The next item of business is debate on motion 8.035, in the name of Jane Freeman, on the roll-out of universal credit. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request to speak buttons now. A call on Jane Freeman to speak to and move the motion. Minister, 12 minutes are there abouts, please. I am bringing this motion to the chamber today to allow this Parliament to make clear its position on universal credit and to give Parliament the opportunity to show it is on the side of the people being damaged by a system that needs to be halted until it is fixed. Despite repeated requests from people who are suffering under this system, from councils, charities, housing associations and parliamentarians from all parties, most recently 12 Tory MPs and Dame Louise Casey, the UK Government continues to shamelessly ignore calls to halt the roll-out of full-service universal credit. Let me highlight again why this system must be halted because of the overwhelming and compelling evidence that the universal credit system is fundamentally flawed and what is broken must be fixed. The UK Government's reckless behaviour will continue to see more and more people plunged into debt and despair as this service is rolled out unchanged. There are two critical areas of problem. In policy, the inbuilt six-week wait for the first payment runs entirely contrary to the UK Government's stated intention for this benefit. Six weeks is a minimum wait and, as we know and the Westminster Work and Pensions Committee heard, it can often be much longer. For the first seven days, there is no payment. Jeremy Balfour I thank the minister for allowing this intervention. Will she then welcome the statement that was made at the Conservative Party conference yesterday, which said that there will be a maximum of five days starting? Will she welcome that and say that that will improve the system? Well, what we have said at the Conservative Party conference and, believe me, I will get to it, was that what we already have and the only new thing that was said was that people would be told up front that they can borrow that money. It is a loan. I am not going to welcome something that is as posimonious as that. Let me continue. Universal credit, the Tories tell us, is meant to mirror employment. However, who waits six weeks for their first pay packet and how many of us can live without money coming in for six weeks and how much harder is that if you have children or dependents, rent to pay, food to buy and bills to pay? That ignores too the fact that most of those who will receive universal credit when it is rolled out will be in work and will be entitled to that support because of low wages or hours and that they need the additional financial help with costs for children and housing. In truth, the six-week wait was incorporated into the design of universal credit simply to save the UK Government money. Saving money by imposing a six-week wait on those who can least afford it, saving money with scant regard to all the evidence that their Tory policy plunges people already on low incomes into debt, rent arrears and, in some cases, homelessness. More and more people forced to rely on food banks and emergency grants. That is not just a problem for Scotland but across the whole of the UK. Frank Field, AMP and chair of the Work and Pensions Committee at Westminster, recently called for a Christmas truce on what he described as the human and political catastrophe that is the roll-out of universal credit. Last week, I joined forces with COSLA to again call for a stop to the roll-out of full service universal credit. We presented detailed evidence about the impact that it has on people and local authorities, which is frankly staggering. It shows that, in East Lothian, one of the first areas in Scotland to go live with full service universal credit, average rent arrears for tenants in receipt of the benefit is £1,022, compared to £390 for those in receipt of housing benefit, almost three times higher, all making it difficult for tenants to find and keep a home. Those rent arrears bring not only worry and hardship on tenants, they also pose real problems for social landlords looking to invest in the further house building that we need. For those four local authorities where the full service is in place in Scotland, administration costs have risen in total to over £830,000. No local authority should have to cover the failings of a UK Government from its own budgets. Time and again, this UK Government shirks its responsibilities and expects others to pick up the pieces. This is their mess and they should own it and fix it. As the Labour amendment highlights, universal credit is not only flawed in policy. It is overly complicated in its application, carries a high risk of administrative errors and is digitally exclusive, disadvantaging many. In the face of that evidence, from national and local government, third sector organisations, the Church of Scotland and others both north and south of the border, the UK Government is still refusing to pause and fix the system. To address the major concerns of debt and crisis, highlighted by even his own MPs, what action has the current Secretary of State for Work and Pensions taken? He will refresh guidance so that advanced payments are offered up front. The very fact of saying, even as little as that, is to acknowledge that the minimum six-week wait creates hardship, so very little and so very late. Where he has failed, let's see if the Prime Minister will take action. If she wants to support the just-about managing, as she describes them, then one clear and simple step that she can take is to halt the roll-out of universal credit. Not advanced payments, which are loans to be repaid and over timeframes that simply continue the problems, but get her Government to fix a broken system it created and one that pushes people way beyond just about managing and straight into suffering and hardship. Stop forcing people to make decisions about eating or heating, going to a food bank, getting a crisis payment or wondering if they can feed their children and keep a roof over their head. By its actions and its failure to act, the UK Government is not only heartless, it is incompetent. Yes, there was widespread support for simplifying an over-complicated benefit system, but that support declined as the cracks in the system were highlighted in the pilot areas and was then squandered by a Government that refused to take steps to fix those problems. As early as 2013, the national audit office identified serious weaknesses in DWP handling, citing poor governance, poor management and poor financial control. In 2014, the universal credit pilots highlighted problems with monthly payments and removing direct payments of rent to landlords, all ignored. While the Scottish Government will use our very limited powers over how universal credit is paid and will address that starting tomorrow for new claimants, it is clear that that should and could have been fixed from the very start. I will. I am grateful to the minister for taking an intervention. In the words of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the current system that universal credit is replacing is fragmented and traps people in poverty. If universal credit is to be halted, why does the minister want to retain a system that is broken and which traps people in poverty? The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which I know that Mr Tomkins is very fond of quoting, called on the Conservatives to reverse the two-child limit, said that, originally, the transition from the current benefits and tax credit system to universal credit was going to result in more people gaining than losing. The reverse is now the case. What I am saying is that the UK Government system in policy terms and in delivery is fundamentally flawed, is being delivered with incompetence and needs to be halted. If you are making thousands of people driven into hardship and misery, why continue with that when you can fix the system? It is straightforward and beyond my understanding why a Government would not listen to all the evidence that is before it and make those changes. That Government will make possible the choice that people want of being able to be paid twice monthly and being able to decide whether their rent is paid direct to their landlord, social or private or to themselves. We will continue our work on how we address single household payments. Let me be clear that we have to pay the DWP for ensuring that people have those choices. We have to pay the DWP to do something that is the right thing to do, that they have been told consistently is what they ought to do and, for years, people have told them that it creates a problem that could be fixed in that way. Media reports at the weekend said that the main architect of universal credit, Ian Duncan-Smith, did not want to hear the bad news about failings of the system. His approach was blinkered and he marched on regardless. However, he is in fact only one of four secretaries of state for work and pensions since the original white paper on universal credit was published in 2011. Not one of them has been brave enough to pause this shambolic system and take the necessary time to fix the problems inherent in the design and delivery of universal credit. Real leadership comes from listening, from paying attention to evidence and from fixing problems. Real leadership comes from admitting when you have got it wrong, not standing by flawed decisions and forging ahead with the blinkers on. We need and our people in Scotland deserve a social security system that puts meaning behind the principles of dignity and respect and that puts people at its heart. I urge every member in this chamber to support this motion and call on the UK Government to act now and immediately halt the role of universal credit and fix the problems. Please move the motion. I am sorry, minister. I do not know whether you moved the motion or not. I do not think that you moved it. Did you move the motion, please? In my name. I now call Adam Tomkins to speak to and move amendment 8035.2. Mr Tomkins, seven minutes are there abouts please. Universal credit remains the right thing to do. The current system is fragmented and traps people in poverty. The prospect of an integrated benefit system that responds to people's changing circumstances is a prize worth having. Universal credit is an important tool for tackling poverty. Not my words, Presiding Officer, but those, all of them, of the Joseph Rantry Foundation in April of this year. Enrolling six benefits into one, in being expressly designed so that work always pays, in being a much more flexible system that can be readily tailored to individuals' particular and often changing needs in all of these ways and more, universal credit is a reform to be welcomed. In comparison with the old system that it is replacing, universal credit is working. More people on universal credit are in work than was the case under Jobseeker's allowance. Universal credit claimants are, on average, staying in work for longer and earning more. Unlike universal credit, the old system punished work. The old system failed to get young people into work, and the old system subsidised low wages by letting the tax credit bill get completely out of control. For all those reasons, contrary to what the minister has just said, there should be no going back to any of that. None of that is to say that universal credit is without its problems. Let me turn and address those directly. It has been said, and we just heard the minister say it, that the delivery of universal credit is pushing people into poverty. It is driving up household debt, forcing people to rely more heavily on food banks. Those are deeply serious concerns, and they are the very opposite of what universal credit was designed to deliver. Universal credit is designed to be a flexible, bespoke, tailored system of social security fit for purpose in the 21st century labour market to make it easier for people to escape a lifetime of welfare dependency and move to the dignity, fairness and respect that a good job brings. If the evidence on the ground is that that is not happening, that evidence needs to be taken very seriously indeed. Let us get into the detail of this. It is said that three aspects in particular of the delivery of universal credit are causing problems. First, that payments are made monthly, not fortnightly. Secondly, that the housing element of universal credit is paid to households and not to landlords directly. Thirdly, that new claimants have to wait six weeks, and sometimes it is reported longer than that before they receive their initial payment. Let me address each of those in turn. The first two issues, monthly payments and payments to landlords, are among the matters that, thanks to the Smith commission agreement, we in this Parliament can change. As we heard from the minister, those changes have been made. They will come into force tomorrow, and the changes incidentally were made with our support in the Social Security Committee. That leaves only the third reported problem, delays in the initial payment. That is something that the Social Security Committee, on which I sit, and the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee, have written to the DWP about. Let us look carefully at what the DWP has said. On 1 February this year, Neil Cawling, the DWP's director general of the universal credit programme, wrote as follows to the Social Security Committee. Regarding rent arrears, many people arrive on universal credit with existing arrears. As he explained in evidence to the committee, it is difficult to isolate the effect that universal credit may be having on that. Mr Cawling told the committee that further work was being undertaken by DWP on this matter. In March, DWP told the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee that some 76 per cent of universal credit claimants had rent arrears before they went on to universal credit. Yes, there is a problem about rent arrears, but it is not clear from the evidence. The minister talked about the evidence that that problem is being caused by universal credit when 76 per cent of new claimants are already in arrears before they go on universal credit. Ingrid? Mr Tomkins, in East Lothian, prior to the entry of the roll-out of universal credit, rent arrears had fallen by 20 per cent on their introduction. They increased by 20 per cent in a single year. The evidence is absolutely clear. Mr Tomkins. The detail of that point was addressed by the DWP in its responses to the Social Security Committee. There was a particular problem in East Lothian, which is one of the first authorities in Scotland where full service was rolled out because of the way in which rent is collected by East Lothian Housing Association and East Lothian Council. That problem has been addressed, but it did cause delays. The member is right about that, but it has been addressed and those delays are no longer being caused by universal credit. On 14 March this year, the responsible Minister Damian Hines MP wrote to the Social Security Committee in those terms. I accept, he said, that there are cases where claimants wait longer than five to six weeks before they get the money that they are entitled to. There are a number of reasons for that, including verification of housing costs, which is the problem that occurred in East Lothian that Mr Gray just referred to. It is clear from its responses to our Social Security Committee and the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee that DWP ministers and officials are aware of those problems and are working hard to address and minimise them. Processes for verifying housing costs have been improved. Budgeting advice is being provided in job centres. Benefit advantages are available for new claimants. All of that has delivered a