 Y plwy y mae'r cynllun eich cyd-dur�u i'r wybodaeth ym M160068 er rydw i bob Doris yma cai gwaithion o bobdorosio o'r cyllid o'r cyd-durysio? Llywodraeth iechyd wedi'i yn bwrth gwneud ar y cyllid o抓wg ddim yn gallu cyfieithiol, ac mae gennym ni'n gweithio chi wedi ei wneud am gweithio gyda y d walis y rai gweithio? Rwy'n gweithio chi'n gweithio chi'n gweithio i bobdorosio o'r cyllid, mwy yw'r cyllid. my motion on tackling child poverty in Scotland. My motion outlines the deeply damaging impact of UK welfare policy on low-income families in Scotland. UK government policies impact on the summer of Scotland's poorest families, appalling policies such as the benefits cap in the two-child limit, not forgetting its notorious rape clause. It is estimated that those UK policies have pushed 20,000 Scottish children into poverty in the last year and that this year, 25,000 children in Scotland are affected. We all have a responsibility to do all we can to reduce and ultimately eradicate child poverty in all parties and at all levels of government. The Scottish Government action to tackle child poverty, including our £25 per week Scottish child payment, has lifted 90,000 children out of poverty. However, the UK's two-child limit directly undermines that progress. As Citizens Advice Scotland has put it, the two-child limit is actively working against welcome action to meet the Scottish child poverty targets such as the introduction of the Scottish child payment and the mitigation of other UK social security cuts by driving up poverty rates for families and groups identified as a greater risk of poverty. Glasgow North West's Citizens Advice stand in solidarity with those impacted families every single day. I want to thank them for all they do and for sharing the voice of lived experience with me and the advance of this debate, which I wish to share with you. They supported a lone parent to four children aged between 14 and four months. They needed help with energy debt and support to progress a child maintenance claim. No one plans to be in financial difficulty. The parent found herself in financial difficulty when she separated from her husband and became reliant upon universal credit and was only entitled to support for two of her four children. Imagine a UK benefit system that financially punishes a lone parent for a marital breakdown. A financial penalty that targets and removes money and tended to support children in need. In those cases are not uncommon. Glasgow North West's Citizens Advice also assisted another lone parent to four children. They raised from 12 years old to three years old. The cab assisted in applying for health-related benefits for two of the children who had severe additional support needs. The parent found himself in financial difficulty when his wife died and gave up well-paid work to care for his children. In claiming universal credit he was only entitled to support for two of his four children. Imagine experiencing such a bereavement and facing severe financial hardship under a UK benefit system that simply dismisses the financial needs to support two of your children. That is the current UK benefit system. That is the reality of the two-child limit in practice. It is the reality for almost 4,000 people in Glasgow, reportedly the worst-hit council in the country by the two-child limit. 54 per cent of the households in receipt of universal credit or child tax credits in Glasgow were not receiving financial support for at least one child. I am grateful for Mr Doherty's intervention. Would you like to address the issue of my constituent, who is disabled and is poor and is needing the money, who is putting an application to Social Security Scotland back in January of this year and is still waiting for the first inquiry to be acknowledged by the department? Surely he would acknowledge that Social Security Scotland is failing the people who are disabled in Scotland, and would he apologise for that? Mr Doherty will give you the time back. Mr Balfour, I have come to respect much of your comments in this chamber, but that was an appalling contribution. Of course, Social Security Scotland must do all its can and a dignified way to reach out to disabled people and to do our best, and we will do that. To make that representation here this evening, when your party are plunging families into poverty by design is just disgraceful, Mr Balfour. It is the reality for 20,000 children across the country. My constituency of Mary Ellen Springburn is amongst the worst affected. The two-child limit causes disproportionate harm to low-income families and women survivors of domestic abuse or assault. I do not pretend to know what that is like. On that front, let us be clear to the Labour Party. You cannot make a rape clause fairer. There is nothing fair about rape. I am not surprised that the Conservatives did not sign my motion condemning the current UK Government for its punitive benefits regime, which impacts on our most vulnerable families. A motion that also notes calls for the Scottish Government to increase its representations to the UK Government to reverse the benefits cap and the two-child limit. However, I am genuinely deeply disappointed that none of my Labour colleagues in the Scottish Parliament backed my motion. A motion that takes a stand against the current UK Conservative Government. Labour failed to do that. Just let that sink in. We are all well aware that Sir Keir Stammer and the UK Labour Party have flipped on this issue, and that the Labour Party would now retain the deeply damaging and unjust UK benefits regime. However, I know—and I do know, Presiding Officer—that Labour colleagues in this place who are disgusted as I am about the benefits cap, are disgusted as I am about the two-child limit and disgusted as I am about the rape clause. This evening's