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Will the member take an intervention?

I have shown that I support measures that the Scottish Government has implemented. However, we know that the child payment has helped just one in four children. We need to do more to ensure that we reach all children who live in poverty.

Child poverty is one of the biggest challenges that we face as a society. More than one in four children live in poverty. I accept that there is additional support for children and their families and, as I have said, I welcome the current increases, but this is not a time for self-congratulatory motions, which seem to come more and more from the Scottish Government. That is what it feels like. It is a time to keep moving forward, to keep making progress, to be more radical, and to end child poverty. That has to be the Parliament’s aim. It is our job in opposition to hold the Government to account on that. That is what my job is, and that is why I speak to those motions.

We acknowledge that the Government has said that the current carers allowance links closely to universal credit and income support payments and, as such, we understand that the introduction of the Scottish carers assistance payment will take time, but it is only right that, where possible, protection remains in place to support carers through this incredibly difficult and stressful time. As I have said, I hope that the minister will make some remarks about that so that we can offer support to carers.

I will be the first person to stand up and oppose the Tory UK Government’s cuts to benefits and social security, but it is clear that, in Scotland, we can and must do more, and my party will call out any hypocrisy from the Scottish Government. We will also be relentless in our calls for it to do more and do it more radically, to go that step further and to put in place protections for the most vulnerable in our society.

I repeat: this is not a time for the Scottish Government to pat itself on the back. It is a time to get out of the blocks, get on the job, look to make sure that we eradicate child poverty in Scotland, protect unpaid carers when we can, and enhance the lives of some of the most vulnerable in our community.

I thank Bob Doris for his last statement about wanting to do more. That is the point that we are trying to make. We are talking about the Scottish child payment and the carers payments because people with experience are telling us that not enough is being done. There are opportunities for this Parliament, with the powers that it has, to do more. As politicians, we need to stop patting ourselves on the back and instead ask what more we can do.

I start by highlighting my disgust at the hostile and cruel welfare system that is overseen by the Tories at Westminster. Their treatment of working people, their lack of compassion and help for those most in need and their intrusive and discriminatory assessments are representative of a Government that is not fit for office—a Government that is not fit to represent the people of this country.

I must say that the Scottish Conservatives, too, have responsibility for the actions of the UK Government in relation to welfare and social security. Their lack of opposition to—and, in some cases, their involvement in—a Government that has overseen brutal cuts to social security is shameful.

However, as colleagues have, I stress that we must work across this Parliament to tackle the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis, ensure that more people are not forced into poverty and alleviate the pressures faced by working families every day.

It is welcome that, after significant pressure from the Labour Party, the SNP finally showed some political will to introduce a windfall tax, and it is interesting that, after Labour pressure, a range of measures has been announced by the Treasury today to tackle the cost of living crisis. That was after weeks of indecision and inaction. However, we must not ignore the fact that those measures will come too late for many and will not be enough for others.

We should also not ignore the fact that the Scottish Parliament is a powerful Parliament. It has shown that it has the power to deliver a Scottish child payment, and it is in the Government’s power to increase that further still by April next year. However, it remains clear that, despite increases in recent years, too many families that are eligible for the payment are not yet receiving it. I say to the minister that experts must be listened to. If the Scottish Government does not increase the speed at which eligible families are in receipt of the Scottish child payment, targets will be missed and more children will grow up in poverty.

Will the member take another intervention?

Although the pandemic undoubtedly exacerbated feelings of loneliness among much of the population, a huge benefit to many people’s physical and mental health was the ability to access and use green space. Given that a consequence of the Government’s poor record on health inequalities is that fewer people from our most deprived areas visit the outdoors regularly, will the minister update Parliament on cross-departmental Scottish Government plans to make outdoor spaces accessible to all and to close the gap in use between our most deprived communities and our least deprived communities?

I thank David Walsh for his contribution. I whole-heartedly agree about austerity, but I want to be clear that it is the current Westminster Government’s position on austerity that has had those effects. We have very different powers in Scotland and we can use them in very different ways, depending on which policies come to us from the UK. If policies across the UK were different from those in Scotland, could that be helpful for us in Scotland, because we could make alternative arrangements?

The member knows that I strongly object to some of the policies of the current Government at Westminster, and I recognise how difficult the situation is for people, but we must do all that we can here, in Scotland. We, on the Labour benches, want to do the things that we can do now. That is where we differ in our approach—we want to talk about what we can do and actually get it done.

I will take a short intervention.