real improvement in the timeliness of payments. The most recent statistics show that nearly 80 per cent of new claimants now receive their full payment on time. Is that good enough? No, it's not. That's why the Secretary of State yesterday made two further commitments, both of which the Minister sought to minimise in her remarks and, in particular, in her answer to Mr Balfour, but both of which we should welcome. First, claimants who want an advanced payment will not have to wait six weeks but five days. Second, if someone is in immediate need, DWP will fast-track the payment so that they will receive it the same day. That's what the Secretary of State said yesterday. That isn't carrying on regardless. That isn't putting the blinkers on, which is what the Minister said. That is taking into account the evidence and making significant changes to the operation of universal credit so that it is safe to be rolled out, which is exactly what is happening. To conclude, if I have time. There is time for interventions for every day in this debate. Mr Tomkins accepts that the DWP's own information, released this year, shows that one in four of new UC claimants wait longer than six weeks. Half of them need a DWP loan. It is a loan, the advance payment. It needs to be repaid to pay for food and energy while they wait, nearly one-third borrow from family or friends and, most disturbing of all, one in turn turn to payday or doorstep lenders. Tell me that giving people that loan on the first day or within five days that they then have to pay back does not simply prolong their problems in terms of debt and arrears. Tell me that that is really a good way in the face of all the evidence from local authorities across Scotland that that is the way to address the six-week wait. I think not, Mr Tomkins. More of a speech than a question. The answer is straightforward. It is an interest-free loan that needs to be paid back over the course of a six-month period, but the point is that claimants in need are getting the money that they need on the day they make their claim, not five days later, not six weeks later, but on the day they make their claim. To conclude, Presiding Officer, and to address directly the minister's point, it is more important that the DWP gets this right than that universal credit is rolled out by any particular deadline. The UK Government can hardly be accused of rushing this. The completion date for the universal credit roll-out has already been put back to 2022. Getting it right is more important. Should the DWP carry on with its roll-out, regardless of the concerns about the delivery of universal credit that has been raised, no, and that is not happening. DWP should continue to address and resolve those concerns as universal credit is being rolled out. That is what the Secretary of State committed to yesterday, and we should welcome it. I move the amendment in my name. Thank you. I call Alex Rowley to speak to and move amendment 8035.4. Mr Rowley, six minutes are thereabouts. When the Parliament last discussed universal credit a few weeks ago, I said that I would welcome a Government debate on this issue. I am glad to be speaking in this debate today to move Labour's amendment and to support the Government's motion. Where, as a Parliament, we can work together, we should. On such an issue, which is having such a negative impact on the health and wellbeing of so many people in Scotland, I am glad that there is a majority of parties across the chamber who are working together in their efforts to stop the roll-out of universal credit. I would also like to acknowledge the work of Citizens Advice Scotland in highlighting the major flaws and for building the campaign to stop the roll-out. A campaign that has been supported by 24 Scottish charities, including Shelter Scotland, Oxfarm Scotland, Children in Scotland, the Poverty Alliance, Coalition of Carers Scotland, Enable Scotland and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations. Add to that the churches, the trade unions and the many more organisations getting in touch with MSPs. It is fair to say that Scottish civic society, indeed the majority of Scotland, is now calling on the Westminster Government to stop the roll-out of universal credit and sort out the problems. The debate is timely, because we have seen updates from Tory party conference this week on the issue and increased coverage in the news as the full extent of the problems become even more evident to all it would seem, apart from the Tories. I know that the intervention from the working pension secretary this week announces that people claiming universal credit, who are struggling to pay their bills, will now be able to get a cash advance up front on the day they claim. However, this is not a solution to the problems inherent in the structural setup of universal credit. It is a sticking plaster solution trying to hide the problems that have been happening across the roll-out areas up and down our country. Across the pilot areas, we have seen a large rise in rent arrears and almost doubling of crisis grants and massive increases in the need to depend on charity for the most basic necessity, the ability to feed ourselves and our families. How on earth can this be ignored? It cannot. However, the working pension secretary, by making this latest commitment, clearly recognises that there is a problem with the six-week waiting period for payment. Yet, instead of calling a halt to the accelerated roll-out, he is committed to carrying on regardless. He is ignoring calls from civic organisations across the country, opposition politicians and now even a number of Tory MPs who have added their names to the list of those calling for the halt of the roll-out. When we debated this last, I said why would any Government in a civilised society continue to roll out a new policy that it knows is going to hurt tens of thousands of people, will drive people into debt and to war rely on charity to feed themselves and will result in even more people in our country being driven into poverty. I asked the very same questions today. This Tory Government has shown complete contempt to some of the most vulnerable in our society and seems willing to push ahead with no regard to the misery that they are going to inflict. To remind the chamber, during the summer, I wrote to every MP in the UK asking them to support a call to halt the roll-out of universal credit. I wrote to the working pensions secretary who in fairness got back to me and replied, but his defence of the roll-out stated that the evidence from Citizens Advice Scotland was based on evidence from a self-selecting group of people. I take it that he meant the very people who have experienced being part of the roll-out. I also wrote to the leader of the Scottish Tories, Ruth Davidson, but today have had no response. The Tories here in Scotland seem to want to bury their heads in the sand. Do they really not care about what is happening to those who suffer under the policy as it rolls out across Scotland? The member agrees with me that the best way out of poverty is to work and that people claiming universal credit are 13 per cent more likely to be in work than people claiming jobseekers allowance. Alex Rowley. Skills, opportunity and employment are, for me, the best way out of poverty. I wouldn't disagree with that, but what we need to do is provide the support and help, and what is clear is that this proposal in its current form is failing, and that is why we need to address it. We see another weak-wild defence of the roll-out coming from the Scottish Tories here today. The Department for Work and Pensions has even recognised that universal credit was a key factor in rent arrears. In the report published just a few weeks ago, official figures show that 24 per cent of new universal credit claimants wait longer than the six-week period to be paid in full, causing many to fall behind on their rent. With those facts available to them, why then are they still so confident in pushing ahead with this failed system? What is important for people who will suffer as a result of the roll-out is that the Tories in Westminster and here in Scotland face up to the issues and call for a halt to the roll-out until the design and implementation of universal credit is fixed. The evidence, Presiding Officer, is overwhelming. How many more reports do the Tories need to see before they realise that they cannot just ignore that? Or are they a Government willing to drive its people into poverty? Listen to this Parliament today. Listen to civic organisations up and down Scotland, and most importantly, listen to the people who are suffering as a result of these actions, the people who have experienced the pilots in areas up and down Scotland. I urge the Tories to halt the roll-out of universal credit. Listen to the people. Thank you, Mr Rowley. I call Alison Johnstone to speak to and move amendment 8035.1. Ms Johnstone, six minutes are thereabouts, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This is the second time in less than a month that the Parliament has debated the roll-out of universal credit. That is, I think, a clear reflection of the extraordinary level of concern that our constituents and their representatives here, or most of them, have regarding this very significant change in the social security system. Greens support the Government motion and agree that universal credit roll-out should be paused. However, although the design and delivery of universal credit is clearly a problem, the number of cuts that are being hidden in the transition is equally as serious. Recently, Musselborough and Haddington's Citizens Advice launched the report, Universal Credit in East Lothian, Impact on Client Income. It surveyed all people who came to them for help in a two-week period, and results showed that 52 per cent of the universal credit recipients surveyed lost money, and 80 per cent of those who lost saw their income drop by more than one-tenth, with an average loss of £44.72 a week. Disabled recipients and loan parents were the hardest hit, which has been a long-running theme of welfare reform under recent UK Government. Disabled recipients surveyed lost up to 20 per cent of their benefit income, with an average loss of nearly £60 a week. It is no surprise, then, that East Lothian Council has been faced with significantly increased demand for support, with applications for Scottish welfare fund crisis grants being 20 per cent above what would usually be expected. In 2016-17, there was a 12 per cent increase in council tenant renteriors, but for universal credit claimants, the figure was almost double at 22 per cent. Those are figures from one area, but they accurately reflect the bigger picture. That is that universal credit is on average, and I am quoting, now less generous on average than the tax credits and benefits systems that it replaces. That quote wasn't from the child poverty action group. That quote isn't from shelter, but from the independent office for budget responsibility. When universal credit was launched, the white paper, which incidentally was called welfare that works, was not an apt title given the problems with the roll-out, said that no-one will experience a reduction in the benefit that they receive as a result of the introduction of universal credit, but since then, the value of universal credit has dramatically eroded. We have had the benefit cap, which Scottish Green Party research shows is hitting over 2,700 Scots families, with more than 11,000 children impacted, the freeze on universal credit operating from 2016 to 2020, huge cuts to the universal credit work allowances, which means that a working single parent will lose £554 a year, the two-child limit for child tax credits and the abhorrent rape clause. One of the recent changes to universal credit has been the change in the taper rate from 65 per cent to 63 per cent, which even the Scottish Government said in June of this year has a positive impact. Does the member agree with that? Alison Johnstone Yes, I agree, but this amounted to 0.7 billion compared to an initial £3 billion cut. Research by the OBR shows that by 2020, universal credit will take around £3.1 billion out of the pockets of the UK's poorest families. Some estimates are even higher. Our report from the child poverty action group and the Institute for Public Policy Research suggests that two parent families with children will be worse off on average by £960 a year in 2020 compared with the income that they could have expected in the absence of cuts to universal credit and single parent families by a staggering £2,380 on average. The white paper also promised that 900,000 people, including 350,000 children, would be lifted out of poverty. The child poverty action group claims that the opposite is the case, with universal credit putting around 1 million children across the UK into poverty. I have mentioned those figures in the chamber before and I am doing so again, and I will keep repeating them until MSPs on the Conservative Party side of the chamber and the UK Government understand the damage that they are doing to so many families and their children. I would like to turn to the issue of the waiting time for universal credit. Universal credit is paid monthly. Currently, there is a seven-day waiting period and a further seven-day period for the payment to be made. That makes up for a waiting time at best of up to six weeks, a built-in delay. How on earth have we come to design a system with a built-in delay of that length? The UK Government's justification for that is that universal credit mimics work by paying monthly. While leaving aside the rather patronising idea that people requiring support with their income need to be taught what work is like, the comparison is flawed. Many jobs still pay on a fortnightly or weekly basis, and very few, if any, jobs require the employee to wait for six weeks to be paid. Employers cannot simply pay someone weeks late with impunity, but that is what happens with universal credit, with payments coming in seven, eight, nine weeks late and even later, putting huge strain on universal credit recipients and the services trying to help them. In areas where universal credit has been rolled out, citizens advice Scotland report a 15 per cent in renter years compared to a national decrease of 2 per cent, an 87 per cent increase in crisis grant issues compared to a national increase of 9 per cent. Those figures should give members on the Conservative benches pause for thought. The Scottish Government is right to call for the pause of universal credit. As indeed the Greens have done several times, we will be supporting the motion at decision time today. We do support simpler, single-benefit payment universal credit, the premise of that, but not when that payment is already insufficiently low, lower than many of our citizens need, and not when that payment is less by hundreds, sometimes thousands of pounds. The analysis that I have offered today is shared by groups across the political spectrum, the resolution foundation chaired by Conservative MP and former minister David Willets, argues that universal credit is now different to the original proposal because of increasingly tight financial restraints placed on it over recent years. Those have involved more than just a reduction in the money available under universal credit. They have altered the very structure of the policy, changing the composition of winners and losers and fundamentally damaging its ability to deliver against its purported aim. I will round up, Presiding Officer. The UK Government should pause the roll-out of universal credit and rethink the cuts that are being made within it. With child poverty costing the UK economy billions a year, even viewed in the narrow fiscal terms so beloved by the UK Government, universal credit makes absolutely no sense, the