 Mae'r next item of business is a debate on motion 8.589, in the name of Shirley-Anne Somerville, on supporting Scotland with cost of living and reducing child poverty. I invite members wishing to participate in the debate to press their request to speak buttons now or as soon as possible, and I call on the cabinet secretary to speak to and move the motion for around 12 minutes, please, cabinet secretary. Thank you very much, and I move the motion in my name. Addressing the cost of living crisis, tackling poverty and working towards our statutory targets to reduce child poverty are central to the priorities of this Government, not just for me as the new cabinet secretary for social justice but also for the First Minister and all of my cabinet colleagues. That was, of course, reinforced within the policy prospectus that has been published and just discussed, which confirms that equality, opportunity and community will be the three critical and interdependent missions for this Government in 2026. That is why, in his first days, the First Minister was focused on delivering for the people of Scotland, providing that £15 million funding to help low-income households with childcare, tripling our full insecurity fund to £30 million and announcing additional funding for our NHS to deliver on tackling health inequalities within our healthcare system. The poverty and income inequality statistics that was published last month show that poverty levels remain too high. Whilst they continue to be lower in Scotland than the UK average, with relative child poverty 6 per cent points below that of the UK as a whole, they must be reduced further. Of course, the analysis that was published today by the Joseph Rowntey Foundation on rises in deep poverty further reinforced the devastating impact of the UK Government's decade of austerity, welfare cuts and economic mismanagement. Indeed, analysis that was published by the Scottish Government last year highlighted that were key welfare reforms introduced by the UK Government since 2015 reversed, that would lift an estimated 70,000 people, including 30,000 children, out of poverty this year. Household finances are under strain, with soaring energy bills and food costs disproportionately hurting those on the lowest incomes. High inflation is heeping more pressure on to our public services, with the Scottish Government's block grant 4.8 per cent lower than it was in 2021-22. This Government recognises the pressure on household budgets, however, and that is why last year and this, we have allocated almost £3 billion to support policies that tackle poverty and protect people as far as possible during the on-going cost of living crisis. However, I know what a challenge reducing poverty is, particularly without the full powers of a normal Government. We will ensure that we will use all the powers that we have to tackle poverty and inequality, build a fairer Scotland and support those that are most in need during the cost of living crisis. We will also biddle the case for further powers so that we can use all the levers that we need to tackle deep-seated and multi-generational child poverty that has blighted our country. The second tackling child poverty delivery plan, Best Art Bright Futures, reaffirms our sharp focus on working with partners to support those at greatest risk of poverty, with 90 per cent of all children in poverty in Scotland living in the six priority families identified in our first plan. The plan commits wide-ranging and ambitious action to provide immediate support to families and deliver the transformational change needed in the longer term to break that cycle of child poverty that we have. One clear example is, of course, the significant investment and increased support that we provide to families through Scottish Government benefits. Twelve of those benefits were upgraded by 10.1 per cent this month. Over 2022, the Scottish child payment, the only tackling child poverty benefit in the UK, was increased from £10 to £25 per week per child and extended to eligible children under 16. That represents an increase of 150 per cent in less than eight months and its first full year will be an investment of £442 million. The Scottish Government has had to make hard choices and decisions with a limited budget and, in some of the toughest financial circumstances imaginable, we have taken the political decisions to prioritise increasing this payment because it is a vital tool in tackling child poverty. The Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasts that around 387,000 children will be eligible for the payment in 2023-24 and, based on modelling from March 2022, it is estimated to lift 50,000 children out of poverty this year. I welcome the cabinet secretary to her new appointment and look forward to working with her. I absolutely agree with what the cabinet secretary has said, but I am still being contacted by constituents who have not been able to get the payment due to the lack of resources within Social Security Scotland. We should at least investigate that to find out why those payments are not being made with the big delay that is still happening, not only in this benefit but in the best grant benefit and other benefits are taking longer than should be. It is a pleasure to be working with Jeremy Balfour again. It is like the good old days when I had responsibility for social security before, and I am sure that we will pick up on some of those discussions. He raises an important point about the challenges that Social Security Scotland has had following the expansion of the Scottish child payment. Of course, that was a massive expansion that we have undertaken, the change to ensure that everybody under 16 is included, but those backlogs are being dealt with. I have already had discussions with Social Security Scotland and they reassured me that the work is continuing on that, but I am happy to have further discussions with him on that issue, because we all want this benefit to be a success and to get to people as soon as it can. I give him my reassurance. It has already got my attention and, indeed, has the attention of Social Security Scotland. Together with our best start grants and our best start foods, our five family payments could be worth around £10,000 by the time an eligible child turns six, compared with £1,800 for eligible families in England and Wales. It is therefore no surprise that poverty campaigners have called on the UK Government to introduce a similar benefit and to match our ambitions in tackling child poverty. A view that I echo, just as I would agree with the calls that the UK Government should be doing much more to support people during the cost crisis, where they are facing soaring inflation and spiralling energy bills, is what we have argued that the UK Government should be doing, but unfortunately they are not. I will just make slight more progress and then I will try to take another intervention. We have already started delivery of our new winter heating payment, replacing a DWP's cold weather payment and providing a stable, reliable annual £50, which will help around 400,000 low-income families with the heating expenses each winter. Our new benefit is expected to reach more than twice the number of people of the DWP benefit that it replaced, and it will be backed by £20 million each year and every year, providing vital support towards energy costs. We continue, of course, to recognise the vital contribution of unpaid carers in our society through our carers allowance supplement. There are, of course, important actions elsewhere within the Scottish Government that also impact on child poverty and our mission to tackle that. Scotland already has the most generous funded childcare programme in the UK, and all three and four-year-olds and around a quarter of two-year-olds are eligible for 1140 hours of funded early learning and childcare, backed by investment of around £1 billion per year. If families paid for these hours themselves, it would cost them around £5,000 per child per year. We are working with partners to progress our childcare offer even further, with plans to expand early learning and childcare to one and two-year-olds, and we have also committed £15 million this year towards building a system of year-round school-aid childcare fully funded for those that need it most. Alex Cole-Hamilton is very grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving away. She has my party's support on efforts to extend funded childcare, but does she share my concern about the lack of uptake, particularly among vulnerable two-year-olds, and what does her Government plan to do to address that lack of uptake? Alex Cole-Hamilton raises an important point. That is why we have been working with the DWP to ensure that we, for the first time, can use the information about who is eligible to be able to contact people directly. That will be a very important stage for us and for local authorities to ensure that we have the ability for the first time to be much more proactive about that. I am more than happy to work with Alex Cole-Hamilton on that issue, which he and Willie Rennie have had discussions on in the past. Moving on to travel, we continue to bide free bus travel for over 2 million people, including all children and young people under 22, disabled people and everyone aged 60 or over. Over 50 million free bus journeys have been made by people under the age of 20 since our expansion of concessionary travel in January last year. That is another important saving for those with children. How can I forget Stephen Kerr? I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving way. She is making a lot of very valuable points, but most of the things that she is talking about are, effectively, mitigations to the effects of poverty. Can we hear the member, please? I do not think that you can intervene on that. As in dealing with the symptoms of poverty, what we should be focusing on is dealing with the root causes. In respect of the root causes, how does curbing the number of apprenticeships or squeezing funding to Scottish training companies, or how does making cuts in real towns to Scotland's colleges or universities, how does that, in any way, create more opportunity and deal with the root causes of poverty? Well, well, Presiding Officer. I suppose that the gasp of disbelief from the back benches was a Tory MSP coming to the chamber talking about how we are dealing with mitigating on issues to deal with poverty. Well, yes, we are, Mr Kerr. Yes, we are. We are dealing with a UK Government's economic mismanagement. We are dealing with a UK Government who has absolutely contempt for a minimum wage at genuinely real living wage standards. We are dealing with a UK Government who is not interested in dealing with the causes of poverty, as amply demonstrated by their welfare policies. If he is not interested in my view on it, then perhaps he could listen to stakeholders in it. So, yes, we will continue to do everything we can within our limited powers. Oh, I only wish his colleagues down south would do something remotely similar, Presiding Officer, as well. Moving on to housing. Housing is also vital in the fight against poverty and will be a focus for the housing minister and I in this portfolio. An estimated 3,200 households with children have been helped into affordable housing in each year to March 22. We will, of course, continue working towards our target of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032. Our next steps are very important to make sure that our immediate priority is protecting people as much as possible. We have already tripled the fuel and security fund to be 30 million. We know that food banks are not an appropriate or long-term solution to poverty, and that is why we will soon publish a plan, grounded in human rights, that sets out further action that we will tackle towards ending the need for food banks. We will recognise that employment can offer a route out of poverty for families and that is why we will continue to ensure that we invest in employability packages too. The Government is taking action and will continue to take action. There is putting more money in the pockets of families and helping to turn the tide on poverty. We will do everything that we can within our powers and resources to substantially reduce child poverty. We have already delivered a range of measures that will help people right across Scotland. However, the key powers, including energy, employment and much still of social security, remain reserved to the UK Government who must match our ambition. Only with the full powers of a normal, independent nation can we eradicate child poverty fully. However, I look forward to members' contributions today and our suggestions about how we can use the powers that we have at this time on our joint mission on child poverty. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. I can advise the chamber that there is no time in hand, therefore I will have to urge members to stick to their speaking allocations, including if they take interventions, and I would encourage interventions to be as brief as possible. With that, I call on Miles Briggs to speak to and move amendment 8589.1 for up to eight minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I move the amendment to my name. Can I welcome Shirley-Anne Somerville to her new position in government today? I am sure that she will be delighted that she has now got two miles as in her life. I will ask her in a few weeks who is the most annoying, to be quite honest, but can I also welcome Paul O'Kane as well to his role on the Labour bench? I thank the organisations and charities who have provided useful briefings ahead of today's debate and also thank them for the work that they undertake across our communities to support some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Today's debate is an opportunity to reaffirm the cross-party consensus and objective set out in the 2017 Child Poverty Scotland Bill, which was passed unanimously by Parliament, setting us all to meet the substantially important target of reducing child poverty rates across our country. Eliminating child poverty must be a priority for all of us. I hope that the new cabinet secretary starts working her new role in government. We will genuinely look to reach out across Parliament to develop the next steps and listen to the new and fresh ideas that many of us are trying to see this Scottish Government take forward. New pressures on the cost of living aggravated by the effects of the pandemic and rising fuel and food costs, as well as the war in Ukraine, has indeed negatively impacted on families across the country. We need to see now a critical focus on the powers that we have here to help to support those families. In the time that I have today, Deputy Presiding Officer, I want to return to an issue that I have raised consistently in this Parliament. That is children who are homeless and living in unsuitable and temporary accommodation in our country. The housing emergency in Scotland is contributing to levels of child poverty with children and families stuck in unsuitable, unaffordable homes. Temporary accommodation is something that none of us want to see or none of us believe is appropriate in this day and age. Last March, we debated the issue and I pointed out at that time that Scotland had more than 7,500 children living in temporary