There are more than 10 questions for 10 members. We are going to move on now to the next item of business, which is a social security committee debate on motion 16957, in the name of Bob Doris, on social security and in-work poverty. I would encourage all members who wish to contribute or speak in this debate to press their request street buttons as soon as possible. I call on Bob Doris to open the debate. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As convener of the Scottish Parliament's Social Security Committee, I am pleased to open this debate on a report on social security and in-work poverty. I want to place on record my thanks to everyone who gave evidence to our committee or supported our committee visits. My thanks also to our committee clerking team and SPICE, as well as to our former committee convener Claire Adamson MSP who helped to instigate this particular inquiry. The committee embarked on this inquiry against the backdrop of the UK Government's continued roll-out of universal credit, together with its plans to migrate many thousands of people in work and currently in receipt of working tax credits over to universal credit. Alongside that, the committee was aware of the rising number of people including working families, accessing food banks and the research showed a clear link between that rise and the roll-out of universal credit. We know that the rate of employment is at a record high, but research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that the number of people in work and living in poverty is the highest on record. We heard that that disproportionately affects women, disabled people and black and minority ethnic individuals. At the same time as the fall in the number of workless families, there has been low growth for men's earnings and increasing numbers of women working. In Scotland, 18 per cent of workers are paid less than the living wage, 6 per cent are on temporary contracts, and 63,000 are on zero-hour contracts. The number of workers in poverty is increasing at a faster rate than the number of people in employment. Put simply, what that means is that people in work are increasingly likely to find themselves in poverty, and that is a very worrying trend indeed. Of course, in-work poverty is not just about social security. I have alluded to some of the issues in relation to that already. Research shows that work poverty is a product of the economy more widely. Factors such as affordable childcare, affordable housing and eliminating the barriers and additional costs that are faced by disabled people are all key factors. Those issues go beyond the remit of the Social Security Committee, but are crucial in forming an overall picture. The Social Security Committee focused on the role of the social security system, and particularly on how universal credit may impact on low-paid workers. Scottish ministers have some social security powers, but other than the flexibilities provided by Scottish choices, the policy and rules around universal credit remain firmly with the UK ministers. In the main responsibility for benefits for working aged people is the reserve to the UK Government and to Westminster. In 2016, the Social Security Committee then undertook an inquiry into universal credit and made a series of recommendations. Despite some welcome changes, fundamental issues remain a problem today. The lack of progress is perhaps best captured in the committee's conclusion that our committee this year put on record. It is unacceptable to make any claimant a minimum of five weeks before receiving the financial support that it is entitled to under universal credit. We urge the UK Government to urgently reform this design feature to ensure that payments are made within two weeks of an application being made, as was the case under legacy benefits such as jobseekers allowance. An obvious and clear mechanism by which inward poverty can be in part tackled within the social security system is to end the benefits freeze. According to Scottish Government research, welfare spending in Scotland was £3.7 billion pounds lower in the year 2020-21 that it would have been had welfare reform measures not been implemented. The biggest reduction is due to the UK Government's benefits freeze, which disproportionately impacts the poorest and weakest in society. It is the view of the Social Security Committee that the UK Government's freeze and benefits must be lifted. It is not realistic to expect any Scottish Government, any of any political colour, to top up or mitigate every UK Government welfare policy to ensure that income of Scottish claimants does not drop in real terms. We were also disappointed that we were not able to get a UK minister to accept our invitation to give evidence during our inquiry or since. We are still pressing for a UK Government minister to come to speak to the committee. I am sure that the Parliament will agree that this lack of engagement is an unacceptable and disappointing situation. During our inquiry, we visited Dundee and heard from those with lived experience of inward poverty who received universal credit. I encourage members to read the testimonies that are on record in our committee report, but let me highlight one in particular. A man in work who had been encouraged to move on to universal credit and advised wrongly he would be better off. As he waited to receive his first UC claimant, he applied for an advance. He managed the repayment of that advance and the change to how his rent was paid. His local job centre told him to approach his boss about getting more hours. No further hours were available. He was told that he should spend four hours a day looking for work, but all the sites listed offered the exact same limited amount of jobs. Our committee wants to secure improvements for that individual and the more than 50,000 people in Scotland in work already receiving universal credit, as well as for the estimated 170,000 families in Scotland who receive working tax credits who will be moved or migrated over to universal credit. Starting from summer 2019, they will be migrated from the HMRC's tax credit system to the DWP's universal credit regime and will be required to make a fresh application for universal credit. Being moved on to universal credit represents a significant change for claimants, not just a significant cultural change but a radical change of regime. The whole ethos of UC is very different from tax credits and the relationship that people require to have with the DWP is very different from the relationship that they currently have with the HMRC. The committee agrees that the managed migration should not proceed unless there is more clarity on what that will mean for those who have been expected to move over. It is the view of the committee that priority should be given to addressing the existing concerns with universal credit before seeking to move up to 3 million people currently in legacy benefits on to universal credit. A key aspect of that new regime is that although it has not been actively applied at the moment, a policy intention is that someone in receipt of universal credit could be subject to conditionality and potentially sanctions. That means losing money, despite working more than 16 hours a week. It will require a claimant already in work to take active steps to increase their earnings as an on-going condition of receiving UC. According to the OECD, that is unprecedented internationally. Indeed, in-work conditionality was the second most raised concern in our written submissions. Russell Gunson of the IPPR Scotland told us that conditionality for universal credit includes in-work requirements, so the onus is on the claimant to increase their earnings or hours. On to add, the idea that it is the sole responsibility of claimants to increase their earnings or hours to satisfy the universal credit system bears no relation to reality. Pete Serrow from the DWP acknowledged that there is no meaningful evidence of the efficacy of in-work conditionality. He told us that we do not have evidence at the moment about what could work and about the best ways of interacting with people in work. Given that the DWP has no evidence to support the development of in-work conditionality and more fundamentally that the committee is opposed to the principle of attaching punitive conditions to those already in work, the committee does not support any extension of in-work conditionality. Further more, as tax credits administered by HMRC are not subject to conditionality or sanction, there is a strong case to be made for not only halting further migration of people in receipt of tax credits to universal credit, but also to consider the removal of tax credit support from universal credit all together and continuing to use HMRC unless the threat of conditionality and sanctions are removed. The recurring theme that our committee heard was that the relationship between the job centre work coach and claimants was crucial. That can be extremely positive, but to build that relationship makes an investment of time and the development of trust absolutely important. The PCS union, which represents many DWP front-line staff delivering universal credit, has expressed serious concerns to DWP managers, including about in-work conditionality and do not feel they are being listened to. The committee suggests that the DWP pay much closer attention to the concerns that they raise. The committee believes that the dramatic reduction in the number of job centres at a time when universal credit has been rolled out across Scotland was also a serious error of judgment by the DWP. I know from my own experience with the closure of Maryhill job centre in my constituency that that has impacted in hard-fought relationships that were built up between work coaches and claimants, and in some cases those relationships have simply been terminated. Our committee concluded on job centre closures that that has impacted on service and compounded the disconnect between many service users and the DWP. We believe that there is a case to be made for the review of local access to DWP and other forms of employment support across Scotland to allow for a more localised and community-focused support in place of an increasingly remote and digital by default support system. All of that is far preferable to the threat of sanctioning of the working poor, supporting career progression for those in work without the threat of penalty. It is not only right, but it is likely to be far more productive. Universal credit is paid monthly in arrears based on earnings during what is known as a monthly assessment period. Circumstances are assessed on the last day of that assessment period, and earnings within the monthly assessment period are taken into account in that month's UC award. UC tops up earnings received during the assessment period. In this way, it is intended to smooth out fluctuations in income. However, there are issues with that. For example, fluctuating incomes from month to month become an issue in budgeting terms, but pay cycles more significantly differing from UC cycles—for example, people being paid four weekly or in the last Friday of the month and so on—where UC has seven periods and the job pay cycles are out of sync, the UC award can end up taking two paychecks into account one month and none the following. The committee has significant concerns about universal credit. Assessment dates are not aligning with paydays, and we recognise that the UK Government has said to now be urgently looking at that. We agree that that must urgently be addressed and have requested an update from the UK Government ministers following their considerations. Later on this afternoon, by summing up, I will raise a variety of other matters that are important in relation to the working poor and universal credit. However, for the time being, in my closing remarks for now, it is essential that the UK and Scottish Government work together meaningfully and constructively, while acknowledging respective policy differences. On that matter, the cabinet secretary will note that our committee made a case to review local access to DWP and other forums that support across Scotland to allow for that more localised community-focused support. That means that the Scottish Government must be able to demonstrate how it is seeking to work meaningfully in a strategic way with the UK Government to offer that community-focused employability support, and I would ask the cabinet secretary for details. The Scottish Government is also bringing forward proposals for a new income supplement. That must also take account of inward poverty. We await details of the supplement and of eligibility criteria. I invite the cabinet secretary to outline what progress has been made on that and what we expect will be a new social security benefit. Presiding Officer, I look forward to the contributions and suggestions from my parliamentary colleagues this afternoon and to the privilege of moving this motion in my name. Thank you very much. I call on the cabinet secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville to open for the Government. I thank the Social Security Committee for bringing this important matter to a debate today and for its hard work during the inquiry itself. I welcome the opportunity to give evidence to the committee last year and I am grateful to be able to contribute to today's debate. The committee's report on inward poverty makes for stark reading and shines a light on the urgency of this issue. The support provided by the UK Government to those in low-paying work is simply not enough to make ends meet. Just last month, our poverty and income inequality statistics showed that, after housing costs, 60 per cent of working-age adults and two thirds of children living in relative poverty in Scotland are from working households. Alongside record levels of employment in the UK, we have seen that record levels of households entering inward poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, in its tackling the rising tide of inward poverty briefing, rightly highlighted that jobs that are low-paid and insecure, offering only a dead end and not a stepping stone to a better job, trap people in poverty. That is why, as a Government, we have committed to a fair work future supporting the real living wage, opposing exploitative zero hour contracts and helping families to work and earn more. As the convener has highlighted, the Scottish Government has estimated that the UK Government's cuts will reduce spending in Scotland on welfare by approximately £3.7 billion by 2021. The benefit freeze does account for the biggest single reduction in social security spending, around £370 million by 2021. The level of benefits has been frozen since 2016, leading to the support that people desperately rely on falling further behind the cost of living. We have repeatedly pressed the UK Government to lift the benefit freeze and for benefits to be upgraded in line with inflation, but that has to date been refused. It is impossible to speak about inward poverty without discussing the impact of universal credit. Where previously people in low-paying work relied on working tax credits to help them manage, the option to make a new claim for tax credits is now gone and people are forced to turn to universal credit. As many of us will have seen in our constituency mailbags, there is a growing mounting of evidence that universal credit pushes people further into poverty rather than helping them out of it, and the social security committee's report adds to it. The five-week wait for the first U.C. payment is highlighted quite rightly by the committee as being unacceptable. The Scottish Government has made this point several times to the UK Government, as has many organisations. It is worth pointing out that this five-week wait is the very minimum waiting time, with many