debate is an opportunity for MSPs in all parties to raise their voice in solidarity against a UK benefits regime that, by design, chooses not to support or most vulnerable. A discredited benefits regime now set to be adopted by Labour should they take power. I ask members to show solidarity, not with the SNP, rather join with us in solidarity with those families impacted by and driven into poverty. A UK benefits regime that undermines Scottish efforts to tackle child poverty. A UK benefits regime that willfully denies families' adequate financial support for children and families' living in poverty. I look forward to the rest of this evening's debate and hope that others across all parties will raise their voice in support of a benefits system that should show respect, dignity and fairness. Thank you, Mr Doris. Given the nature of this evening's debate, I remind the chamber that comments should be made through the chair throughout the course of the debate. I call, first, Jeremy Balfour to be followed by Paul Cain in around four minutes, Mr Balfour. I am happy to be involved in this evening's debate. Social security benefits is an incredible important part of governance, and I feel that often does not get enough airtime in this Parliament. Unfortunately, however, instead of dealing with the failings of his SNP Government, and unfortunately not debating issues that we can change in this Parliament, and simply deflecting away attention from the woeful record of his Government over the last six years on social security. Not at the moment. We are five years on from devolution of social security, the setting up of a social security Scotland. We should be up and running by now. We should be seeing the fruits of the uniquely Scottish system of benefits that work for uniquely Scottish need. We had an opportunity of a lifetime, an opportunity that very few Governments ever get, a blank slate, a clean piece of paper. But what did the SNP do with it? It has created a shambles here in Scotland. Kevin Stewart? I thank Mr Balfour for giving way, and he talked about deflection. I think that the deflection in this debate has come tonight from Mr Balfour, in the fact that we are discussing child poverty and the unfair and cruel practices of the Conservative Government. Social security was always supposed to be a safety net, but that safety net has been removed with the benefit cap and the two-child policy. Does Mr Balfour think that that safety net should be put back in place and that we should do our level best to help children across this nation who are in poverty? I thank the member for his speech in regard to that intervention. I think that we have seen from the UK Government during the pandemic and since the pandemic a Government that has put that safety net in and is there, and the multiple point is working unlike the system that his Government has introduced. Five years on, the DWP is still administrating key benefits in Scotland that should be devolved, including severe disability allowance, which the Scottish Government handed back because it could not deal with it. Five years on, we have seen a 350% increase in the number of complaints being made against Social Security Scotland, each one representing an individual and a family that has had to fight harder for the support and access that they require. To crown it all, there is a small detail of a £1.3 billion black hole in the finances that will open up in 2020-28. I thank Mr Balfour for giving way. I think that he is making an interesting and flawed contribution to a different debate. It is not a debate that we are here this evening to have, but the debate that we are here to have this evening is whether it is fair or just for 20,000 children across Scotland. 4,000 children in the city of Glasgow that I represent for the UK Tory Government by design will not meet their basic needs because the two child can't. Does Mr Balfour agree with that? I encourage interventions to be a little bit briefer. No, I do not agree with him. What we should be debating here in this Parliament is the powers that we have and are simply not using during the incompetence of his Government. The SNP has managed to so grossly mismanage the row out over the next five years. It will have to come up with a shortfall that is roughly the equivalent of the entire GDP of the Solomon Islands. It will have a choice in the next few years, cut social security or cut education or cut health. That is the choice that they have to make because of their incompetence. That will leave more people in my area and across Scotland in poverty. We have to ask how did we get here? We can be certain that the situation is not helped by the lack of accountability and reporting that we see from Social Security Scotland. The Social Justice and Social Security Committee got a letter during recess. David Wallace proudly announces that they are unable to report on the times taken between the submission of relevant documents and the decision being made on a benefits application. With that lack of oversight, it is no small wonder that we are seeing so many complaints. Do not be mistaken, Deputy Presiding Officer. This is a mesh and it is a wonder that the member has the nerve to bring forward his motion to this Parliament. Parting coming on the performance of other Governments. Mr Balfour, can you resume your point of order, Emma Harper? I am sitting here listening because I am not participating in the debate this afternoon, but Bob Doris's motion is about tackling child poverty, not attacking Scotland's social security system, which is doing a great job. I am curious about the issue that he is speaking about today and how it relates to the motion. Ms Harper, for your point of order, there needs to be relevance. Mr Balfour has been linking the comments that he has been making