accommodation. For many families, a typical stay was over 58 weeks. Those are in hotels, former guest houses, bed and breakfasts, often sharing toilets and cooking facilities with strangers. Like I say, none of us, I believe, approve of this or believe it is appropriate to place young families and pregnant women in such accommodation. However, today we see a worse situation. We see over 9,130 children in Scotland living in temporary accommodation. That represented a 17 per cent rise in a space of just one year alone. We all want to see a permanent safe home, and that is vitally important to a child's wellbeing and development. Something that I know the cabinet secretary will know very much detail of at her time at education. However, we need to see decisive action on this, which we have not seen. I hope that the new cabinet secretary in this position, in this new role, would refocus her efforts on this and personally make this a top priority for the years ahead. We on these benches will work with ministers on any vital reforms that we can make. I hope that the cabinet secretary will agree to urgent cross-party talks on that. I believe that, personally, we need to take forward legislation to put a ban on councils placing children and pregnant women in temporary accommodation, as I have outlined. That is something that I hope that we can pursue with the cabinet secretary going forward. The Scottish Government is preventing homelessness duties. I do think to present a good opportunity for Scotland to further develop some of the best protections in the world for people at risk of homelessness. However, we need to see those embedded. We also need to see their delivery around a preventative model, especially in the capital, for example. That will take significant work and resources to achieve. In recent months, I have been working with campaigners and hospices across Scotland and highlighted their call to action around the additional energy bills being faced by families with children with life-shortening conditions and people with terminal conditions in our society. Children with life-shortening conditions are 50 per cent more likely to be living in the most deprived parts of Scotland compared to the least deprived. However, families of seriously ill children incur unavoidably high household energy costs. Together for short lives, the UK-wide body supporting children with life-shortening conditions has said that research shows that families with seriously ill and disabled children are already paying almost double that of an average UK household on their energy bills. That cannot continue, but we know why the reason is for that—running of life-saving equipment, running of other energy-intensive equipments and just keeping their homes warm, often because they are providing a hospital at home service. Chaz is calling for the Scottish Government to do more to provide direct and targeted support to families, particularly for a scheme to be developed to enable families to recoup some of the running costs of life-saving and energy-intensive equipment. The former First Minister outlined where she would want to see action taking forward. We have not seen any progress since, but I would like to see the cabinet secretary commit also to that being one of her top priorities in the weeks and months ahead. It is a critical issue and one that both the Scottish and UK Government can deliver better support packages on. I am currently organising a cross-party round table on the issue with UK ministers, and I hope that the cabinet secretary will agree to be part of that and attend. No-one doubts that addressing levels of child poverty is a complex issue and one that needs a focus of both our Governments. I welcome summit that he is talking about. He has made some great points about the issues that families face, especially with children in poverty. Would he use that event to call for abolition of the rape clause in a two-child cap? I want to make sure that this event gives an opportunity for us to look at all the issues. I hope that, in the interests of both Governments working together, I hope that we can try to, with the new First Minister, move forward on that opportunity. However, for the energy crisis that many of those families face, that is specifically what it is about. Recently, I held a round table on hospices, which many SNP members I was welcome to see attended, and I know that they are acutely aware of the pressures that are being faced. In the time that I had left, I also wanted to touch upon BME children in Scotland as well, because they are disproportionately affected when you look at child poverty figures. It is something I want to make sure that the Scottish Government is alive to, as many organisations providing briefings have outlined where there has been very limited progress to date in that area. Earlier, we discussed the issue around a national minimum allowance for children in kinship care. That is something that we also need to see progress on. The Scottish Government in 2016 committed to implementing a national allowance for foster carers and a national minimum allowance for children in kinship care. That has not progressed and is sitting currently with COSLA, so that is another priority issue that I hope the cabinet secretary will look to take forward soon as well. I welcome the appointment of Natalie Dawn as minister for keeping the promise as well. There is an awful lot of work to do, and I hope that we will see a delivery programme developed as soon as possible to help to achieve all the outcomes that we support, but to make sure that our young people have the best possible start now and in the future. To conclude, Deputy Presiding Officer, it is critical that we hold the SNP Green Government to account. We will continue to do that on these benches, but there are many areas where we can work to make a difference in this area. I hope that the cabinet secretary genuinely wants to reset that relationship. We desperately need to see a Government now focusing on the resources that we have in this Parliament on delivering the outcomes that we all want to see. I hope and wish her well in doing that. I move amendment in my name. Thank you very much, Mr Briggs. I add a gentle reminder to members who have not already pressed to request to speak buttons, but wish to speak in the debate to press those buttons. Those who have made an intervention may need to repress the buttons. I call Paula Cain to speak to a move amendment 8589.3 up to six minutes. I would like to take the opportunity to welcome the cabinet secretary to her post, and I wish her well in her new role. I look forward to working constructively with her in our shared goal to make Scotland a better, fairer and more equitable society. I would also like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to my predecessor in this role, my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy, who approached the role with tenacity and a forensic eye for detail. I know that Pam Duncan-Glancy will be a formidable opponent in her new role as she holds the Government's account for the record in education. I wonder if the cabinet secretary is breathing a sigh of relief in that respect. On to our substance today of the debate on tackling the cost of living and reducing child poverty. There are lots of words in today's prospectus unveiled by the First Minister just a while ago, but there is also in the way of substance. New announcements are indeed new methods of tackling poverty. Indeed, I detected little in the way of new committed money and new spending, and indeed all that I saw in the Government motion highlighted is the anti-poverty summit that both the First Minister and the cabinet secretary have already spoken about this afternoon. In principle, Scottish Labour, of course, supports the convening of that summit. I know that colleagues on those benches will always work constructively when it comes to those pernicious issues of tackling poverty. However, if it becomes another talking shop on poverty, it clearly fails to meet this important moment. An anti-poverty summit is not going to in itself provide tangible, meaningful support to help households experiencing deep poverty. It is not going to help them to buy more food or to heat their homes in the winter or to help a parent to close their child. Indeed, the lack of ambition that I think we heard in the prospectus this afternoon is symptomatic of a First Minister who appears to be distracted, fighting fires in his own party, rather than perhaps addressing some of the most important issues facing the country. I was worrying that, after 16 years in power, the anti-poverty summit seems to be the limit of the Government's plan and vision to address this deepening crisis. I would contrast that when I look at other Governments and the progress that they made. After a decade of a UK Labour Government in 2007, the poorest 20 per cent of families were almost three and a half thousand better off compared to 1997, because in power Labour delivered. The last Labour Government lifted 2.4 million people out of poverty, including almost a million children, and child poverty fell faster than in any European country. In this moment, I think that Scotland is desperate for change. People do not want to see division and distraction. People are smart, and they cannot just pull the wool over their eyes. They recognise when a party of Government is more focused on internal concerns than on delivering for the people. I think that people in Scotland are also at their witsend. With both of their Governments, I think that they see the economic electricity of the Tories, which has inflicted a measurable damage on our communities. They look at their dangerous, reckless economics and know that they need real change. The need for change has never been starker. New research from the Joseph Roundtree Foundation has shown that not only has a number of people living in deep poverty dramatically increased, but the depth of the poverty that they are experiencing has become more severe. It is the case that the cost of living crisis has exacerbated the situation, but poverty levels in Scotland are deep-ritted, and they require deep solutions. Extreme child poverty after housing costs has been rising since 2014. I read today in much of the excellent rating material by Includum that one in three and four people are now struggling to meet the cost of two or more essentials. Scotland is desperate for solutions. It is desperate for competent and credible solutions, which will address the major issues facing the country. I am just wondering if the member has any of those competent and comprehensive solutions to present to the chamber today. Ah, well, he preempted. I am just about to come on to some concrete solutions, but may I take this opportunity to say to Ben Macpherson that I thought he performed well in his role as the Minister for Social Security. It is a sad fact that there is no longer a dedicated ministerial post in the Government dealing with those issues of social security, where Ben Macpherson had done previously. It is clear that people want a laser focus on tackling poverty, fixing the economy and injecting a sense of hope, optimism and trust back into politics. In power, Labour can deliver once again. We would reduce people's household bills by investing in clean power systems, insulating over 1.3 million homes. We would introduce a proper windfall tax, helping to reduce household bills, tackling problem debt and providing households with £100 water bill rebate. We would deliver on a green jobs revolution in Scotland, creating 50,000 jobs across the country with a wealth of new opportunities for young people. Those are the ideas of the Labour Party that we will bring forward when we have an opportunity to put those to the people. The First Minister has in various statements over the past few weeks, and indeed in the leadership hustling that has described independence as the golden thread that would run through the heart of his Government. That is the point and the heart of the matter. There is no surprise that the Scottish National Party supports independence, but it is clearer now more than ever that no matter the scale of the crisis facing the country, the SNP will always place that above all else, and it will be the answer for everything. I know that the cabinet secretary will stand up as she did in her closing of her opening remarks and blame Westminster on point independence as a solution. Of course, the UK Tory Government has made the situation worse. However, it is true that the Scottish Government has failed to seize the mantle to make Scotland a better and more equal and more prosperous place to live. The Government must not sit in their hands. It must use the powers of this place to address the concerning growth of deep poverty in Scotland. Continuity will not cut it. We need to have serious action in order to make the change that people want to see. I move the amendment in my name. I now call Alex Cole-Hamilton to speak to and move amendment 8589.2 up to six minutes. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Can I, as others have done, start by welcoming the cabinet secretary to her place? I worked well with her in the previous session and I look forward to doing so again. I am glad to speak for my party, the Liberal Democrats, and move the amendment in my name, because this is a vitally important issue. It should be one that unites the chamber and I am glad to hear so much consensus on many topics this afternoon. One in four children, as we have already heard, in Scotland live in poverty. This is a quarter of our nation's children facing significant barriers to their education, at risk of poorer health and with a lack of access to opportunities. That number has not changed in the 16 years that the SNP has been in government. That percentage remains stubbornly static. I spent two decades as a youth worker witnessing, first hand, the impact of poverty on childhood, and it is devastating. It can have serious impacts too and consequences on one's adult chances as well. It is, I think, an adverse childhood experience, as we recognise as such. Over the past year, the cost of living crisis has significantly exacerbated that challenge. One parent's experience reported to Save the Children Reads and I quote her directly. My daughter heard me talking to her big sister about gas, electricity and food prices. She found a five pence coin on the street and told me to put it towards the bills. Is that really what we have come to when a child finds a penny on a street? They are supposed to wish for good luck, not to worry about whether their family has enough to survive on. The fact is that this is happening now in Scotland and that is shameful. Start reality is that too many families can no longer afford either food or fuel or certainly not both. Recently, a study conducted by one parent family Scotland revealed that 61 per cent of their participants are finding it extremely difficult to afford electricity and can no longer afford it whilst almost half said the same for gas prices. We are in a crisis that warrants decisive action, action that the SNP has had time and time again failed to deliver. Research undertaken by my party revealed that last year just over 5,000 homes were helped with insulation under the Government's insulation scheme. That sounds like a big number, but then consider 