 I'lls and what ways to access your seat and when moving around the chamber. The next item of business is a debate on motion 263 in the name of Shona Robison on tackling poverty in building a fairer country. I would invite all those members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request to speak buttons now, and I call on Shona Robison to speak to and move the motion. I'm pleased to open the debate on the urgent need for us to tackle poverty and build a fairer and more equal country. We have to seize the opportunity and build upon our strong efforts that have happened to date and use every lever at our disposal to bring about the change needed to tackle this problem. From the outset, I want to extend an invitation to work across this chamber and Scotland as a whole to build a Team Scotland approach to tackling poverty and child poverty in particular. I look forward to the first round of meetings that I've got with the Opposition spokespeople and I will certainly consider any constructive suggestions that are brought forward. We already invest around £2 billion each year in support of people on low incomes, including over £672 million targeted at children. We have a strong focus on those at greatest disadvantage, including people with disabilities, and we are supporting innovative action with our £50 million tackling child poverty fund, but we have to do more. That's why we've committed to a wide range of ambitious action to be delivered in the first hundred days of this Parliament, maintaining the tremendous pace taken of change throughout the Covid pandemic. This is a priority across all ministerial portfolios. No one action will bring about the change needed. It needs all parts of government and broader society to work together and to impact the drivers of poverty reduction, increasing household incomes from work, reducing costs on essentials and maximising incomes from social security. The eradication of poverty and building a fairer, more equal country must be a national mission for government, for our Parliament and for society, and we must try, where possible, to unite on this issue and work together to create a fairer Scotland. Backed by £1 billion of additional funding, our response to the pandemic shows that we can make change happen at pace and scale required to support people and improve their lives, and we want to build on that can-do approach. Alex Cole-Hamilton. I'm very grateful for the cabinet secretary giving way. I certainly support her aspiration of moving as fast as we can to alleviate poverty in this country. Does she recognise that, when her government has only taken 2.8 per cent of the welfare provisions available to it, that the Department of Work and Impensions has said that it is ready to hand over that she isn't actually moving at the pace that Scottish people would like? As the member will know, social security is a priority for us, proven by the fact that we've introduced 10 Scottish benefits, seven of which are brand new and unique in the UK, including the Scottish child payment, which has been described as a game changer. From the announcement in late June 2019, the new payment has been achieved at great speed, starting from February this year, an unmatched fee across the UK. Focus on the positives instead of talking down our social security agency, which is doing a very good job indeed. We delivered free school meals support during all the school holidays and periods of remote learning for children from low-income families, helping to tackle food insecurity during the pandemic. We will continue that while expanding free school meals support to all primary pupils, which will start within the first 100 days of this Parliament. In our first 100 days, we will complete the roll-out of the 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare and have set out the next stage of our ambition to expand childcare further and develop a wraparound childcare system, providing care before and after school all year round. That will make an important contribution to children's development and will unlock the potential of parents in the labour market. We will also deliver our £20 million summer programme for pupils, helping children to socialise, play and reconnect an essential investment to support the wellbeing of all children and young people. That's backed by £7.5 million from our tackling child poverty fund. Through two pandemic support payments of £100 to low-income families with children, we put money directly into the pockets of those who need it most. Building on this approach, we will effectively pay the Scottish child payment through introducing bridging payments of £520 for families not yet eligible for the payment, with £100 to be paid to families this summer. We will also provide £130 to every household who received council tax reduction in April, reaching around 500,000 households. I'm pleased that I can make two further announcements. First, building on the practical support that we offer during the pandemic will be providing the British Red Cross with a further £250,000 to continue their cash first crisis support to those most at risk of destitution. That includes help to those impacted by the UK Government's hostile policies that exclude them from most mainstream supports, including the Scottish welfare fund. Secondly, in recognition of the importance of listening to families affected by poverty, we will trial family wellbeing budgets to put families firmly in control of the support that they need. That new support will be delivered in partnership with the Hunter Foundation and will help to improve people's wellbeing and capabilities. Where we have the powers, we are making a difference to people's lives. Nowhere is this more evident than in our approach to housing. Scotland has led the way across the UK with almost 100,000 affordable homes delivered since 2007, over 68,000 of which were for social rent. That is making a significant difference to people right across the country, particularly for families with children. Housing is key. In the last Parliament, the Government did not support the idea of rent controls and I had a bill ready and waiting for the Government to adopt. