Housing Benefit

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sandra Osborne

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sandra Osborne]

I am going on to refer to that.

In East Ayrshire council, 2,300 tenants are caught by the bedroom tax, and more than 1,400 are already in arrears as a result—that is 62%—and the figure grows every month. The council estimates that it will have £500,000 of arrears by the end of the financial year as a result. In Scotland, as my hon. Friends have said, we have the added dimension of an SNP Government on pause, while they throw everything into their referendum campaign.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Sandra Osborne]

I do not have time, sorry.

Even scrapping the bedroom tax is relegated to a “things to do after independence” file—a very fat file indeed. The SNP boasts that it will abolish the bedroom tax after independence. People should not hold their breath waiting for that day to come, but nor should they have to wait for a Labour Government to scrap the tax. The Government should have the decency to scrap it now, and they would do so if they had an ounce of decency.

We need action here and now, and if the coalition Government are not prepared to act others must do so. That is why Labour has introduced a Bill in the Scottish Parliament to ensure that any social tenant who is genuinely unable to pay the bedroom tax will not be evicted. The Church of Scotland said in support of the Bill:

“Whilst we recognise that local authority budgets are being continually squeezed, forcing those who cannot afford these additional payments to carry the burden for this flawed policy is not fair.”

It is for times like these that the Scottish Parliament was created. The bedroom tax is a perfect example of just how the Scottish Parliament could act to make a real difference to tenants across Scotland, when the UK Government refuses to listen, but that would mean making devolution work for vulnerable Scottish families, and the SNP cannot allow that to happen. When it comes to the bedroom tax, the SNP, like the Tories, has its own agenda and priorities. This Government see nothing wrong with the bedroom tax, as we have heard. In fact, some Government Members do not even think that it exists. The SNP see it as an opportunity for building resentment. Only Labour sees it for what it is—a social injustice which must be scrapped.

Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sandra Osborne

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whiteford]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point on the differential impact between rural and urban areas. I hope I will be able to address that later.

Perhaps it should not surprise us that sick and disabled people are over-represented among those who rely on housing benefit, given that many of them will have been assessed as unfit for work, while others who are in work are more likely to be working part-time or in low-paid and insecure jobs. The numbers are a damning indictment on the Government’s attempts to balance the books on the back of disadvantaged people. In Scotland the picture is even more stark—79% of disadvantaged people in Scotland affected by the bedroom tax are either disabled or living in a house with someone who is disabled.

[Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Lady aware of Govan Law Centre’s petition to the Scottish Government to amend section 16 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 to ensure that people subjected to the bedroom tax will not be evicted due to those arrears?

[Dr Whiteford]

I am aware of it and I intend to turn later to the specifics of the situation for social landlords and for Scotland.

Scotland (Poverty)

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sandra Osborne

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Sandra Osborne]

My point is that the cuts have not been made in a fair and even manner, as the Government promised. I will develop that point later.

It is all too evident that the impact will fall disproportionately on vulnerable groups and on those who deliver the services on which those groups depend. Those are not just my views; there has been widespread condemnation from campaigning groups and third-sector organisations in Scotland that the budget and austerity measures will further increase poverty and inequality.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) said, in yesterday’s autumn statement we heard of further measures. The Chancellor announced the expansion of free nursery places for two-year-olds, helping 260,000 children. But, alongside that, he announced that he would be taking more than £1.3 billion a year from families by failing to go ahead with the planned additional £110 rise in child tax credits and by freezing working tax credits.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing today’s debate. This is a very important subject to discuss on St. Andrew’s day. Does the hon. Lady share my concern that the poorest families will suffer a disproportionate impact from these cuts, and that the 20% of the poorest families in Scotland will bear the brunt?

[Sandra Osborne]

That is the whole point of raising this debate today.

All this has happened despite the fact that when the Chancellor announced the rise in tax credits he said that it would support 4 million lower-income families, helping to ensure that there would be no adverse impact on child poverty. As the Minister knows, there is now a law relating to child poverty. The Chancellor has now taken that extra support away from the 4 million families. In its distributional analysis of yesterday’s measures, the Treasury has admitted that, as a result of the decisions taken by the Government, the number of children living in households with incomes below 60% of the median will increase by 100,000 in 2012-13—which will mean more children living in poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sandra Osborne]

I was about to talk about people who are living in fuel poverty who are spending a disproportionate level of already inadequate income on basic energy bills. Almost 1 million households, more than one in three Scots, now struggle to heat their homes. However, the SNP has cut the budget to help tackle fuel poverty by almost a third, down from £70.9 million in 2010-11 to £48 million in 2011-12. Dr Brenda Boardman from Oxford university, previously lauded by First Minister Alex Salmond, has said that Scotland has some of the worst fuel poverty in the UK. She describes the SNP’s cut in the fuel poverty fund as a real slap in the face for the fuel poor.