cuts to it make no sense, and I move the amendment in my name. Thank you very much. I call Alec Cole-Hamilton to speak to and move amendment 8035.3. Mr Hamilton, six minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I very much welcome the Scottish Government's motion today and the opportunity it affords this chamber to call the halt to the botched accelerated roll-out of universal credit. It follows a successful member's debate last month in the name of Alex Rowley. I was very proud to speak in that and it drew support from all but one corner of this chamber. In that debate, I reminded this place of the origins of social security in the 1940s, when that great liberal William Beverage first identified the original giant evils of ignorance, idleness, swallow, want and disease. That language is outdated, but the challenge that it speaks to still in many ways grips large sections of the people we are elected to serve. Welfare reform has itself been a necessary response to the shifting nature of these social problems and the emerging understanding that through state support we can and should give people the power to change their own situation for the better. It was something that was sought by poverty campaigners, third sector organisations and academics over the course of decades. It fell to my party in its period of coalition government to co-preside over this much-needed redesign. I am not wholly proud of everything that we did in coalition and there are aspects of it that I still find shameful. However, the extent of the Conservative assault on welfare states since they found themselves unencumbered of liberal influence should lead to an understanding of the measure of our positive involvement. The accelerated roll-out of universal credit is an empirical example of where protests and ideological drive to reduce the size of the state have held sway irrespective of the misery that now lies in its wake, and there has been misery. The difficulties reported by organisations such as the child poverty action group go even beyond that, where people switching over to universal credit have had to endure the six-week wait and more before receiving their first payment, where calculations result in underpayments of benefits due to inaccurate real-time recording of information, and where online applications have simply disappeared without trace. In each of those inadequacies, we can see a toll that is exacted on families that, in turn, exerts a material risk to their wellbeing. I rise today in support of the Government's motion, recognising that it gives voice to the intolerable human cost that the flaws in accelerated roll-out have caused. I am grateful for the Government's efforts to seek some consensus in the conduct of today's debate, and the Liberal Democrat amendment seeks only to strengthen the Government's position, and it does so in three key ways. First, it seeks to ensure that those who are moving over to universal credit are supported to do so. We must offer them comprehensive advice and continuing support on managing money and how to deal with problems in the application process itself as they arise. That, in turn, should be underpinned by free unrestricted access to the universal credit helpline, particularly for the duration of the roll-out. Finally, and most perhaps most importantly, it seeks to affirm that consensus that exists across benches in this chamber behind the view that splitting payments across households is an essential development in the evolution of welfare reform. I know that I stand on common ground with the Government and other parties when I state my belief and that of the Liberal Democrats that, in the roll-out of a new system such as this, we have an opportunity to blockade a tool of coercive control that has characterised domestic abuse in this country across generations. Splitting payments equally across every claimant in the household, as the Government has committed now to do, might go some way to help to remove money as a lever of that control. It is a key characteristic in nearly 90 per cent of abusive relationships. It will not rid our country of abuse, but it represents a frontier in the battle towards its eradication and, coupled with other efforts such as the legislation passed by this Parliament last week, would bring us a step nearer to that aim. Deputy Presiding Officer, with 25 different stakeholders, experts in poverty and social injustice calling us to halt this process, we as a Parliament must surely listen. We must also be clear that this resistance to accelerated roll-out is not a fundamental objection to the principles of welfare reform, but rather a just reaction to the unintended impact of its introduction. It answers the challenge that was set to us by that Liberal William Beverage, when he said that the state in organising security should not stifle incentive, opportunity or responsibility. In establishing a national minimum, it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and for his family. In short, Deputy Presiding Officer, it is the belief of the benches and liberals through the ages that welfare in this country should be constructed on foundations of compassion and social mobility. We should seek to use it as a tool of liberation from poverty, from social isolation and from domestic abuse. If, in its roll-out, we harm those citizens, it is designed to serve as we appear to have done in this case, then we must cease its introduction until that can be remedied. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Before I start my speech, it is important that we remind people, particularly the Tories, that they are real people, human beings, that we are discussing today and the situation. It is not statistics, it is real people. I find it absolutely abhorrent that those who are most in need are being penalised by a system that should be repriding for them, and I wholeheartedly agree with the call for the universal credit roll-out to be stopped immediately. I reiterate the concerns of the House of Commons, the Work and Pensions Committee, which has been mentioned by, I think, every other speaker today, which has highlighted the fundamental flaws of universal credit. I think that we need to realise that as well. Universal credit has been a shamble since its inception, and the report produced by Systems Advice Scotland lays bare a system that really is not fit for purpose. Really, the evidence is damning. This system is actively pushing people into crisis through the six-week wait for payment and the knock-on effects such as rent arrears, not just to them but obviously to the housing association also, which cannot actually invest in other members and other residents of the housing associations. It really is a too-prong situation for everyone, but it is people who are absolutely suffering from it. They are unable to buy food and pay other bills such as gas and electricity. What kind of society do we think that we are living in if that is what we are putting people through? Glasgow CAB reported that a client with long-term depression and the receipt of universal credit was having £95 recovered from their payments of a hardship loan and £31 for rent arrears, leaving them £190 a month to live on. The CAB contacted DWP to renegotiate the repayments for the hardship loan, but they were told that they are not non-negotiable. If I can just give another couple of examples of advanced payments, so lauded by the amendment by the Tories and Aram Tomkins, who moved it, let's just look at the so-called five days or whatever it may be. It is not money in kind or money being given in kindness, it is a loan, which we keep saying is a loan. What kind of society our Government gives a loan to somebody who is desperately needing the money and might have to be homeless if they do not get it? We have to repay it back. Loan repayments are automatically deducted from the universal credit, so the total amount that is paid back must provide a breakdown of what the advance is for and how it will prevent dammies to health and safety. There is only one advance per person, and I know that Jeremy Balford is talking about the fact that I can hear him in the background or someone else. He can refuse the payment. Basically, if you don't face serious hardships, you are close to receiving or you cannot afford to repay the loan. I ask once again, it is a loan, it is not money that has been given out of the goodness of the Government's heart. The system itself is designed to exclude the most vulnerable, and that is the evidence that has been gathered from system advice officers across the country, and it is shown that, although the DWP wants to have a totally digital service, a quarter of those consulted would be confident in using that kind of service. I know that that is highlighted in Alex Rowley's amendment from the Labour Party. By implementing this process in access and support, it is marginalising a huge number of claimants. Not everybody has the technology or the experience of computers to be able to access that as well. Another case from Glasgow's CEB is a prime example of the inadequacies in the digitally driven system. A client who tried to make a claim for universal credit admitted that he struggled to meet the online obligations expected of claimants due to not really knowing what they were doing. The client was without any income for 10 months, just because he could not access it through the fact that he did not know how to use the actual methodology. Not to mention the fact that he was staying with family, but he felt uncomfortable because he could not contribute financially. The administration of the system has been attacked, and rightly so, and as I referred to the case that I have just outlined previously, members will not be surprised to hear that there are many, many more. Glasgow's CEB reported one case of a client providing all the required information for the claim, but due to the DWP not processing all the information, it had to wait a further two weeks before the claim was processed. That is not an isolated incident, Presiding Officer. That has come through time and time again, and the Social Security Committee has heard of this evidence when we visited outwith the Parliament in that respect. It is little wonder that people are calling for a halt to this particular system. We are not saying that the system that was previously there was perfect, because it was not. What we are saying is the fact, and everyone here, apart from the Tories, is saying that, to the matter, universal credit is punishing people. People are suffering greatly, and we really need to halt it. I ask the Tories, which will probably fall in deaf ears, but we ask them to support this motion tonight. People are suffering through it, and there are human beings. The systems are the grace, and I fully support the recommendations from the third sector and others that the roll-out cannot go ahead until the serious flaws that have been highlighted by everyone in the system are rectified. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much. I cordialy Balford. We follow back Christina McKelvie. Mr Balford, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome the amendment in my colleagues' name and fully support it. I suspect that there is going to be a lot of consensus from other parties in regard to what we are going to say this afternoon. I think that we can surely all agree that what we want to see here in Scotland is, as many people as possible, get into employment. We had a debate here in the chamber under a private member's bill last week, where I raised the whole issue of disability and the lack of disabled people getting into employment. Universal credit is designed to help people to get into employment. We need to keep remembering that that has to be our goal and our aim. We have heard so much about the great old system that we all love so much—six forms, six claims, six different payments, all that has caused people confusion and difficulty. The system needed reform. In fact, I understand it up until today that every political party here in Scotland wanted to see change. However, what we have here today is simply that we want to go back to a system that failed people and did not work. I am going to make some more progress if that is okay. We have heard a lot today from both the minister and the minister of health about the IT issues and how that causes people problems. I recognise that, for many people, including myself—a bit of a luddite—the IT is difficult to get your head around. However, again, if you go to a job centre where that has been rolled out and you speak to the staff there, they are helping people to fill that out. East Lothian Council is running training for people to be able to use IT free of charge in the library, which not only allows them to fill out the forms but gives them expertise in the area that they do not already have. The principle is right, and it is helping people into employment. We have heard a lot about this being a loan that people get a loan. I agree that it is a loan. When I first started my first job, I went to work for four weeks, and I did not get paid for those four weeks. My mum and dad gave me money to get me over my rent and for what? Can I just finish the point? Let me just finish that point and I will come and give away. My mum gave me money for four weeks to help me survive. Do you know what she then wanted that money back? How I raised the offer to give me a loan and then ask money for a back? That is absolutely the same that happens here. What we have got here is that we have heard a statement from the minister at the party conference yesterday, where he said that, if somebody goes in, they will get that money on the day, and yes, they will have to pay it back over a six-month period. Why is that wrong? Why is that unfair? Stuart McMillan Thank you to the general barfers for taking intervention. Mr Barfers comments a moment when we spoke about the loan, but Mr Balfour, someone who is on universal credit or applying for universal credit, is not applying for a job. He is applying to get assistance so that he can live, so that he can eat, so that he can feed his families. That is why we get the money and then we pay that money back in a way that is over six months, which they can afford. I am actually used to me and a pro player way to work. I think that we have seen, and it would be interesting if Alex Cole-Hamilton in his someone up would be interested, because I do welcome the Scottish Government's move to make those two weeks where people want that. I do welcome the move that rents should go to the landlord. I think that those are both positive steps that come in tomorrow, and I welcome them. I welcome his statement by the minister yesterday in regard to this one day or five day period. My question to the Liberal Democrats in particular is, what more do you want to change before you allow the roll-outs to carry on? You have said that you agree with it in principle. We are looking at rolling it out slowly so that, where there are glitches, it can be a thing. Alex Cole-Hamilton Thank you, Presiding Officer. As the question was directed directly at me, I feel compelled to answer. I think that several things. First, as the Government motion says, the full stop of the roll-out until we are absolutely sure that the teeth and glitches in the IT problems are resolved and that the six-week wait is completely annihilated. The second thing is free access to the comprehensive universal credit helpline. Finally, we need to be sure that, when we do paid payments, that they are split across households so that we can reduce domestic abuse. Jeremy Balfour I welcome the member for Clifff and that, but unless you roll out the system, unless you roll out the glitches, we will never know about them. That is why the Government is taking its time in rolling this out. I am in