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that in this coming Parliament there will be at long last a recognition that renters need protection more than ever and that rent control will be required to do that? The member will be aware that we are bringing forward a new rental strategy. I am happy to meet her and, of course, affordability of rents is part of what we have to look at. Again, I want to work across the chamber across all of those things. We want to deliver a further 100,000 affordable homes by 2032. It is our aim that at least 70 per cent of those homes will be for social rent, helping to tackle child poverty and homelessness. To tackle poverty effectively, we must deliver a fair work future for Scotland. We are working hard to do that just now. However, we are constrained by the powers that are available to us. We cannot accept a future where two thirds of children living in poverty come from working households and where people are forced to rely on benefits to top up their earnings. We have to transform workplaces to tackle poverty and long-standing labour market inequalities such as the disability employment gap and the barriers to employment faced by people from a minority ethnic background. With full powers over employment, we could, as a minimum, ensure that all employees in Scotland receive the real living wage, ensuring that their wages represent the true cost of living. We could outlaw unfair, fire and hire tactics, prohibit employers from dismissing employees and subsequently re-employ them on diminished terms and conditions. Of course, we could ban inappropriate and exploitative use of zero-hour contracts, giving people the certainty about their working hours, ensuring that they can plan their lives and incomes. That is why I have asked all party leaders to support our request to the UK Government for the full devolution of employment powers to this Parliament so that we can tackle poverty with the powers that we need to make the change. Social security is also an important tool to tackle poverty. Again, those powers do not all lie in our hands. 85 per cent of spending remains at Westminster alongside income replacement benefits such as universal credit and employment and support allowance. If we did not already need it, the pandemic further evidenced that the UK welfare system is not fit for purpose and risks undermining hard-won progress. That is the system that people in Scotland have to rely on, and we should not have to mitigate against policies that we disagree with, such as £80 million that we spent last year on discretionary housing payments to mitigate the bedroom tax in full and support people with housing. We could be investing that in other measures, and we need to move beyond that. If we had the powers here, we would be able to do that. I also have to say that the removal of the £20 uplift to universal credit will be a callous act that will push 60,000 families across Scotland, including 20,000 children, into poverty and will result in families unable to work receiving an average £1,600 less per year than they would have done a decade ago in 2011. That is massive. It is a massive threat to the progress that we could make here, so we could be delivering the doubling of the Scottish child payment with one hand only to see it removed by Westminster welfare policies with the other. Surely there is no one across the chamber that can think that that is in any way a good idea or a fair system. We need to make significant investment into the pockets of those who need it most, and that is why the Scottish child payment is so important, because it does that. We have urged the UK Government to make the changes that are needed and to scrap harmful policies such as the two-child cap, the rape clause, the benefit cap and the five-week wait under universal credit. Unfortunately, our calls alongside many charities, organisations and even the UN poverty rapporteur have been ignored. It is time for full powers to come here so that we can make the difference. We have shown what a difference we can make. A public service based on human rights, with respect and dignity at its heart and viewed as an investment in the people of Scotland, principles that we enshrined in law. Through our powers, we are tackling child poverty head-on with the Scottish child payment, which currently pays £40 every four weeks for every eligible child under six and, of course, committed to doubling this to £80, making even greater impacts. Alongside our best start grant and best start foods, we are providing over £5,300 of direct financial support for families by the time their first child turns six and further for subsequent children as we do not put a cap on that. Those payments are making a real difference to low-income families, helping them to access the essentials that they need. That support is unmatched anywhere else in the UK. Our next steps will build on the strong foundation that we have set, and we will take forward at pace those changes. No one who sits in this Parliament, whatever their political beliefs, can underestimate the scale of the challenge that we face. I want to take that forward, and I am pleased to work with anyone across the chamber who wants to join me in doing that. I now call on Miles Briggs to speak to you and move amendment 263.1, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I take this opportunity to welcome you to your new role in Parliament as well? Can I also start by welcoming Shona Robison back into government and all the other opposition spokespeople in their new roles in this new Parliament? I would also like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to Aileen Campbell and Jeane Freeman—I am sure that the cabinet secretary just forgot to do that—for the work that