to the motion in relation to poverty. I am satisfied that he is within the standing orders. Jeremy Balfour, if you could be winding up. I will seek to wind up by concluding in regard to this. Maybe we need to focus more on our own responsibilities within the social security system to make sure that those for whatever reason and wherever they live in poverty—I am afraid that my time has gone. However, the Scottish Government does not want to focus on its shameful record. It wants to blame everybody else, whether it is the UK Government, whether it is other parties that challenge them, whether it is individuals who have the strength to stand up and say, this is not working for me. They want to throw mud at others rather than clean up themselves and clean up social security in Scotland so that those who are in poverty can get their money. My advice to the Government would be to get your own house in order, then you might have some credibility to speak. Thank you, Mr Balfour. I could also remind the chamber that the minister responding to this debate will be responding remotely and therefore interventions may be sought remotely as well, which will be indicated on the screens. I call Paul O'Kane to be followed by Collette Stevenson again around four minutes, Mr O'Kane. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I thank Bob Doris for bringing the debate to the chamber this evening, because there are few issues as pressing and as important as tackling child poverty. It should be the focus of far more of our time in this chamber and far more of our collective energies in working on the solutions to tackle it in all its root causes and all its facets, because the life chances of our young people are crucial to how we thrive as a society and as a world. It is clear to me that we need changes of approach in order to lift more children out of poverty, both at a UK and a Scottish level. I am proud that the last UK Labour Government lifted 2 million children and pensioners out of poverty and 200,000 children in Scotland alone. We did that through fundamental reform of the social contract, introducing the national minimum wage, introducing tax credits and revitalising support for families with children across the UK. The next Labour Government will focus on doing the same. Growing our economy, spreading wealth to all parts of this country and fixing the economic carnage unleashed by the Tories, delivering a new deal for working people, strengthening workers' rights, ending zero-hours contracts and delivering a proper living wage, ensuring that everyone is paid enough to live on without having to solely rely on benefits to supplement poverty wages. I would like to make some progress. Fundamentally reforming the universal credit system and introducing a child poverty strategy that will ensure that driving down child poverty runs through every aspect and every policy area of government and delivers a proper safety net for those who need it and ensuring that people can pay their bills, particularly their energy bill, and not fall into a debilitating cycle of debt. I welcome on to speak about debt in more detail and the crucial work done by organisations such as Abelawyr in this regard. I thank Mr O'Kane for giving way. He talks a great deal about what a future Labour Government may do. I wonder if he could comment on Sir Keir Starmer's statement that he wants to make the two-child benefit cap fairer, the rape clause fairer. Can I ask Mr O'Kane how what he thinks could be done to make that fairer? Mr O'Kane will have heard me refer to the fundamental reform of universal credit that is required. We need to fundamentally change that policy because it does not work. The social security system does not work. It needs to be changed. 40 per cent of claimants are in work. That is why we need a new deal for working people. We need better wages. We need a national minimum wage that is a real living wage that will lift people out of poverty and we need to crucially get people back into work. I will give way in a moment if Mr Doris allows me to just make a little more progress. In 2017, this Parliament unanimously backed the Child Poverty Act 2017, which set legally binding targets to reduce the number of children experiencing the effects of poverty by 2030. However, we know that in that last decade 40,000 more children have been pushed into poverty in Scotland. 39 per cent of those children from ethnic minorities are now living in relative poverty and the percentage of babies has gone from 27 to 34 per cent. Mr Doris's party has been in government, so I will give way to him if he has something to say perhaps in that regard. Mr O'Kane, I thank you for giving way. The number of this debate is that any future government, Labour or Tory, will they abolish the two-child limit, abolish the rate clause, abolish the benefits cap? That is pushing 4,000 children in Glasgow into poverty and 20,000 children across Scotland into poverty. A straight answer to that is something that my constituents deserve to know and the people of Scotland deserve to know. Fundamental reform. I am talking about fundamental reform because that is what I believe in, but you cannot make unfunded spending commitments because you then working people will pay the price. Let me remind Mr Doris perhaps of the SNP's position on the abolition of the two-child cap. Shirley-Anne Somerville said that it is not our policy. Mr O'Kane has taken interventions from both Mr Stewart and Mr Doris. I think they owe him the courtesy then to listen to the response and the remainder of his speech. Mr O'Kane and you should be beginning to wind up shortly. She said that it is not our policy to alleviate the two-child cap, so there is perhaps a straight answer for Mr Doris's constituents. I did have more to say on debt because Aberlour in her