my last minute. I am about to be caught up by the Deputy Presiding Officer. That is why it is right to continue to roll out to make the necessary changes, but to be against this in principle is wrong and is holding people back in our country and the other parties should reflect on that and what they are causing is greater poverty and less people getting into disability. The Deputy Presiding Officer I have a few minutes in hand for interventions. Christina McKelvie to be followed by Pauline McNeill. Christina McKelvie Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. What do you do when you have a Government in Westminster that admits that its own welfare reforms are, and I quote, flawed but pushes on with them anyway? What do you do if you do not come from a privileged family background that can bail you out whenever you need it? You get total chaos in devastating doses, wrecking the lives of people who are easy targets. It is not universal and it is not credit. And the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, who have just got back to me, have said that they want to see an immediate end to waiting days, fortnightly payments and rent directly to landlords, just like the Scottish flexibilities coming into force tomorrow and more generous work allowance and a second earner allowance. That is needed if universal credit is to make work pay, as the Tories say, and better than minor changes to any taper. They also say to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that we support choice over payment splitting within households, stating that those receiving the child element should be first. Lord Freud, the architect of universal credit, has already admitted that there are faults and he has said that it might take decades and I quote, decades to optimise the scheme. That would not be a problem, but then this is the same Lord Freud in a letter to me who told MND sufferers to take in a lodger or work extra hours in order to cope with the bedroom tax so that he gets a view of the man behind the scheme. Then we have David Goch declaring that universal credit is transforming lives. Well yes, Presiding Officer, it is transforming lives, but not for the better. Certainly not for the people that I see suffering coming through my door every single day. The figures emerging from that transforming lives are in the five areas where we have had the pilots. The cab has told us that a 15 per cent rise in rent arrears is seen and 87 per cent increase in crisis grants are needed and two of the five cab areas, 40 per cent and 70 per cent increase in food bank advice. When Angela Constance wrote to express the Scottish concerns, she did not even get a reply. What she got was a five page eulogy declaring how wonderful the whole system is, a bit like the letter that I got from Lord Freud. It is yet another depressing example of the conservative attitude to people who are in any kind of need. That is all of our twist attitude that we have heard of today. You want more, you will not get more from the Tories. We have already seen them attacked with the bedroom tax, we have been making those on DLA face humiliating interviews, we have seen a loss and cuts in payments and demands that they are fit to return to work. In Hamilton Lart Collin Stonehouse, I have a constituent who is unable to leave his home and is reliant on a multiplicity of drugs. He has been told to go and stack supermarket shelves. He can't even leave his wheelchair unaided. Another example of the conscious cruelty of this Tory UK Government. People are told that universal credit only affects means-tested benefits. Even that much isn't true. In complex cases, for example, where there is an enhanced care component for a disabled child, the families are set to lose thousands of pounds a year, and if you have a second disabled child, that will double. In Citizen Advice Scotland, they have also told us in their analysis of 52,000 cases that they calculate that those on universal credit would have less than £4 per month to spend after paying their bills—£4 a month. People in here spend more of that on a smoothie. The organisation also found that the system has been rolled out in Scotland. There has been an 87 per cent increase in crisis grants, as I said earlier. That is local authorities picking up the pieces of people's lives on a benefit that has been cut by Westminster. That is not acceptable. Since the Scottish Government introduced the scheme to provide some mitigation, it has paid out £132.6 million. That is just a stick in plaster. That won't solve the problem, but that is £132.6 million not spent on front-line services. Universal credit, as we have heard, is brought with it at renter years that have rocketed, making eviction a constant threat. In East Lothian, we have heard some of the horror stories from there. In South Lanarkshire, where universal credit will roll out this week, the council has had to put by £4 million just to deal with the renter years—£4 million, an additional to the £132.6 million not being spent on front-line services. As politicians, as representatives of our communities, we cannot stand on the sidelines silent. I welcome that the Scottish Government has managed to secure a system that allows some flexibility to make more frequent payment payments, but we are having to pay for that, something that has been welcomed by charities and voluntary organisations. Hopefully, that will help to contain some renter years and make very limited incomes a bit easier to manage, but that is also a stick-in plaster, not a cure. Amongst the multiple design flaws that the Scottish Government has managed to fix, only two of them. That is the turnaround in time for applications. We need to fix that turnaround. I have people waiting six weeks—yes, we do—we have people waiting six weeks. However, the brilliant volunteers at the Hamilton district food bank in my constituency are telling me that people are waiting up to 12 weeks long. They have seen young men who have been subject to this in South Lanarkshire for 12 months, who are rough sleeping, who are sofa-surfing, who are unemployed, who are self-harming and, in some cases, attempting and being pretty successful at suicide. That is not something that I will remain silent on. Food banks, where the system has already been rolled out, have seen a double in the number that they had previously seen. It does not take a genius to work out where that is going to lead us with 50 more roll-outs, yet this Government is determined to ignore that evidence. I say to Theresa May and David Gough that we have to admit it and accept the figures. You have got it wrong and it is going to get much, much worse. Accept reality and stop the roll-out towards the Bolivian. You need to rethink and put people at the centre of your plans instead of putting them on the streets. Holly McNeill, followed by George Adam. Can there really be any doubt now that the way that the universal credit system has been rolled out is pushing more people into poverty? It seems that even people on the other side of the debate at least agree that it has not rolled out the way in which it was intended. Tonight, I will vote for Alex Rowley's motion and all the other political parties to make our voice heard in this Parliament to join with other political parties to say that universal credit, as it is currently being rolled out, should be halted so that the serious flaws in it can be resolved. The Tory should not misunderstand the position of Labour or any other party. Jeremy Balfour would not take an intervention, but if he had, he and many others would say, well, not one of us got to our feet to defend the current system. To a member, we have asked for the halting of the current system so that it can be fixed. The Citizens Advice Bureau called for the freeze of the universal credit system. Many other organisations that deal with people who are at the receiving end of universal credit day and daily are we doubting when they add their voice to call for the freeze of this policy. The universal credit scheme that we are debating is not as advertised. Yes, it was to create flexibility in the benefit system to get people back to work without losing their benefits. It was Alison Johnson who eloquently outlined that the transition for many people has not been like that. In fact, there is evidence to support the idea that people have had less money under universal credit than in the previous system. The truth is that the current operation of universal credit for most people has been a swindle. It is not the scheme that they were promised, and it is now discredited because the Tories refuse to really fix the fundamental problems that would make it a scheme worth defending. We were told earlier on in the debate that rent arrears were caused by the previous system and not universal credit, but the DWP's own evaluation found that 42 per cent of all claimant families that are waiting for a first universal credit payment were in rent arrears because of that. In fact, four in ten households were in rent arrears eight weeks after the claim, so it is grossly unfair to say that it is because of rent arrears collected under the previous system. Let's see what the five-day payment that has just been announced is the only response that we have had to promises that the Prime Minister made this week that she accepted that there were problems in the system. Let us see whether that resolves any of the deep-rooted problems. For most people, they know that that will have a knock-on effect in wider society because when people are unable to pay their rent and landlords don't get receipt of that rent and so on, there has to be an acceptance that a failure to fix that will have a much wider problem in society. Let's not forget that we are talking here at the moment that universal credit is expected to be accelerated. When we are calling for a halt, the Government wants to accelerate it. I would at least have some respect for the Tory position tonight if you said that at least you were asking for the system to be slowed down so that the flaws could be fixed, but instead you seem to be supporting that it is, in fact, accelerated even with all the flaws that it has. The six-week bill in—it does not seem to be a six-week bill in designed to make it difficult for claimants. It is obvious to anyone that if you change the support system for those who are already struggling by adding in extra time where they do not get paid, it is obvious to anyone that they are going to reach a crisis point. Areas with full universal credit roll-out have seen an 87 per cent increase in crisis grant issues compared to a national increase of 9 per cent. Can anyone be in any doubt about that? Every part of the country is reporting deep-rooted errors, so it is not just that the system is not working but daily errors in the system itself. Let us not forget that it is a move to a fully digital system. Some of us, or maybe not, would be fully conversant with a digital system. Jeremy Balfour is not just that people cannot get their head around it. The problem is that many people cannot afford to be on the internet in the first place. Why would you design a system and not make allowances for the one in four people—for example, in Glasgow—who do not even have access to the internet? There is overwhelming evidence from the Citizens Advice Bureau and the Trussell Trust that show that the six-week bill in itself leads to dent and rent arrears and the use of food banks. The Church of Scotland—I will finish on this if you want me to—had a very important aspect to the briefing to members. The design choices of the scheme reflect the experiences of welfare members of society, ignoring the real-life experiences of those poorer people who are on universal credit. I hope that, at least if the Tories are not going to vote with us tonight, they will do more to speak out to get the fundamental flaws changed and make the system, the kind of system that it was meant to be in the first place. I am happy to speak in this debate today because it is a simple comparison between what is right and what is quite clearly wrong. The current system for universal credit is broken, as others have said, and must be stopped and fixed. The six-week wait for the first payment of universal credit is pushing people into rent arrears, debt and crisis. When the social security committee went over to Musilbara, we heard the real-life stories of people's sufferings, not the dignification of Jeremy Balfour, not the when-you-wish-upon-a-star ideals of Jeremy Balfour. Those were real people with real issues. There was one gentleman who had worked all his life, but because of his wise long-term condition, he was now her full-time carer. He told that he had rent arrears because of universal credit and was having trouble sleeping with the worry. That is real people with real problems, not some cold, callous academic debate. As my colleague and friend Sandra White said, those are people's lives that we are dealing with here in this scenario. However, his complaints were that there was no human contact throughout the whole process from the DWP. He showed me a phone tablet that he used as his sole contact source with the DWP. He believed that there was no one at the other end of that conversation. He barely had the data allowance to be able to send information backwards and forwards. However, when he attended the job centre to talk to someone, to talk to a human being about the problems that he was having, he was told that he couldn't help. That is just not right, Presiding Officer. This is a man who, because of his current predicament, does not know where or when his next penny is coming from. That is not welfare reform. Those are the on-going attacks by the Tory Westminster Government on our most vulnerable within our society. The Scottish Government wrote to the UK Government back in March 2017, expressing its concerns and stating that its policy was pushing more people into hardship and debt. However, that is not just the Scottish Government and the people who spoke to the Social Security Committee and Muscle Brothers. That call for the Scottish Government is echoed by 24 Scottish charities. Alex Rowley and Alex Cole-Hamilton have mentioned that as well. It is including Shelter Scotland, SFHA, Homeless Action Scotland, Citizens Advice Scotland, Oxfam and the Poverty Alliance, and all organisations that are involved with people at the front line in dealing with poverty. In the letter to the Scottish edition of the times, all 24 charities said, together, we believe that the Government must halt the roll-out of the benefit so that those flaws can be fixed before they harm more people. Those are strong words from organisations that normally I just want to go about helping people, but they are taking this stand because they know how wrong this policy is. That is a very important point to make, because the evidence of the Social Security Committee particularly has had none of the faults from the pilot programmes that were ever corrected. We heard from DWP members who said that people with the words of DWP or Muscle Brothers Social Citizens Advice said that they had a problem, because the problem was that when they had the pilots, no one fixed the problems. They just kept cutting and pasting it and moving it on, so do not listen to anyone here. I will not be lectured by anyone who is telling me that they are taking their time. They have cut and pasted the whole process all the way through, and that is what is causing most of the problems because of their sheer arrogance. The Social Security Committee has heard the difficulty that universal credit has had in local authorities. One senior officer from Inverclyde is going as far to say that it just needs to stop. A council officer is saying that it must stop. Council officers are aware that they work within a political environment, and nine times out of 10 are normally very careful in what they say, but one individual said that one of the areas where the full roll-out is, it has to stop now. Do not take my word for it of the council officer and one of the many difficulties in the roll-out areas. Here are the figures from the DWP. One in four new claimants waited longer than six weeks for their first payment. They also found that four out of 10 households were in rent arrears eight weeks after their claim was made. One in three are still in arrears four months later, and four out of five said that they had never ever been in arrears before in the past. Many took to pay the lenders or those debt lenders, thus making a very difficult situation even worse. In 2016-17, a total of 2,920 applications were made to the Scottish Welfare Fund. The UK Government must stop ignoring the overwhelming evidence that shows the negative impact of universal credit full service. To make the point further, John Cunningham of East Lothian Council said to the full roll-out area that the full service is operating 82 per cent of council tenants in East Lothian who receive universal credits have some level of arrears. 