87—sorry—874,000 households in Scotland currently face fuel poverty. That is only 0.6 per cent of homes in Scotland receiving the help that they so desperately need. That is only 0.6 per cent. That is why the Scottish Liberal Democrats are calling on the Scottish Government to urgently tackle this issue and to introduce emergency insulation as a programme that I will speak more to in my closing remarks. Alongside the rising costs of fuel parents are also increasingly struggling to access childcare services, jeopardising the sources of income that their family relies on just to get by. Increasing provisions for childcare is an issue that my party has campaigned on for over a decade. I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for recognising that in our earlier exchange, and I am glad to see that the Government has taken some of those calls on board. However, as I said in my intervention and as I said in my amendment, there is still much more that can be done. Scotland still has one of the highest childcare costs and burdens of costs in the OECD, and too many parents are unaware of their eligibility, particularly among those who are more vulnerable two-year-old cohorts. For parents of three and four-year-olds, a drift of the labour market, they are presented with a take it or leave it offer on childcare. We know from the McLean commission into the future of publicly funded childcare, which is over a decade old now, that families who are outside of the labour market will require far greater flexibility in their childcare offer to take up evening courses, to take up sporadic one-off occasions when they might need childcare to access a job interview to re-enter the labour market. Those are still challenges that we have solutions for but have not yet deployed, and those are challenges that I would happily give way to Daniel Johnson. Daniel Johnson, I am very grateful to the member for giving way. Will he agree with me and share my concern that, under the current measures, we have seen a reduction in the number of placings and a reduction of around a quarter in terms of the number of childminders? Are those things that we need to pay much closer attention to in terms of the delivery of childcare? I am very grateful indeed for Daniel Johnson for bringing that excellent point. Child minding is one of the unsung heroes of the childcare sector, and they provide that wraparound flexibility, which I have just been referring to. I am sure that Daniel Johnson's inbox is filled as mine is, both with parents and childminders, throwing their hands up in alarm at the position that they have been left in. Whilst 25 per cent of children in Scotland live in poverty, that number rises to almost 40 per cent of children from ethnic minority or single-parent household backgrounds. Moreover, women in particular are affected by this issue. A report published by Engender revealed that women account for 60 per cent of all jobs paid below the living wage. Combined with the disproportionate pressure to carry out household labour, mothers are particularly at risk from spiralling mental ill health. A testimonial from Includum highlights this grim reality. Again, I quote, I am now on anti-depressants and sleeping tablets due to worries for caring for my kids. I have lost a lot of weight as I choose to feed my kids over myself all too often. That is 20 for a century, Scotland. We cannot go on like this. No parents should be put in this position, but it is one that is becoming all too common. It is vital that the Scottish Government not only investigates mental health support for the pressures that parents in particular face and children are like that they are exposed to, but also examines the intersectional impact of such pressures. In closing, our Government needs to urgently step up to the plate and show the world a Scotland that gives every child a fair start in life. The eyes of the country are on this chamber, and we are extending good will to the First Minister that he has made this priority, but the judgment of the people will be swift. Mr Cole-Hamilton, we move to the open debate. I remind members that they will need to stick within their speaking limits. I call first Bob Doris to be followed by Stephen Kerr for up to six minutes, Mr Doris. Thank you, Presiding Officer. A UGF poll for decharity step change has found that one in seven Scottish adults have £20 less to live on after paying for essentials each and every month, and that is a sobering thought as we debate child poverty. The low level of UK benefits, soaring inflation, food costs and crippling energy costs are some of the clear and obvious factors that have led to that dreadful statistic. As we know, the cost of living crisis will hit children the most, and it is nearly one in four children in our nation living in poverty. It matters that the policies of the UK Government sometimes botch policies such as the Truss Quartang Budget and sometimes deliberate acts of harm such as Brexit and the UK benefit levels and sanctions regime have fuelled that cost of living crisis and impacted them on child poverty. However, it also matters more consensually what we do in this place in Scotland's Parliament to tackle child poverty. That is why the Scottish Government has placed our Scottish child payment front and centre to getting cash directly into the pockets of the poorest families in our nation. 387,000 children are eligible for the Scottish child payment this year. Modelling work from last year estimates that the £25 per week per child, a £100 payment per child and a low-income family every four weeks, will lift 50,000 children out of poverty and reduce relative poverty by 5 per cent. I shudder to think that poverty levels would look like in Scotland right now if it was not for the Scottish child payments. I think that it is very telling that the many briefings from the third sector organisations that are very welcome in preparation for this afternoon's debate focus on calls for a further increase of the Scottish child payment. That is a very clear acknowledgement of the power of the SNP's Scottish child payment, of its effectiveness, of the very real difference that it makes to many families in my constituency of Mary Hill and Springburn and right across Scotland. That is why they are calling for an increase because it works. The call from the third sector ahead of the launch of our new Scottish child payment when it was first brought in was for a non-targeted £5 per week from the third sector, and the Scottish Government engaged with the third sector. Today, what we have is not a non-targeted universal benefit but a targeted benefit £25 per week. So, where this Government works with the third sector, we get a good positive outcome and real success. I therefore warmly welcome the plans for an anti-poverty summit. It will not just be words, it will deliver action because the evidence is there for what this Scottish Government has done previously. Just as our Scottish Government will listen to those with lived experience of poverty and the third sector organisations supporting them, who we delivered the transformational Scottish child payment in the first instance, we must do so more once again, sharing ideas and suggestions about how we can improve the lives of those with day-to-day lived experience being blighted by poverty. So, yes, we have done lots other than the Scottish child payment, Presiding Officer. I am not going to list those because any summit and any cross-party discussion will surely be what we would do next. We do not have a bottomless pit of cash, so if we have cash, how would we spend it? Here are some ideas. The Scottish child payment, we know that there are calls for that to go to £40 per week. Is that affordable? If it is not affordable, do we look at a summer supplement? We know that July and August are cripplingly difficult for low-income families in those summer months, so do we have a summer supplement for a Scottish child payment in July and August? There is an idea that we should discuss at that summit and beyond. I am a dad and I am fortunate that I can afford to cloth my children, but I know that when I was a child, the importance of a child clothing grant and giving me a school uniform to wear when I went to school, I also know how often kids rip their trousers or go out of their clothes. That clothing grant is very welcome, because it is increased to £120 at least for primary schools and £150 at least for secondary school students, but it is once a year enough. Do we have to think about a second clothing grant? I am not saying where the money comes from this. I am suggesting ideas where we could spend money if it was available, but we cannot spend the same pound twice. Let us have a frank discussion where the best investment would be to deliver an outcome that we want to see to tackle child poverty. What about free school meals? Universal P1 to P5? Soon to be universal for P6 and P7? We have to deliver on that Cabinet Secretary as soon as possible. If some local authorities are ready to go now and others are not, can they be allowed to go now if we can find that cash now? Why should they have to wait? What about secondary schools? What are we going to do there in the future? Let us think medium to long-term as well. Finally, in the time that I have a left, the poverty-related attainment gap in education, we have to start looking at outcomes as well as educational qualifications. I am delighted to see record positive destinations for kids from low-income backgrounds of kids across the country. I am delighted to see that we are ahead of schedule and getting 20 per cent of children from the most deprived backgrounds being represented of our higher education system. We are ahead of schedule in doing that for 2030, but the role of colleges is crucial in doing that and their funding is under pressure. That is where we have to leave it. That is something else that we also have to look at. This debate should be a welcome opportunity to address the issues that contribute to child poverty. I am afraid that what we might slip into very easily is a display of grievance, a wallowing of pessimism and a talk more of symptoms than root causes, as I tried to intervene earlier to say. Those root causes include intergenerational poverty, the breakdown of families, addiction and inequality of opportunity, unworklessness and underemployment. People need help and the most important help that is needed is a good job paying good wages. If he is very brief, because we do not have time for a debate, I would like to ask Stephen Kerr if he thinks that indebtedness is a huge pressure at least to break down in families in perhaps the UK where the regime might actually cooperate with that indebtedness in the first place. I will agree with him that that is a contributing factor to some of the situations that families find themselves in. Here is what the Scottish Government's own most recent report on poverty and income inequality in Scotland 2019-22 states that having paid work is an effective way out of poverty. Those families where all adults are in full-time work have a low poverty risk. I would qualify what the report says by adding that skilled paid work is better than unskilled work and, of course, higher pay is better than low pay. We need to have an honest debate about the impact. I will not be able to take any more interventions, but I apologise. Everyone knows that I love a debate, but I want to say what I have prepared to say. We need to have an honest debate about the impact of the pandemic on the global economy, the Scottish economy and the Scottish society, and the devastating complication of the illegal Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Frankly, we are killing ourselves if we do not realise that the extended coronavirus restrictions that we applied in this country with a degree of rigor and longevity that other countries did not apply would not have a deeply negative impact on our economy and our society. That is despite the UK Government committing to vast borrowing to support individuals and families through the furlough scheme, businesses and other organisations through various other measures. None of this was cheap. We borrowed more than £500 billion. I do not believe that members of this Parliament can be economically illiterate enough not to understand that, when you borrow such vast amounts of money, there will be a negative impact on the public finances. I seem to recall that it was members of the SNP and the Labour Party who called the loudest for these interventions. How did they think that it would all be paid for? When the economic impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine was felt in spiralling energy costs, were it not members of the SNP and the Labour Party who called the loudest for interventions in the retail energy market to support individuals and families and businesses to mitigate the impact of extraordinary exponential cost increases, and was it not a Conservative Government that took unprecedented measures to intervene to support families and businesses? That was also paid for by unprecedented borrowing. How did members think that this was going to be paid for? As I say, I hope that none of us are guilty of economic illiteracy. We know what the economic facts of life are. Perhaps we have had to learn them all over again as a country. You cannot keep borrowing and borrowing and still command the confidence of international markets. There comes a point when you must demonstrate your ability to service and repay the borrowings that you have made. Who knew we all did? For a further example, of the social impact that is being made manifest because of the pandemic, there is the steep rise in the incidents of violence and disruption in classrooms. Lockdown was irredeemnally bad for our children and young people. They were the least likely to succumb to Covid-19, but they were arguably hit the most by the restrictions of lockdown. There are now eons of research papers that show how negatively impact children and young people were by lockdowns. What are the root causes of intergenerational poverty, a lack of equal opportunity, persistent worklessness in households and under-employment and a deep pessimism that things are as they are and can never be changed and will always be what they are? I am afraid, Deputy Presiding Officer, that the biggest pervers of that pessimism in this Parliament are the Scottish National Party. They are a party for pessimists with much to be pessimistic about, mired in scandal and wreaking of corruption. We have a skills shortage. We have record vacancies. We have record levels of net migration, but Scotland does not benefit. Members might like to ask themselves, including the minister who is interrupting me, why that is the case. We have people that are unemployed or under-employed, yet we are turning our back on the very things that help root out and tackle the root causes of child poverty. We should be creating more apprenticeships, not rationing them. We should be funding technical education. We are not. We should be investing in our colleges. We are cutting them. Members of the SNP and the Labour Party offer only welfareism. It is not the solution. It is a mitigation. The Conservatives offer a way out of poverty by tackling its root causes. Ruth Maguire, to be followed by Claire Baker up to six minutes. The most recent poverty statistics are not