people waiting much longer for payments. Unbelievably, the DWP told the national audit office that it is unreasonable to expect all U.C. claims to be paid on time, but when someone is forced to rely on the DWP for financial support, I fail to see how they can possibly justify that position. The committee also noted that there is a lack of information available on the DWP's plans for managed migration—hardly surprising when they keep delaying it—and in the meantime, people who naturally migrate to universal credit through a change in circumstances will do so without transitional protection, meaning that they will see their entitlement significantly reduced. I am deeply concerned that natural migration will hit households even harder than managed migration, households already struggling to make ends meet. The longer the DWP takes to begin managed migration, the more people will find themselves moving to U.C. without protection. We have urged the UK Government on numerous occasions to halt the managed migration until universal credit is made fit for purpose. Universal credit was supposed to make work pay, and a key part of achieving that was the work allowance. Work allowances let people keep more of their earnings before their benefits are reduced. However, the UK Government has reduced work allowances so that they are now only available to people with responsibility for a child or with limited capability for work. For everyone else, as soon as they begin earning, their benefit is reduced. That means that more and more working people in Scotland are losing out as they move to universal credit. In its final report, the committee recommended the complete reversal of the cuts to work allowances, and I fully agree with that recommendation. I would now like to turn it to what the Scottish Government is doing on those issues. Unfortunately, we are limited in what we can do with universal credit. However, we are using the limited powers that we have to make the delivery of universal credit more flexible and better suited to the needs of those who are climbing it in Scotland. Since October 2017, the Scottish Government's universal credit Scottish choices has given people the choice to receive their award twice monthly and to have housing costs in their award paid directly to their landlord if they wish to do so. The take-up rate of the choices has been high, and from November 2017 to August 2018, over 66,000 people have been offered Scottish choices with 32,000 people almost half taking up one or both of those choices. That tells us that people want more flexibility and adaptability in how they receive the support that they are entitled to for their evidence that changes to the DWP's benefit system are needed. We are also committed to introducing split payments for universal credit awards for couples. That will provide access to an independent income to everyone claiming universal credit in Scotland and will promote our values of equality, dignity and respect in the social security system. We are currently working with the DWP to carry out an impact assessment of two policy options, and that will allow us to refine our policy proposals further. Despite that work, there is no doubt that the impacts of the UK Government's cuts are staggering. As I have said, cuts will amount to social security spending in Scotland, being £3.7 billion lower by 2020-21. We are already spending over £125 million this year to mitigate some of the worst impacts of the UK Government's cuts and to support those on low incomes. That includes over £60 million to cover the cost of discretionary housing payments and continue mitigating the UK Government's bedroom tax. £10.9 million worth in discretionary housing payments have been distributed to local authorities to help to address the impact of other cuts, including £8.1 million in recognition of the impact of the benefit cap. It also includes £38 million on the Scottish welfare fund, which provides a vital lifeline for people in need, providing support through crisis and community care grants. As of September last year, more than 316,000 households in Scotland have been helped with awards totaling £108 million to £1.6 million. By the end of this financial year, the Scottish Government will also have provided over £1.7 billion in funding for the council tax reduction scheme. The Scottish Government is not here, however, simply to paper over the cracks of the UK Government's welfare cuts. We simply cannot afford to cover the costs of billions of pounds each year. I hear regular calls for us to cover the costs of further cuts, but there are no suggestions as to what we should scrap if we are to do so. To be clear, every pound we spend off setting a UK Government cut means that we cannot spend that funding on other public services and priorities. I want this Government to be able to invest funds in pulling people out of poverty. That is why we are working hard to develop our new income supplement, which will provide additional financial support for low-income families who are the most at risk from the impacts of UK Government cuts. We risk all that if the extent of our ambitions is mitigating the decisions of another Government. It is something that the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights professor for Philip Alston last year described as outrageous. Let me finish with some more words from Professor Alston, who said of the UK Government's approach to welfare. Compassion for those who are suffering has been replaced by a punitive, mean-spirited and often callous approach. He continued to excessive UK Governments have presided over the systematic dismantling of the social safety net in the United Kingdom, the introduction of the universal credit and significant reductions in the amount of eligibility for important forms of support have undermined the capacity of benefits to loosen the grip of poverty. I welcome the Social Security Committee's report. It is yet more damning evidence that the UK Government's welfare system is simply no longer fit for purpose. In closing, let me assure the Parliament that we will continue in the Scottish Government to press for urgent changes that universal credit requires. We are committed to using the powers that we have over welfare to build a system that is based on dignity, fairness and respect. I thank the committee clerks and all those who gave evidence to the inquiry. Whilst during the finalising of the report, I have descended from a number of points and conclusions in the committee's final report for reasons that I will return to, it was an important inquiry because recognising that in-work poverty is a problem and committing to tackling it is the first step to ensuring that everyone who works can and should expect a better future. Last year's publication by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on poverty causes costs and solutions stated the following. The processes that cause poverty are complex. Simplistic explanations may focus on one factor, but solving poverty requires an approach that takes into account the impact of market and state structures as well as of individual choice. It is important to acknowledge that this inquiry is focused on one factor and, in doing so, has inherent weaknesses. The UK Government, as part of its welfare reforms, has committed to ensuring that work pays. The introduction of universal credit was at the centre of that reform, with the aim of simplifying the benefits system and ensuring that individuals and families were able to escape the legacy of benefits that trapped households into generational worklessness, a legacy that has seen the breakdown of the social contract between taxpayers and those who needed support, a legacy that led to the stigmatisation of those who were on benefits, a position that I hope we will never see again. We know from Scottish Government figures that between 2015 and 2018, 60 per cent of working-age adults who were considered to be in relative poverty were in working households. That figure rises to 65 per cent, equating to 160,000 individuals in the case of children. We also know that projections suggest that the overall poverty rates are likely to rise over the next few years. What is the relationship between in-work poverty and universal credit? In the words of David Finch of the Resolution Foundation, it is definitely too early to say that universal credit is having an impact on the poverty figures, especially because it was nowhere near being rolled out to everybody when his original survey was done, and it is still nowhere near being rolled out to everybody, so it will take time before we see the impact. Russell Gunson of IPPR Scotland acknowledged that, while universal credit and social security more generally have a big role to play in reducing and tackling poverty and in-work poverty, the economy and the income structure in Scotland and, of course, the United Kingdom will be as much, if not more, of an issue when tackling in-work poverty. Nobody disputes that universal credit has had its problems, particularly in the early days of its introduction. In his evidence, Robert Joyce from the Institute of Fiscal Studies reminded us that the overall rise of proportion in people who are in poverty and are in working households has been going on for some time. In itself, it is not a phenomenon that is related to universal credit. More importantly, he stated that a significant group of working households will keep more benefits under universal credit than they would have kept under the old system. In that direct sense, universal credit will top up and increase their incomes, which would tend to reduce in-work poverty. Part of the challenge of this inquiry was the fact that the roll-out of universal credit full service was under way during the inquiry, and it was only completed in December 2018. Bob Doris. Given Wade, it is an interesting quote that you just gave about winners and losers in relation to the new system. Would you agree with me that, in our committee report, we had concerns about the oversimplification of winners and losers under the new universal credit system, because those who lose tend to be the most vulnerable in society? Would you share those concerns? Interesting question. Interesting use of the language that I understood as a committee that we agreed that we would not use the term winners and losers. I think that that was something that you yourself called for, convener. There is no doubt that some people will benefit more from the introduction of universal credit and others will benefit less or may indeed be slightly worse off. I go back to my original point in the speech that we have yet to know exactly how that is going to look, and I will touch on something later on in my speech, which I think is important. No, I need to make some progress. Part of this challenge, as I said, was about the overlap as we were having the inquiry, and we have seen a number of announcements and changes during October and January designed to address some of the concerns. Attempting to untangle the web of legacy benefits and tax credits, split as they are between Treasury and the DWP, is a challenge that the Westminster Social Security Advisory Committee has made clear. A key part of the flexibility of universal credit is its test and learn approach. Previously, when something was not delivering effectively within the legacy system, there was no ability to change it. Now, new changes are tested, problems can be identified and solutions found, and I think that that is a really key factor, particularly in relation to Bob Doris's question. Paul Gray, the former chair of Westminster's Social Security Advisory Committee, remarked that the committee had welcomed the stated intention to test and learn, and on numerous occasions it has lent UC a flexibility that is light years ahead of any process offered by the legacy benefit system. As I visited job centres around the country, this is an approach that I have seen in action, and I know that it is highly thought of by the DWP staff who recognise that their input is listened to and acted on. Much of the division on the report often came down to a matter of words, for example the use of the word many rather than some, in itself seemingly insignificant, but we believe that it changes the emphasis of a paragraph and the story that it tells. Unfortunately, the inquiry was often bogged down in political positioning, with colleagues clearly identifying their position on universal credit and seeking answers to support their beliefs. I had hoped that we would all agree with the sentiments of Russell Gunston of the Institute of Public Policy and Research, who said in his evidence that bringing six means-tested benefits together on one single taper is a good and positive idea, but the funding levels that were originally promised have dropped significantly. Whether universal credit will work or not has to relate to three factors, the structure, the funding and how it is implemented. Our report calls for those funding levels to be restored, and I believe that the UK Government has shown it as ahead of us, having already increased the levels of funding not once but twice in the last two budget statements. When it came to the role of work coaches and conditionality, I did struggle with the evidence from PCS and found it to be politically motivated and could not support the conclusions that the committee chose to include. Recommending a return to the discredited system of tax credits, based on no evidence received by the committee unless conditionality and sanctions are removed, showed in my view a poor understanding of the system and, indeed, of the evidence that we heard. As in any inquiry, it is important that we identify the problems and offer solutions, and many of our contributors did so. Given his evidence to the committee, Russell Gunson said that there is an argument about whether any conditionality is right, but we would say that conditionality, even a means test, is likely to be needed as part of any system. Submissions from Oxfam and, ironically, the PCS both said that in-work progression could be positive if developed in a supportive way. Oxfam wrote that progression is fundamental in ensuring that work acts as a route out of poverty, but Oxfam does have concerns about how in-work progression policy has been conceptualised. Victoria Todd of the low-income tax reform group said that some people who had already working and who would have claimed tax credits but who, because of their area and now on universal credit, have had a positive experience of support from work coaches to increase the number of hours that they work, to look at other options or to get training. The stories that I have heard are not all negative in that respect. Kirstie McKetney said that I will reiterate what Rob Gowens has said about it being a potential improvement on universal credit in the number of hours or different weeks. Those who have fluctuating hours or perhaps have low hours, it used to be that there would be a cliff edge of 16 hours where you would no longer be entitled to job seekers allowance or employment and support allowance. There was a bit of a gap before you worked enough hours to get the working tax credit. That group of people will now be supported, but she agreed that applying sanctions might not help to improve people's ability to either look for work or increase their hours. It is a mixed report, some of which I totally agree with and some of which I have difficulty with, but it is something that we need to keep monitoring. When we contribute to the question of universal credit and in working poverty, it needs to be on a constructive basis because we have a test and learn approach that could improve it for everybody. Presiding Officer, like my colleagues on the Social Security Committee, I am grateful to see our report come to the chamber. Once again, we are forced to consider the catastrophic impact of welfare reform, which is pushing working people into poverty. However, you do not need to read the report to know how miserable the situation has become. Right now, almost 400,000 adults in Scotland are going out to work but are still living in poverty. Two thirds of kids living in poverty are in a household that works, falling behind everyone else in society and making decisions about whether they can buy food or need to get a food parcel. I am no doubt thankful for the mild winter that we have just had with people being terrified about the meter running out or the fuel bill landing on the map. It is absolutely heartbreaking and needs to be fixed. Like the convener and others, I want to thank the clerks for their work on the committee, as well as the excellent evidence that we received from a broad range of experts, such as the Resolution Foundation, IPPR, CAS and a range of food banks. Although the report is important, I am doubtful that any of the mums and dads getting ready for a night shift or heading to their second job of the day care much for yet more discussion, what they want to see is action. In preparation for the inquiry, the committee made its usual call for evidence. We had just one written submission from Sarah McLean, which came from an individual with lived experience of being in work and in poverty. Recently, having moved to full-time work on tax credits, she told us, although I love my job, it is something that I am passionate about. The recent changes to my work on tax credits has highlighted that going to full-time work does not pay. I am bringing home only marginally more than when I was working part-time. She talks about the opportunity costs of that full-time work, which then becomes harder than the financial hit. I missed my daughter's last day of primary school because it was my first day at work. I was unable to take my son to his first day of P2.  