82 per cent have some level of arrears and, as we know, many of them have never had arrears in the past. The UK Tory Government must take heed of this Parliament as well. They need to look at the financial destitution throughout our country, caused by their policy. Our communities are suffering as a result of this policy. That is not the way forward. They must think again and stop this roll-out of universal credit. We accept that the roll-out of universal credit has produced serious anomalies. We accept that there have been instances where some households being transferred to the new benefit have seen an extended period of time before they are in receipt of it, notwithstanding that, as the DWP has said, the vast majority of claimants are paid on time and in full. We accept that, inevitably, problems will exist when delivering a system of such magnitude. My plea today is that, across this chamber, when talking about issues that affect some of the most vulnerable people in society, we discuss them without hyperbole and with consistency. Universal credit, as Adam Tomkins has said, is working. I thank the member for taking intervention and accepting what he has said to an extent. He also accepts, from this side of the chamber, the reply to Jeremy Balfour, that not everyone has either parents, rich parents or someone who can give them the money to put them over the six weeks waiting, or even if I did say that, Mr Balfour. Some people cannot rely on their parents or others to give them the money. Will he accept that some people really are suffering? Donald Cameron, of course, accepts that people are in that position, but independently reviewed research has shown that those who are on universal credit are more likely to move into work in the first nine months of their claim, with 71 per cent of claimants doing so compared to 63 per cent of those on job seekers allowance. That is inherently a better system. According to the DWP, those who are on universal credit are, on average, earning more. Whilst we recognise the challenges that a new system presents, the early indications show that it is having the positive impact that it is intending to achieve. Let me be clear. Are we saying that the roll-out of universal credit has been easy? No, we are not. Are we saying that it is a simple and seamless change? No, we are not. What we are saying is that, once fully implemented, not only will universal credit be one of the most necessary overhauls of our welfare system in generations, but it will also deliver better prospects for those who need it most. Rather than talking down this reform package—I would like to make some progress, please—we should be discussing what this Parliament can do to make it work, and, furthermore, what powers we can use to ensure that fewer people are required to be on universal credit in the first place. We know that, while full universal credit has not yet been completely rolled out, the UK Government expects all new claimants to be on it by 2018 and all legacy claimants to be enrolled by 2022. That is a long process. In any event, it is not being rushed, and rightly so. It will take a decade. It was first legislated for in 2012. There are another five years to go. Progress should be patient and incremental so that we get this right rather than rush it. It is simply incorrect to accuse the UK Government of rushing this. We on these benches want to see it work rather than fail. No one has sought to create problems around delayed payments, and the UK Government and its agencies will do all it can to ensure that those wrongs are made right. Every parliamentarian should be assisting those in our communities who find themselves in such circumstances. For that reason, like others, I welcomed the intervention of the Secretary of State yesterday who announced that anyone who needs an advance payment will be offered it up front. Claimants who want an advance payment will not have to wait six weeks. They will receive this advance within five working days. If someone is in immediate need, the DWP will fast-track the payment, meaning that they will receive it on the same day. However, I want to turn to a specific issue quickly, which is how universal credit supports young people looking to get on in life. There are a series of exemptions that exist to support the most vulnerable young people in our society, including those who are unable to live with their parents, people who are in work or those who have left work, and others in difficult circumstances. We know that youth unemployment is down across the UK. We know that the Fraser of Allander Institute announced over the summer that youth unemployment in Scotland is at its lowest ever recorded rate. Although such welcome data has occurred for a number of reasons, it is clear that more young people are working than ever before, and that universal credit, which is primarily designed to get more people into work, is not having the doom-laden impact that some would have it to do. It is important to remind the chamber—no, I am not going to take an intervention—of the good that this can do. With all that said, I want to stress again the significance of this reform, a reform that offers people a hand-up, not a hand-out, because the principles behind universal credit are positive. Simplifying the welfare system is positive. Ensuring that welfare rewards those who work is positive. Reducing poverty is, of course, a positive. It is not just the Conservatives that have advocated the system. Labour MPs have backed it. The shadow secretary of state for work in pensions, Debbie Abraham, said that we supported and still support the principles of a simplified benefits system. The Liberal Democrats were in coalition when the UK Government passed a welfare reformat. Yet to hear an SNP member call for its revocation. It was such wide party political consensus. Let's make this system work, a system that will encourage work, encourage aspiration and a system that does not trap people in dependency but instead offers them hope. Mary Todd, followed by Ian Gray. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am sorry that Donald Cameron would not take an intervention from me regarding the flaws uncovered in the Highland area that we both represent. It does seem from his speech that he lives in a very alternative world to me and many others in the Highlands. If universal credit continues, food banks won't be able to catch everyone that falls. This is the stark warning that the Trussell Trust, which runs 400 food banks across the country, has issued to Theresa May. Charity, after charity, has lined up to point out what the flawed plan is doing, but the Tories just ignore them. As one of the first areas in Scotland to have universal credit, Highland is already having to deal with the impact of this ill-thought-out policy. Myself and Drew Henry MP have been campaigning for many months to halt the roll-out of full-service universal credit. I can assure Mr Balfour that the UK Government has heard of the flaws long ago, but they have taken no action. This week, the UK Government's own Tory backbenchers are calling for a halt to universal credit. 12 Tory MPs, led by Heidi Allen, have written to Mr Gawk, demanding the national roll-out of the policy to be paused—not the Scottish Tories, I presume—but clearly there are some Tories who put their constituents before their party. Dame Louise Casey, who has advised four Prime Ministers on social policy for the past 18 years, including Mrs May, has joined the calls to halt the roll-out. Will the Tories ignore her too? Presiding Officer, what will it take for the UK Government to finally notice the devastating impact that universal credit is having on people? It is scandalous that the Tories defend the roll-out of universal credit when they can see the harm that it is causing. There is a damning litany of failure, confusion, heartache and dignity and a crushing drive towards increased property in the universal credit system. No, Mr Tomkins. As others have said, one of the main problems is that new claimants have to wait up to six weeks before receiving their first payment longer in some circumstances. Now I know that it is very difficult for those in privileged positions and from wealthy backgrounds to understand, but most ordinary people cannot manage to survive six weeks with no income. A six-week delay is the official best-case scenario, in reality it can be months. Lengthly delays are pushing tenants, building up renter ears and being pushed to seek crisis or hardship payments and turning into food banks. The rise in our ears, Mr Tomkins, is not just in East Lothian. It is putting real pressure on local authority budgets in the Highland Council. They have set us out £650,000 to deal with a further increase in renter ears that they are expecting. They have also employed four new staff at a cost of £124,000 to prevent renter ears. This money-saving exercise seems somewhat costly. Earlier this year, myself and Drew Henry invited the Minister for Social Security in Scotland to a round-table meeting in Inverness so that she could listen first hand to the evidence of harm. We heard the story of a pregnant woman forced to travel to Aberdeen to get a national insurance number before she could claim any money. We heard the story of many people, many with poor digital skills and connectivity, struggling with no money. We heard how housing associations find themselves in the unenviable position of pursuing tenants through the courts at huge public expense. For debt, there is not of the client's own making. We heard staff who worked in the council, and housing associations describe the distress that they feel at being unable to help. The removal of implicit consent means that they can no longer act on behalf of their clients. The client has to navigate the system themselves. The evidence of universal credit failure is there for all to see. The most powerful testimony that we heard at that meeting was from McMillan CAB. It helps people who are terminally ill to put their affairs in order before they die. Terminally ill claimant forms cannot be made without the claimant verifying that they are terminally ill. The system forces those people to face up to something they might not want to face up to, something that they have the right not to face up to, if that is what they wish. Terminally ill people, by definition, have limited time. They spend the last months of their lives worrying about their family finances, getting into debt and navigating an impossible system. The general theme that folks should be better off working or make work pay is often repeated by the Tories and underpins the ideology behind universal credit. Presiding Officer, I directly challenge my Tory colleagues in this chamber to tell us whether they imagine that terminally ill folk would be better off working. No, it is not just a problem with implementation. This policy is fundamentally flawed in its design. It is not about making work pay. It is about making benefits punish. Universal credit exemplifies the colossal lack of empathy and incompetence that has become the indelible hallmark of the Tory Government. It is time to admit that universal credit is an expensive failure. Rolling out the scheme to thousands of people who are already struggling is cruel in the extreme. Iain Gray, followed by Ruth Maguire. The idea of universal credit is one that seems to have been around for a very long time. Adam Tomkins is right, really. Its development on the face of it has been painfully slow. You would think, then, that having taken so long to propose, plan and develop this new system, the Tory Government might have got it right. Alas, nothing could be further from the truth. I know this to be the case, because my own constituency in East Lothian was the very first in Scotland to see, or perhaps I should say suffer, the ironically termed full service universal credit roll-out march last year, so almost 18 months of real experience. For my constituency, universal credit has not seemed painfully slow, but it has seemed very painful indeed. How painful? We now know for sure, because last week, my two local citizens advice bureau in Musilbarra and Harrington published their report, Universal Credit in East Lothian, Impact on Client Income. That snapshot looked at exactly what had happened to client's incomes compared with the six legacy working-age benefits that were replaced by universal credit. The results are stark. There are more losers than gainers, and the losers lose a lot more than the gainers gain. Indeed, 52 per cent of cab clients in East Lothian lose from the switch to universal credit, and only 31 per cent gain. That, of course, is the reverse of the predicted results and desire of the change. What is more, the median loss in income for those who lose is £44.72 per week, with one client losing as much as £117 from their weekly support. Meanwhile, the median gain for those whose income did increase was £34. The previous analysis by Labour has shown that single parents are going to be worst hit by universal credit, and that the East Lothian research bears that out—lone parents lose most. However, the research also reveals that disabled clients are hit just as hard as lone parents by the changes. The truth is that the new system that was supposed to incentivise work is instead punishing those who face the greatest barriers, be it caring responsibilities or disability, to finding that work. I say to Mr Tomkins and Mr Balford that this is not a benign shift to a new streamlined form of benefit. For my constituents, it has been a straightforward cut in the money that they receive to live. It is worth reiterating, Presiding Officer, that those are facts, not speculation—evidence of the real impact. That research clearly demonstrates the effect of the six-week wait for benefits under universal credit 2. Adam Tomkins is grateful to the member for taking an intervention. As he will well know, the Social Security Committee visited Musselborough in his East Lothian constituency to look at the roll-out of universal credit. That is what we found. Attendees, claimants and advice workers were supportive of the theory of universal credit and its aims. There was recognition that it was a new system and everyone was learning. One cab advice worker said that having all six benefits assessed at the same time and having a real-time system were improvements. I wonder if Mr Gray could reflect on those remarks. Have evidence from his own constituency? I am happy to reflect on them and I hope to get some time back for them as well, because they were quite lengthy. I hope that Mr Tomkins will reflect on the evidence that, no matter how happy those people