acceptable, because a wealthy nation with all the resources required to ensure an equal and fair childhood for all. One child having their health, development and wellbeing impacted by poverty is one too many. That one in four children in Scotland finds themselves in a situation where their future life chances are being impacted is something at the forefront of my mind as I make my remarks and support calls for bold action. The Conservative member might think that it is pessimism. It is more empathy, I feel. Bold action is needed from all spheres of government to eradicate poverty and inequality in our society. There is pressure being placed on all household finances due to rising inflation, high energy bills and soaring increases to food costs. Families who were previously managing are finding themselves increasingly struggling. However, we also know that the cost of living crisis disproportionately impacts households on low incomes and is likely to exacerbate those unacceptably high levels of child poverty if we do not come together and take further bold action. I want to begin by acknowledging the significant action that the Scottish Government has already taken to tackle the cost of living and child poverty. Bob Dorris was correct to get us to imagine what things would be like if there was not the child payment, for example. Those actions, including the First Minister's pledge to triple the fuel and security fund to support anyone at risk of self-disconnection or self-rationaling their energy use, expanding and increasing the value of the Scottish child payment and introducing new family benefits. The five family payments, including the Scottish child payment, could be worth around £10,000 by the time an eligible child turns six, compared to around £1,800 for eligible families in England and Wales and over £20,000 by the time an eligible child is 16. The provision of funded early learning and childcare is offering free, good-quality meals to all pupils in P1 to P5. Those things make a real difference and have been welcomed by anti-poverty campaigners. Speaking about the Scottish Government's budget, Satwat Rayman, one parent family Scotland, said, that we are heartened to see the Scottish Government has listened to several important calls from anti-poverty organisations, such as increasing taxes for the wealthiest to raise funds for public services. We are also pleased that the Government is raising benefits in line with inflation, which is the right thing to do and will make a real difference for low-income families who are being snowed under by rising costs. Peter Kelly from the Poverty Alliance stated, that the principles that are embedded into the social security system in Scotland I think is particularly important. The principle around making a contribution to reducing poverty, in particular, I think, is an important principle. Undoubtedly, the progress that the Scottish Government has made is being hindered by the devastating impact of the UK Government's decade of austerity and welfare cuts. The UK Government has full economic and fiscal powers, powers that it could use to make a real difference to the lives of so many. For example, it could make use of borrowing, provide more benefits and support to households, introduce a taxation of windfall profits and regulate the energy market. The latest UK budget was a huge missed opportunity to help people. The reality is that the UK Government could have done far more to ease the burden on so many of our citizens, but it has chosen not to act. The starkest example of the bind that we find ourselves in with the current constitutional setup is that, while the Scottish Government is increasing and expanding the Scottish child payment, the UK Government decided to cut universal credit. The UK Tory Government have often also brought us the frankly illogical two-child limit and its accompanying repugnant rape clause, the benefit cap, the five weeks' wait, sanctions and over a decade of austerity. The Scottish Government will spend up to £84 million and £23.24 on discretionary housing payments to mitigate the bedroom tax, benefit cap and the on-going freeze of the local housing allowance. That is estimated to help over 4,000 families and around 14,000 children to meet their housing costs. Even those who do not believe in Scottish independence surely must occasionally wonder what we could do if we did not have to invest so much in protecting Scottish people from cruel UK Government policies. I thank the member for taking his intervention. The recent Audit Scotland report states that the Scottish Government has not demonstrated a clear shift towards preventing child poverty. What her assessment of that report was? I was astounding to be asked that question when I have just let you know how much money is being spent on mitigating Tory policies. I am astounded. I do not understand that. Here is something that may be of interest. Reversing those welfare reforms would put £780 million into the pocket of Scottish households and lift 70,000 people, including 30,000 children, out of poverty in 2324. I mentioned that all spheres of government need to act in the face of this cost crisis, so I will also want to add my voice to those of anti-poverty campaigners calling on the Scottish Government to go even further with the game changing child payment and ask for an increase to £40 a week as soon as possible. With research from Save the Children, the Trussell Trust and the IPPR showing that this could lift 30,000 children out of poverty, the action would help the Parliament to meet our 2030 child poverty targets. While we are working to do that, let us not forget that those targets are about improving the life chances of individual children across Scotland, children who deserve unequal and fair childhood. Clare Baker joins us online to be followed by Fulton MacGregor up to six minutes. The motion for today's debate may recognise the persistently high level of poverty in Scotland, but we should recognise that poverty is not inevitable. The failure to address levels of poverty and child poverty in our communities is the result of political choices. Child poverty levels remain at 24 per cent after 16 years of SNP government is a reflection on their choices. We all believe that Scotland is a place which values compassion and justice. We share a belief that everyone should have what they need so that they can lead a healthy and fulfilled life, where everyone should have a decent standard of living and the same chances in life, no matter who they are or where they have come from. Yet Scotland is also a place where families and individuals rely on food banks and struggle to pay their bills. One million Scots live in poverty and the constant pressure of it can dominate their lives. No one chooses to have their child go to bed hungry or to huddle under covers for worms instead of turning on the heating, but for many this is the reality. If we want Scotland to be a country which services the wellbeing of its people, we must ensure that everyone has the means to live in dignity. Both of our Governments have failed those who are most in need. The UK Government's welfare reform policies have been incredibly harmful, but the Scottish Government has not done the life of those who are struggling to get by. Ambition has not reduced child poverty rates, nor stemmed the increase in persistent deprivation. 250,000 children are experiencing poverty every year, one in four children in Scotland as the action for children briefing states that this is not just a national scandal but a national shame. Members have received a large number of briefings ahead of this debate, which not only highlight the scale of the problem and the number of organisations that are working to support those who have been impacted, but sets out clearly the type of actions and interventions that are needed to change the situation. The current cost of living crisis means that every increasing number of people are now unable to afford the essentials—the essentials of food, heat and clothing. The basics that we all need to live. Food banks throughout the country are providing record numbers of parcels to people who cannot afford to buy food. Food banks, which should be a temporary measure and emergency service, are struggling to keep up with demand, and we can only end the need for them by increasing people's incomes, getting more money into pockets that people can buy food and embed a cash first approach. On Friday, I was at a meeting in Fife listening to Ian Campbell, who is the chair of Cracodi Food Bank. Like the rest of Scotland, demand in Fife is huge. Last month was the busiest month ever for Cracodi Food Bank, with 1,612 visits and around 34,000 meals distributed. 576 food parcels were given out to families, 423 to couples, 611 to individuals. In 2023, 34 per cent of the people receiving food from the Cracodi Food Bank are families with children. The food bank runs across five distribution points in the town, and in July last year it had to take the decision, which it really regrets, but it had to take the decision to limit people to one food parcel a week due to increase in demand. I hear Stephen Kerr's earlier comments about the importance of employment, but we know that, in a low-wage, insecure employment market, when prices are rising, being in employment does not stop many people needing to use food banks. One in five of those referred by the Truttle Trust live in a household where someone is working. As wages feel to keep pace with inflation, already stretched pay packets cover less and less, and vulnerable families have been disproportionately affected by both the impacts of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis as structural inequalities are intensified and more and more families are being pushed below the poverty line. For single-parent households, the cost of living crisis has hit hard. Two in five of the children in poverty in Scotland are in single-parent households and 38 per cent of children living in single-parent households are in poverty. Last year, three in five single parents were finding it extremely difficult to afford or could not afford electricity. Research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found as many as seven in 10 single parents were skipping meals and going hungry to reduce costs. It is right that single parents are recognised as a priority group in the tackling child poverty delivery plan. We need to see targeted interventions to support them recognising that they are among those who are the greatest risk of poverty and addressing the structural barriers that they face as sole earners and carers. With less than 60 per cent of lone parents in Scotland in paid work, the employment gap between single parents and other households demonstrates the link between caring responsibilities and lower employment. There is consistent experience of a lack of affordable and flexible childcare for those in work, and the expansion of wraparound childcare for early years and school-age children is vital to improving the employment prospects for single-parent families. We need to see greater action on that. We also need to see an increase in job opportunities, which allows single parents to meet their caring responsibilities and measures that address the gender inequality that is in employment. While measures like expanding the Scottish child payment and introducing new family benefits have provided support for low-income families, it is clear that much more needs to be done in terms of building on those with more resources and more urgency for those who are at greatest risk. In childcare, in school costs and employment, there is much more that can be done, and it must be done at pace, not just promised tomorrow. It takes more than ambition to create a Scotland where everyone can live in dignity, not in need. Thank you, Presiding Officer. There is no denying that the impact of poverty has in families has been felt more than ever. I tell you that it does not sit particularly well with me, but it has become more and more prominent as the working poor. In-work poverty has been seen particularly with individuals and families who are in work but have been left unable to make their pay packet stretch to meet all their needs. Those who are only just able to cope and make ends meet are now struggling completely by the cost of living crisis, and those who are already struggling are completely devastated. With an increase in food prices, energies, utilities and other essential costs, mainly brought on by this heartless UK Government, economic insecurity has been felt by everyone, but the burden has, of course, fallen disproportionately on the already vulnerable lone parents, those with disabilities, carers, older people and perhaps most of all children. Shockingly, as has been emphasised already, 69 per cent of children in relative poverty are living and working households. Of course, as many will know, my constituency of Copbryddon Creson is no stranger to the impact of child poverty. As I said in here before, I really do not think that this is a tall fair on children and families in post-industrial communities, like mine, that I have experienced the multi-generational poverty as referenced by the Cabinet Secretary in her opening remarks. Let us not make any bones about it. Communities in Lanarkshire and elsewhere were very much still recovering from Tory-inflicted deindustrialisation of the 80s when the next cost of living crisis was inflicted upon us. The Tories are laughing, but many of us live through it. Tory Governments put us down, and then, just as we are making our way back up again, they come in to deal yet another blow. Conservative Governments are no friends of communities like Copbryddon Creson, and perhaps this is the reason why very few people in my constituency would even consider voting for them. Thankfully, on like the 80s, we now have a devolved Government of our own, and we have been able to mitigate some of the damage, and it was really happening to hear Stephen Kerr acknowledge the mitigation that the Scottish Government has done in relation to its own party's policies. The Scottish Government has, and continues to use our limited powers and budget to break the cycle of poverty. However, without Scottish independence, some couples from this destructive Westminster Government will remain limited. I will take an intervention, and I was not going to take an intervention from a Conservative on that issue. However, I did mention Stephen Kerr by name. I just wish to point out to the chamber that I was addressing mitigations in the context of social security. The mitigation that he is referring to is not what I was referring to, but I was talking about the need for us to focus on the root causes of poverty, which I hope would all unite us as well. Fulton MacGregor As one of his first acts is the new First Minister, the Scottish Government is tripling the fuel and security fund to £30 million to support any risk of self-disconnection or self-rashering in their energy use. Further, thousands more low-income families will benefit from free-school-aged childcare as part of a £15 million investment to help to tackle child poverty. As my colleagues have said, one of the things that we can be most proud of as a Parliament as a whole is the Scottish child payment, which has, of course, made a huge impact on families in my constituency and