Child Social Security Support (Cowdenbeath)

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 3 September 2020.

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Photo of Shirley-Anne Somerville Shirley-Anne Somerville Scottish National Party

We will be making the Scottish child payment only two months later than was originally planned. That two-months change is due to the difficulty of having a benefit go live during the Covid pandemic.

That does not mean that we are not serious about our responsibility to ensure that we support low-income families. For example, £110 million has been spent to tackle food insecurity during the pandemic, and we have more than doubled the resource for the Scottish welfare fund. There is £80 million available for discretionary housing payments, a £10 million tenant hardship loan fund and the coronavirus carers allowance supplement. I could go on, but I hope that that gives a flavour of the real action that the Government has taken.

I hope that Ms Grant will join us in seeking more powers for the Scottish Parliament, to ensure that we have the responsibility for low-income benefits here in whole, rather than their being reserved to Westminster. We would then no longer be wanting changes that the Westminster Government refuses to make, such as the changes that are required to get rid of the benefit cap, which has seen many more families being plunged into poverty during the coronavirus pandemic.