms McVey’s presentation of the rape clause was “skin crawling”, the Lib Dems said it was “deluded” and the Greens said she tried to “defend the indefensible”.

Earlier, the secretary was heckled by another audience member who shouted “you can’t get into work if you’re dead” at her as she argued Universal Credit is a “supportive system” aimed at helping people into work.

The audience member shouted out about a person who took their own life following sanctions and the meeting was suspended.