across the country. As has been stated already, the payment has been expanded to eligible 6 to 15-year-olds, increased in value to £25 per child per week. Around 387,000 children are now forecast to be eligible in 2013-24. Based on modelling, it is estimated to lift 50,000 children out of poverty and reduce relative child poverty by 5 per cent each point. I agree with the calls from the charities that Ruth Maguire and Bob Doris have already mentioned. I think that it would be a good move to increase the payment even further. I think that it works and it would help further. Given the large number of children living in poverty in my constituency, it is also perhaps no surprise that there are excellent and innovative examples of groups and charities who work tirelessly to make sure that no children go without. As I have done before, I want to now take a bit of time to pay tribute to just some of those organisations. Take Cool School Uniforms, a uniform bank set up in Coatbridge by Julia Burn and Ann Culley. This charity has grown exponentially since being set up a few years ago and they work tirelessly to ensure that no child goes to school without warm, clean and suitable clothing. I have a strong interest in this area and I have asked many questions and held round-table discussions on the issue, so I am interested to hear how the new Government plans to expand our current school uniforms policy from the current one-off payment of £120, as highlighted by Bob Doris. There is also St Augustine's outreach, which runs under the name Stay Connected. They are set up during the pandemic and they also do some wonderful work. They help with all aspects of life from providing furniture, a clothing bank, a pantry, run a very successful toy appeal at Christmas, offer financial support for energy through pay zone, made up toiletry bags to help to tackle hygiene poverty, and most recently had a warm space in the evenings that provided free soup and hot drinks. In fact, I have to say that over the cold months many local organisations in my area opened up with warm rooms as well, which let people who couldn't afford to put their heating on come in for a wee drink in a chat in a welcoming environment. Of course, the co-bridge food bank, I always make mention of them, is an absolutely fantastic organisation, as is the Moody's Bun food bank, and I do agree with Claire Baker that they are seen demand absolutely sore. However, the fact that we require such places is absolutely atrocious, and as I have said before, I make no apology. It is all down to the UK Tory Government's heartless incompetency. However, I have to say that I am glad that we have such kind and caring people in our communities to come together to help mitigate this and offer assistance in such difficult times. On that point, Presiding Officer, I am happy to end there. Thank you, Ms McGregor. I now call Maggie Chapman to be followed by James Dornan and Ms Chapman joining us remotely. Can I begin by welcoming Shirley-Anne Somerville to her new Cabinet post? I look forward to working closely with her over the coming months. I thank the Deputy First Minister for the open and collaborative working relationship that we developed on social security and other issues in her previous role. I am sorry not to be joining you in person today, but I have been at the STUC annual gathering in Dundee, and many of the discussions and debates under way here have relevance to this debate, protecting and enhancing our public services, supporting our workers and their families by delivering well-paid jobs with fair and safe conditions, tackling inequality and discrimination across society. All of these are fundamental to eliminating poverty and inequality. I thank all of the organisations that have sent in briefings and information in advance of today's debate. I think that we have probably had more emails about this debate than many previous discussions on poverty, and I know that many of us appreciate all of the information sent to us. But this level of contact is perhaps a troubling sign. Troubling not because the organisations concerned are engaging with us frequently, but because they have to, with what are pretty bleak messages. That one in four children in Scotland living poverty should shame, does shame us all. The devastating impacts on our young people's physical and mental health, development, wellbeing, their hopes and dreams, these impacts are wide-ranging and often lifelong. Poverty robs our young people of their rights to a fair childhood, and it robs them of a fair future too. Let us remember that poverty is a political choice. It is a consequence of decisions taken sometimes decades ago, sometimes far away, across all different levels and departments of government. Poverty is not because we overall lack resources or money. Just last year, the five largest energy companies racked up nearly $200 billion worth of profit, profit not turnover. There is clearly lots of money available, but it is just not in the right places. We have seen successive UK Conservative and Labour Governments act in ways that have failed to provide the foundations for a strong, equal and just society. When the current cost crisis, the worst that we have seen in the generation hit, many families were already struggling. Pre-crisis, indeed pre-pandemic, too many were already in poverty. Many were just about getting by. Their experiences of poverty were exacerbated by the cost crisis, not caused by it. A decade of Tory austerity meant that when the pandemic and then the cost crisis hit, there was very little, if any, spare capacity to cope. I wish we had not had, over a decade of austerity, of penny pinching and belt tightening for public services, whilst the already wealthy profited from the increasing misery and precarity of the rest of us. The profiteering seen in recent years during Covid by the energy companies by those who benefit from the destruction of our social fabric and environmental life support systems should never have been allowed to happen, nevermind enabled and supported by decision makers, Stephen Kerr might do well to remember that. Here in Scotland, we have tried to mitigate some of the worst effects of this greedy, broken system, increasing the Scottish child payment, the fuel insecurity fund, targeted childcare support and other commitments. I am pleased to have played a role in securing the mitigation of the benefits cap we have, but there is clearly so much more we need to do. We must ensure that we support families now, whilst also building resilience into all of our systems and processes to guard against future crises. Whilst we don't have the powers to do everything we might wish to do, particularly for the longer term structural reform our economy so desperately needs, we must do more than we currently are doing. Decent support for mental health services for all young people is vital. It has a return to society of up to eight times the initial investment and clear long-term positive impacts for individuals and their wider communities. We must mitigate the penalties that families with more than two children currently face because of the Tory's immoral rape clause. We will, over the coming months, be exploring how we can better harness our collective wealth and income to better support and protect our children and boost our economy. We want to be in a position to provide universal free school meals as we know that supports every aspect of a child's growth and development. Affordable warm homes are the bedrock of healthy, happy families. We must act to tackle the far too high levels of use of temporary accommodation. We need decisive action on public sector debt recovery, and we need to deliver on the promises of employability support, helping parents, especially mothers, into work is fundamental to meeting our child poverty targets. We must do all of this, whilst clearly recognising the gendered nature of poverty and the multi-faceted intersectionality that must be embedded in all of our actions to tackle this, so that we don't reinforce structural inequalities. Those parents and children who are the easiest to ignore are the ones we must work hardest to support. In closing, we must recommit to meet the interim and 2030 child poverty targets. That means doing more than we currently are doing. It requires a ramping up of our cash first approach. It means seriously considering proposals that may be felt too radical or too difficult before, including on tax reform and wealth redistribution. It is not going to be easy, but it is vital. Our children and our children's children deserve nothing less. According to the Institute for Government, the cost of loving crisis refers to the fall in real disposable incomes due to rising inflation in taxes. They then want to say that the UK has been in crisis since late 2021, although for many people it seems that we have been watching from one crisis to another for a lot longer than that and have been under severe financial pressures as well before late 2021. Despite these facts, an action from an uncaring out-of-touch Tory Government has been even by their miserable standards truly woeful. It is difficult to understand what reality it is when only the other day the IMF reiterated its forecast that the UK economy would shrink this year, adding further hardship for hundreds of thousands of already hard-pressed families and businesses, only for that to be welcomed by the Chancellor as evidence that things were working. They clearly are not, and this UK Government has nothing to offer us, no ideas, no plans, nothing. In contrast, it happens to continue providing tax breaks to the top 1 per cent while raising taxes for the poorest nurse society. Let's be clear that the UK Government is not the solution to the cost of loving crisis. They are the ones who caused it. They failed to grow the economy while in power, added to 10 years of austerity, get us trapped in the cycle of low wages, coupled with higher taxes to pay for over-stretch public services, weakened by a decade of cuts, leaving us all worse off, with many struggling from one day to the next and pushing more and more families and children into poverty. It truly is scandalous. Bernardo's recent report at what cost highlighted the fact that children in the most vulnerable and precarious circumstances would be among those most exposed to the cost of loving crisis. Families with nothing left to cut back on are no longer having to choose between heating or eating. Instead, they are unable to afford either. I also found that more than half the parents have been forced to cut back on food spending for a family over the past 12 months, one in five parents said they have struggled to provide sufficient food due to the current cost of loving crisis. Over a quarter said their child's mental health is worsened due to the situation, and parents have admitted resorting to desperate measures, with a quarter having sold possessions, one in five having taken on new credit cards, extra debt or a payday loan. It is estimated that more than one in four children now live in poverty throughout the UK and that this situation is getting worse by the day. Just to respond to Claire Baker's points, the situation in Scotland may well be stuck at 24 per cent for the time being, but it's worse everywhere else. It's got worse during that period of time where the mitigations that we've taken have helped to at least keep it steady, which is nowhere near good enough, not at all, but at least we haven't allowed it to get worse with the minimal powers that we do have. Rather than defend the UK Government's abysmal record, let's see the opposition acknowledge some fundamental truths. Many of the powers that are pivotal to tackling low wages, low growth, high inflation and high overall taxation are powers that the Scottish Parliament do not have. They are powers that are controlled and closely guarded by the UK Government, but they are powers we need, powers we can use to build and measure this Government's tent to tackle this crisis with the limited powers at our disposal. Maybe somebody should explain to Paul O'Kane the difference between the powers Labour had in 1997 compared to the situation just described above. That is, despite his view, the benefit of being an independent nation. We've seen a number of measures set out in the latest programme for government, brought in under a previous First Minister and going to be carried forward by our existing First Minister, the Scottish child payment and new winter heating payment, doubling the fuel and security fund, widening eligibility for the tenant grant fund, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If you don't believe this government are truly making a difference, then just listen to Paul Lewis from the BBC Money Box when he says things are better in Scotland due to Hollywood's use of the vulg powers over tax and benefits. He said in a call for the Radio Times, I once coined the acronym TABIS, Things Are Better in Scotland, as a shorthand for the forward-looking social policies of that country, and it gets truer all the time. Over the past 25 years, devolution has given Scotland limited, but growing independence over its social security and tax policies, and they are better. He once coined the phrase TABIS, Things Are Better in Scotland. Wow. Of course, you would never believe that when you read our newspapers or listened to our opponents telling us day after day how things are better anywhere, everywhere but Scotland. Who to believe in? Of course, given the UK's Governments in action and the predictions that this crisis has set to continue, if not the worst, there's a real need for us all to do more, and that's why I welcome the initiative set out in today's motion, particularly the plans to hold an anti-poverty summit to guide future action and tackling poverty. I'd welcome the Cabinet Secretary taking the opportunity and our reply to providers with more details of the proposed summit, including what its timescale for delivery will be, what local organisations will be able to participate in personal or in writing, knowing those are better than the issues affecting a local community than those who belong and working it. In conclusion, Presiding Officer, it's clear that there is so much more for us all still to do. There are far too many people, particularly children, still living in poverty. I've lived through the stress, the anger, the heartbreak, the break-ups that poverty brings to families, particularly those with young children. Nothing is more debilitating to your self-esteem than the struggle to find the money to buy uniforms, new shoes or, as previously stated, to either eat or eat. I urge my colleagues from around the chamber to pledge to support any move towards gaining the full levels of power required to tackle all the areas that impact on child poverty. Only then can we truly say that we have done all we can for those who need us the most. I now call Jeremy Balfour to be followed by Pauline McNeill. I appreciate the Government putting forward this debate on the cost of living and reducing child poverty so early in the new First Minister's era, because child poverty is something that we all agree is unacceptable and deserves our full attention to make sure that it is eradicated. However, I do not see how the subject can be categorised as a national mission by the Scottish Government given its recent actions. I find