briefing for this debate, which I thought was an excellent briefing, pointed to that vicious cycle of debt that is pushing people into more and more poverty. We need to take action. All of us in this chamber, as MSPs, need to take action to support our local authorities and our national institutions to be able to alleviate that debt and ensure that people can get out of poverty. To draw to our clothes, I will begin where I started. Lifting children out of poverty must be a relentless focus, but tinkering of the edges won't do. We need to fundamentally change how we approach our economy, how we approach work, how we approach our social security system to ensure that, as we have in the past, those systems will once again improve the life chances of all of our people. I now call Collette Stevenson to be followed by my comara around four minutes. I am grateful to Bob Doris for bringing this important debate to the chamber. It follows on well from last week's programme for government, where Humza used to reiterate his mission as First Minister to tackle poverty and protect people from harm. Right now, child poverty is way too high. In Scotland and across the UK, though Scotland is the only part of the UK with statutory income targets on tackling child poverty, recent statistics show that 22.6% of children in Scotland live in poverty. I would like to make progress, thanks. In Labour-run Wales, that figure is 24.4%, and under the Tories, more than 30% of children in England live in poverty. Social security has an important role to play in tackling child poverty, and, thankfully, this Parliament now has powers over social security, albeit that they are limited. The Scottish Government has introduced 13 new benefits, seven of which are only available here in Scotland. That includes the game-changing Scottish child payment worth £25 per week per eligible child and a supplement payment for unpaid carers. Back by an investment of over £400 million, the SNP's bold Scottish child payment is estimated to lift around 50,000 children out of relative poverty this year. However, in the past five years, the Scottish Government has also had to spend more than £700 million mitigating the effects of cruel Tory policies like the bedroom tax. With that money, we could instead increase the Scottish child payment by over £7.50 per child per week, so the Scottish Government's missions are being held back by having to protect people from the worst of Westminster's policies. I would, however, argue that the Scottish child payment is also a mitigation, since it protects people from the UK Government's poor minimum wage well below what is required for people to live, and their cuts to universal credit of £20 per week. Changes come in, says Labour, so let's consider their track record. When they were in the Better Together gang with the Tories, Labour told Scotland to vote no. They said that they would keep Scotland in the EU and that Labour would one day become the UK Government and build a fairer society. We are now nine years on from that referendum and what has happened. We have had four more Tory Prime Ministers and Scotland was dragged out of the EU against our will. With a UK election on the horizon, Labour's offer to the people is nothing but a continuation of cruel Tory policies like the benefit cap and the two child limit. The Scottish Government's measures to tackle poverty are bold and ambitious, and they are lifting children out of poverty. However, it is clear that whoever it is in Downing Street, some things will never change. Scotland will have to put up with abhorrent policies and mitigate where we can. That is no way to run a country. If anything, this is a prime example of why Scotland must become independent by getting rid of the broken Westminster system and equipping this Parliament with the full powers that it needs, we can eradicate poverty once and for all. I appreciate Bob Doris' personal commitment to the issue and share his moral affront at child poverty. The shape of our economy in Scotland determines that one quarter of children in our country grow up in grinding daily poverty. It is an affront to every single one of us. It is not saved by social mobility, which has collapsed in Scotland in recent years, where access to higher education is still significantly more difficult for those young people from the poorest backgrounds, particularly to universities and courses, which determine the highest earnings and to the professions. If we are to address that, we have to build an economy that ensures greater equality instead of accelerating divisions. The truth is that we have had no transformative governments of the left in the last 13 years. Instead, we have had middle-class populism and right-wing ideologs. The trust government's economic vandalism should be no greater example of the consequences when we make accelerated, unfunded spending commitments and crash the economy and working people at pay across this country. The public services and benefit payments that we require rely on it. We have a responsibility as political parties to maintain public support for tax and social investment. The SNP front bench in recent days has been keen to twist the words of Anna Sarwar when he said that the devolution era has spent its time preoccupied with how to spend money rather than how to generate it. To me, that is a statement of the obvious. Partly is a function of the legal responsibilities that we have that have now expanded, yes, but it is also a Government with a narrow view of political economy. The outcomes for a huge proportion of the population will always be determined by what the Government allocates rather than what people can achieve. We do have a sclerotic economy in this country, with many of the challenges that predated the Government in this place that are still