Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you for the welcome of the recent allocation of the five-year resource planning assumptions. That gives further confidence to partners, strengthens the certainty of delivering future affordable homes commitments and allows the sector the time to build the necessary capacity to plan and deliver that ambitious number of affordable homes. We will continue to work with partners in doing that.

Elena Whitham makes an important point about construction materials. We are aware, as you would expect, of concerns about price increases and supply shortages, and we are working closely with the construction industry through the Scottish construction leadership forum, which is chaired by the Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, Ivan McKee. We want to fully understand the current supply chain issues and, where possible, put in place mitigating actions to address those issues.

As you would expect, I am kept up to date about material cost increases and availability and the impact on the affordable housing supply programme. I meet regularly with local authorities and registered social landlords to discuss those matters and make sure that we support them in delivering the ambitious targets. I am confident that we can work through those issues and deliver the 110,000 affordable homes.

I would be happy to write to the committee with more detail on that. The agreement included £45 million in addition to the affordable housing supply programme and the commitment that 10 per cent of the 110,000 homes will be located in remote and rural communities. There is also a dedicated plan for remote and rural housing. I would be happy to come back to discuss that in detail with the committee, if it would find that helpful.

Although around 15 per cent of social security spend is devolved to the Scottish Parliament, and it is our job to make the most of that spend in tackling child poverty, 85 per cent of the spend is not devolved and remains at Westminster, including key income-replacement benefits such as universal credit. I have already outlined the damaging effect of withdrawing the £20 uplift in universal credit. Of course, the benefit cap and the senseless two-child limit just add to the issues and problems.

With full powers over social security, we could deliver a system that is fit for purpose, that treats people with dignity and respect and that tackles and reduces poverty. Similarly, if we had employment powers, we could make the real living wage mandatory, outlaw unfair fire-and-rehire tactics and ban the inappropriate and exploitative use of zero-hours contracts. Those are just a few ideas about what we could do if we had powers in this place over those matters.

Carol Mochan has raised an important point about the social care workforce. She will be aware of the work that is going on around the building of a national care service, of which pay and conditions are a key part. That is important in this agenda, given the three pillars that I talked about, with the first being employment. Care services have a mainly female workforce supporting families, so the employment pillar is important in making sure that we support those families and that workforce. I am confident that pay and conditions will be taken forward and improved as part of building the national care service.

Jackie Dunbar has made an important point about one of the three key pillars in tackling poverty. Since 2019, we have committed more than £23 million to the parental employability support fund, which provides parents with employability support to help them enter and progress in the labour market.

The fund has a strong focus on each of the six priority family types that are identified in the tackling child poverty delivery plan, providing locally tailored support that is responsive to need. Our 2019-20 progress report estimated that around 11,500 children could positively benefit from our investment in the fund, with increases in parents’ take-home earnings directly impacting on child poverty targets.

I agree very much with Marie McNair. Scottish ministers have, since the start of the pandemic, written to the UK Government on four occasions calling for the measures, which trap many families in poverty, to be scrapped. Over time, more and more families will be affected by the callous two-child cap. By April 2019, 8,500 families across Scotland had been denied entitlement for their children. In the long run, up to £120 million a year could be cut from benefit spend in Scotland, which will push 20,000 children into poverty. Similarly, the damaging impacts of the benefit cap have been highlighted during the pandemic. Cases have nearly doubled to 6,500, and 97 per cent of those households contain children.

Therefore, I reiterate my call: it is the UK Government’s responsibility to ensure that its policies provide adequate support. I hope that Parliament can unite in calling on it to do that.

First—as, I think, Miles Briggs acknowledged—I note that the Scottish child payment is a game-changing policy in the fight against child poverty. As I said, our manifesto commits us to doubling the payment to £80 per month by the end of this parliamentary session, which has been widely welcomed.

We recognise the need for urgent action. We will double the payment as soon as is practicable. We are considering the timetable for the increase, taking account of the impact on child poverty as well as legislative, financial and delivery considerations, and I will make an announcement in due course. I recognise that there is an appetite to go as quickly as possible.