might have been with the form-filling, the net effect of the change to universal credit is a reduction in living standards for the vast majority of those who access the benefits system. That, partly caused by the worst way that it reported to cab in East Lothian, in Musselborough Job Centre area, was six months, not six weeks. Those are having real effects on real people. That is not Mr Cameron's hyperbole, they have real effects. In East Lothian, we saw a 34 per cent increase in referrals to the food bank, the highest increase in referrals in any part of Scotland. The consequences of forcing people to prioritise between feeding their families and paying other bills are real and are there and can be demonstrated. I have already said to Mr Tomkins that we have seen in East Lothian a 20 per cent increase in rent arrears, and he may tell me that DWP tells him that that has been resolved. I would say that if he comes to East Lothian Council they will show him 1.3 million reasons why it has not been resolved and they are still dealing with rent arrears caused by that six week. Wait, and bear in mind that East Lothian is not a particularly deprived part of Scotland, although it does have pockets of poverty. On the whole, it is wealthier than the average county in our country, yet something has pushed more and more of its citizens onto the goodwill of friends and families, or the charity of food banks, or the tender mercies of credit companies, loan sharks even, or indeed the iniquitous advance on future inadequate benefits. That something is universal credit. Many of my constituents, Presiding Officer, have paid a price not just in money too or in living standards but in their health. East Lothian Council revenue staff who deal with those rent arrears have had to be provided with suicide awareness training for the first time. Those are the real effects of the reality of universal credit as it has been rolled out today. It is something that should be stopped and fixed before those effects are seen right across Scotland. Ruth Maguire, followed by Miles Briggs. The damage being caused by universal credit has been clear to most of us in this chamber and to many outside for a long time. It was clear in March when the Scottish Government wrote to the UK Government, requesting an immediate halt to roll out over urgent concerns about how universal credit was pushing more people into hardship and debt. It was clear in June when we debated the child poverty bill at stage 1 and heard about how the Tory's disastrous welfare reform, including universal credit, is drastically increasing child poverty. It was clear at the beginning of last month when we debated Alec Rowley's motion, explicitly calling for a halt to universal credit roll-out, and heard many harrowing stories and statistics that underline why it must be halted. It was clear in the middle of last month, too, in the Tory's housing debate, in which, after-speaker, spoke to how damaging Tory welfare policies and cuts, including universal credit, have caused an increase in homelessness. The evidence gathered at committee level has also been consistent in painting a picture of a flawed and damaging system, whether the Social Security Committee of this Parliament, of which I am a member, or the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee, which has relaunched its inquiry into universal credit roll-out as a result of its enduring concerns. Outside of the respective parliaments, charities across the country, such as Citizens Advice and Shelter, have been tirelessly highlighting the severe consequences of universal credit and calling for an immediate halt. Although late to the game, I welcome the recent news that even some Conservative MPs are prepared to publicly recognise the indefensible and entirely avoidable damage being caused by the welfare policies of their Government. Led by Heidi Allen, who sits on the Work and Pensions Select Committee, 14 Tory MPs have written a private letter to the Work and Pensions Secretary demanding a pause in the roll-out. Speaking to the BBC just yesterday, Allen criticised the hypocrisy of the Prime Minister when it comes to the roll-out of universal credit, saying that her approach does not fit with her pledge to help those struggling to meet ends meet. To call Allen directly, she said, these are vulnerable people with no recourse to savings. We should be supporting them because universal credit is about supporting people into work and helping them to move up the working ladder and take on more hours. Allen also dismissed the Government's advanced cash payments solution as being like an elastoplast being stuck on and pointed out that accepting the need for advanced payments also means accepting that the fundamental design of the system is flawed, and I think that that is the key point, Presiding Officer. Those on the Tory benches would do well to listen to their colleagues' interview in full and I will be happy to send them a link if they would like one. Universal credit has also come in for strong criticism from a former top Government adviser, Dame Louise Casey, who is also worth quoting at length. Speaking to the BBC last week, she said, the overall strategy might be right, the overall intention might be right, but the fact of the matter is that the actual delivery of it means that some people, because of waiting times before the benefit kicks in, will end up in dire circumstances. Yes, I will. Jamie Greene Sorry, thank you. I thank Ruth Maguire for taking that intervention. Can you just clarify, are you against the principle of universal credit in its entirety? If you are against the principle of it, I have not heard a single suggestion on what would replace it. Can I say first of all that I remind all members that they should always speak through the chair, please? Ruth Maguire Presiding Officer, nobody is against the principle of a simplified benefit system that helps people get back into work, but the reality for my constituents, the reality for the constituents whom Jamie Greene is supposed to represent, is that it is just not working. Six weeks to wait for money when you have nothing is an impossible situation. They need to check their privilege. We are not all in a position where we have savings, we are not all in a position where mum or dad can lend money when you start work. You have to start thinking about the reality. The principle is fine, but it is not working and it is causing harm and hardship to our constituents. So, dire circumstances, as she said, are more dire than I think we have seen in this country for years and that has to stop. She went on to say that I think it is okay occasionally to say that we did not get the implementation completely right. Let us pause and see what we can do, but the moment everyone is holding out with, we are pressing on, we are pressing on, we are pressing on. She added that it is like jumping over a cliff. Once you have jumped, people end up at the bottom and we do not want that to happen. However, despite such stark warnings and even the threat of a Tory rebellion, David Goch speaking at Tory conference yesterday afternoon announced that universal credit is working and confirmed that the roll-out will continue to the planned timetable. How arrogant, how heartless, real harm is being done here. Despite warnings even from their own MPs, from respected Government advisers, from charities, parliamentary committees and this Scottish Parliament, still they are pressing ahead with a damaging and destructive roll-out of universal credit. In full knowledge of the consequences of their actions, they are choosing to push more children into poverty, more disabled people into despair and more vulnerable people on to the streets. Are those actions that the Scottish Tories are proud of, or do they have the courage to join their rebel MP colleagues, recognise the devastation being wrought by universal credit and call on their Government to halt its roll-out immediately? One person who will be pleased with the UK Government's decision to press on is Ian Duncan-Smith, who has said that he sees no reason to delay or stop. No reason, he says. Well, as a North Ayrshire MSP, representing towns and villages due to get full roll-out in November, there are more than a few reasons why I don't want my constituents to be at the mercy of the shambles. I'll tell you what I see no reason for, Presiding Officer. I see no reason for vulnerable constituents to be left for six weeks or longer without support, forced to rely on food banks, pushed into rent arrears and even homelessness. I see no reason for North Ayrshire Council and other local services to be put under immense staffing and financial pressures as they struggle to cope with the fall-out. I see no reason for the Scottish Government to have to keep diverting taxpayer money into mitigating what's just a disaster and leaves us standing still. The UK Government must stop ignoring the overwhelming evidence that shows the negative impact of universal full credit service. Not just in Scotland, but in the UK, it's time for the UK Government to admit its mistake and immediately halt the roll-out of universal credit. Miles Briggs, followed by Ben Macpherson. I thank those organisations that have provided briefings ahead of today's debate. I want to begin by saying that I recognise and take on board the concerns regarding the roll-out that has been expressed today and in recent months, including in my own region, where universal credit has been piloted in Musselborough within East Lothian. I would like to pay tribute and thank Citizens Advice Bureau staff in East Lothian for the work that they have been doing to advise and support individual local residents. I visited the cab office in Musselborough in April to hear directly about the roll-out concerns and have raised them with the UK Government. Many of the concerns highlighted relate to the delays in receiving benefit payments, which were experienced when people initially applied for universal credit, and that has been raised by all members today. I therefore welcome the fact that the UK Government has acted on those concerns, and this week it responded to assist claimants. The refreshed guidance to DWP staff means that anyone who needs an advanced payment will be offered that payment up front and will not have to wait six weeks for it, but will receive a payment within five working days. What is important is that the UK Government makes sure that any reforms to our welfare system are done with people in mind. Who are you taking, Mr Briggs? Mr Arthur. Tom Arthur. Thanks for giving way. We are all aware of the challenges and the hardship caused by the six-week wait. Does he honestly believe that simply giving benefits on tick is a solution to this? Miles Briggs. It is right this time that we have been hearing these concerns, and this is exactly what the UK Government has now responded to. As I was about to say before I took that intervention, those of us who have met constituents who have experienced difficulties with this system know that this has had a number of concerns. We have been clear that emergency situations for payments do indeed exist. On those of benches, we made sure that that voice was heard by UK ministers. It is therefore welcome that the announcement and the five-week payment that emergency payments will also be made on that same day that someone needs it. Personal, financial and budgeting advice will also continue to be available to claimants, and local authorities, of course, can make discretionary housing payments, too. As my colleague Adam Tomkins has already said, the Scottish Government has used the new powers available to it to allow Scottish claimants to choose whether they want payments to be received fortnightly or, instead, monthly, and whether the housing element of the payment is paid to their landlord directly instead of themselves. Today's debate will, no doubt, inform the DWP's consideration of further issues around the roll-out of universal credit. As, too, will the concerns that have been voiced by UK members of Parliament from across the political spectrum. In addition, members of Parliament's Social Security Committee will also have the chance to raise the specific concerns directly with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when he appears before the parliamentary committee. We encourage the DWP to continue to respond to any of those issues around the implementation of the roll-out as it goes forward to the delayed time of 2022. While it is, of course, right that elected representatives voice concerns about some specific issues around the element of the operation of, no, I want to make some progress, I took one already, it's important too that we also remember why universal credit is being introduced and the overall vision behind what is the most radical reform of a benefit system in the whole of a post-war period. The welfare and tax credit system inherited by the UK Government in 2010 was massively complicated, ineffective and confusing. For too long, it's also meant that, for too many people, it simply did not pay to seek to move from benefits into employment. Indeed, under the Labour Government's old system, they actively punished people to try to find a job. In some cases, taxpayers were facing a situation where they would lose £9 of every £10 that they actually earned. It subsidises low wages as a massive cost to taxpayers. Something that even former Labour cabinet ministers have admitted was never the case, and it failed, above all, to help young people to move into work. Universal credit aims to ensure that work always pays as part of an integrated, responsive, modern and flexible benefits system. No, I don't have time. That provides high-quality support to help people to find employment. It's designed to take into account acclaimants changing circumstances. The principle behind it is genuine and broad cross-party support, as we've heard today, that no one's actually talking about going back to the old system. From that, the evidence is clear that suggests that universal credit can work and is making a difference. People claiming universal credit are 13 per cent more likely to be in work than people claiming jobseekers allowance. They are more likely to move into work within nine months of their claim, more likely to work for more days and, on our average, earning more. To conclude, I welcome the UK Government's action this week to address the key concerns around people's experiences of the roll-out. I urge the UK Government, as we have on the benches from the outset, to continue to engage with stakeholders, including MSPs, with legitimate concerns as we go forward. I hope that we can all unite around making universal credit a success in the future and it can help more people into employment, which is surely what we all want to see in this Parliament. I support the amendment in my colleague Adam Tomkins' name. Ben Macpherson, followed by Clare Haughey. The roll-out of universal credit has been a tragedy for many, not just because of the suffering and hardship that its implementation has caused in Scotland and across the UK, but because the creators of the policy have misguidedly combined and conflated a logical ambition for a simpler social security system with an illogical, ideological, right-wing austerity agenda, intent on cutting budgets as the top priority no matter what the human cost. For clarity, universal credit is meant to deliver a monthly payment to help with living costs for those on low incomes or those out of work. Therefore, in principle, you would think that it would support those in employment and positively encourage those who are unemployed and unable to work. However, that has not always been the case. By frequently assuming the worst in people by default, universal credit, as it is currently designed and being implemented crucially, not only