unaddressed, let alone the headwinds of economic change of net zero and even some of the opportunities that might present. Mr Edoras' speech was in part firmly aimed at Labour, and I can understand why he takes that approach. I am happy to address that head-on. The scourge of child poverty that holds back this country is a malignant legacy of collective moral failure, and it will be a defining purpose of any Labour Government, just as it has always been a defining purpose of any Labour Government. A Labour Government will work to lift children out of poverty. It always has. The last Labour Government lifted 2 million children and pensioners out of poverty, and 200,000 of those children in Scotland. Mr Marra, I really appreciate you giving way for your comments and regarding myself, but I am deeply frustrated that this motion, at its heart, seeks to do something very simple to put pressure on a UK Conservative Government who is wed to the rape clause and two-child limit, and asks Labour to join the SNP to defend the 4,000 children in Glasgow and 20,000 children across Scotland that are suffered because of that. Can you do that this afternoon? I associate myself entirely with the contents of the motion. There is very little in there at all that I disagree with. The challenge that is faced by any incoming Chancellor of the Exchequer in this country is that we have to have the money to be able to pay the bills. I have to say that when Mr Doris wants to talk about the hypothetical Government that might face us in the future, line 1, page 1 of his own manifesto is to cut £13 billion out of our yearly budget in Scotland. Goodness only knows how we can address it, and that is the fact. Presented in the GERS figures commissioned by this, if you are talking about the hypothetical situations that are going to be faced, you have to have responsibility for your own policies, Mr Doris. It is incredibly difficult to see how those issues can be addressed under the proposals that are brought forward. No, thank you, Mr Stewart. However, the fact that child poverty has soared again since Labour left office in Holyrood in Westminster is a bitter reminder to all of us of how important a Government focused on a better economy and a fairer country is. It tells us the regrettable truth of too far too often neglected that progress must be re-won every day, must be re-won in every year, that there is no final battle for social justice and we can and we have retreated as a country in recent years. Frankly, I hope that we have no part of any political party that does not take this issue incredibly seriously. We must base our approach on the allocation of resources that we have, not those that we might wish to have. The horror of the ideological fantasies of the Tory Government has crashed us out of Europe, they have crashed our economy and they have crashed our public finances on the rocks of economic reality. There is nothing in this motion that is wrong. There is only one way of making progress. I now call Maggie Chapman to be followed by Mary McNear in around four minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like to express my deep thanks to Bob Dorris for securing this debate and to all the third sector organisations that have provided such wise and helpful briefings to us. This is clearly an emotive subject and it ought to be. There is no more heartbreaking sight than a hungry child, a homeless child, a child excluded from opportunities to play, to learn, to explore the wonders of a world so new to them. But it is not enough for us to stand and weep or to shout at each other and point fingers. We can and must look with clear-eyed honesty at what we know about child poverty. It causes, however hard some of those might be to hear, and it solutions. One thing we do know is that most children are not in poverty alone. They are part of families. As the cabinet secretary reminded us last week, women's poverty and children's poverty are inextricably linked. Women make up the vast majority of single parents, barriers to employment limit their family income and they overwhelmingly act as poverty managers for their families, going without basic meals so that their children can eat. Growing up in a family that experiences poverty can have lifelong effects on children's health, mental and physical, on their relationships, education, livelihoods and wellbeing. Recent research by UCL describes the relationship between poverty and adverse childhood experiences. The trauma of those experiences can and often do stay with a child for the rest of their life and pass down to generations beyond. Children are part of communities in which poverty is shared and commonplace. Bob Doris refers to those in Glasgow and in my region of the north-east, too. We have areas of very high multiple deprivation. Those include parts of Dundee, Bucky, Peterhead, Fraserburn or Baroth, and it includes Tory in Aberdeen, where health professionals have testified to the vital importance of Synthetix Park in alleviating the heartbreaking effects of poverty and exclusion. For those children, yesterday's council decision to lease that park, their only green space for development, was a terrible blow. I don't forget either that the standard indices aren't so efficient in identifying rural poverty. Children in Aberdeenshine and Angus know poverty too often in particularly difficult ways, and they need our attention and our commitment. So what do we know about solutions? I think there are three broad categories. First are policies that directly benefit children by increasing their family's income and reducing its costs. Those include, of course, the Scottish child payment, access to affordable childcare and the effect of helpful families in debt and those who are struggling to cope. They include free school meals, free bus