Miles Briggs asked about children in temporary accommodation. He will be aware of the enormous efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure that people could be in safe accommodation. I do not want anyone to live in unsuitable temporary accommodation, so it is a top priority for me to try to resolve the situation.

Miles Briggs also alluded to regional variations; the issue is more difficult to tackle in some areas than it is in others. I want to engage with local authorities and housing associations in each area, to consider what more we can do.

The 100,000 affordable homes that we have delivered are important, as is the commitment to building 100,000 more affordable homes, 70 per cent of which will be for social rent. That will make a big impact, but there is more to be done.

Today, I have published the third annual progress report due under the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017. During the past unprecedented year, we have done everything in our power to support children and families who have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and to continue to drive progress on our ambition to eradicate child poverty. We have built on the strong supports that have been established to date, and worked with partners to deliver entirely new support, rising to the challenge and demonstrating our capacity and capability to make significant change at pace.

The report published today highlights that all 66 of the actions that we have previously reported on are either in progress or being delivered. It also highlights that the scale of the investment that we have targeted at low-income families with children continues to grow, rising to £978 million in 2020-21, including £118 million of targeted investment made through our response to Covid-19. That is part of almost £2.5 billion that we have invested to support low-income households, including more than £434 million of Covid-related investment in social assistance.

The report also highlights the scale of the challenge that we face in eradicating child poverty in Scotland. We know that the Covid pandemic will make reducing poverty that much harder, which is why we must work together across Scotland to deliver the change that is needed.

During the past year, we have continued to take action against each of the three key drivers of poverty. We have stood up a wide range of new support to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic and protect children and families, working in partnership with local authorities and wider partners, including the third sector. We have made strong progress in maximising household incomes through social security with the introduction of three new benefits, which are unavailable elsewhere in the UK, each offering completely new support. That includes our job start payment, which supported more than 230 young parents to transition in to work with payments of £400 to meet essential costs, and our child winter heating allowance, which supported more than 14,000 children and put £2.8 million in the pockets of families with the most severely disabled children, helping to ease the financial pressures that were caused by winter fuel costs and the Covid pandemic.

Notably, in February, we delivered on a landmark commitment by commencing payment of the game-changing Scottish child payment for eligible families with children under the age of six. It is our 10th benefit and is worth £40 every four weeks. I am delighted that, by the end of March, we had made payments worth more than £3.6 million for more than 78,000 children.

In addition, we introduced new pandemic support payments to provide immediate financial support to families in need, reaching almost 145,000 children and young people. We will build on that approach to deliver bridging payments of £520 each year until the Scottish child payment is rolled out in full at the end of 2022 as committed to, and we will fulfil one of our 100 days commitments by paying a further £100 for each child around the start of the summer holidays in addition to the £100 paid at Easter.

Importantly, we have now committed to doubling the Scottish child payment by the end of the current parliamentary session by increasing payments to £80 every four weeks. We will look to do that as early as possible, thus putting more money into the pockets of families who need it.

We have delivered new action to reduce living costs and ensure access to essentials. That includes the May 2020 launch of connecting Scotland, which is one of the most comprehensive national programmes aimed at tackling digital exclusion in the world. Since then, the programme has supported more than 17,000 families with children and 4,000 young care leavers, helping them to get online and access the benefits that digital connectivity can bring.

To tackle food insecurity and reduce the strain on family budgets, we invested more than £56 million to support the continued provision of free school meals for around 156,000 children and young people during school closures, periods of online learning and school holidays, promoting a cash-first approach, as parents know best what they need. We will continue that support during forthcoming school holidays, alongside commencing the expansion of our universal free school meal offer for primary school children.

Despite the impacts of the pandemic, we have also continued to deliver progress on our action to increase incomes from work and earnings. In 2020-21, more than 4,500 workers saw an increase in their earnings as a result of living wage accreditation, and we have applied fair work first criteria to more than £2.4 billion of public sector grant funding, helping to deliver fairer workplaces for workers across Scotland.