causes unnecessary harm but it also often undermines its own stated aim of getting people into sustainable work, because its punitive framework often exacerbates financial barriers to work, preserves low pay and causes in work poverty. We should all remember that 60 per cent of UK households in poverty have at least one member who works. As the Social Security Committee reported last year, although universal credit may seem like a good idea, the practical implementation and how it is resourced is causing real problems. As the DWP has reported itself, around a quarter of new claimants have waited six weeks to be paid, six weeks with no money, and four in 10 households have ended up in renterrears only eight weeks after a claim has been made, with four-fifths of those never being in renterrears before. As the BBC reported last week, renterrears created because of universal credit have led to landlords in some areas across the UK advertising properties as no-UC. That is why the Scottish Government's actions to use its limited flexibilities over the system are so important, to provide Scottish recipients a choice of more frequent payments and for the housing element to be paid directly to landlords. In communities in Scotland and around the UK, universal credit is causing real and significant distress. Earlier this year, the Social Security Committee, which I sit on, went to East Lothian, where universal credit has been fully rolled out, to hear from claimants first hand about the system. They distressingly told us about their demoralising experiences. One person said, I'm sitting up at night, night after night, worried that I will lose my house. I can't work and my great fear is homelessness. Others told us, it's the uncertainty. It's supposed to be like work, but it's not. Payments don't come on time and you don't know how much you are getting. You get told payments will be backdated, but that's no good today. I need to feed my family. The way that universal credit is paid means that new claimants have to wait six weeks before receiving their first payment. In East Lothian, one out of five claimants said that they had to wait two months for their payment, and there are other cases of up to 12 weeks. Although, as we've heard, to mitigate this, claimants are able to take an advance payment called a short-term advance, but there have also been problems with that and delays with that, and we should be mindful of that. Yes, we have heard that in recent days, those needing a cash advance will get one where we are being told within five days or fast-tracked on occasion. We'll see how that's implemented. This is crucial, and other members have made this point. The United Kingdom Government is only offering those advances in the form of debt. They are loans, and they need to be paid back, and that is both mean and unjust. Adam Tomkinson Mr McPherson just said that we are almost welcoming the Secretary of State's announcement yesterday that we will see how that's implemented. We won't see how that's implemented if the roll-out of universal credit is halted. Ben Macpherson As I'm hoping for a halt, but if things proceed the way that they're suggested, I do hope that the implementation of those changes is a success, but they're not enough. When people are in need, I would suggest, and I've made this point to the Secretary of State in Westminster, that converting those short-term advances into upfront grants instead of bureaucratic loans would be a good place to start with reforming the current design of universal credit. That would be the empathetic and compassionate thing to do. However, as well as the problems practically with universal credit, deeper reform of the system is also required. Theoretically, it is wrongheaded in its present form, and that is also why it should be halted. Instead of providing encouragement, it too often creates fear. Instead of being places of support, DWP job centres are too often places of judgment, suspicion and mutual distrust. Adam Tomkins will know that that is the clear message that we've got from evidence at the Social Security Committee. Instead of reliably providing support to those in need, too often universal credit uses threats to push people into any job at any human cost. Then there's the cruelty of sanctions. Fundamentally, any continued roll-out of universal credit would be foolish and reckless. When so many practical problems exist, when conceptually it's so misplaced and when in communities across our country it's putting so many of our fellow citizens in positions of anxiety to stress an often alarm, 24 Scottish charities have called for a halt. At least 12 Tory MP backbenchers have called for a halt. Today, in this Parliament, we must call for a halt. In good faith, I hope that the Scottish Conservative MSPs will reconsider their position and think again and be part of that call. At the very least, use any influence they have—if they do have any influence with the Secretary of State—to get him to do the right thing and at the very least press paused on this wrong-headed roll-out and policy. The last of the open debate contributions is Clare Haughey. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As pointed out by other speakers in this debate, one of the glaring flaws of the universal credit roll-out process is the length of time it will take for claimants to receive their first payment anywhere from six to 12 weeks in some instances, with Shelter Scotland advising that nine weeks is not uncommon. That exposes claimants to serious financial jeopardy. Yesterday, the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in response to increasing pressure not least from within his own party, announced to the Tory party conference that, while he understood the concerns, he would be pressing ahead with the accelerated full service roll-out of universal credit. However, he will update advice to the DWP to ensure that claimants who require it could get advances to be paid back over several months, as we have already heard. That is nothing more than a sticking plaster approach to the flaws in the new system, which has led to a wide range of opinion calling for the roll-out not just to be paused but to be halted altogether until all the areas of concern have been addressed. On the face of it, the idea of simplifying a benefit system to a single payment may have seemed at one point in the past a reasonable idea. Integrating several benefits into one payment would remove complexity from the application and payment processes, as they said. Of course, such a major change in the UK benefit system was going to involve significant IT development and a level of complexity in that new system that was not recognised by the Government from the outset. The reality is that the design and implementation of the universal credit system has been fraught with issues every step of the way. That is mainly because an important factor appears to be missing from the scope of the project, the lived experience of those who the significant change was about to impact, the vulnerable and the in-work poor. More emphasis was placed on making the technology work for the department than for the customer. Criticism for the National Audit Office and the Westminster Public Accounts Committee led to a relaunch of the project four years ago. However, seven years ago, from the original IT project launch, problems persist and criticism is mounting on the back of the damning evidence from the pilots and the partial roll-outs in a number of small local authorities, as we have heard today. Apart from the disturbing length of time claimants are expected to wait for their first payment, the housing benefit element in the UK Government scheme is no longer paid directly to landlords. Claimants are expected to get the housing benefit to landlords themselves, and for a significant proportion of claimants, that can be challenging. As a result, they may have fallen into rent arrears and a spiral of debt. Figures supplied by the DWP have shown that many of those universal credit claimants who have fallen into arrears with rent have said that it was the first time that they have fallen behind with payments in their current accommodation. Some of those affected may be lucky enough to have the support of friends and family, but the same DWP figures found that around one in 10 claimants turned to payday or doorstep lenders. Aside from the human impact of that, there is a financial risk to councils, as we have heard from other speakers, where a high percentage of tenants who are on universal credit are in arrears. Data from COSLA suggests that the level of rent arrears for tenants in the new system is at least two and a half times that of those in receipt of housing benefit. Some local authorities have put millions aside to deal with the impending impact of that roll-out. I did my own local authority, South Lanarkshire Council, as we have heard from Christina McKelvie, has had to put money aside to deal with that. In authorities where universal credit has already been rolled out, there is a significant increase in applications for Scottish welfare fund, crisis grants and community care grants. That project is not just about simplifying the benefit systems. We should also not lose sight of the fact that the so-called flagship universal credit policy was introduced as part of the Tory austerity project to cut £12 billion from the welfare bill. Many new universal credit claimants will receive significantly less than they would have done under the tax credit scheme. Continuing UK Government welfare reforms have left more and more families throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK in crisis situations. It should not be for the Scottish Government to continually plug the gaps left by the UK Government's welfare reforms, or to paper over the cracks of this Tory Government's mistakes and incompetence in this universal credit debacle. Nonetheless, the Scottish Government has invested over £350 million supporting low-income families against the worst of the UK welfare reforms, including mitigating the bedroom tax and helping over a quarter of a million individual households through the Scottish welfare fund. The Scottish Government is also committed to restoring housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds, sometimes forgotten when we are debating housing and benefits. It is extending the Scottish welfare fund and the interim to help those in that age group who are currently excluded from financial support to receive assistance with their housing costs. The Scottish Government will also use what flexibilities it has negotiated with the UK Government over the system to provide Scottish recipients with more frequent payments and for the housing element to be paid directly to all landlords. The Scottish Government is committed to doing what it can to mitigate some of the effects of changes to the UK welfare system. The fact remains that a full service roll-out of universal credit will bring untold misery to hundreds of thousands of families and individuals across Scotland and the UK. It should be halted immediately until the glaring flaws in both systems and processes are highlighted by so many organisations, including charities, Scottish and UK parliamentary committees and even Tory EMPs have been rectified. Better still, devolve all welfare provision to this place, because we will guarantee a Scottish security system that treats people with dignity and respect. I now move to the closing speeches. Of course, everyone who was in the debate—if I speak really slowly, we might just manage that. I call Alex Cole-Hamilton for around six minutes, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Sometimes, in the governance of human affairs, we make collectively bad decisions or inadvertently, through the application of social policy, harm those of our citizens that we seek to help. When that happens, it is essential that we pause and reflect. It is quite clearly evident from this debate in the myriad of examples and heart-rending stories of people who have suffered the inadequacies of the accelerated roll-out of universal credit that this has happened. We are harming people and it is time to stop. Jeane Freeman rightly referenced that, at the top of the debate, the groundswell of opposition in terms of the continued unchecked roll-out of universal credit from political parties, including some 12 Conservative members of Parliament, and she also reminded us of the problems associated with rent arrears, which can result when the housing component of universal credit is delayed in the switchover. The uncertainty of that leads to tenants and, to a lesser extent, landlords, which is frankly intolerable, a theme that was picked up by many members in this debate. Her Government's commitments towards the direct payment of housing benefit to landlords in particular write an age-old wrong, or a wrong that was very narrowly averted, because many people in the voluntary sector have spoken to this Government and I have done so personally in terms of the impact that that can have on families where drug and alcohol misuse is a factor and where families will prioritise addiction over the payment of rent. I welcome the amendments in both the names of Alex Rowley and of Alison Johnstone. Mr Rowley spoke very eloquently of his incredulity that a Government would knowingly plunge its most vulnerable people into poverty and further uncertainty. Alison Johnstone pointed the vast accumulation of empirical evidence that now exists in respect of the flaws around the roll-out, so I assure them both of the support of our benches for their amendments tonight. Had it not deleted important aspects of the Government motion, we would have had some resonance with certain themes in the Conservative amendment. It rightly captures comments from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which reflect an approach in the pursuit of social mobility that the universal credit still holds water. Adam Tompkins spoke in measured terms about his recognition of the problems associated with the roll-out, and that is very welcome. However, his party has been shown unequal to the task of rectifying those. While I do not doubt his motives, too much harm has been done for us not to intervene in the way that the Government motion proposes. Sadly for Professor Tompkins, that measured tone was dropped by Jeremy Balfour, whilst I respect him greatly. I think that he misjudged the mood and intent of the chamber. I do not think that anyone who spoke in this chamber had suggested that we return to the systems of the past, and that was a point that was made eloquently by Pauline McNeill. Tompkins was recovered for the Tory benches by Donald Cameron, who gave a considered speech in which he accepted flaws but sought to talk up the positives of the universal credit. Those positives, however, Donald, are eclipsed by the flaws. The flaws in the process, identified by all sides of the chamber, have an undeniable human cost, which now casts a terrible shadow over the improvements that it first promised. That has been measured out first by Ian Gray in Pounds and Pence. I will. Stewart McMillan I thank Mr Hamilton for taking the brief intervention. I agree with me that one of the points that exacerbates the problem with the universal credit is that the roll-out takes place in November and December over the festive period, which makes it worse for the folk, not by starting the six weeks plus any additional time after that. Alex Cole-Hamilton I think that Mr McMillan makes an important point about the clunky nature in which the process has been undertaken and without any thought for the wraparound issues of seasonal involvement. George Adam spoke about the impact on council officials, usually encumbered by political restriction, which is now compelled to speak out, given the frustration and