travel, rent controls, and they must include help for both families and unaccompanied children seeking asylum. Second are policies that improve the physical and social infrastructure of children's lives, education, housing, transport and environment, and also economy and finance, as others have already alluded to. We have tools to test how far these are really working to reduce child poverty. It's essential that we use these at the right time, that we pay attention to their findings and make changes where change is most needed. Finally, there are those measures to change the political and legal environment in which children grow up. The incorporation of the UNCRC, the Scottish Human Rights Bill, and mainstreaming of human rights and equalities have the potential to be transformative so that children in poverty are not simply objects of charity but subjects of dignity, of robust and enforceable rights. Of course, we face barriers that are not of our own making, of Westminster hostility, of the limits of devolution, of lowest common denominator politics, so I implore all members here of Westminster parties to do all they can to influence those parties' policies, most urgently the cruel two-child limit and the bitter benefit cap. For Scotland's children deserve and need not only compassion and care but solidarity, justice and action. I congratulate Bob Doris for securing this important member's debate on child poverty. Child poverty is holding back too many in Scotland so we must do everything that we can within our powers and resources to reverse that position. I welcome measures set out in the programme for government and its focus on tackling poverty. £405 million will be invested in the Scottish child payment this year, helping over 300,000 children across the country. We know that that is a lifeline for many families, especially during the Westminster imposed cost of living crisis. It is now paid at £25 a week for elbow children and we need to seriously look at how it can be increased in future budgets. The expansion of universal free school mail provision for all pupils in primary 6 and 7 will also help many families with the cost of the school day. I have quite a lot to cover, so I will get it back, Presiding Officer. I agree with Maggie Shatman's remarks about the importance of free school mail. Would she agree that it has been very disappointing that there has been a long delay in P6 and P7s getting that roll-out? That has affected many vulnerable children because the Scottish Government has delayed it for a number of years. Can she explain why that delay has happened? I thank the member for that invention. You know the reasons why the infrastructure is not there and it will be soon, but I really thought that you would be standing up to tell us how you support the two-child policy, and it is a born rate cost to prevent that. It is now paid at £25 a week for elbow children and we need to seriously look at how it will increase in future budgets. Increasing eligibility for best start food payments will mean that around another 20,000 people will access it when their income thresholds are removed in February. However, as always, the programme for government has to deal with the consequences of damaging Westminster decisions. Since 2017, the Tory's cruel two-child benefit cap has cost families in Scotland £341 million, and the Scottish Government's mitigation of cruel and incompetent UK Government policies has made a real difference. Indeed, an estimated 90,000 children have been lifted out of poverty. The two-child policy and its rape clause deny children the basics and humiliates and traumatises women. It is no wonder that the Scottish Association of Social Work describes it as inhumane. We recently witnessed the spectacle of one of the laps carbonistas trying to airbrush it out of debate, but we will not allow that, especially not when debating child poverty. The rape clause is abhorrent, it is disgusting, it is cruel and it is Labour policy. An extremely sad state of affairs and evidence that nothing much will change in the area of welfare policy if Labour replaced the Tories. Labour have you turned on so many previous pledges to reverse Tory policies? We previously had new Labour, but they are now behaving like the new Tories. They are now planning to keep universal credit, abandoning a previous pledge to scrap it, but they do not seem keen on the First Minister's call that Westminster should use its reserve powers and introduce an essential guarantee to the value of universal credit. This is supported by the Trussell Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Universal credit is flawed and its design is holding many families in poverty. The Child Charity Abilure has highlighted work by Professor Morag, trainer of Herotwark University. That sets out the scale of the DWP direct benefit deductions from low-income households. More than half the receipt of universal credit have at least one deduction by the DWP from the monthly allowance to cover debts to public bodies. More than a quarter have multiple deductions from overall monthly income, and it was reduced on average by £80 to cover those debts. I-back calls from Abilure from a auditorium on these deductions to help to give struggling outcomes and give households a chance. I hope that that call can get support across this Parliament to conclude. The Resolution Foundation has said that this Westminster term of Parliament is on track to be by far the worst for living standards since the 1950s. That cannot go on. There needs to be a more just and compassionate path taken. Given the object failure to achieve that by all political parties who aspire to govern at Westminster, it is clear that only with the full powers of an independent Scotland will that path come to fruition. Tackling child poverty was outlined as the national mission of the Scottish Government. Yet most recent figures shows one in four children in Scotland continue to live in poverty. Children who grew up in poverty will continue to experience far-reaching consequences of a childhood below the poverty line. For many children, growing up in poverty will impact on their physical and mental health and well-being. It will have an effect on their education and ability to learn and develop. It can significantly reduce their life opportunities and experiences. The Scottish Government needs to address this and ensure that support for children is available across all areas where poverty may have affected their lives. Children who grow up as part of minority groups such as disabled households, black and minority ethnic households and single parents households are disproportionately affected by poverty. 