Cost of Living Increases — House of Commons, 2022-01-24
Topic: Social Welfare
Ian Murray (Labour, Centre-left): There was not a vote on the welfare cap a few weeks ago. It was about giving more money to the poorest people in this country and SNP Members know that. I take umbrage with what the hon. Gentleman said about the number of people on the Labour Benches, because the criticism we always hear during SNP Opposition day debates is that the Labour party takes up too much time. We leave most of the time for SNP Members to speak and that has always been the case. SNP Members constantly complain that they do not get enough time in this place; they will get as much time as they like today I was delighted by that intervention; let me repeat my paragraph. Young children and families in Scotland might be wondering why the Scottish Government will not listen to charities or, indeed, to Scottish Labour’s policy and increase the Scottish child payment to £40 a week. SNP Members cry, "Where would we get the money from?" Such a move would lift 80,000 Scottish children out of poverty and could be done tomorrow under the powers of the Scottish Government. They are wasting money on ferries, Prestwick and vanity projects. The underwriting of the Gupta organisation puts half a billion pounds on to the taxpayer of Scotland. That is what we should focus on The Scottish Government passed their budget last month and pushed incredible cuts on to local authorities. They then turned round to those local authorities and said, "If you want the money to run local services, put it on council tax." Nothing affects Scottish people more than their having to pay massively increased council tax bills because the Scottish Government are slashing the budgets of local government There is no better example of dither and delay than the devolution of welfare powers. In 2016, we agreed on a cross-party basis to the devolution of a whole host of welfare powers to the Scottish Parliament. Indeed, in essence the Scottish Parliament could now create its own welfare system if it implemented the policies. Six years on, the Scottish Government still delay the full implementation of the policies. In fact, they will take until 2025 to take full control of the devolved powers. It is important because with skyrocketing energy bills and increasing child poverty, the powers could be used to give, for example, a supplement to the winter fuel payment to help pensioners who are stretched by increased fuel bills. That is what should happen in respect of the changes to welfare powers in Scotland, but it cannot, because the welfare powers have not yet gone through as they should have We know that the best way out of poverty is the creation of highly skilled, highly paid jobs, so I must give credit to the SNP Scottish Government because over the past 15 years they have created a host of highly skilled jobs in turbine development, in the construction of ferries and in steel manufacturing. But none of those jobs have been in Scotland: they have been in China, Turkey, Poland and elsewhere. The decisions that the Government make have a fundamental impact on the way we deal with things in Scotland. The newly announced Scotland projects could generate billions of pounds of economic activity in Scotland, so every single job created should be in Scotland, with fabrication plants, British Steel and others Of course, as the cost of living crisis develops, the Prime Minister faces some difficulties of his own. Although much of the country is about to spend all their income from their jobs on energy, the Prime Minister is spending all his energy on saving his job. It seems that the choice in No. 10 is not so much about heating or eating but about whether it should be red or white. Little does the Prime Minister know that the cost of living crisis will affect him as well as everyone else in the country. Will the Minister tell us how much more a suitcase of wine from the Co-op will cost next year than it did this year As the Government party through the night, Labour offers a serious solution and leadership on the crisis. While the Government are hopelessly distracted by the chaos of their own making and more focused on infighting than on tackling people’s energy bills, we are calling on the Government to address the situation now. They could bring in a motion now to sort out this problem, with fully funded measures to reduce the expected price rise in people’s energy bills in April through a VAT cut on home energy bills that would save most households £200 or more, and targeted extra support for the squeezed middle, pensioners and the lowest earners, who would receive £600 off their bills, paid for by a one-off windfall tax on the North sea oil and gas producers who have profited from the price rises. Under Labour’s plan, every household in Scotland would save more than £180 off their energy bills, and 800,000 households in Scotland struggling with the cost of living would get an extra £400 in additional support. That is nearly £600 for those hardest hit by the energy price rises—critical money into the pockets of hard-pressed Scots now While everyone is dithering and delaying as we talk about new referendum Bills and why the Prime Minister is more concerned about his job, Labour proposes genuine action that would help families pay their bills over this most difficult year. That is the difference that Labour and leadership can make, and we will make it in power. With the support of the people of Scotland and those across the United Kingdom, that is exactly what we plan to do at the next election.