That mantra of work being the best route out of poverty, we all agree that something should be logically correct. Of course, it should, but the simple fact is that the link between working hard and keeping your head above water is broken. The report does not say it outright, but ultimately the committee heard that universal credit is not fit for purpose. It is plunging people into poverty, arrears and destitution. What the report does lay out, just as it is echoed by CAS and others in their briefing, is how people are being dragged through a system that just does not care for families wellbeing or stability. We were told that UC would mirror the world of work and make it pay, but leaving people without income for at least five weeks or with salaries fluctuating wildly every month is simply state-sponsored malpractice that decent employers would reject up and down the country. The simple fact is that universal credit systematically fosters poverty. Even if you do manage to get a regular payment, you hit with a marginal tax rate of over 70 per cent. What's the point in trying to earn more when your tax rate is 70 per cent? Philip Hammond's £1,000 increase in the work allowance is welcome, but it goes nowhere near undoing the 2015 cuts and the 2p reduction in the taper rate to 63p did not do that either. The Tories are well behind the curve on this, and that's why the committee report that we stated the need to restore the funding that was taken away in 2015. Could the member say clearly whether he believed that legacy benefits were better for working people who were trying to get back to work, whether that be a single mum, than universal credit is? Is that what he's saying? I'm just about to come on to that and the point that the intervention that the convener made on Michelle Ballantyne was about how vulnerable people would be affected by universal credit. Michelle Ballantyne made the claim that we aren't quite clear yet on who is going to be worse off or not, but what I can tell you is that we do have figures for that. I would expect Michelle Ballantyne to want to know what the figures are for lone parents, for disabled households without housing costs. They will be £1,940 and £1,220 worse off every single year, and I would expect the Tory benches to know the impact that universal credit is and will continue to have on vulnerable working people. In my region in central Scotland, 28,000 people have moved on to universal credit since the roll-out started in October 2017. They are suffering from rent arrears, which have quadrupled. They are having to pay back £11 million in advances at a rate of 40 per cent. They face a brutal conditionality system that forces them to find more work. In constituents who have been in touch with my office recently, I have told just how aggressive and pernicious UC really is. One saw their tax rebate, which was income that they earned last year and were unfairly taxed on, swallowed up as income and had their UC payments cut. Another had their UC payments cut and money now clawed back because the DWP failed to take account of their student loan payments, and that student informed their work coach and put the information on their log as their advice to do six months ago. Our report looks specifically at the social security system, but it is hard to ignore the fact that Brexit, another mess of the Tory's making, will have a devastating effect on those on low incomes. We might have stepped back from a devastating no-deal Brexit, but risks of price rises, falls and wages, lower employment and lower tax revenues will do nothing to stop pushing working people below the bread line. When we were taking evidence in the autumn, universal credit was one of the few things that actually cut through the Brexit fog. The report rightly recognises that much-needed changes were made in the budget, but the 2015 cuts must be reversed and full. On that, the Tory members agreed, but littered throughout the report as a trail of dissent and opposition, showing just how unwilling the Tories are to accept the impact that universal credit is having on people across the country. However, an important conclusion in the report is that social security is becoming a shared responsibility. In fact, it is almost a year to the day that the chamber agreed to the social security act. I have told the chamber before that I was one of four children. My parents worked hard, my father is a welder, my mother is a bank clerk to support the family that they chose to have. My dad was diagnosed with a serious heart condition at the age of 37 and was unable to carry on doing the work that he was trying to do and had been doing for 20 years. Who plans for that when they start a family? Who plans for redundancy, career-ending illness or even a death at 47? Where is the support network? Where is the state support that children depend on day in, day out when circumstances change beyond anyone's comprehension? We cannot mitigate every cut, we accept that, but refusing to act on the two-child limit and the rape clause is shameful. They call it mitigation, but people have to be assured that Holyrood will act and is better than this callous Tory Government and, frankly, Scots don't care what colour of government provide that support. The report is a starting point, but we now need to change where we can and MSPs must act to. I thank all who gave evidence in writing and in person and the committee clerks and advisers who helped to prepare the report. Poverty statistics released just a few weeks ago make for truly sobering reading. As we have heard, nearly two thirds of Scots children who are in poverty are from families, where at least one adult is in employment. That is almost a 20 per cent increase over two decades. That is why it is vital that we have a social security system that allows people to live free from poverty when they cannot work and to support them into well-paying work with prospects when they can. The committee's investigation focused on universal credit, which was designed to tackle in work poverty, but too often universal credit makes life more difficult for people in that situation. Universal credit has become too easy a target for Governments trying to find savings. As Michelle Ballantyne noted, the committee heard from IPPR Scotland's Russell Gunson that funding levels that were originally promised have dropped significantly. The work allowances that allow recipients of universal credit to earn more before having their entitlement reduced were slashed in the 2015 budget. Some of those cuts will be restored as a result of the most recent budget, but not entirely. Some people face worse, less appealing, less attractive work incentives than before the cuts. Some, despite promises that no one will experience a reduction in the benefit that they receive as a result of the introduction of universal credit, will still be worse off. That is without taking into account the range of other cuts that people are subjected to, not least the four-year freeze on benefits and tax credits that arbitrarily freezes incomes at 2016 levels, meaning that real incomes reduce. No wonder, then, that many of the committee witnesses from food banks say that universal credit, along with other cuts, is a significant driver of food bank use. After years of denying that, even the DWP is beginning to admit that that may indeed be the case. However, one of the overwhelming messages that came through the evidence was that so many elements of the design of universal credit have not taken into account the realities of what it is to be in low-paid work, what it is like and, even worse, have flown in the face of advice that has been given. As far back as 2012, before the UK Government was introduced, the women's budget group warned that the monthly assessment period would mean that many recipients would have difficulty in anticipating, in advance, the effect of changes of circumstances on their entitlement for the coming month. That would be a particular issue for claimants on low incomes who tended to have very frequent changes of circumstances. Fast forward seven years in those warnings unfortunately have come to pass. The committee heard that the monthly assessment period is causing myriad problems. Child poverty action group and others have told us that where the universal credit assessment period and wages do not line up, there could be two monthly wages paid within the same period. That means that your UC entitlement is reduced or withdrawn entirely, so the recipient has to reapply and can lose passported benefits such as crucial support for school meals. Incomes from universal credit can fluctuate hugely. The group's rough justice report cites an example of a couple whose UC income over a six-month period ranged between nothing—zero—and £1,200. With the people affected saying that, we do not know if we are coming or going from month to month, it makes budgeting so difficult because you just do not know what you will get. That is one of a huge number of examples where the UK Government has not taken heed of evidence that was staring them in the face. The committee notes that the UK Government has repeatedly said that there are no plans to change the monthly assessment period, despite the problems created by fluctuating UC awards. Even when they have listened—I accept that some positive changes to universal credit have been made—but they are often made years after the concern was first raised and after the damage has been done. There is a lesson here for the Scottish Government in setting up the new devolved benefits. Changes to social security need to be based on expert advice, which more often than not can predict problems ahead of time. Expertise from specialist organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group and Women's Budget Group, among others, and the trade unions representing the staff who run the system, and the unique expertise that is held by people who have personal lived experience of the social security system and of low-paid work. Women and children are being hit hardest. As in gender, women are twice as likely to be reliant on social security as men. The Scottish Government has made a good start when it comes to listening to people. The social security experience panels are an excellent example, as are the many ways the Social Security Scotland Act changed as a result of consultation. It is important that that continues even when it is more difficult for the Government. The Scottish Government has repeatedly refused calls to introduce a £5 top-up to child benefit. Despite a huge swath of civic Scotland under the Give Me Five banner, it is a reliable way of getting money to the poorest families right now. I look forward to the Government's forthcoming statement on the proposed income supplement, but that will take years to come and top up as feasible much sooner. Too many families are living on far below what is an acceptable minimum income, and despite being assured that work is a way out of poverty, a shocking proportion of people, including 160,000 Scots children, experience poverty within working households. Despite promises to the contrary, for some people universal credit is making this worse, not better. We need to reclaim the idea that when everyone has a decent amount to live on and, crucially, that income is stable and predictable, everyone benefits. That might be through social security, through work or a combination of both. Our social security systems both reserved and devolved, but particularly universal credit still have a long way to go before we can realise that vision, and Greens will keep up the pressure for that. Alex Cole-Hamilton Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I, too, start by commending the work of the committee in this regard. I think that it is a really important subject. Growing up and learning about economics, I always thought that there was a correlation between employment rates and poverty. We give people more jobs, better jobs, and we can lift them out of poverty. Over the past 10 to 20 years, we have seen the spectre of in-work poverty rise. It is insidious and belies the fact that employment statistics cannot be a barometer for a nation's poverty or its affluence any more. I also would like to say a word in support of the work of this Government. I have said many times that I think that our approach to this issue is very much in step. I thank them again for their conciliatory and consensus approach to social security in this regard. I would like to offer the support of these benches, both in terms of the committee's conclusions around the immediate end to the four-year freeze in benefits, and the recasting of universal credit that is urgently required in terms of how it is administered and how it is still being rolled out, and a reversal to the cuts that we have seen by the Westminster Government since 2015. My party's approach to social security has always been about poverty reduction, social mobility and making work pay. A lot has been said about my party's role in coalition Government, but there are two things that I am very proud of in our time in that Government. The first is the lifting of the income tax threshold, which, at a stroke, did more to address poverty according to the Guardian than in the previous 14 years, and in acting as a sea anchor against the Tory cuts, which immediately became manifest when we left coalition in 2015. That was picked up by the committee in its report recognising what happened to in-work allowance cuts in 2015 when we left. That reality is visited in all our surgeries, in case work, every single day of the week when we are back in our constituencies. It is up to us. We need a three-fold and a triumvirate approach to addressing in-work poverty. That is about providing that adequate safety net for when people are out of work, fostering social mobility and making work pay. The imperative has been laid out in many excellent speeches in this debate already. The 240,000 children in this country who are still in poverty are tackling the inexorable link between financial worries and mental ill health. 