39 per cent of children from black or minority ethnic families live in poverty in Scotland. I know I wouldn't because my colleagues have taken enough and I have got a lot to cover. A recent report by the CPG poverty outlined that those from black and minority ethnic communities will also face even further poverty related stigma than others. The Scottish Government approach to tackling child poverty must address this. Children born into improverised area will eventually face significant hurdles in their life. In 2019 it was reported that a boy born in Mirhau's currently has life expectancy of 13 years less than of a boy born in neighbouring Cramond. This is still the reality for many children living in poverty and we have yet to see any significant improvement from the Scottish Government. Inequality of access is also a major issue affecting children living in poverty. Sorry, I've got a lot to go through. In several communities in the Lothian region there are incredibly long waiting list for council run swimming lessons due to the demand of overreaching supply of swimming pool facilities and teachers. Private lessons are very expensive and are simply out of the budget of many lower income families. This means that children across Scotland are losing out on vital water safety skills and opportunities to have fun and socialise with friends. Once again, it is the lower income families who are losing out. Presiding Officer, the Scottish Government must do more. When high levels of children in Scotland who have parents under the age of 25 live in poverty, the Government must do more to support young parents and ensure that their welfare system does not fail them. It must do more to combat the disproportionate effect that poverty has on BAME and other minority groups. It must do more to achieve its national mission and eradicate child's poverty. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much, Mr Chowdry. I now invite MR Roddick, the minister, to respond to the debate minister for around about seven minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank Bob Doris for securing this debate and to those who've contributed. I think it's fair to say it's been a very passionate debate and I can assure members that being virtual today has not prevented me from hearing all the things they've been yelling across the chamber. Of course, I'm speaking today as a Government minister, but I know as an MSP that all of our caseloads are still full of people who are struggling with the impact of this cost of living crisis. Not only has it entrenched poverty for those already struggling, but people who never expected to be in dire financial straits are now begging us for help. That's why it's right that tackling poverty and protecting people from that harm is one of three critical and interdependent missions for this Government, alongside our focus on the economy and strengthening public services. Scotland's ambitious child poverty targets were unanimously agreed in the chamber in 2017, and this Government continues to drive forward action needed to deliver a fairer future for the children of Scotland. Both last year and this, we have allocated almost £3 billion to support policies which tackle poverty and protect people as far as possible during the ongoing cost of living crisis. Mr Balfour earlier claimed quite incredibly in this debate on child poverty that the UK social security system is functioning and Scotland is not. Scotland's child payment has lifted 50,000 children out of poverty, while welfare cuts from his party are keeping 30,000 in poverty. I don't know what his definition of functioning is, because this is certainly having an impact, but it's not one that I want to see. I will take an intervention. Jeremy Balfour, thank you. Would the minister acknowledge that most of the benefits that here in Scotland are still being paid for and run for by DWP? In fact, it's DWP that are keeping money in people's pockets, not by Social Security Scotland. I would agree that it's the DWP that's keeping children in poverty in Scotland, and I hope that what I heard there from Jeremy Balfour was a call for further benefits to be devolved to Scotland, where we can manage them more responsibly. Sadly, if the UK Government met the British Government ambitions, we'd be in a very different place right now and having a very different conversation. I say sadly because there's no clear route to me that I can see any UK Government in the near future matching our ambitions. From trying to mitigate those harmful welfare reforms to watching as the UK fails to implement helpful measures like the Scottish child payment, we are fighting against the tide, because in the last five years the Scottish Government has spent £711 million mitigating the impact of Westminster welfare cuts alone. The two-child limit alone is affecting 80,000 children in Scotland, and it's removed over £341 million from Scottish families since 2017. The latest