[Dr Whiteford]

I know that fuel poverty is something that is also taken extremely seriously in my constituency, partly because people do not have access to social tariffs on low incomes. They also often have trouble accessing broadband. But will the hon. Lady accept that the SNP Government have done more than previous Labour Governments ever did to address fuel poverty in Scotland, and are making record levels of investment in their energy assistance package and with other measures?

[Sandra Osborne]

I think that they flatter to deceive. Measures have been cut, including what I have just described. As I say, it is not just from me, it is from a very eminent professional who is an expert in the field. At the end of the day the Scottish Government will decide how to implement the budget in Scotland.

Not surprisingly, poverty means lower levels of mental wellbeing, shorter lifespans and more ill health. Those in the lowest 20% of household incomes, particularly women, are far more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and attempted suicide, while men living in the most deprived areas have a life expectancy of more than 11 years shorter than those in the 20% least deprived areas of Scotland. The situation in Scotland is very serious. Here I would like to pay tribute to Campbell Christie, the former STUC leader and another truly great Scot, who recently passed away but who chaired the Scottish Commission on Public Services. Its report said:

“Members of the commission have been struck by just how much public spending is skewed by that bottom 20% in terms of poverty, unemployment, health and all the factors that go with it—and how little progress has been made on that bottom 20%.

If you are going to do anything, you should relentlessly target resources at the bottom 20%. That would bring Scotland up overall: it's not just a moral case for social justice; there's a strong economic argument too.”

A recent national survey revealed that six of the 10 worst areas of Britain are on the west coast of Scotland, including areas of Glasgow.

In any debate on poverty, certain key assertions must be made. First, income and material conditions remain the most fundamental determining dimensions of poverty. Political and policy emphasis on non-income dimensions of poverty must not be used to draw attention away from the fundamental causes of poverty—lack of money.

The policy can work. The Labour Government's commitments and policy action that boosted pensions, benefits, tax credits and wages and removed some of the barriers to work have had an impact, with child and pensioner poverty significantly lower than in 1997. Other policy interventions that should be welcomed include a focus on more equal health outcomes and commitment to the idea of a living wage, although when that was put forward in South Ayrshire by Labour, the SNP Tory administration voted it down. We need more investment and income maximisation, statutory commitments to tackle child poverty and improved access to debt solutions.

Labour made huge strides in government, both in Westminster and at Holyrood, to tackle youth unemployment in Scotland. Again, the clock has been turned back. Youth unemployment is rising fast. Behind these figures is a generation of young Scots, rich in talent, full of potential, with a hunger to work. Yesterday’s announcement in the autumn statement was too little, too late. It will be next April before it even kicks in, which has meant two years of inaction, and equates to £121 million a year, a fraction of the £600 million this year alone which Labour would spend on a youth jobs fund through repeating the bank bonus levy.

[Dr Whiteford]

Will the hon. Lady join me in welcoming the initiatives of the Scottish Government to ensure that every 16 to 19-year-old in Scotland who is not in full-time education will have a training place or an apprenticeship or a job?

[Sandra Osborne]

I would very much welcome any measures that are taken in Scotland on youth unemployment, but it does not help when the SNP Government choke off opportunity by cutting funding for the country’s colleges. I attended the graduation ceremony at Ayr college the other week and I was very impressed by the students’ achievements, but the level of cuts that the college was facing—10% this year and 20% over the next two years—was very depressing. There have already been job losses and the college has been told to concentrate on 16 to 19-year-olds. That is fine, except that it takes places away from adult learners.

I received all my education, such as it is, as an adult, and I want young people as they grow older to have cradle-to-grave education, not just between the ages of 16 and 19. That is also needed for the economy.

I refer now to research from the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield university. It calculates that the headline total of 2.6 million men and women on incapacity benefits is set to be cut by nearly 1 million by 2014. Most of these will be existing claimants who will lose their entitlement. The report shows that, because of the reforms, 600,000 are set to be pushed out of the benefits system altogether, forcing a big increase in reliance on other household members for financial support.

The researchers also show that by far the largest impact will fall on the older industrial areas of the north, Scotland and Wales, where local economies have been struggling for years to cope with job loss and where the prospects of former claimants finding work are weakest. Glasgow looks set to be hit 10 times harder than, for example, Kingston upon Thames. In common with many of my colleagues here, these are just the types of areas that we represent where it has been very difficult to recover from industrial decline in the past. This is not going to help.