it incredibly disappointing that the First Minister has decided to remove the ministerial appointment that the show responsibility for social security. I welcome to see Ben Macpherson in the chamber this afternoon. Having worked closely with him, although we disagreed, I often found him very open and willing to engage on the subject, and I think that he is a miss to the Scottish Government. Although Scottish Security is by no means the only tool that Stephen Kerr has pointed out to alleviate poverty, it is a vital tool in our efforts to provide support to the most vulnerable people in our society. I know that the cabinet secretary knows this brief well, but she is going to absorb social security brief as part of her wider portfolio. However, although Scotland is still in the process of being set up and experiencing many tearing problems, the Scottish Government is still not fully devolved all the social security benefits that we took on, and case transfer is not expected at the earliest until 2025. I am sceptical, even worth her abilities, that she will be able to devote the required time and energy to social security while her brief remains so busy. If the Government is serious about tackling poverty, and in particular child poverty, then it must respect the vital role of social security by bringing back the new minister for that role. The truth is that this Government has been in power for more than 15 years and has made no meaningful improvement to child poverty in Scotland. We heard just a couple of weeks ago that the level of child poverty in Scotland remains at the same level that it was at when the SNP took over in 2007. One in four children living in relative poverty and one in five living in absolute poverty after housing costs. I am grateful for the member to give away. I wonder if he could comment on the impact of the UK Government welfare policies on pushing children into poverty and the decrease of £20 in universal credit and how many people that pushed into poverty as well. I think that she again picks one area rather than looking at the whole that the UK Government did over the Covid issue. Again, I have to remind her predecessor of this, we are the Scottish Parliament. I am here to hold the Scottish Government to account, values my role and I am afraid that they have got to take responsibility for the decisions that they have made and that they never do. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get my head around those numbers. This is not the 21st century Scotland that we should be living in. This SNP Green Government is failing the children of Scotland and with so many other areas, the promises and rhetoric that they showed to the Scottish people is a million miles away from the reality of their failed delivery. The former First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, promised to close the poverty-related attainment gap completely, not partially, not almost, but completely. The reality, the SNP have failed and have walked back that promise. The gap actually widened last year, not narrowed. So not only are they not fallen through on their promise, but they are presiding over a decline in the standards of the poorest in Scotland. The SNP promised to provide free school meals for all primary school children by August 2022. The reality is that they have moved that back to 2024, two years later. Once again, we see big talk with no result. Finally, I want to circle back to Social Security Scotland and the message that the Scottish Government has made of what could and should have been a very promising initiative. The devolution of Social Security Scotland was a golden opportunity to have a unique Scottish system that is underpinned by the broad shoulders of the UK Government. Instead, what the SNP have produced is over time, over budget, over stretch and still not fully delivered. As I said previously, I have been contacted by a number of constituents who are trying to access the Scottish child payment but are unable to do so and get the help that they desperately need as Social Security Scotland's phone lines are permanently engaged and the online webchats are crashing as they are too busy. The story is the same for the best start grant. It is very well having these benefits but for people who need them, most cannot access them than what is the point. Once again, I have to bring up the fact that there is no longer a Social Security Minister who can deal with those issues. The SNP cannot tell us seriously that they are focused on child poverty and the cost of living while doing away with his right to role and diverting roses to the work of the divisive nationalist agenda. I think that we all agree that eradicating child poverty is far more important than their divisive and welcome independent mission. Thank you, Mr Balfour. I now call on Pauline McNeill to be followed by Ben Macpherson. Thank you. Speaking to the Labour amendment, I want to address the cost of living crisis in the main. Across the UK wages have been stuck for the best part of almost two decades now. The TUC said that UK workers are in course for lost pay over that period and served the longest pay squeeze in pretty much all of our lifetimes. It should be no surprise that so many workers have been on strike in so many sectors. They are fighting for fair pay, for fair working conditions and to recoup the huge loss in pay over those years in the middle of a crisis. As the SNP has its annual congress this week in Dundee, Scottish Labour is quite clear that we stand in solidarity with all those trade unions and professional organisations, nurses and doctors and, in fact, all workers who are vital in running our public services. My belief is that, as the leader Mclynch of the RMT union has said repeatedly during those strikes, the individual strikes are critical to encourage growth in the sectors outwith the public sector. In other words, trade unions are also standing up for those who are not in trade unions themselves. There is generally greater wage growth in the private sector than in the public sector, but this is a basic requirement in today's society. There is a need to create a floor of basic wage rates and fairness for young workers in particular, but all those who work in precarious employment, and that is why we need to legislate against zero-hour contracts long overdue and needed in many sectors, and I believe the basis of a fair and modern society. Under the long lasting austerity, the average British family is over £8,000 poorer than their equivalents in other advanced economies, and of the many reasons for that, the post-Brexit trade complicated trade barriers continue to add to the woes that should never be forgotten. This crisis is intensifying, it is impacting more and more, and people and the damage that it is causing is there for all to see. Many are in despair that there is no end in sight. The cost of living crisis is not only affecting those on the bread line, but Britain's mortgage market has contracted over the fifth month in a row last month. The jumping interest rates that have followed list trust's September mini-budget continues to damage the economy and trigger a collapse for new home loans. I have talked to many people about this, and the increase on mortgage interest payments alone that never mind their mortgages is astronomical. The cost of living crisis is extremely scary for a wide number of people, but large corporations have fuelled inflation with price increases that go beyond the rising costs of raw materials and wages, pushing shopping bills to record highs. According to analysis of hundreds of company accounts, the cost of living crisis is very much a cost of greed crisis, as virtually all big companies that sell essential food items and fuel are making vast record-breaking profits. I have talked to most ordinary people about the rising costs of food. It is not even transparent. We do accept that there are rising costs for particular reasons, but there is a shock in the extent to which food inflation is reaching well over double figures. More to do with the cost of living aspect of the motion rather than the poverty aspect, but it highlights the situation that we are facing as a country where living standards are declining and home ownership is getting harder. Individual household finances are getting more precarious for many more people who are just above the poverty line and increasingly likely to fall below it. Many people will have a lower standard of living than their parents did, and we are seeing a pattern of stagnation and decline. The cabinet secretary in her opening statement mentioned the importance of understanding intergenerational inequality. It is, I believe, an issue that we should be talking more about. We did in the last Parliament, but it is even more acute now. Those young people, probably even under the age of 40, will never see the levels of home ownership and prosperity that their mothers and fathers did. It is an important policy agenda that I think that the Government has to address. Rampot profiteering, which drives inflation by cracking up the cost of living crisis for workers and families, and, as I said, it has almost been two decades now. Children are the clear victims, as other members have said, of these exploited policies and the latest statistics from the poverty and income inequality 2019-22 publication makes for difficult and discouraging reading for Scotland's families. Those rates in Scotland remain the same stubborn 24 per cent level that a quarter of a million children is feeding poverty each year, as it was 16 years ago. That suggests to me that a Scottish Government will need to have—there are going to be—fresh policies in this administration. They really need to look at why that level is not coming down. The sad fact is that we are in the third decade of the 21st century and Scotland still has levels of poverty that should be designed in the past. It is not just a national scandal but a national shame. The cruel irony is that child poverty is expensive. As we have discussed many times in the chamber before, there is a premium on poverty, the extra-hidden cost of poverty, paying more for costly tariffs, pre-payment metres and higher credit rates, and the University of Bristol calculated this poverty premium at £242 million for Scotland. I want to address, as a member for Glasgow region, that I am concerned that there is no credible plan for economic growth in the Glasgow city region, which has some of the highest levels of poverty. It is alarming to me that 1 in 3 children living in poverty have the highest proportion of low-income families. I do think that it is remiss of the Scottish Government not to have a plan for Glasgow in the west of Scotland, because if you believe in readers deputing of wealth, which I do, the First Minister said, he does, you cannot ignore the importance of an economic plan for a Glasgow city, a wider region, where poverty is extremely concerning. As I look back in the public gallery earlier today, I observed the expressions and reactions of the young people attending Parliament, as they often do. The young people today were about the age I was when this Parliament opened, and they could feel the excitement and determination then to create a more socially just society and to create a better politics. I still feel that optimism today, despite the challenging times that we have been through together. As I said, when I first spoke to this Parliament back in 2016, we share a determination and a hope for a better Scotland. That was manifested when we passed the Child Poverty Scotland Act in 2017, when we committed together to targets to tackle child poverty. The onus is, of course, in many ways, on the Government, but the responsibility to meet those targets is all of ours. We have heard across the chamber today that poverty is wrong. It is wrong. It does not need to exist here in our country in the way that it does. We can make the changes in our constituencies to ensure that, in generations to come, the MSPs that sit in this place do not face the same challenges when it comes to poverty as we do today. I certainly want to see that from my constituents, and I know that every member here does too. We share the responsibility not just for action, but for how we got here. Yes, it is fair and reasonable in our democracy for the opposition to critique and criticise the Government's positions and decisions, but it is a fact that the decisions of decades past have an impact on where we are now. It is a fact that the mandate that the Labour Party had under the new Labour years could have been utilised to a greater effect. It is a fact that the coalition Government between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives did bring about austerity measures that have had an impact on poverty. It is a fact that Brexit has made our economy poorer. Within those circumstances and the shared challenges that we faced with regard to the Covid pandemic that we faced together and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, all of those had an impact that we share responsibility for. That is the context that we share and the challenges that we share, but we will not be benefited by a tribal approach going forward. In that spirit, I think that it is right that we have critiqued where we are now, and we do that better by acknowledging success when it has been achieved as well. I put forward constructive suggestions about how we move forward, considering where power lies in terms of the Parliament's and the constitutional framework in this country. The achievements of Social Security Scotland are remarkable and I feel very proud and privileged to have been part of that project for some time as a minister. That is down to a huge amount of officials who do remarkable work day in, day out to serve people and serve them really, really well. There are practical challenges when it comes to undertaking new constitutional responsibilities and delivering new services. That is the reality, and we do better as Democrats to be realistic in the challenge of that as well as ambitious. Criticising the Scottish Government for delay because of the pandemic or being unfairly negative about the Government's delivery of Social Security since the Smith commission and the 2018 act does not serve any constituents well that we represent. The Scottish child payment is a hugely impactful policy, and it is one that the cabinet secretary conceived when she was a cabinet secretary before. All of us know the impact that it is having. The fact that it is being increased to 150 per cent if you go around any part of your communities in the constituencies that we represent will hear people feeding back about the difference that it has made, especially at this time. We should be proud of that achievement and building it. In that spirit, I would like to put forward two small suggestions to the Government and the Parliament to consider in the way forward. I welcome the appointment of a Minister for Housing. I think that it is a really important remit at the moment in particular, and I would urge the Government to consider whether there is more direct capital spending that can be allocated towards high-pressure housing areas like here in the capital city, where the demand for social housing is extraordinarily high and has been for some time. I look forward to constructive engagement on that, as well as continuance of measures such as how do we bring about a better deal for tenants, and I welcome the Government's commitments on that, too. For the Parliament, I say this, there has been a lot of discussion today around work and what we could do in terms of helping people to make that journey out of poverty. We can surely collaborate behind a call for employment law to be devolved to this Parliament and consideration around in-work benefits like universal credit. Think of the impact that we could make together to address poverty in our country if we had those extra levers. There is a shared enthusiasm in this chamber for it, so let's collaborate and make it happen in that shared spirit of a national mission to tackle poverty in our country. That's surely something that we can get behind, achieve good outcomes. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing? We will now move to closing speeches, and I call Alex Cole-Hamilton. Apologies for not having pressed my button and given the impression that he was next. Can I just start by paying tribute to Ben Macpherson? I might not agree with everything Ben Macpherson said, but I don't doubt the power of his words and the contribution he's made to public life. Since he was first elected in 2016, Ben and I share a constituency boundary. I look forward very much to hearing more of his contributions, unencumbered by ministerial collective responsibility going forward, and I thank him for his contribution to this debate. Claire Baker, I think, rightly used the word dignity, and at the heart of all of this is dignity, allowing families, people, our constituents the right to that dignity, that so many are deprived by the man-made creation of poverty. Let's remember that poverty is a man-made creation. We are responsible, as Ben rightly says, to use our collective will, our collective might, to end that man-made spectacle. There are always areas in which we will agree. There's no doubt about that. I want this Government to succeed. Let me say that from the outset. There are many avenues or ventures that this Government embarks upon, which I think are wrong, wrong-headed, or not the priorities of our people, but on this I agree with them. We will always support aspects of policy that we can get behind if we see the line of sight to them alleviating the spectrum of poverty. The child payment is exactly one of them. I do echo some of the concerns rightly raised by Jeremy Balfour when he talked about the amount of time it's taken to get that payment to people, but I don't denigrate its existence. I congratulate the Government for that. I'm grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for her remarks. I was quite taken by Bob Doris's remarks about a supplementary payment over the summer. I do think that that is something that bears more scrutiny. We live in a changing world, which actually makes our work harder. If we're going to end that man-made spectrum of poverty, it's made harder by things sometimes beyond our control. On 22 February, a muzzle flash shifted the world on its access with the illegal invasion of Ukraine. It showed us in stark clarity how exposed we are to energy and security, which in itself is a massive turbo charge to the poverty that we will all seek to address. Our exposure to global shocks in the energy market is something that I hope that we readily learn the lesson of. I think that we have an answer to that in part in Scotland by aspiring as much as we can to make every home in Scotland occupied by our constituents a warm home. Right now that isn't the case. We know that. We have the granular detail of what that is. We just need to address that reality if we're going to drive down fuel bills, but not just that to meet our climate obligations as well. For all the challenges that we face, we cannot lose sight of the fact that our world is still on fire. 874,000 homes right now live in fuel poverty in this country. As I said in my opening remarks, we aren't touching the sides. We're getting nowhere near 5,000 homes up last year to improve insulation measures. That's 0.6 per cent. We need to ramp up those efforts exponentially. In Miles Briggs, I think that it was quite right to reference the fact that we should focus first and foremost on those with caring responsibilities, particularly around the end-of-life care. I visited St. Colomber's hospice yesterday and was hearing about the exponential growth of hospice at home and the impact that increased fuel costs are having there as well. I didn't agree with everything Stephen Kerr said. I think that he is right in part to say that poverty is intergenerational and that work and social mobility are the fastest routes out, but getting into work in and of itself is problematic if the childcare that you rely on, either to attend evening courses or to attend job interviews, is just not present. We do not have the flexibility in our childcare sector as well. The Government's current aspiration of 1,140 hours of childcare is too inflexible and inaccessible for those parents who are adrift of the labour market to access. It only equates the duration of the school day in full short of full-time working hours. It sometimes means that, ultimately, primary caregivers, typically women, stop preventing them from working full-time. Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that 25 per cent of parents living in absolute poverty in Scotland have given up work. A third have turned down a job, and a further 25 per cent have not been able to take up education or training as a result of childcare. That is why our amendment calls for the Government to immediately increase those rates to protect the future of the third sector of private providers. During his campaign to become First Minister, Hormsey used to promise an expansion of ELC, an issue long champion by my party. We said for years that funded childcare should dovetail with maternity or paternity leave, but we will need big plans for infrastructure and for staffing. At the same time, the problems with the existing role-lights need fixing, and the lessons of those must be learned from what comes next. Two-year-olds from poorer backgrounds are entitled to free early learning in childcare, thanks to campaigning again by my party. It was a big liberal offer, but the Scottish Government is still messing up the roll-out. Scotland is miles behind England in uptake. That should be helping with the cost of living and raising attainments. Why are 8,000 of the poorest families in Scotland still missing out on that? For the families of three and four-year-olds, the offer of free hours is all too often a take-it-or-leave-it offer, with the flexibility and choice that they would promise just having not been arriving. Instead of childcare being able to fit childcare around their work and other commitments, all too often it is the other way round. They are essentially being told that if they cannot make the set hours work, that is not the Government's problem, because the offer of 1140 is there. On the funding—I understand that I have to conclude soon—we need a new funding formula that will ensure that the private, voluntary and independent PVI early years sector is not left at a disadvantage. Just look at child minding, down 10,000 places over five years. That is a sector that should be thriving, but instead it is being squeezed. The current formula funnels experience staff away from all types of private settings into council nurseries by paying— Minister, how much of that thought you were concluding? I will conclude now. Thank you for reminding me. In conclusion, we cannot forget the small, private and voluntary nurseries, and I once again move the amendment to my name. Thank you, Mr Cole-Hamilton. I now call on Daniel Johnson to wind up on behalf of Scottish Labour. Up to six minutes, please, Mr Johnson. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am sorry for my impetuousness earlier on when I tried to steal Alex Cole-Hamilton's time. Let me begin with Ben Macpherson's challenge, because I think that it is an important one. We need to look forward. We need to use this place to look at new solutions, new ways of thinking. However, I would gently ask this. Is that what the Government is doing today? Because he is also right. It is incumbent on the Government, with the power of the administration behind them, to do that heavy lifting. But today we have had a so-called refresh, but what is new? What has changed? What are the new ideas? Normally when we have a programme for government, we would see a long list of bills coming forward from this Government. I think that there are only two bills mentioned by the Government today. If you do not want to take my word for it, just look at the BBC, look at their coverage of today's big relaunch, reboot. What are they covering? They are covering two things, both of which are things that the Government is scrapping, not new things that it is doing. There is a sense that this is a big problem, one that requires urgent action and action at significant scale, but I think that those solutions are just not forthcoming from the Government. This is not a reset or a refresh. It is just a restatement, and you only have to look at the Government's motion to see that, because there are no new ideas in it. It is just repetition of things that it has done before, because the reality is that this is a Government that is on pause, a Government that has been on pause since mid-Febru. Despite the election of a new First Minister, it cannot get going again. It is a rabbit stuck in the headlights, frozen in fear with a crisis that is surrounding its party. That is why we simply have rhetoric, not action, despite the poverty alliances' cause that they have made today. I am very happy to give way to Mr Doris. I thank Daniel Johnson for giving way. I recall hearing members across all parties giving ideas about what they would do if they were to try to tackle poverty in Scotland. The only thing on pause seems to be any ideas that Daniel Johnson has not given any yet. Daniel Johnson? Barely two minutes in, Mr Doris, so just be patient. I will get to the ideas. All the Government has really announced today is a talking shop, and as Paul O'Kane pointed out, that is simply not good enough, because there is urgent action that is required. Mr Cole-Hamilton was absolutely right to point to the urgent need to address fuel poverty. Ultimately, if there is one lesson where we see soaring energy prices is that we need to help people to get off gas. We need to help them to heat their homes more efficiently, and that requires urgent action, both right now in terms of insulation and the broader steps to get people on to more sustainable heating methods. Where are the solutions from that for the Government? There is an idea for you, Mr Doris. We could look at that. I will come on to other ideas further on, but simply a talking shop, a summit is not going to do that. The most interesting point in discussion actually happened between Stephen Kerr and Fulton McGregor and Claire Baker. There is a sense in a challenge. We cannot just look at the symptoms of poverty. If there is one small bit that I can agree with Mr Kerr, you need to look at the root causes, but you do not do that by ignoring the fact that there are deep structural causes of poverty, even for those who are in work. Fulton McGregor and Claire Baker did an excellent job of that, because it is not just simply about providing access to jobs. If it was that simple, given the tight labour market, we would have solved poverty in recent months. However, there are structural issues that prevent people from accessing that work, whether it is about childcare enabling people to access that work or even undertaking the training in order to take those higher-paid jobs. So here is another idea for Mr Doris. Have that direct intervention that would actually enable people to take the training that is required beyond the traditional training that is available, but one is to seek to overcome, help people to overcome the barriers that prevent them from taking that better work. In the words of John Byrd, we need to dismantle poverty. That requires you to acknowledge the structural problems that are put in place. Again, we see very little from the Government seeking to either analyse what those structural issues are, let alone people overcome them. We have had a lot of discussion about the scale of poverty, but not about how we help people overcome the structural barriers that prevent them from seeking the solutions and taking the solutions that they need to help them out of it. Ultimately, that is a debate that just seeks to distract. It is virtually a copycat motion from one that we had prior to recess. Again, we have another carbon copy motion tomorrow, because this is a Government that does not actually want us to discuss any substance. It wants to distract us from the serious issues that are right from it. A rebrand is not a reset. It keeps talking about a fresh start and a fresh thinking, but quite frankly, there has been nothing forthcoming today from the Government either in terms of this debate and this motion or indeed the First Minister in the statement earlier today. We want real change and a real difference and, frankly, we need to get shot at the SNP and deliver a Labour Government in the UK and Scotland that will make a real difference and tackle the real issues if we deliver real change and tackle poverty in Scotland. Mr Johnson, could I encourage members who have come into the chamber pleased to assist from just engaging in private conversations. I now call Megan Gallacher for up to seven minutes. I would like to begin my closing remarks on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives with consensus. Supporting Scotland with the cost of living and reducing child poverty is a key objective for all political parties. Many of us agreed on that shared ambition today. However, how we achieve those objectives are where policies will differ. The SNP unfortunately has an unhealthy habit of blaming everyone but themselves when debating social issues. For the Scottish Conservatives, we understand that a thriving economy is key to lifting people out of poverty to support people with life challenges and by giving our young people the best possible start in life. It is also important to recognise the powers that this Government has at its fingertips as one of the most evolved parliaments in the world. Devolution in Scotland works best when the UK and Scottish Governments work together. We saw that during the height of the pandemic when rolling out the Covid-19 vaccine and that, in my view, is the best way to support people in Scotland. For the last 15 years, the SNP has presided over devolved powers. When they first entered office, they promised to eradicate child poverty. In fact, the percentage of children in poverty has remained stable since the SNP came to power in 2007. Audit Scotland's report has also said that the effects of the SNP Government's child poverty delivery plan cannot yet be assessed despite the SNP launching its four-year plan to reduce child poverty in 2018. Data is vital when addressing child poverty in Scotland, and I am beyond frustrated at the lack of data—no, sorry, Cabinet Secretary, you did not give me that opportunity—the lack of data held by this Government. It is not good for measuring the success of a policy. The Government should not shy