The latest Office for National Statistics figures show that inflation has dipped slightly to 8.7 per cent, but food prices continue to accelerate at the fastest pace for 45 years. The United Kingdom cost of living crisis has been years in the making, with Tory austerity, welfare reforms and Brexit hammering household incomes. What is the Scottish Government doing within its limited powers and resources to shield people from the harm that has been created in large part by the actions of the Tories in Westminster? [

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It is almost a weekly occurrence that, whenever poverty is mentioned, we hear groans from members on the Conservative benches. The cost of living is still far too high for too many families, who are struggling with the increasingly unaffordable cost of food, the increase in energy bills and the cost of everyday essentials, after years and years of austerity, a hard Brexit that has been imposed on Scotland and completely and utterly catastrophic economic mismanagement by the Tory Government in London.

We will do everything that we can within our powers, such as delivering the game-changing Scottish child payment, tripling our fuel insecurity fund, providing free childcare for all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds, and providing free bus travel to 2 million people. However, we know that it is only with the full economic and fiscal powers of an independent nation that ministers can use all the levers that other Governments have to tackle inequalities.

To give an example, a reversal of just a few of the regressive welfare decisions that the UK Government has made could lift 70,000 people, including 30,000 children, out of poverty. Members should be in no doubt that this cost of living crisis that has plunged so many people into poverty is a political choice by the Conservative Party, and the only way out of it is to achieve our independence.