86 per cent of people with mental health issues cite financial concerns as a principal part of their anxiety and distress, and suicide is three times higher in deprived communities in this country. As I said, it is ensuring that that safety net when people are out of work is adequate or where their need for work supplement is required. At the top of my remarks, my views and those of my party are largely in step with the approach of this Government in terms of where it wants to see social security deployed in this country, but also how we need to redress and recast the roll-out of universal credit in this country. That first took place in my constituency, as I am sure it did in many member's constituencies in November 2018, just before Christmas. Indeed, the consequences of, in many cases, that five-week minimum weight that people had to transfer over to the universal credit bit home right around Christmas time, and that was manifest in a huge uptick in the need for food banks in my constituency and, indeed, in case work coming through my door and that of Christine Jardin, our local MP, as well. Such was the range of legacy benefits, and so rapid was that changeover that many were left confused and stranded in many cases, without entirely sure what their recourse was. That reflected very well in the committee's recommendations in their conclusions, recognising that there is still no adequate online or telephone support for people struggling with the vagaries of the bureaucracy around the roll-out of UC. The digital by default phenomenon, where we recognise that most people are being bounced into the transfer through a digital platform, whereas one third of benefit recipients are unlikely to have adequate connection to the internet either at home or through a place accessible to them. I think that it is very important as well, and we have raised this several times, and rightly so in this chamber, the link between universal credit and domestic abuse and the unforeseen consequences in that. We saw that in discussions around payment to a single claimant in single claimant households where spousal abuse might be an issue, but I think that the committee raises that perfectly. It has comments around transitional protections where, once again, abusive relationships have clearly just not been factored into the permutations and the considerations of its roll-out by the Westminster Government. In conclusion, my party agrees wholeheartedly that we must end the freeze on benefits immediately. We must completely reverse the cuts to in-work benefits that were made in 2015 following our departure in coalition, and we must drive up take-up of entitlements, because people are still left unaware of the benefits to which they are allowed or entitled. We need to dramatically change the way in which we are giving people the money. The five-week waiting time is leading to irreparable damage, to evictions, to food, bank use and destitution. If universal credit was originally designed to make work pay, to make the benefits strata more simple, then it is wholly failed in that regard. There is an obligation on every party in this chamber and, indeed, the Government to address that. We now move to the open debate. It is speeches of six minutes, please. However, I have quite a bit of time in hand, so I am happy to give extra time for interventions and responses. I call Keith Brown to be followed by Jamie Halcro Johnston. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak today on in-work poverty, an issue that is of particular importance to many of our constituents and also on the findings of the report of the Social Security Committee, a committee of which I am a member, on the impact of universal credit on in-work poverty. Like many members, I have met many constituents whose migration across to universal credit has been fraught with difficulties, resulting in significant and extreme hardships, prolonged rent arrears, falling behind on bills and able to clothe children. I have had so many constituents I held some months ago a summit on the impact of the roll-out in my area of universal credit. Unfortunately, neither of the two Tory MPs in my area were able to come along, but they would have heard some absolutely harrowing tales of the impact of universal credit and its roll-out on real people. The report compiles the experiences of those suffering under what is a toxic Tory policy, along with the testimonies of organisations struggling to pick up the strain to support claimants and provide it in one damning document. It is also true to say that some of the points that have been made about the impact on families and children are true, but I understand that it is even worse in England than Wales, where some of the mitigations that I will mention later on are not available. It makes for grim reading, and it is not surprising at all to me that the Tories do not want to agree with the report. Usually, we can expect those in the Tory benches to stand up to make an attempt at defending universal credit and its roll-out, sometimes saying that despite its many flaws, so far today they have not even offered that caveat. Scottish Tories, it appears, are even more blindly loyal to flawed Tory policies than the counterparts south of the border. In their evidence, the IPPR noted that in-work poverty cannot be divorced from the economy. As a former economy secretary, did he take any responsibility at all for that? Indeed, I did. One of the things that she did to try and alleviate in-work poverty was to support the national wage, which her party has never supported. That would have a major impact on in-work poverty, not a mention of that from the Tories so far today. No one who has met and spoken with constituents nor read the report can arrive at any other conclusion than that universal credit has resulted in the rolling out of misery and undue hardship, forcing those most in need of our support into poverty. Every day, the case for halting and reforming universal credit, as we have just heard from Alex Douglass. Alex, to be colloquial, we have just heard that it should be halted and stopped and it should be rethought. That has been said by many people, including those organisations that are working most closely with it. With the evidence gathered in this report, we would be forgiven for wondering if the results that we are seeing were not the intended outcome. From what we have heard from the cabinet secretary, it is abundantly clear that the Scottish Government and the UK Government approach to social security fundamentally differ.  Nine months ago, more than 7,000 claimants were promised by the Tories that we backpaid vital, severe disability payments. This week, they find out that they might have to wait a further six months for payments that they rely on other entitled to, an absolute disgrace. Scottish Conservatives put out today a statement saying that they cannot trust the SNP with the pound in your pocket. Quite rich come from a party that spent billions of on overspend, on aircraft carriers, on HHS2, on Brexit, on Crossrail, fake ferry contracts, but the most egregious negligence was where the Tories did not spend money. Money due to many disabled, profoundly disabled people who were profoundly in need. It is clear that they cannot trust the Tories when, if you are a profoundly disabled person, your pound is in the Tories' pockets. Using new social security powers, the Scottish Government is creating a system based on dignity and respect, ensuring support for those who need it most. Since last year, the carers allowance supplement has given over 77,000 carers and extra £442, recognising the incredible contributions that they make. Over 7,000 low-income households have received payments of the best start grant pregnancy and baby payment, ensuring that the children of Scotland have the best possible start in life. By the end of this year, the Scottish Government will have introduced the best start grant nursery age payment £250 for families when their child starts nursery, the best start grant school payment £250 for families when their child starts school. They will have introduced the funeral expense assistance, helping families with contributions towards a funeral, and the young carer grant, which is awarded to young carers 16 to 18 years old who do at least 16 hours of care a week but do not qualify for carers allowance. Once again, I will give the opportunity to any Tory MSP that will stand up and say, beyond 2021, that they will continue to support those benefits. Once again, not a single Tory MSP will give that commitment. We can all read into that. The fact that what the Tories would ever do, if they had the control of relievers of power, would prioritise tax cuts and would cut benefits from working people and people in poverty in order to pay for those tax cuts. Each of those benefits make a substantially positive difference to individuals and families across Scotland, treating them with compassion. That is what a social security system looks like when it is created by a Government that recognises its responsibility to tackle enduring inequalities and reducing poverty. Politics, as we all know, is a question of power and how it prioritises the use of that power. We often hear the bad joke that the Tories will win in 2021. This Government has made the decision to substantially change the lives of the people of Scotland for the better and has committed significant funding to tackle in-work poverty. The question for the Tories is, will they go into the election supporting the continuation of those benefits? What kind of party will they be in 2021? My guess is that it will be the same old Tories—tax cuts for the richest, wealthy being looked after by the Conservatives and the poor being punished. Many would appreciate some new campaign slogans such as Scottish Tories, the party of in-work poverty. However, it is much as clear that only the Scottish National Party that can be trusted on social security and falls social security powers should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The Tories do not represent the best of what Scotland can achieve and they have to change their policy, otherwise they will continue to be met with universal and justified discredits. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Social Security Committee's report on in-work poverty. Last week, the O&S released figures showing that Scotland is following trends across the UK with employment at record highs and unemployment at record lows. That is undoubtedly to be welcomed, but many people in work still find themselves in low-income employment and without the opportunities and rewards that we all hope work should represent. We can, of course, look at wage growth as an important metric. Emerging from the last recession, the period of exceptional growth in employment was not matched by the similar positive levels of wage growth. This trend, however, shows signs of reversing. Across the UK we are now seeing not only the gains in employment consolidated but also real-terms increases in wages that look to be sustainable. As the independent Office for Budget Responsibility reported in this year's spring statement, wage growth has been revised up to 3 per cent or higher in each year of its forecasts. However, as wages grow increasingly ahead of inflation, the chamber needs little reminding that there will be productivity growth that will make a real impact on the incomes of working people in this country and establish a strong economy. In that regard, we have more work to do across the UK, but the problem of productivity remains more acute in Scotland than the UK average, despite the Scottish Government's pledge to put those issues at the front and centre of its economic policy. As the committee has heard, no one factor can address poverty in itself. In-work poverty is heavily concentrated in a relatively small number of sectors. Nevertheless, those sectors can be large employers. We should be looking at the particular issues that arise in those sectors and what support Government can offer at this level. We should also bear in mind that measuring relative income poverty is necessarily narrow and that an analysis of one metric alone is likely to ignore particular problems in our economy. In remote Nile and Lim communities, for example, higher costs of living have a considerable impact on how people's incomes can be spent. Current statistics measure income poverty before and after housing costs. That is certainly important as increasing housing costs are a major drain on household incomes, particularly those of young people who are less likely to own their homes and who are more likely to find themselves more exposed to changes in the property market through the rental sector. However, that analysis ignores energy costs, transport costs and a whole suite of additional expenses that reduce disposable income for families, particularly in my region. I spoke earlier not only about employment and wages but about opportunities in the workplace. In discussions about the levers that are necessary to address low pay, the Scottish Government has often brushed over the most obvious and most important area that has been within its control since the advent of devolution, education and skills. The reality is that building good quality and high paying work will take real and targeted effort to ensure that people have the skills to succeed in the labour market. That is not only about young people entering employment for the first time, but also about providing opportunities for people who are established in their careers to re-skill and develop in line with their aspirations. Increasingly, a skilled workforce will be essential in our rapidly changing economy. While it is tempting to see that in terms of investment in our future productivity, there is also an individual angle in creating a society where people have choices and can grasp opportunities without being held back. Employability is one part of the process, and the committee has welcomed the Scottish Government's commitment to providing employment support for those moving into work. While we have seen early figures from the newly devolved employability programmes, there has been a troubling lack of detail which has hampered any real examination of their performance so far. The committee also noted the positive impact of Job Centre Plus work coaches in supporting those moving into work or looking to progress in their careers. There is clearly a need for services to work together in a positive way to achieve the best outcomes. Public services are at their very best when support is personalised and reflects the need of the individual. I would also like to touch briefly on personal debt, which is an area that was not examined in the report despite consideration of a number of the outcomes for households with low incomes. For those on the lowest incomes or those whose incomes are made largely by income assessed benefits, sizable debt repayments will always have the effect of pushing incomes below tolerable levels. We know that a very large proportion of people who are facing real financial difficulty have—yes? Alasdair Allan I thank the member for giving way. He mentions quite rightly the problems associated with debt. Does he feel that waiting five weeks for an initial payment of a benefit to which you are entitled may be a factor in pushing people into debt? Jamie Halcro Johnston As I have mentioned, and as I will come to it, there are a number of various areas that cause problems, and that is one that has been looked at. For those on the lowest incomes or those whose incomes are made largely by income assessed benefits, sizable debt repayments