hardship that the system is causing and that it is having to partake in. Tensions in the debate have understandably run high, but I would be grateful for clarification from the minister if she could confirm her Government's support for the basic principles of universal credit, as contributions from some of her backbenches would perhaps suggest otherwise. If our parties are to work together in addressing its impact and entailering the aspects of the system over which we have control, we do need clarity here. That said, I am very grateful for the consensual attitude adopted by the Government in this debate and for the intimation that it will support our amendment. I heartily welcome the announcement in February that the Government would seek to split universal credit payments across households. Our amendment restates that commitment, as we believe that it is absolutely vital to tackle financial abuse as an element of coercive control, because research suggests that 89 per cent of all women who suffer abuse experience financial abuse as part of that. Indeed, in gender, I answered that announcement by deciding not to endorse UK Government policy measures such as the single household payment for universal credit. The Scottish Government is supporting women's financial independence and would reduce the ability of perpetrators of domestic abuse to control their partners and their children. It is a straightforward enough proposition, and we have the tech to do it. I do not think that I am being overly dramatic, Deputy Presiding Officer, when I say that a moral imperative now exists for us to make this change. Presiding Officer, I am running out of time, but I am heartily gathered that, through the most recent Scotland Act, this chamber will now be empowered in a way that will allow us to address the giant evils that William Beverage described some 80 years ago. With a particular Scottish response, in the direct payment of housing benefit to landlords and reinstating, for under 21-year-olds, housing benefit, as Clare Haughey rightly stated, in the eradication of waiting days while applications are processed and in splitting of payments across households in an effort to reduce domestic abuse. I am persuaded that enough consensus exists across the chamber to make this work and for us to work together. In pursuit of that, I offer support of those benches tonight. Alison Johnstone, around six minutes please. Thank you Presiding Officer. As I said in the opening, we will be supporting the Government motion this evening, and I will be pleased to support the motions, the amendments in the name of Alex Rowley and in the name of Alex Cole-Hamilton. I appreciate that Adam Tomkins in his amendment recognises serious criticisms of the way that initial payments are delayed and the impact of those delays on vulnerable people. However, I do not welcome, as he does, the announcement by the Secretary of State that claimants wanting advanced payments will get them within five days, because he seems, as many of us party, to believe that advanced payments are the answer. Advanced payments are not the answer. We have to halt the roll-out if universal credit. The Conservative amendment and several Conservative speakers have drawn attention to that availability, and it may be welcome. It is better than nothing, but surely it is essentially an admission that this system is not working. Ruth Maguire pointed out that the Conservatives' own MP, Heidi Allen, who sits on the House of Commons DWP selection committee, argued yesterday that, and I am quoting, getting some money to people is, of course, welcome, but if we are essentially celebrating the fact that advanced payments are increasing and will increase, that means that the fundamental design of the system, which is a minimum of six weeks to wait, does not work. Several people have referred to the sentence. It feels like an elastoplast being stuck on. It very much does. Professor Tomkins is very fond of quoting the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, as he does on many occasions, and his amendment today references his work. That same report, however, cautions against using benefit advances, saying, the widespread use of benefit advances is not the solution to this problem, as they result in an accumulation of debt. To reduce debt in destitution, people who are entitled to and in need of income support should receive it quickly. JRF recommends that the DWP gets rid of arbitrary waiting days in universal credit. Arbitrary, random, a random figure plucked from the air, really has to get to grips with this as the main issue. The report goes on to criticise cuts to the universal credit work allowance and the impact on poverty. Changes to universal credit have reduced the level of support available to low-income working households, so how on earth are those households going to pay back this debt? Reductions in the universal credit work allowance alone are responsible for a quarter of the projected increase in poverty among children in working households by 2020. Donald Cameron insists that claimants are paid in full, but many of those claimants, the majority of those claimants, will be paid less than previously. That is a point that I can emphasise enough. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report also goes on to say, high-quality evidence shows more money directly improves child development and health outcomes, yet support for families with children is being reduced. Perhaps in closing, the Conservatives of Who is closing can explain the grounds on which they think universal credit will reduce poverty, because all the evidence is squarely pointing in the other direction. If you go on to the money advice website and look at the way that people can claim, they have an example using a chap called Ben. Ben loses his job and he makes a claim for universal credit on 15 July. If he is lucky, Ben gets some money on 29 August. That is simply untenable and it really has to change. Those who are terminally ill or even more vulnerable have to wait for up to five weeks. It is not good enough. We have heard from others about the impact of the Trussell Trust, which warns that more and more people are referring to food banks. Look at the connection between universal credit and increased food bank use. I suggest that it is clear to see. We are hearing that some of this is anecdotal. I was having a look today at the Common Select Committee web forum on universal credit roll-out. If anyone who is experiencing the roll-out would like to contribute, it is open until the 13 October and some of the contributions. Initial application is not easy because I did not have access to a computer. Late, wrong or both, referring to payments received, leading to eviction, complicated forms, lived off food banks and £38 a week child benefit. I could not get through to the helpline. I was put on hold for so long. My phone batteries ran out. I got my rent element with my universal credit. However, it is paid in arrears and I got constant letters from my landlord threatening me with eviction, leading to health issues and stress. We really have to halt the roll-out of the system. Thursday's courier last week, universal credit rent arrears threat to Angus Council housing programme. The authority's strategic director, Alan McEwen, has said, we build houses that people are proud to call home, but the introduction of universal credit could be one of the biggest threats to social housing budgets. There are real concerns about arrears and, of course, the ultimate sanction of eviction, which will lead to more people becoming homeless. They are very anxious that their plans to build 600 new homes could be impacted. The architect of universal credit, Ian Duncan-Smith, has criticised the cuts to the value. Just yesterday at the Conservative Party conference, he said that reductions made by George Osborne were part of the reason that he resigned as DWP Secretary of State. Jeremy Balfour, as others have suggested, said that the current system could not be made better, absolutely no one. However, if we want to get this right, if we really want to simplify it, we have to make sure that payment arrives at a proper period of time after someone has found themselves in the vulnerable position of unemployment. People are paid as quickly as possible. We do not cut the value of the assistance, either. The joint public issues team, including the Church of Scotland, the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the Methodist Church and the United Reform Church, have come together to say that a key role of the benefits system is to provide a sound platform to allow families to regroup and cope with the difficulties that they face. For many families, especially those with children, universal credit does not allow that stability and pitches families from one crisis to another. It simply is not good enough, we can and we must do better. Many of the design choices for universal credit reflect the concerns and experiences of the wealthier members of our society, including policy makers and politicians, and ignore the lives and experiences of those who will rely on universal credit for food, shelter and warmth. That is the quote that Pauline McNeill referred to in her speech from an excellent joint briefing from the Church of Scotland, the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church and the United Reform Church. It sums up precisely what I think is at the root of the problems behind universal credit. Policy designed with lofty ambitions but with no basis in or knowledge of the real-life experience of people living on social security, surviving week to week. When we talk about people living or to be more accurate, surviving on social security, we often talk about people who are sometimes choosing between heating and dating, people who are one unexpected bill or a washing machine or boiler breakdown away from not being able to provide for their family. How anyone can expect those families to live in those circumstances to have saved six weeks' income is absolutely beyond me. Christina McKelvie mentioned the statistics that Citizens Advice Scotland has published. A reported 15 per cent increase in rent arrears issues compared with a national decrease of 2 per cent. An 87 per cent increase in crisis grant issues compared to a national increase of 9 per cent. Two of five bureau and impact areas have seen a 70 per cent and 40 per cent increase in advice about access to food banks compared to a national increase of just 3 per cent and people experiencing a significant impact on their finances and wellbeing as a result of that six-week wait for payment. In the Tory Government's plan to continue to roll out universal credit, in the face of the issues highlighted by Labour, by SNP members, by the Tory party's own back benchars, the third sector by churches and others is cruel and completely indefensible. A six-week waiting time is making it impossible for some households to pay rent and feed themselves. Those who do not have the skills or facilities to access the internet could be excluded from fully engaging with the benefits system and administration errors are preventing claimants from accessing some or all of the income that they are entitled to. A scheme that was designed to simplify the benefits system has instead created barriers and complications for claimants and the need to support individuals outwith the universal credit system, for example through crisis payments. As Alison Johnson said in his amendment, there was an assurance given that no one will experience a reduction in the benefit that they receive as a result of the introduction of universal credit, but now the independent office for budget responsibility has said that universal credit is less generous on average than the tax credits and benefits system that it replaces. I agree with some of what Adam Tomkins has said and some of what he has in his amendment. The core purpose of universal credit, that work always pays, would be to take more seriously if in-work benefits were not being cut. As Ian Gray mentioned, research that we have done has shown that single parents with children are going to be worst hit by universal credit, receiving up to £3,100 a year less than they received with tax credits—a massive hit on any family budget and another example of Tory attempts to balance the books on the poorest. It is shameful that in Scotland there are currently 420,000 working-age adults in in-work poverty and 180,000 children. Universal credit is only going to make that worse and it must be halted and redesigned. The brutal Tory welfare reform is not limited to universal credit. The UK Government has callously ignored the fact that limiting child tax credits to the first two children in a family will push another 200,000 children into poverty across the UK. We have heard specifically about the issue of that six-week waiting time. That reflects people's experience of going into work, that some people take a loan to perhaps pay for the travel costs or the family expenses while they go to work. However, when they go to work, they do so on the knowledge of the wage that they will receive. They do so on the knowledge that that wage is at a much higher level than the paltry benefits that they would receive on universal credits. Those benefits that have been frozen, that support package, gradually eroded year on year by that freeze and increase on cost 11. Senior and backbench Tory MPs have also expressed concerns about universal credits, and 12 MPs have now signed a letter to David Goch demanding a pause in the roll-out. I hope, in the face of overwhelming evidence and cross-party calls for a halt to the roll-out of universal credit that this Tory Government listens to. I call Maurice Golden. Thank you, Presiding Officer. We must make sure that we recognise and appreciate a significant point that has come from today's debate, namely that we are all in agreement over the underlying aim of universal credit—to get people off benefits into work and out of poverty. However, it is clear that the strength of feeling on this issue is not felt throughout the chamber, with only one green member, one Liberal Democrat member and a mere four Labour MPs in attendance. Perhaps they are protesting in Manchester at this moment in time, or perhaps they agree with Labour MP Stephen Timms, who, when Shadow Minister for the Employment said that universal credit is a reform which, even though it is running four years late, we still want to succeed. Mark Griffin? Perhaps there are members who are not in the chamber today because they are back in the offices dealing with constituents' complaints and dealing with the fallout from the brutal reforms from the Tory party on welfare. Maurice Golden? I am sure that the Labour benches, who are indeed for the few not the many, are unlikely to be in their constituency offices at this time. I think that they should be serving their constituents if they really care about this issue here in the chamber. The substantive point is that universal credit is a simpler system that encourages work and supports aspiration. Claimants are more likely to be in work, more likely to have more work available to them and, on average, earn more than those claiming job seekers allowance. Universal credit is part of a welfare state that gives people the help that they need but does not trap them in dependency. Equally, though. Marie Todd? Does the member really believe that terminally ill people are better off working? I think that the member does herself a disservice by bringing that up. What is clear is that universal credit is delivering, that more people are earning more through universal credit than through job seekers allowance. Universal credit claimants are, on average, earning more. That means that they are being moved out of poverty and that that is ultimately deliveri