away from scrutiny. Having listened carefully to the debate this afternoon, Members across the chamber have reflected on the SNP's record when tackling the cost of living and child poverty. The Cabinet Secretary mentioned providing immediate support to break child poverty. I therefore wonder whether the Cabinet Secretary agrees with the Scottish Conservatives that the roll-out of free-skill meals must be a priority for this Government, as poverty does not stop when you reach primary 6. We all know that providing children with a hot meal not only helps them to concentrate at school but also makes sure that they do not go home hungry, so I would be grateful for the Cabinet Secretary when summing up if there could be an update on this. Housing was another important issue raised today by many contributors. My colleague Miles Briggs is right to raise the issue about families, particularly children, living in temporary accommodation. We should all be concerned that 9,130 children are living in temporary accommodation. That must have a negative impact on their daily lives, and I join him in his calls to work with the Government to tackle that issue together. He also mentioned kinship care and the need to introduce the national minimum allowance that I and others have called on this Government to do. Paul O'Keein mentioned the issue of independence, and that will always be a top priority for the SNP, and he is right at that point. That Government must put the obsession behind them and focus on what matters to the people of Scotland. Alex Cole-Hamilton raised the issues that parents face, particularly mothers. He is right that women are detrimental impacted by cost pressures, particularly if they work in the childcare sector. Stephen Kerr mentioned tackling the root cause of poverty by creating good jobs, providing apprenticeships to our young people and the need to pay skilled jobs well. He also rightly highlighted the measures that the UK Government made during the pandemic, especially to support families and businesses. Jeremy Balfour mentioned the removal of the ministerial position for social security. I find it strange given how important that is when supporting people. Finally, the issue of Social Security Scotland and the many teething issues when setting up the benefit system that needs to be urgently addressed by this Government. I will make no apologies for sounding like a broken record, but I am going to raise the SNP's flagship policy of the expansion of free childcare. It was heartening to hear that so many people today made references to it and their contributions, because it is an issue that I care deeply about. It is an issue that helps to lift children and families out of poverty, and it is an issue that we must get right. I am pleased that Natalie Doan is here in the chamber today. I welcome her to a role, and I recently wrote to her about working collegially on this issue. I also referred to the comments made by the First Minister and his commitment to work with the childcare sector, but I hope that that means the whole of the childcare sector, because we need to reset on that policy. I would like to extend that olive branch again today and ask that we arrange a meeting with the private voluntary and independent sector to discuss the problems, the roll-out of free childcare is having on them. That chamber has heard the issues that I and others have raised about staffing crisis, council funding and PVI rates, because if the private voluntary and independent nursery settings close, the policy will fail. We have already mentioned the 11,000 childminders, Daniel Johnson, Alex Cole-Hamilton and others raised that earlier on, and we need to be encouraging people into the childcare sector instead of driving them away. After all, childcare practitioners are Scotland's first educators. If the Government is serious about tackling child poverty, then it needs to happen when a child is young, to support parents and to ensure that any intervention required can happen to give our children the best possible start in life. All I am asking for is for the SNP to get a grip on that policy. Then the Government can look towards the UK Government's ambitious policy of 30 hours of free childcare a week for children from nine months old. That is how we tackle poverty head on. By fixing the problems in an already existing policy and then being bold and ambitious, time will tell if the SNP is up to this challenge. To conclude, we heard earlier the First Minister's programme for government that is completely overshadowed by the chaos in gulfing the SNP. For the sake of our country, I ask the Government to put the needs of our country first, not their own needs, to tackle the cost of living crisis and child poverty. Only then will we see the real improvements that we really need. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I would like to start by thanking members from across the chamber for their contributions. It would be fair to say that we probably did not agree on everything together, but in the mean it was a constructive debate. At its heart it shows that everyone in the Parliament has the best interests of the Scottish people and the people of Scotland at their heart. We just disagree sometimes on how to take that forward. Part of that, I think, it is very important that, as the First Minister said during his statement, that this Government reaches out to those in opposition within the chamber, reaches out again to stakeholders and particularly those with lived experience to ensure that we are working together to tackle child poverty and poverty as a whole. That is why the anti-poverty summit is important. I hope that, despite cynicism and skepticism among some about that summit, I hope that Opposition leaders or the spokespeople at least certainly take up that offer. In the spirit of those types of meetings, I am happy to look at any invite that comes in from Miles Briggs on the issue of life-shortening illnesses, particularly for children. There was also, quite rightly, critique and criticism about what this Government has done and what it is determined to do going forward. However, it is very important to challenge very strongly the insinuation that the First Minister lacks ambition on this area. He has been in post-butt just a few weeks and we have already seen announcements on further increases to the fuel and security fund, the discussion on childcare and the investment in that, information on the just transition and funds for energy transition and, of course, further additional funding for the £1 million to tackle health inequalities. That is just some of the issues that have already been raised on top of what is being presented within the statement today. I am happy to take that question. Of course, any extension to child maintenance and childcare would be welcome, but the £15 million announced today, if there are around 350,000 to 400,000 children in primary school, that amounts to just £40 per child. How far will that £15 million really go? I think that what we have demonstrated is the important work on those pathfinder initiatives. However, I would say to Daniel Johnson, and I will come back to this point, because there is a number of people. It did write the challenge that Bob Doris gave to him and presented some ideas. I would say to all of those, whether it is on further work on childcare, whether it is on the insulation aspects that Alec Cole-Hamilton mentioned, or others. I am more than happy—the First Minister is more than happy—to hear constructive comments and thoughts about how we can take that forward. That is the start of that dialogue, but I hope that next step in that dialogue—and I am happy to meet with Opposition spokespeople separately on some of the initiatives that they have discussed today—we then talk about the important aspect of how we fund those. As we look at what we can do, we must have a realistic debate about how that can happen within the Government. I am not closing the ideas off at this point. I simply say absolutely, let's meet, let's get down to the detail, past the top lines that perhaps we have had the opportunity to discuss today, to talk about how much some of those cost and where does that come from. We look at the work that has already been done by the Government, for example, with the Scottish child payment as but one example of the Scottish child payment that has increased by 150 per cent in eight months. That, we will see a reduction in relative child poverty by about 5 per cent in 2023-24. However, the context is everything, and people, particularly from the Scottish Conservatives, may criticise the Government for pointing on it. However, it is a matter of fact that decisions taken elsewhere, while we make decisions on the Scottish child payment, push children and families into poverty. We will do what we can with the powers that we have to lift them out of poverty, but when we have a UK Government that is making changes to welfare reforms that is reducing the universal credit by £20, that is pushing those very same people back into poverty. We cannot ignore that, because to do so would be a derogation of our duties and responsibilities. That is the start of a dialogue. We get criticised for the fact that we are debating poverty measures again, but then we get criticised for not debating poverty measures again. I am not entirely sure whether we are talking too much about this or we are not talking enough, but this Government will continue to reach out and speak to people and will also continue to make a real change in people's lives. One of the aspects that we have also talked about is, of course, the impact of the high energy costs. That is a deep disappointment, therefore, that the UK Government has ended the energy bill support scheme. That is a context in which the people of Scotland are living in. However, we will do what we can, for example, with the child winter heating allowance, winter heating payments and the fuel and security fund to do what we can. Many members mentioned housing and homelessness quite rightly. That is something that we are taking forward as a priority. That is why the Minister for Housing will continue the important work to achieve that vision set out in the ending homelessness together action plan for everyone in Scotland to have a settled home that is high quality, affordable and supported by funding of £100 million. We get on to employment, and that is a very important aspect that we need to talk about as well. To truly tackle poverty, we must ensure that we have long-term sustainable improvement to household incomes. That is people in employment, but people in employment with good and fair wages. That is why this Government supports the real living wage. Unlike the UK Government, we have a national living wage that is too low and does not reflect the cost of living. Ben Macpherson, in his very informed speech, suggested once again the devolution of employment law. That is something that we should look at. Here is one point where I will have consensus with Stephen Kerr. Yes, we should look at the causes of poverty, but I would say quite respectfully to Stephen Kerr. I think that one of the root causes of poverty within Scotland is the Scottish Conservatives and the UK Government and the Scottish impact that it has on people as well. As we look towards what we can further do, yes, we will be holding that poverty summit, because it is important that we listen more to people. We pull in the talents and expertise not just within the Scottish Government, but within my party, but also right across the chamber and local government, national government, business and the third sector working together. We also need to challenge ourselves about how innovative we can be, for example, through our commitment to the minimum income guarantee. I am also looking forward to my work with the Scottish Greens, particularly Maggie Chapman, and I am sure that her and I can build up the same positive, constructive relationship as I had with my friend and colleague Ross Greer in education. I look forward to working with her on aspects around mitigation, which, unfortunately, the Government does have to deal a lot with due to the context that we are in. A number of members raised very important aspects around intergenerational poverty, and those are struggling most. Pauline McNeill, Fulton MacGregor, Ruth Maguire—that is a very important aspect that we need to look at. Some members are still concerned about the make-up of the Government, the fact that there is no social security minister. I introduce her to the social security minister. She is right here, she is in Cabinet and she is dealing with social security. I remember when Ben MacPherson got into post, he was criticised for being a junior minister and we demoted it, and now we are somehow concerned that there is back at Cabinet again. So can we get some perspective about—actually, this is a priority for Government. It will continue to be a priority for me. I can now say a respectory to Jeremy Balfour, who I have worked very well with in the past and I hope to again in the future. Yes, he is here to hold the Scottish Government to account, but he is also here to represent the people of Scotland. That has been standing up against the UK Government, Jeremy, when they do things wrong, and my goodness, in our area, they do plenty wrong to criticise. The minister has to close her out. I genuinely would have my apologies, Jeremy. This Government has vowed to do everything that we can to tackle poverty as far as possible. We will continue to work closely with our partners in local government, the sub-sector, businesses and communities to really listen to people, particularly those with direct experience. We will continue to do everything that we can to build a better Scotland for us all, making our communities and households more resilient, able to flourish, and ensuring that everyone in this country has a bright future. I know that we are pressed for time, but full names would be appreciated. That concludes the debate on supporting Scotland with the cost of living and reducing child poverty. It is time to move on to the next item of business. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 8614, in the name of George Adam on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau on changes to this week's business. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press the request-to-speak buttons now, and I call on the minister to move the motion. No member has asked to speak against the motion. Therefore, the question is that motion 8614 be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. The next item of business is consideration of two Parliamentary Bureau motions. I ask George Adam on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau to move motions 8615 on committee membership and 8616 on substitution of committees. Thank you. The question on these motions will be put at decision time to which we now come, and there are five questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is that amendment 8589.1, in the name of Miles Briggs, which seeks to amend motion 8589 in the name of Shirley-Anne Somerville on supporting Scotland with cost of living and reducing child poverty, be agreed? Are we all agreed? No. Parliament is not agreed. There will be a vote and there will be a brief suspension to allow members to access the digital voting system.