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It cannot always be for this Government, with its limited powers and budget, to mitigate the impacts of another Government’s actions. The extent of the consequences for people who are already struggling was laid out clearly in yesterday’s debate. The Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and many others are urging the United Kingdom Government to do the right thing and reverse the cut.

The impact of the cut on 6 million households across the UK will be harsh and it is likely to negate the positive progressive actions that the Scottish Government is taking to tackle child poverty head on, including through the Scottish child payment and bridging payments, which are benefiting thousands of children and young people, and which will put more than £130 million in the pockets of families this year.

I agree that, as I said in my previous answer, prevention is better than cure. If we had the powers here, we would not have to mitigate policies that are made elsewhere that undermine efforts to tackle poverty.

The Scottish Government is taking and has taken ambitious steps to tackle child poverty, to promote social justice and to level the playing field for young people from low-income backgrounds. That is why, in 2020-21, we have invested around £2.5 billion of our fixed budget in supporting low-income households, including nearly £1 billion to directly support children. The Scottish Government has taken such decisions in order to support those families in the best way we can, but that work is seriously undermined if there are policies elsewhere that go in the opposite direction.

I will speak to all councils in due course. I had a good discussion with Kate Campbell, the convener of the City of Edinburgh Council’s housing, homelessness and fair work committee—[Interruption.] The member should let me finish instead of interrupting from a sedentary position. I had a very good discussion with Kate Campbell about local needs in Edinburgh. I recognise that some of our national policies are sometimes quite challenging in local housing markets such as that in Edinburgh. All those things will remain under consideration.

However, the situation is not helped by the United Kingdom Government’s 66.5 per cent cut to the Scottish Government’s financial transactions budget in 2021-22, which arose from the UK Government’s spending review. That will curtail the initiatives that we would like to continue to see, so Miles Briggs might want to speak to his UK Government counterparts to ensure that the cut is reversed.

The Scottish Government has written to the UK Government on eight separate occasions since March 2020 to ask it to retain the much-needed £20 uplift. On 30 August, I joined colleagues from Wales and Northern Ireland to write to the UK Government to urge it to retain the uplift. We have not received a response so far. There is broad cross-party opposition to the cut and, only yesterday, parties across the chamber, with the exception of the Conservatives, voted overwhelmingly in favour of the UK Government reversing the cut. It is time for the UK Government to listen and do the right thing.

Scottish Government analysis indicates that as many as 6,614 households in Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley could lose out as a result of the United Kingdom Government’s decision to cut universal credit from the start of October. The cut could remove more than £460 million in social security spending from Scotland by 2023-24. The Scottish Government is doing what it can, but that level of mitigation is not sustainable. The UK Government must reverse the cut immediately to avoid a weakened universal credit compounding the harms caused by the perfect storm of rising energy and food price increases and a national insurance increase.

Yes, I agree with that. As we know, many of the people who are on universal credit are already in work. A number of members set out yesterday that the cut will do nothing to motivate people to get into work. If the UK Government had any confidence in its workforce plans and its plan to support people into work, it would not be going ahead with the cut. Again, I implore the UK Government to change its mind.

I say to the member that it would simply not be sustainable, on a fixed budget, for the Scottish Parliament to mitigate every action that the United Kingdom Government takes, as we would have to cut into huge swathes of the health budget or the budgets that go to local government. We simply cannot do that. We have to target our efforts on where we can make the biggest impact. There is no doubt about the Scottish Government’s intention to double the Scottish child payment. We have said that we will do that as part of the budget process, which is fast approaching. As I have said previously in the chamber, we will look at what else we can do to support the most affected families, and we are currently looking at what else can be done to support families through what will be a very difficult winter.

Time and again, the member and her party call for mitigation of policies that have been made in a different place, yet they do not support this Parliament having the powers to set the policies here, which would avoid us having to mitigate in the first place. I ask them to please join us in making sure that we get those powers here in this Parliament.

I think that it is ambitious enough. As I said, we have increased our target to 110,000 more affordable homes, 10 per cent of which will be in our remote, rural and island communities. Beatrice Wishart might be aware that we have committed to developing a housing plan specifically for remote, rural and island communities. I want to ensure that all communities have the opportunity to be part of the consultation on that, because we understand that bespoke solutions are sometimes required for local communities, and we want to support community-led housing solutions.

Beatrice Wishart might also be aware that I recently met the chief executive and leader of Shetland Islands Council. We had very productive discussions, particularly on how we can work together to address the affordable housing needs of the Shetland area.

Although it is for local councils, together with delivery partners and communities, to determine the local priorities for affordable housing delivery, the Scottish Government’s ambitions for affordable housing are clear, and we expect appropriate delivery in remote rural and island communities. As I said, we are developing a new plan specifically for that.

The Scottish Government provides funding through the mainstream affordable housing programme and our rural and islands housing funds. A detailed rural housing needs assessment has recently been completed by the Hebridean Housing Partnership, which we expect to inform the forthcoming local authority strategic housing investment plan. Affordable housing developments are currently on site in Harris, North and South Uist, Barra and Lewis. The Scottish Government will continue to work closely with the local authority to enable future opportunities across the islands.

We want to take forward what I think has been described as world-leading legislation and policy around homelessness. There is always more to do, so we are of course considering the prevention duty, which Martin Whitfield will be aware of and which could help us to enhance already robust homelessness legislation. In fact, I met officials only this morning to talk about the timeframe and the details of how we will take that work forward, and I am happy to keep him appraised of the detail.