statistics confirm the families of almost 2,600 children across the UK were forced to disclose details of rape in order to receive support for a third or subsequent child. I really cannot get my head around the Scottish Labour position since we returned from summer recess following some visits from Keir Starmer, because I'm now hearing colleagues who have spent two years telling us to do what we're already doing but do it faster and with more money excusing and apparently adopting U-turns on welfare, on climate change and more from their leader in Westminster who took an interest in getting Scottish Labour in line as soon as it looked like there might be some success in London. So it's clear that the UK Labour is now the party of continued austerity, of keeping the two-child cap, scrapping free-school meals. The Labour Party has completely abandoned plans to even address child poverty, never mind eradicate it. Mr O'Kane's comment, repeated later by Michael Marra about being unable to make unfunded commitments, might carry more weight if his colleagues didn't show up every week demanding unfunded commitments, but I would also point out that we know exactly how many people are impacted by this. We know that this has cheated Scottish parents and parents out of £341 million since its inception. It's not numbers that are missing here, it is political will and consistent principles from Labour. I'll give way to Mr O'Kane. The minister said in her remarks that a future Labour Government would do nothing to lift child poverty, but she agreed with me, however, that raising the national minimum wage, the level of the living wage, banning zero-hours contracts, rights for workers from day one, increased sick pay, a fundamental reform of universal credit and the entire UK benefits system would fundamentally lift child poverty. It would lift child poverty just as the previous Labour Government lifted a million children out of poverty, 200,000 of which lived in Scotland. I sincerely cannot get my head around Scottish Labour standing there and claiming that a Labour Government would fundamentally change universal credit but fail to get rid of the most horrible and disgusting parts of it, like the two-child cap. I do not believe that all of my Scottish Labour colleagues, many of whom I know share this drive to tackle child poverty, can be happy with their policies being overridden and shouted down in the media like this, and they truly have my sympathies for that because that is exactly the sort of imbalance of where power lies and where it should lie, that the SNP has been highlighting throughout our history. If anything can demonstrate to unionist parties the need for Scotland to have the ability to make its own decisions about its own issues, it should surely be this bizarre and disgusting challenge from their London bosses. I will turn back now to what the SNP is doing. Modelling estimates that 90,000 fewer children will live in relative and absolute poverty this year as a result of this Government's policies, with our poverty level nine percentage points lower than it would have been otherwise. That includes an estimated 50,000 children who have been lifted out of relative poverty by the Scottish child payment. We cannot fall into the trap of simplifying not just the drivers of poverty but the things that are keeping people trapped in poverty, stopping them from getting out of difficult cash flow situations. Scotland already has the most generous childcare offer anywhere in the UK, supporting families and helping to give children the best possible start in life. Our programme for government sets out ambitious commitments to delivering a significant expansion of targeted childcare provision focused on tackling child poverty and supporting more parents to take up or sustain employment. I know that the inquiry currently being led by the Social Justice Social Security Committee will provide real insight, the type of necessary lived experience input that Bob Dorris described in his opening remarks. We are investing £752 million this year through our affordable housing supply programme and will introduce a housing bill to deliver a new deal for tenants. We are also making £108 million available for the delivery of employability services. We will continue to use all the levers at our disposal to promote fairer work practices across the labour market in Scotland. Of course, we recognise the wider, less tangible drivers of poverty. We know that poverty is generational, that it affects minority groups to a greater extent than others and that it is cyclical. We know that opportunity is limited more for some than others and that the cost of living, the cost of literally remaining alive, is different for different people. Maggie Chapman made this point well, children are not in poverty alone and tackling gender and disabled pay gaps and entrenched inequalities is necessary to tackle child poverty. That is not as simple as launching a fund or creating a new payment, it needs societal change but that is what we are attempting to lead in the Scottish Government with work on an immediate priorities plan for disabled people, launching an anti-racism observatory that can provide an evidence base for making policy that is actively anti-racism and incorporating international human rights treaties as far as possible within devolved competence into Scots law. We know that there is hard work to do in overhauling attitudes as well as public sector policies and that is the hard work we are committed to doing. The Scottish Government will continue to do everything within the scope of its powers and limited budget to tackle poverty and support those in greatest need, strengthening that support where we can. Thank you. Thank you Minister, that concludes the debate and I close this meeting of Parliament.