will always have the effect of pushing incomes below tolerable levels. We know that a very large proportion of people who are facing real financial difficulty have debt problems, and we should be looking not only at tackling those issues when they become a problem but at equipping people with the tools to manage spending. Presiding Officer, it is clear as the committee heard that in-work poverty has a range of causes, but few simple solutions. While there are many positive signs of improvement, growing wages, the number of people in work at historic highs, issues remain and undoubtedly have a deep impact on people's lives. There have been several successful interventions. The increased minimum wage levels following the announcement of the national living wage have been a major change for the lowest earners in our society. So, too, has taken an increasing number of those who are the lowest earners out of paying tax altogether. Within this mix—I have not got time, I am afraid—within this mix, this Parliament has a great many levers that can make a positive impact on in-work poverty. Unfortunately, to often, this Scottish Government has been more inclined towards pointing the finger of blame elsewhere, while ignoring areas where it clearly has failed to make progress. In many cases, such as its record in education, this Government's policies have built upon problems for the future. However, is it imperative on all of us to look towards building a society where work pays, where opportunities are within people's reach and why a higher pay is underpinned by a strong economy? I was a former member of the welfare reform committee in the last session of the Parliament and a former convener of the Social Security Committee. I am familiar with much of the work that has been done. I am very surprised to hear from the Tory benches that they are waiting to see what the impacts of universal credit will be and its outcome. It has been a failing benefit since its introduction. Indeed, I visited the Highlands and Islands, who were one of the pilot roll-outs for universal credit in Scotland. Already, only months into that pilot, they were telling us about the increase in rent arrears experience to provide people and the increased need for food bank use in its area. We know that it has been failing from day one. There was also significant work done by Sheffield's Harlem University in looking at the impact of welfare reform. We know that the people who were going to be most affected by that were single-parent families, young men under 25, and disabled people. We have known about that for a long, long time, so it is very disappointing to say that people are still waiting to see what the outcomes will be. Elaine Smith, I thank the member for taking intervention. I wonder whether the member, like me, received the briefing from Citizens Advice Scotland, who work day and daily with clients who are detrimentally affected by universal credit, so perhaps she would recommend that that is reading to our Conservatives of colleagues. I certainly would encourage them to read and listen to the people who are affected by those appalling legislative decisions by their Government. I want to talk about what we call social security. I think that Michelle Ballantyne mentioned it about it being a social contract. That is a social contract between the citizens of a country and their Government. The impetus for social security systems should be to champion the vulnerable, protect those who are most at need, and it is intrinsic to that social contract. What we see is the othering of disabled people, the othering of those who are in need and in zero hours' contract, and the othering of those who are in receipt of disability. The breaking of that social contract with the effect on the waspy women and, as Mr Brown mentioned, the effect on those who have lost out on severe disability entitlement payments that they are yet to be reconvened for, despite that being promised over a year ago for those people in a botched roll-out of universal credit transfer. The statistics are shameful and astonishingly there is very little sign of this UK Government listening. By 2021, the social security spending in Scotland is expected to be reduced by around £3.7 billion and over £3 billion, stripped from those who need it most. That is at the result of austerity from Westminster. The annual welfare reform report finds that the UK Government's benefit for use has led to a reduction of around £190 million in the current year, and that will rise to £370 million by 2021. However, the current UK Administration seems content with its legacy. It has no understanding, no empathy and little understanding of how precarious the financial position is for those who are most at need and how easily any delay in payment and any delay or mix-up due to the monthly payments through universal credit can force a family into financial crisis. The denial of a universal credit figures are important and, importantly, represent an on-going problem, yet we see little from the UK Government to see that they are addressing the gross level of inequality that the roll-out has caused. If we just look at food bank use as the most striking example, operators and volunteers of food banks are dedicated and compassionate people are doing what they can to mitigate systemic imbalance. They should not be needed. It is a damming indictment of the current social security system that food banks exist in the first place. The Trussell Trust has told us that, in areas with full roll-out of universal credit for 12 months or more, food bank use has increased by 52 per cent. That is staggering. Thousands of Scots are driven into poverty by UK Government policy. They face the ignominy of relying on charity food parcels, and then the same UK Government is a commodity to pillery those people, the othering of the most vulnerable. In fact, the UK Government spent over £120 million fighting appeals by claimants who were denied the benefits last year. 70 per cent of those appeals were won by their claimants who were entitled to the support. 70 per cent failure rate of the decision-making of the DWP. In any other walk of life, that would be seen as a failed system, and it should long since have been fixed by the Tory Government. Last year, I hosted a reception for menu for change. It was written by a volunteer from a food bank in London. It told the stories of the people who came along and attended, and of one of the volunteers who was in work poverty. It brought home to me just how incredibly divisive the use of charity within a social security system is that it should not be needed and should not be acceptable. I am very pleased that, during that, the panel praised the work of the Scottish Government in its access to the Scottish welfare fund in ensuring that people who are in crisis have access with dignity to support from this Government. I have not got time to say much more about it, but this is a hugely important report by the committee, and I welcome it in the chamber today. Elaine Smith, followed by Tom Arthur. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am not a member of the committee, but I want to start by thanking the committee for the work that they have done in preparing the report. Despite what the Tories claim, there is no doubt that the impact of the changes to the benefit system, and in particular the roll-out of universal credit, has brought hardship to a number of households in this country. Indeed, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights also advised that it had a bigger impact on women. As we have heard so far in the debate, in what poverty is on the increase, that is just not acceptable. Nearly 60 per cent of those who use food banks came from households where at least one person was in work. The step-change charity, which recently heard an information event here in Parliament, has reported that UK-wide in 2018, 55 per cent of new clients of theirs were in employment. There Scotland in the red report gives us more information about what is happening, estimating that more than 700,000 people in Scotland are in or at risk of problem debt. That problem debt is primarily a symptom of poverty, poor housing conditions, welfare cuts, ill health and insecure work. Problem debt simply cannot be addressed by advising that people should learn how to budget, because no matter how skillful you might be, it is not possible to create a budget out of nothing, and that is often what is left to people at the end of the week. As the child poverty action group points out in a very helpful briefing for this debate, in the past three years, 65 per cent of children living in poverty are within households with at least one adult in work, appointed by Mark Griffin in his opening contribution. That is from the Scottish Government's analysis of poverty and income inequality, and it is shameful. Although Tory austerity is certainly to blame for much of the poverty in this country, if we are to be serious about developing policies and interventions that reverse the trend, the Parliament must also take some responsibility. It really is not good enough to pass all of the responsibility to the UK Parliament nor to place the blame solely on the aspects of the social security system reserved to Westminster. The committee report draws attention to a number of steps that the Scottish Government could be taking to improve people's lives here and now. I want to focus on that. As I raised in the chamber before the Easter recess and, indeed, as was raised by Alison Johnstone in her contribution, the refusal to consider an immediate uplift in child benefit, while more and more families struggle to put food on the table, seems to me to be indefensible. We still do not seem to have clear progress on the proposed income supplement other than a letter through the committee assuring us that a report will come in June. Perhaps I could ask the minister and respond to the debate to let us know how the income supplement will actually take account of the reality of the flexible labour market of today. I think that we need to get answers to some of those questions. Payment of the living wage, Presiding Officer, is not a requirement for many public sector contracts and it should be. The Government's national standard on funded early learning and childcare providers requires that the staff delivering the childcare should receive the living wage. However, as highlighted by a Scottish Parliament research paper just this month and by Audit Scotland, that applies only to the actual areas that staff member works on ELC-funded places, so there could be two rates of pay for different times of the day for the same staff member. Furthermore, the requirement does not apply to all staff in the nursery or daycare facility. Again, there is nothing in a publicly funded contract that provides for a living wage as a minimum for the cleaning staff, the janitors or the other support workers. That is only one example. There are many more and we can do something in Scotland today about wage levels and about contracts. Decent, well-paid and secure employment is what is needed to ensure that standards of living rise and in-work poverty falls. Employment statistics deserve far closer examination for us to fully understand the reality of what is happening in people's lives. If I could turn to the Scottish welfare fund, it was mentioned by Clare Adamson in the contribution previous to my own. That is another resource over which the Scottish Government has control. Community care grants and crisis grants are administered at a local authority level, but in some areas, they are difficult to apply for due to lengthy and very intrusive forms and questions, so that is something that the Government would look at. The committee asks that the grants be increased, and I support that call, but we must also ask what is being done to ensure that there is no underspend in the fund and that the payments reach all those who need them. Last year, there was an underspend of £2.3 million in Scotland in the Scottish welfare fund, and we know that, during that time, food bank use continued to rise. The eligibility criteria for it includes low-income households, whether they are not receiving benefits and with or without children. In fact, 54 per cent of the households that were assisted by the Scottish welfare fund over the past five years were single-person households. I think that that might indicate a level of need that requires specific policy intervention, something that the Government might want to pick up from this debate. The most common Scottish welfare fund crisis grant expenditure, reported up to September 2018, was for food, essential heating expenses and other living expenses. There are crisis grants, of course, which will include recipients who are in work, and food for which we should all have a basic right, the right to food accounts for 60 per cent of crisis grant expenditure, so that is for people who are actually in work as well. Basically, what we are is a society that is failing to feed everyone, and that has got to change. In closing, I commend the recommendations in the report to the chamber, and again thank the committee, everyone who gave evidence and the clerks, for the report, but also urge the Government and Parliament itself to do far more with the powers at our disposal to change direction and to reverse the growing gap between rich and poor in our society. We really cannot afford to not address child poverty right now in our society. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate, and I would like to begin by commending the Social Security Committee on what I thought was a very worthwhile, considered and timely report. That has been reflected in the contributions that we have had from across the chamber this afternoon. One theme that has run among many speeches, at least I think on those benches, is the revelation between what we are discussing in the abstract to the lived experience of our constituents, often in debating matters such as social security, given the complexity of policy and the huge sums of money involved. It can be rather easy, as I say, to slip into the abstract. I think that one of the most effective elements of the committee report is to be found on page 14, but it gives first-hand accounts of those lived experiences. I have made use to share with the chamber case 1 and page 14, a woman living with her partner in young child. Since moving to universal credit, she owes more than £7,000 on her credit card. Case 2, a single parent sanctioned for volunteering in a community project instead of spending that time looking for paid work. Case 3, children caught stealing food from a community garden. Their mother had no money for food. As her USA claim had been delayed for a week, it needs 21st century Scotland that we are living in. That is what is happening around us, not because of the policy actions of this Government that this Parliament has elected to hold to account, but because of the policy actions of the UK Government at Westminster, which has been successfully rejected in Scotland at previous elections. It raises a question about what is the role of this Parliament, and I know that there is a debate regarding what our responsibilities are. It is worth noting and reiterating the point that the cabinet secretary made. We are spending now over £120 million every year mitigating welfare cuts from the UK Government. £120 million is what we spend on the people equity fund. Something that I know is having a transformative impact for young people and particularly young people from rather challenged backgrounds in my constituency. I think that what we could do with that additional £120 million, if we did not have to spend at mitigating cuts, is that we did not make and for which we do not receive the savings. The debate about poverty and the debate about in-work poverty is, of course, as many members have alluded to, incredibly complex. Social security is but one aspect of that. As I have said, the work of this report highlights where the challenges are within reserved benefits. The contribution from the cabinet secretary and some of my colleagues highlights the work that the Scottish Government is doing to mitigate that, but there is broader work that has been undertaken, of course, which is the Scottish Government's commitment to fair work. That is also important as the Scottish Government's commitment on public sector pay. We understand that there is a relationship between public sector pay and private sector pay. Salaries can become more competitive when we increase public sector pay, but, again, those are tangential. We are attempts to mitigate and we are not dealing with the problem at source. Where I have a grave concern is that, when I think about where we will be in two years' time, four years' time and ten years' time, with the challenges that are coming down the track and the labour market, if we are not able to address those issues at source, we will not be able to mitigate the catastrophic damage that will be inflicted on the livelihoods of our constituents and communities that are being disadvantaged because some people are being sanctioned for seeking to go and do community work, as the report highlights. I think that the solution ultimately is to be for this Parliament to be responsible for all powers over social security, rather than for this piecemeal approach. I understand the arguments for pragmatism, for focusing on the powers that we have, but we are limited in what we can do. We have already highlighted 230,000 children in poverty—one in four, one in ten children in persistent poverty. That is important because, with the cuts that have been made, cumulatively, it will be £3.7 billion. That is not a saving for the UK Government, it is just storing up problems for the future, because every single one of these children is more at risk of being affected by adverse childhood experiences of a challenged upbringing that will result in reduced opportunities and limited potential, which in the future could make them consequently more needing of support from the state. The policies that the UK Government is pursuing are not policies that have the long-term well-being of our constituents at heart. They are not policies that are going to build up our communities, strengthen our people and genuinely help people to get into work. However, they are just an expression that is couched in the language of work pays, of very old and sadly indelible Tory values, which are the deserving and the undeserving. I do not want that from my constituents, I do not want it from my country, and that is why this Parliament needs full powers over social security. Deputy Presiding Officer, let me begin by thanking everyone for their work on this important report. We debate the issue of in-work poverty at the same time as in Scotland and indeed across the UK we see strong record-breaking employment levels. In January we learnt that the UK employment rate rose to over 75 per cent, the highest since comparable estimates began, while for the first time in decades in Scotland we have record low unemployment. It has been referred to as the jobs miracle and is evidence of the attractiveness that the UK market continues to hold for business. The creation of jobs and ensuring that people are in employment is the basis of ensuring that work pays. Other policies and principles adopted by the UK Conservative government are equally important to this. Policies such as the commitment to increase the personal allowance to £12,500 a year earlier than expected build in progress already made, where £1.74 million of the lowest-paid workers have been taken out of paying income tax altogether. The introduction of the national living wage, which, having continually increased over the years, had helped some 300,000 workers out of low pay by 2017. Those are policies that should be welcomed across the chamber. They provide longer-term solutions that allow people to keep more of their own hard-earned money while developing skills and experience that can lead to happier and more fulfilling lives. However, when people are in work and are still experiencing poverty, we must recognise that that as a problem must be tackled. Human lives in which money can play such an important part are naturally complicated, and we should be careful about blaming any single set of circumstances or government policy for inward poverty. Relative income greatly depends on a list of different factors, including education, performance of the economy and high living costs such as housing and utilities. Powers to tackle those issues fall within both reserved and devolved responsibilities and require action from both the UK and Scottish Governments. Universal credit is, of course, one policy that has been scrutinised in detail throughout the report. Its policy intentions, namely simplifying the welfare system and being designed around trying to help recipients' budget in the same way that they would a monthly salary, should be welcomed. Nevertheless, the UK Government is taking time to correct things and to try to get it right and has made a number of improvements, including raising work allowances by £1,000 per year and the offer of the more generous taper rate. Improving the welfare system in those ways ensures that it fulfills the role that it is designed to do, which is to support progression into work. The sort of scrutiny carried out into social security by the committee, including in this report on inward poverty, is needed at a critical time for welfare reform to ensure that we get it right, both at Westminster and in Scotland, as we take on greater powers here. However, in understanding inward poverty itself, we cannot simply pay lip service to certain factors. In tackling the problem, we need to adopt a holistic approach. Responding to inward poverty also requires us to think about why less money is coming into households and more is going out and how that can change. In the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee in this session of Parliament, we have looked at the performance of the Scottish economy, where levels of GDP growth or marginal productivity is low and wages are stagnant. Our productivity performance has been stagnating for a number of years. We are 20 per cent below our target levels of productivity. The Institute for Fiscal Studies in a report into inward poverty says that the key to sustaining higher hourly wages is higher productivity, which could improve the problem of inward poverty enormously. There is much work to do in Scotland if we are to reach the levels of productivity among other OECD countries, which bring in higher wages. The levels of expenditure that households are now having to put up with continues to increase. I am very grateful for the member for giving way. I listened to his remarks with interest. Would he also recognise that there is an argument that increased wages can drive up productivity by necessitating firms to invest in adaptations, developments and new technologies that will buy dint of that increased productivity? I thank Tom Arthur for that intervention. Of course, all of those things are interlinked. It is not a simple matter of one leading to the other, but there is a complex interplay of those factors that we all recognise. I want to turn to look at the levels of expenditure that households are now having to put up with, and that continues to increase. With local authorities struggling to make ends meet through the ring-fencing of much of their budgets, the SNP Government has increased the council tax limit, but families are already struggling to pay, with council tax costs being a major factor for nearly 700,000 people in Scotland who have debt problems. Inward poverty is, of course, a matter that is deeply regrettable, but there are numerous reasons for that. While that report is considered the role of social security in that, we cannot ignore the pressures that are put on families who see a dwindling income relative to outgoings, which increase all the time. In concluding, if we are to truly tackle the complex problem of inward poverty, we need an all-encompassing approach that pursues policies that tackle that pressure and to show that work really does pay. Alasdair Allan, followed by Alex Rowley. Like other members of the committee, I thank the clerks and all who gave evidence to the inquiry. The overwhelming evidence that we received on the Social Security Committee was, firstly, that poverty is a clear reality for many Scots who are in work, and secondly, that the UK Government's shambolic roll-out of universal credit has actively contributed towards worsening that inward poverty. There were, I acknowledge, two Conservative members of the committee who largely dissented from that assessment, but I believe that the evidence presented to us speaks for itself and allowed the committee to come to a very clear view. As Bob Doris mentioned, it is disappointing that neither the UK Secretary of State for Work and Pensions nor the minister for employment were able to accept the committee's invitation to give evidence to our inquiry, despite universal credit, and much else in the benefits system still being matters largely reserved to Westminster. In any case, I want to focus briefly on a couple of related areas of the committee's findings, namely around the weight that individuals are experiencing to receive their initial universal credit payment and the fact that assessment dates do not always align with people's actual paydays. Both of those things have a real human cost, as the committee heard from many witnesses. We are in agreement with the UK Government about the importance of encouraging a culture where people manage their incomes responsibly. However, as Russell Goonson of IPPR Scotland pointed out to the committee, it is not good enough to tell people on the lowest fluctuating incomes. Potentially they are people in insecure work, whether they are self-employed or otherwise, that they just need to budget better. In particular, budgeting is easier said than done if your job pays every four weeks but universal credit is assessed once a calendar month. The very significant peaks and troughs that this can create in family incomes, particularly when a person finds that they have been penalised for receiving two wages in one calendar month, are by no means easy to manage. The UK Government has acknowledged the problem, but it has given little indication of whether it is going to do anything about it, as Alison Johnstone pointed out. As a committee, we therefore strongly recommended that the UK Government at least maintain the flexibility that is allowed by the current rate of the higher earnings threshold before income is carried over. Any attempt to reduce that will have major consequences for many people in work who are trying to manage their incomes at something like a stereo level. The committee also concluded that it is unacceptable for anyone to have to wait five weeks for benefits to which they are entitled, yet that is exactly what happens to people awaiting their first universal credit payment, as Mark Griffin and others pointed out. I cannot be the only person—I know that I am not the only person in this chamber who has had to deal with constituents who have had to live off a combination of charity, debt and fresh air during that five-week period. In some cases, there is evidence of administrative delays that have prolonged this waiting period further or have resulted in elements being missed from clients' universal credit payments. The committee concluded that it is unacceptable to make anyone wait this length of time and recommends that the UK Government urgently redesigns the system to ensure that payments are made within two weeks. As I said, there are human consequences to policy failures of this kind, and one of those that the committee was left in very little doubt is hunger. Nonetheless, the Conservative social security spokesperson, Michelle Ballantyne, speaking about food poverty on 12 February, said, "...what we haven't got is hard evidence about what the real causes are. I haven't yet seen the concrete evidence of where that's coming from, meaning food poverty." I am afraid that, like the Trussell Trust, the Church of Scotland and the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty, the committee felt little of Ms Ballantyne's sense of mystery about at least one of the reasons why food poverty might exist in the UK. Indeed, only the day before Ms Ballantyne's remarks, Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd MP herself admitted, it is absolutely clear that there were challenges with the initial roll-out of universal credit. The main issue that led to an increase in food bank use could have been the fact that people had difficulty accessing their money early enough. The committee was left in no doubt that food poverty and the failures of the way universal benefit has been rolled out are very closely connected. We hear a lot from the Conservatives about any measure that they think might infringe on the rights of hard-working families. Let me remind them that people on the upper rates of income tax, such as politicians, hard-working, though I do not doubt that we all are, do not have a monopoly on hard work. As we have heard from the committee convener, 18 per cent of hard-working people in Scotland are in fact paid less than the real living wage. As the committee report finds, the way in which universal credit has been implemented by the UK Government makes those families' lives even more difficult. Thank you very much. I call Alex Rowley to be followed by George Adam. Mr Rowley, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Like many other speakers, I welcome this report and congratulate the committee on its publication. I know that the report has very clear and well argued recommendations, and I hope that this Parliament will get behind those recommendations and fight for the change that we need, particularly in welfare. The report is clear that the benefits freeze has disproportionately impacted on the poorest, that universal credit is not working for many claimants, that the digital first requirement gives cause for concern, that the committee was surprised and disappointed about managed migration for which there has been little or no planning, that the transitional protection under money's mitigation can be lost should they be a victim of domestic abuse and that universal credit does not provide an exception in these circumstances to protect someone from the losses that they would incur. And that it is counterproductive to close job centres at a time when demand for their services is scheduled to increase. Ahead of the autumn budget, UK Labour launched 10 emergency demands for the budget to help repair the damage caused by the roll-out of universal credit. Those demands included cut the five-week wait, remove the insistence on making and managing a claim online, end counterproductive sanctions, allow split payments, as is the case in Scotland, allow direct landlord payments that has been introduced in Scotland, reverse cuts to disabled people, reverse cuts to children, reinstate the family element and get rid of the two child limit, support people on the fluctuation of income, restore work allowances and end the freeze on social security. Those are all areas that if they were to be carried out, they would certainly have a positive impact on the roll-out universal credit. Specifically in Scotland, we have said that we would reduce inward poverty by totting up child benefit by £5 a week, tackling the cost of living crisis by fixing our broken energy market, cutting private sector rent increases and making