The impact of the pandemic has meant that it has not been possible to deliver the anticipated progress on all commitments. However, we have taken ambitious and realistic steps to ensure that we deliver on them as quickly as possible and that we go further in future. For example, our expansion of early learning and childcare is now set to be completed from August, although more than half of councils are already delivering the expanded offer of 1,140 hours. Given the importance of childcare to families, we have set out the next stage of our ambition, which is to further expand childcare and to develop a wraparound childcare system that provides care before and after school, all year round.

As soon as possible, we will complete delivery against the target of 50,000 homes that we set during the previous parliamentary session, and we have committed to delivering a further 100,000 affordable homes by 2031-32.

We have committed a further £8.65 million this year for our parental employability support fund, bringing total investment to more than £23 million since 2019, and enabling even more parents to benefit from that service. We have also extended our commitment to the fair start Scotland service until 2023, to ensure that future demand for employment support can be met.

We are determined to maintain the pace and determination with which we responded to the Covid pandemic. That is why, in addition to the measures that I have already mentioned, we have committed to taking further steps in the first 100 days of the parliamentary session. That includes delivering our ambitious summer programme for children and young people and further increasing the minimum value of school clothing grants and our best start food payments.

In Scotland, we are serious about ending child poverty, and we have committed to a wide range of action to do just that. Early analysis of the impact of our Scottish child payment suggested that it could move 30,000 children out of poverty when it is paid at £40 every four weeks. Doubling that will enable us to go even further. However, the UK Government’s cut of £20 to universal credit threatens to knock out the benefit of that ambitious measure and to push 20,000 Scottish children into poverty. The Scottish Government is giving with one hand what is taken away by another. It is a disgrace that our efforts to tackle child poverty are at risk of being undermined by regressive UK Government policy and a broken welfare system.

We have declared a national mission to eradicate child poverty. We know the scale of the challenge that we face and, although the Scottish child payment is a game-changing policy, we need more of those, right across Government, to deliver the change required. The Government is hugely aspirational. Our commitment to exploring the feasibility of a minimum income guarantee, which could be revolutionary in our fight against poverty, is a clear demonstration of our ambition for Scotland.

The Cabinet recognises that that is a cross-Government responsibility, and we are 100 per cent committed to doing everything in our power and using every lever that is at our disposal to deliver the change that is needed. However, it is not just Government that needs to act. We must take a team Scotland approach and work collectively to eradicate child poverty. That will take Parliament, civic Scotland, the public sector, and businesses doing everything that they can to support those efforts.

We will shortly commence consultation on our next delivery plan for tackling child poverty, which is to be published by the end of March 2022. We will build on the action that has been taken to date and on the strong evidence base that has been established. We will be guided by the recommendations and challenge that is offered by the Poverty and Inequality Commission and by the blueprint of the social renewal advisory board. In the plan’s development, we will also work closely with our partners, with experts by experience, and with children and young people themselves.

As the report that is being published today demonstrates, we are already taking wide-ranging action, but we must do more, and I ask all members to help us in that. I call on them to support us in taking the action required and to come forward with ideas—my door is always open to positive and serious suggestions—and I ask them to back the Government in eradicating the blight of child poverty once and for all.

First, I note that the partnership with local government is important. Local government is one of the main delivery partners for many of the programmes that have been outlined. I will write to Alexander Stewart on the specific question about moneys to local authorities for parental employment. That is a key pillar of support for families; it ensures that families are supported into work, reduces the cost of living and provides cash and in-kind support to families.

I thank Fiona Hyslop for her question.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills has underlined the importance of the OECD’s findings and recommendations. As I said, we are investing £1 billion over this session of Parliament to close the attainment gap, with record funding of more than £215 million in 2021-22, which will help to provide targeted help to some of the most disadvantaged children and young people.

However, we recognise that more must be done if we are to maintain that relentless pursuit of equality in education. That is why we are introducing free school lunches for primary 4 children as a first step towards providing free school breakfasts and lunches for all primary school pupils. I also mentioned the best start food funding. We have the school clothing grant, as well. All those taken together are important, but I am keen to work with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills to see what more we can do. I want to work with every cabinet secretary and minister to make sure that we redouble our efforts to tackle child poverty.