– in the Scottish Parliament at on 1 October 2020.
Keith Brown
Scottish National Party
The First Minister will be aware that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and more than 60 other organisations have written to the Chancellor of the exchequer to call for the £20-a-week increase to universal credit to be made permanent, and to extend the same support to claimants of legacy benefits.
Does the First Minister agree that maintaining the increase beyond next April is crucial, particularly now that the United Kingdom Government has failed to extend the furlough scheme and the Scottish Tories in this Parliament have failed to support Scottish businesses, trade unions and other political parties in requesting the extension of that scheme? Does she agree, in particular, that the Chancellor must act, or risk plunging hundreds of thousands of people into poverty?
Nicola Sturgeon
Scottish National Party
Yes, I agree. If we do not see further extension of the furlough scheme, we will have a wave of avoidable redundancies over the next period. If that happens, responsibility for it will lie with the UK Government.
There is also a need to act now to stop more people falling into poverty. We have already urged the UK Government to make permanent the £20 uplift to universal credit and to extend it further. I hope that the UK Government will commit to making those changes now, before more people are pushed into poverty. We know that thousands will face significant financial strain when the furlough scheme phases out at the end of this month.
It is not too late for the UK Government to change its position on those things—to ensure that social security support is adequate to support people and to extend the furlough scheme properly to give businesses the certainty that they so badly need. In the process, it would save an estimated 60,000 jobs across Scotland.
The chancellor of the exchequer is the government's chief financial minister and as such is responsible for raising government revenue through taxation or borrowing and for controlling overall government spending.
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