public transport more affordable. We would introduce a £10 on our living wage. Establish sectorial collective bargaining along with sectorial industrial and economic planning as part of a long overdue industrial strategy for Scotland. We would make the real living wage and labour standards, including trade union rights, a condition of public procurement. All of those measures would help in addressing the unacceptable levels of poverty in our country. As the Resolution Foundation recently warned, things are not going in the right direction. It said that 23 per cent of Scottish children around 230,000 children living in Scotland lived in households that were below the UK relative poverty line in 2016-17. The Child Poverty Scotland art requires that the Scottish Government will reduce that to below 18 per cent by 23, 24 per cent and below 10 per cent by 20, 30, 31. However, the Resolution Foundation states that its projections combined an economic forecast with planned tax and benefit policies suggest that the Scottish child poverty rate is, in fact, likely to be higher in 23, 24 than it was in 2016-17. The projected rate of 29 per cent would be the highest in over 20 years. Although uncertain, such as the outcome would leave over 100,000 children more living in poverty than if the interim target was met, it demonstrates that we need action. It says that UK-wide benefits policy is the key cause of that, with the benefit freeze, the two-child limit and other welfare cuts taking substantial amounts of money from lower-income payments. However, the Scottish Government also has the power to reduce child poverty and much will depend on the generosity, design and funding of the promised income supplement. John Dickay, director of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, said that families are struggling right now and that families could not wait years for the introduction of the Scottish Government's promised income supplement, and he believes that a £5 top-up to child benefit would be one simple way of lifting thousands of children out of poverty. Mr Dickay said, and I quote, that these are not just statistics, those are children going hungry, missing out on school trips, unable to enjoy the activities and opportunities that their better off peers take for granted. Those are parents going without meals, juggling debt and seeing their own health suffer to protect their children from the poverty that they face. He said that poverty has a firm grip on Scotland. Behind those statistics, there is the reality that over one million people are locked in a daily struggle to make and meet. Douglas Hamilton of the Poverty and Equality Commission said that the time is now for meaningful action. I quote, if the Scottish Government is serious about addressing this, it should be making full use of their powers to reduce housing costs, improve earnings and enhance social security. Shelter Scotland has also welcomed the fact that this report recognises that in-work poverty is driven by many factors, including the cost of housing. So much to be done, as this report points out, I would conclude by saying that we must move beyond talking about addressing poverty. We need action and we need action now. I call George Adam to follow by Alexander Stewart. I was a member of the committee when we took most of the evidence for investigation into in-work poverty. I think that I left just towards when we started to do the report. One of the things that I have listened to this debate and all the information that I received during that period, but one of the things that I keep finding quite strange is some of the things that we are hearing from the Conservative Party, because Jamie Halcro Smith said that it is helping people to manage their money. That is all well and good and that is highly commendable. That is if they have any money to manage. The problem is that, after five weeks of ending up in arrears and rent, you are in crisis at that point and you are beyond just getting a wee help in hand and telling you how to deal with your finances. I find the tone from the Tories and this debate quite disgusting. I was also disappointed to hear during the convener's information that convener's speech Bob Doris at the committee did not manage to secure a meeting from my UK minister, because we have constantly been told that there has been a respect agenda between both parliaments and we should all work together in order to make sure that we can make things better. Yes, I will do. Bob Doris. Thank you, George Adam, for giving it my worth, putting the record at this point. President of the reason, Alex Sharma, MP of the most recent refusal to attend the committee was due to Brexit, was the reason cited. Sorry, I can't hear you. You are turning away from the microphone. Could you repeat that? Sorry. Sorry, Presiding Officer. I just want to make the point that the latest reason a UK minister could not attend the Social Security Committee was Brexit was cited as the reasons. Thank you very much, George Adam. That is all well and good, but at the end of the day, if we can't have a minister of the UK Government to scrutinise the policies that they are using to destroy communities and attack families in our basic constituencies, then there is something far wrong with that. However, as I keep saying, I have been listening carefully to what everyone said. We have heard from Michelle Ballantyne that universal credit is a test and learn policy. That depends on what the test is, does it not? If the test is, do you live in abject poverty, then it will probably be that they are succeeding, because they are making sure that the members of our communities are living in poverty. If the learning from it is learning that you can never trust the Conservatives with any form of policy to do with people in our community, then that is all that we seem to be learning from it. There is no test and learn. All that we are learning is that the same old callous Tories are continuing with their devastation in our communities. We have heard from countless Tories that this debate is bogged down in political posturing.  That is exactly what it is. It is a Tory-designed financial mire. Most of the Tory involvement in this debate has been pure fantasy. During Michelle Ballantyne's contribution, I have expected the late, great Ricardo Montaband to Donnie's famous white suit to go down to the front and say, welcome to fantasy island. However, the only difference between that great 1970s show and the Conservatives of that finished every week with a happy ending. There is no happy ending with a Conservative party in Scotland. That is when it brings us back to when we look at some of the things that were said during the report itself. The Social Security Committee made clear that the Scottish Government could not be expected to mitigate an impact of every UK welfare policy. That is one of the things that we constantly hear from the Conservatives in particular. The view of the committee that the UK Government's freeze on benefits must be lifted is not realistic to expect the Scottish Government to top up or mitigate every UK welfare policy to ensure that the income of Scottish claimants does not drop in real terms. That is true, because constantly we cannot be the ones in our limited budget that we have in this Scottish Parliament that we are the ones that try and save the people of Scotland from the constant attacks from the Westminster Government. The UN special rapporteur said that the same Professor Philip Alton also said that it was not sustainable to do so. In his statement, he said that devolved Administrations have tried to mitigate the worst impacts of austerity, despite experiencing significant reductions in block grant funding and constitutional limits on their ability to raise revenue. However, mitigation comes at a price and it is not sustainable. That is part of the problem. The Tories can say what they like in this chamber, but everything that they are putting forward is not sustainable. They know that universal credit by its very inception is a callous policy that is causing poverty throughout our communities. Michelle Ballantyne, if she wants to say something, she can, if she wishes, instead of shouting from the sidelines. That is more important than that. We cannot have people shouting from the sidelines when my constituents are suffering. I wonder what she has got to say about that. Michelle Ballantyne? As George Adam is keen to have an intervention, perhaps he could answer the question, does he recognise that 80 per cent of people on universal credit are satisfied with it and are happy with the treatment that they have had on it? I can only answer that than the fact that the constituents whom I serve diligently and hear the horror stories that come from her policies—sorry, Presiding Officer, the Conservative Party's policies—as they continue to attack our communities. I, for one, will no longer listen to that nonsense, because I am sick of the posturing coming from the Conservative Party. That is about my constituents and the people that I represent and the people of Scotland. Once the Tories need to be called out continually for the chaos that they are causing in our communities. I call Alexander Stewart to be followed by Emma Harper. I have to say that Mr Stewart is the penultimate speaker in the open debate, so other speakers who are not here have been warned. I am pleased to be able to take part in this afternoon's debate on social security committee's report on social security in work poverty. I am not a member of the committee, but I commend the work that the committee has put forward and the report that it produced. Although we have made significant progress on employment in recent years, with now fewer than 100,000 people in Scotland unemployed for the first time in decades, we are all here today to understand that work in work poverty is a real concern for many individuals and many families across Scotland. It is one that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. One of the major problems that we have with the debate is that this debate can be framed in the wrong way, with a narrow focus on incomes and welfare, in particular with the real problems of in-work poverty going much, much further and much, much deeper. The problem has to be that there are various drivers, from education to housing, from childcare to transport, that may all play a part in the whole system of in-work poverty. I am glad to see that the committee has listened to organisations such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which will recognise the important pact in the report that childcare costs, for example, are a significant problem for those on low income. As the report outlines, when parents are weighing up the benefits of work versus the cost of getting childcare and getting them into a job, it can be a real situation for them. Another problem that is abundantly clear is the cost of housing. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation also estimated that a number of households with children receiving benefit has doubled since the mid-1990s, and the rate of relative poverty increases when household costs are taken into account. We must not forget how many of the drivers in in-work poverty are in fact devolved to this Parliament, and the Scottish Government has an opportunity to do and react. Rather than tackle the problem head on, we have seen that a manifesto commitment was broken earlier in this chamber when the council tax or the freeze that we had for local government was removed. We are well aware that the general local government funding down and with a 3 per cent cap removed from local authorities has raised council tax by four or even more than that. That has a continual impact on individuals. We have learnt from Step Change Scotland the charity that warns that hundreds of thousands of people have a problem with debt as a result of council tax arrears, unless it is— You are saying that I am grateful for the intervention. Would you accept, however, that welfare reforms have had the greatest impact on the cause of increasing poverty in Scotland? Welfare reforms have evolved and continued to evolve. As I have said, we are now finding that employment is up and unemployment is down. We want to ensure that people get the opportunity so that when people do require benefit, they are the best of it. We know that there have been some issues with universal credit, but we are tackling that to ensure that the people receive the most who require support get that support. Unless it is under the address of the Scottish Government's mismanagement of local government, it will only worsen the problem of in-work poverty. Although it is not the sole cause of in-work poverty, welfare is nevertheless a factor that needs to be considered. We need a welfare system that supports people into the workplace and helps those who are struggling, while at the same time it is fair for the taxpayer. We look at what Labour had in the past. The welfare system that came before was complicated, complex and sometimes resulted in the ludicrous situation in which people who wanted to earn more and had the opportunity to get a job were worse off. Universal credit seeks to change that. The principle is a simple one—work should always pay. While it is central to the principle that we in the Scottish Conservatives believe, I hope that others also believe that. We do nevertheless recognise that there have been some flaws in the implementation. Recently, a point to Secretary of State Amber Rudd has herself acknowledged that there has been and there continues to be issues that are required to be addressed. Those have been and are being addressed. She has already halted the roll-out of three million cases of the legacy, extended families for the two-kind benefit and ensured that payments go directly to the women in many cases in the household. In addition, the fund for advanced payments has been set up to plug the gap between applying for universal credit and receiving the first payment. We have heard today from many members about that difficulty, so that difficulty has been acknowledged and that difficulty is trying to be addressed. Generally, the UK is committed to making work pay and supporting the lowest paid within our societies. Under a strong economy, where wages are to grow and employment is going up, that is what we want to see. Meanwhile, the UK Government has also supported hundreds of thousands in the lowest paid people in ensuring that the national living wage now sits at £8.21 per hour in comparison with the national minimum wage, which was £670. In addition, local government and the UK Government have continued to increase the level of tax-free personal allowance, which is cutting for millions of people. Since 2010-11, the reform has taken £1.74 million of the lowest paid in the UK out of paying income tax entirely. That has to be a good thing for those families. That has to offer them the opportunity to develop and expand their potential. There are important changes that we should go forward. Despite all that, the universal credit has been looked upon as wider, and the Government itself has made some criticisms after criticisms of the welfare reforms. We have heard those today in the chamber, but we must also look back at the move and consider what those criticisms are saying. Let us not forget that the Scottish Government has the power to reverse or adapt any of those policies, but I have chosen not to. They have failed to deliver on their own manifesto when it comes to welfare and have said that delay after delay, even for the 11 benefits that are coming to Scotland. I find it rather ironic that a party who has claimed that Scotland could become an independent country within 18 months has talked about it taking nine years to ensure that we can manage some of the devolved responsibilities coming forward. In conclusion, this is still work in progress. Much has been achieved. The UK Government is committed to ensuring that work pays. To take part, the Scottish Government will have to resolve and work holistically to ensure that the Government needs to put its existing developed powers at a better use to help us to support individuals and families to overcome the problems of in-work poverty by tackling the cost of living. You did take a little longer than I should have allowed you, but I am in a good mood. I call Emma Harper, and then we move to closing speeches. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I hope that you are in a good mood for me as well this afternoon. I am pleased to speak into today's debate, and I would like to thank committee members, clerks and those who gave evidence for this report to be created. I am not a member of the Social Security Committee, but the issue of welfare is one that is important to many of my South Scotland constituents, including those in the south-west of Scotland. From the outset in my contribution today, I would like to put on record that it is this SNP Government that will continue to challenge the UK Government's punitive unfair and unjust welfare reforms that will take money out of the pockets of the most vulnerable people in our society and those who are just barely managing to get by. I completely agree with Claire Adams in sentiment that social security is about support—support for people during the times when they need it most. Stigma is something that absolutely needs to be addressed when we are trying to support the people who are the most vulnerable in our society. The remit of the Social Security Committee's inquiry was to explore the potential impact of universal credit on in-work poverty, and we have heard specific casework examples today across chamber. The committee included consideration of recent research on trends in low wages and in-work poverty, as well as indications of increasing financial need in working households, including, for example, increased use of food banks. We have seen a marked increase in the rise in Dumfries and Galloway in my South Scotland region. The Truswell Trust released figures last year, revealing the use of food banks in Dumfries and Galloway. It rose between April and September by 44 per cent last year, and that was over the same period the year before. That is the second-highest rise of food banks across Scotland in all of the 32 local authorities. Mark Franklin at First Base Food Bank in Dumfries says that his figures are similar to the Truswell Trust's ones. I would like to touch on some of the key findings from the committee's report. I think that the most important is some of the issues that are worth reaffirming. The work allowance levels were reduced substantially and almost abolished in April 2016. Before 2016, every claimant had a work allowance, but since then, only those with a disability or a child get a work allowance, and the rate is based on whether someone's universal credit includes amounts for housing costs or not. The committee welcomed the increases to the work allowance in universal credit, but noted that the full work allowance should be restored to pre-2016 levels. That is an extremely important point, as it encourages people in the workplace by allowing families, as well as single people who are just getting by, some additional money every month to help with household costs. Another universal credit design issue is that of the UK Government's policy intention to extend in-work conditionality, and Bob Doris talked about that in his opening remarks. Unlike working tax credits in universal credit, there is no requirement to work 16 hours before being entitled to claim. Although it is not being actively applied unless someone is on very low wages, the policy intention is that someone in receipt of universal credit could be subject to conditionality. Even sanctions, despite working more than 16 hours a week, have reaffirmed in paragraph 112 of the Social Security Committee's report. That means that families across my south Scotland region are just managing to get by with support from universal credit, which is £338 a month for single people and £541 for couples under the administrative earnings threshold. They could lose out of those vital funds should they not earn more money than was the case when they started their UC claim. The committee was also concerned about the plans for managed migration, particularly as many people in the receipt of working tax credits may not consider themselves benefits recipients. The committee considered that the existing concerns with universal credit should be addressed before moving to managed migration. All those issues are a direct result of an out-of-touch UK Government determined to press on with welfare reforms that are affecting people across the whole of Scotland. I would ask the Scottish Government to continue to do all that it can to press for Scotland to lead the way and to have control over all welfare powers as soon as practicable. Thousands of individuals and families across Scotland are being forced into poverty because of devastating UK Government welfare cuts, but of those cuts social security spending in Scotland is expected to have reduced by £3.7 billion since 2010. The annual welfare reform report found that UK Government's benefit freeze has led to huge reductions in spending around £190 million of the current year, 2018-19, rising to about £370 million by 2020 and 2021. That is equivalent to three times the annual police budget. It is staggering. The report also found that universal credit claimants are over six times as likely to be sanctioned as claimants of other legacy benefits, and young men are the ones most likely to be sanctioned. Local authorities in third sector agencies are being left to pick up the pieces of a broken system, invest in their own money to support people on universal credit. In my remaining time, I would like to put on record my thanks to a number of third sector and charity agencies across Dumfries and Galloway working to mitigate the impact of Tory welfare cuts, including First Base Agency and Mark Franklin in Dumfries, who came to the committee to provide evidence. In conclusion, I add my support to the Social Security Committee's report and call on the UK Government to halt the roll-out of this flawed system and take seriously the concerns from across the third sector, even from international organisations such as the UN. I welcome this report and commend the report today. Thank you very much. Before I move to closing speeches, there is one member who spoke in the debate who is not present. I expect SNP Whips to tell that member. I expect a note of apology and explanation. I move on to closing speeches. I have little time in hand, so I must grant and give you seven minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I like others. I welcome the committee report. We have all known for a long time about the big issues within work, poverty and universal credit, but to have those issues laid bare by the committee makes stark reading. To know that 60 per cent of working-age adults in Scotland are in relative poverty, and where in working households is absolutely stark. The Fraser of Allander economic commentary said, despite record levels of employment, for many being in work is no longer providing the security and prosperity that it once did. That is absolutely unacceptable. A lot of the committee report focuses on universal credit, which takes over from working tax credits. Emma Harper made the point in her speech just now that getting a tax credit for many did not feel like they were getting a benefit, and changing to universal credit changes the ethos behind that. The committee highlighted concerns that we all hear about from constituents about universal credit, concerns about the length of time that people wait for payments. That is absolutely unacceptable. Most people claiming universal credit do not have savings that will last them five weeks. Concerns about what payments take into account as earnings, and Mark Griffin in his speech laid bare the worst excesses of the scheme. He told us that someone's tax rebate was being treated as income, and their universal credit was being reduced. Alex Rowley said that the benefit freeze had actually made universal credits unacceptable. Michelle Ballantyne, in response to some of those criticisms, said that the UK Government has a test and learn approach. This is callous when people are living in poverty, living out of food banks. People are not getting pigs for Tory policy. Surely they have learned that this is unacceptable. Claire Adamson told us that universal credit has been rolled out and the use of food banks has increased by 52 per cent. That is a test, and it clearly shows failure. Will the UK Government learn from it? On just as worrying, Elaine Smith talked about the welfare fund being underspent in areas where food bank use was still increasing again unacceptable. The Tories implemented the terrible policy of a two-child cap, but the SNP will do nothing to mitigate it. I fought for a Scottish Parliament to defend us from the worst excesses of a Tory Government, and yet the SNP Government does not use the powers that it has to do this. I will join them in criticising the UK Government, but I cannot stand by quietly while it refuses to act. Many speakers talked about the digital first policy with universal credit, and that is a huge problem in the highlands and islands area that I represent. There is a lack of connectivity both digitally and no public transport to allow people to travel to where they could fill in a digital claim. Therefore, it makes it almost impossible to apply. Bob Doris and others talked about the closure of job centres, making it much more difficult for people to apply digitally because they then have to travel, but also cutting down engagement with advisers. Elaine Smith spoke about—and so did Alex Rowley—the Scottish Labour Party policy of a child benefit of the top-up of £5 a week to lift children out of poverty. The SNP has refused to implement that, despite presiding over an increase in child poverty. Alison Johnstone pointed out that organisations working with children have said that this is an easy way of tackling child poverty. Not the only thing that we can do, but a quick fix that we, until we can find better solutions. Even if the Scottish Government believes that this is not the way forward, surely it could be implemented quickly while they work on their alternative. Again, use the powers that it has to make a difference. Alexander Stewart spoke about childcare costs. I know that that makes a big difference to working families. Sometimes there is a difference between being able to work at all, but a £5 increase in child benefit would help to pay for this for many families. Elaine Smith talked about how people are in debt due to poverty and rightly challenged Jamie Halcro Johnstone who suggested that help with budgeting was required. You cannot budget on nothing, as George Adam said. Alasdor Allan quoted evidence given to the committee by Russell Gunson, making the point that low incomes are impossible to budget. So, while help with budgeting is fine, you need something to budget with. The cabinet secretary in her opening remarks talked about Scottish choices. We welcome the Scottish Government offering a twice monthly payment and giving funding and housing payments directly to landlords. However, surely people should also be able to have a weekly payment if that is what they want. It is very hard to make a small amount of money stretch over seven days far less 14 and even worse over a month. The cabinet secretary also said that there would be an option for split payments. Universal credit currently makes one family payment normally to the man in that family. I suggest to the cabinet secretary that split payments should be the norm. Someone suffering coercive control cannot request a split payment from an abusive partner. They would never allow it, so unless it is the norm, we can do nothing to fight the control over finances that is part of domestic abuse and, indeed, something that the Parliament legislated for. A default payment to man enhances inequality. It promotes the view that the man should be in charge of the household finances, and surely that is something that we all find unacceptable now. We would do things differently. We would remove the two-child cap and thereby the rape clause. We would top up child benefit by £5 a week, and we would pay a £10 living wage. That would lift people out of poverty and allow them to benefit from work with the confidence that they have a safety net below. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is my pleasure to sum up on behalf of the Conservative and welcome Mr Beat this afternoon. In what poverty is defined as individuals living in households where the household income is below the poverty threshold, despite one member of the household working either full or part-time. Scotland's level of work in work poverty is a critical problem, but I think that all of us can at least agree on this afternoon. The Scottish Conservatives want a welfare system that helps people into work, supporting those who need our assistance. The previous system was complicated and often resulted in people losing money, and I was unclear for Mark Griffin whether he wants to go back to the old system, which was failing so many people who were working. If they are in work and people who are stuck on benefits, ultimately costing the taxpayer more money. That is why implementing user versus credit is essential in order to improve the previously failing system and ensure that those who are in work are benefiting from a much more effective and supportive system saving hard-earned taxpayer money. I would like to say again that tackling poverty needs to have a sustained and strategic approach. It will not happen overnight, nor will it be solved purely by the benefits system, as evidenced in the Social Security Committee's report. A bird's-eye all-in-compassion view of the factors that contribute to poverty must be taken if genuine improvements are to be made. Many policy areas require attention, such as the lack of opportunities for skills development in low-paid and part-time jobs, or the barriers that people with disabilities or caring responsibilities face in gaining employment. However, undoubtedly, the benefits system and universal credit have a significant part to play. I believe that some changes that have been made to universal credit, in particular, are a step in the right direction to see the reduction in work poverty that is needed. Can I reflect that, across the chamber, today and also within the committee's report, too often, evidence is ignored and simple political spin is put in its place. That is a danger when we are discussing this area. If we are to come to a balanced, correct view, we must look at all the evidence that was given to us and not just the level ones that we like. Alex Rowley Evidence always strikes me that, in 2010, I was not aware of any food banks in Scotland. Now we have food banks in most communities in Scotland. Is that not sure that something has gone seriously wrong in terms of social and economic policy? Jeremy Balfour First, I would challenge the question that there were no food banks in Scotland in 2010, but the comment that you make is that there are lots of reasons why food banks exist now in Scotland, not just universal credit. The economic factors and other policies that are pursued by the Government are often leading to people having to come to universal credit. I agree that they are increasing by age disappointment, but to lay that simply at the blame of universal credit I think that we misunderstand the situation. As Michelle Ballantyne pointe