First Minister’s Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 4 December 2025.
Paul McLennan
Scottish National Party
To ask the First Minister whether he will provide an update on the Scottish Government’s latest engagement with the United Kingdom Government regarding any impact on poverty levels in Scotland of the freeze to local housing allowance. (S6F-04511)
John Swinney
Scottish National Party
It is disappointing that the UK Government’s budget contained no commitment to end the freeze on local housing allowance. Next year will be the second year of the freeze and it will be three years since the local housing allowance was last uprated. The Resolution Foundation has warned that next year, the gap between real-world rents and housing support will be the biggest on record.
Paul McLennan
Scottish National Party
The Chancellor spoke about tackling child poverty, yet she failed to restore local housing allowance rates. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimated that 20,000 private renters, including 10,000 children, will be pushed into poverty in 2025-26 as a direct result of the policy.
Meanwhile, the Resolution Foundation predicts that the affordability gap, which is currently bigger than when the Conservative Government increased the local housing allowance in 2020, will rise to 25 per cent by 2029-30, unless the UK Government intervenes. That amounts to £180 a month for hard-pressed families.
While Labour continues to make lives harder for the most vulnerable, can the First Minister tell us more about the steps that the Scottish Government is taking across housing to further its ambition of eradicating child poverty?
John Swinney
Scottish National Party
The warnings from the Resolution Foundation are deeply troubling. The Scottish Government is investing more than £100 million in discretionary housing payments this year to offset UK Government welfare cuts. Some £2 million of that, announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Housing, will help families in temporary accommodation to secure homes in the private rented sector. That is part of our mission to eradicate child poverty.
On the question of local housing allowances, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice has been calling for an end to the freeze as part of the UK child poverty strategy, which is a move that would help to lift more families out of poverty.
Question Time is an opportunity for MPs and Members of the House of Lords to ask Government Ministers questions. These questions are asked in the Chamber itself and are known as Oral Questions. Members may also put down Written Questions. In the House of Commons, Question Time takes place for an hour on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays after Prayers. The different Government Departments answer questions according to a rota and the questions asked must relate to the responsibilities of the Government Department concerned. In the House of Lords up to four questions may be asked of the Government at the beginning of each day's business. They are known as 'starred questions' because they are marked with a star on the Order Paper. Questions may also be asked at the end of each day's business and these may include a short debate. They are known as 'unstarred questions' and are less frequent. Questions in both Houses must be written down in advance and put on the agenda and both Houses have methods for selecting the questions that will be asked. Further information can be obtained from factsheet P1 at the UK Parliament site.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
The Chancellor - also known as "Chancellor of the Exchequer" is responsible as a Minister for the treasury, and for the country's economy. For Example, the Chancellor set taxes and tax rates. The Chancellor is the only MP allowed to drink Alcohol in the House of Commons; s/he is permitted an alcoholic drink while delivering the budget.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