they did in the last Parliament and thank them for the constructive role that they did to undertake across parties. We may not agree on everything, cabinet secretary, but I know that we can agree that we all come to this chamber with the determination to make a difference. I would like to thank all those charities and organisations for providing the useful briefings ahead of today's debate and thank them for what they have done during this pandemic as well. I very much look forward to working with them collectively over this session of Parliament. The debate today is being held as we start to emerge from the global pandemic and as the impacts of the lockdown restrictions are really starting to be truly realised. The negative impact that the pandemic and the lockdown restrictions specifically has had on people's health and mental wellbeing are obvious. What the long-term impact it will have on the economy and people's life opportunities is still to be fully understood. As with every economic shock, it is the most vulnerable in our society who will be most negatively impacted. As crisis is saying in their briefing for today's debate, there is deep concern that the economic impact of the lockdown could push more people into homelessness. Even before the pandemic, over 5,000 adults were sleeping rough at least once per year and the number of children living in temporary accommodation in Scotland has reached its highest level since records began. It is clear that we need to see action and a renewed collective mission to end homelessness in Scotland. I very much welcome the steps that were taken during the pandemic to provide emergency accommodation. However, local authorities across Scotland, especially in our cities, face critical housing pressures and there are only growing concerns for people that they will now find themselves potentially back out on the streets after lockdown restrictions and the emergency funding for councils is lifted. We must take action on this now and that is why our motion today specifically calls on the Scottish Government to establish a national housing first programme across all of Scotland's local authorities. The charities and organisations working across the sector have put forward a comprehensive ask to help prevent homelessness. I want to see a renewed focus brought to this by the Government's response, including a new approach around preventative homeless policies with rapid rehousing and the recommendations of the homelessness prevention review group fully implemented. I therefore hope that the cabinet secretary will agree to my request when I wrote to her for a cross-party round table as soon as possible to look towards this mission. I am happy to agree to that. You are quite right. I was remiss of me to not thank Aileen Campbell and Dean Freeman, so let me put that on the record. I am happy to agree to that, but would the member also acknowledge that the five-week wait for universal credit pushes many households into financial difficulties and can exacerbate homelessness as the analysis conducted by Crisis found? Would he acknowledge that? That is where discussions with the Treasury and cross-party discussions are very important. Throughout this pandemic, universal credit has been a vital safety net and we need to make sure that those talks continue. However, there is welcome cross-party support and a number of policy interventions to help tackle child poverty. We on these benches want to see that work speeded up and the Government to deliver on this. Scottish Conservatives support in particular the doubling of the Scottish child payment as soon as possible. I would welcome when the cabinet secretary is closing if she would confirm as and when this was likely to take place. Many in the sector are still wanting to find out whether or not this financial year will see that doubling. Scottish Conservatives also support the extension of free school meals for all primary school pupils, including Douglas Ross and my party, led calls for. We all know from our families and constituents the heartbreak and the impact of losing a loved one during the pandemic and what that has had. I am very tight on time. We know the impact that bereavement has had on loved ones and families and constituents, not being able to make proper send-off for loved ones and grieving from home alone often. Bereavement is also an area that I would like to see this Government make progress on to look towards what can be done. That is why our amendment also today calls on ministers to improve the support available to individuals and families in Scotland who have lost loved ones. For a longer-term change for the Government to reform carers allowance and extend payments of up to six months for bereaved individuals in Scotland. As we start the new session, I want to see a real change in approach from ministers and how we deliver better cross-portfolio working to tackle poverty and inequality in Scotland. A key issue for me and one that I hope we can see early action is the reform of access to healthcare services for people who are homeless or living with addictions. I have already had constructive meetings with the drugs minister, Angela Constance, on that. Indeed, that is an issue that I have previously raised throughout the last Parliament, in fact with the Cabinet Secretary during her time as health secretary. I am disappointed that we have seen very little progress in the provision and access of healthcare services for people who face those issues. All those powers lie with us in this Parliament. Indeed, last week I received an email from a constituent living in temporary accommodation. He said that homeless people are treated as second-class citizens. We are not even allowed to register at a normal GP surgery. We are only allowed to attend one homeless practice. It only opens twice a day. If you need medical attention, you have to queue up outside and only the first 10 people in the queue can be seen. That is a real health inequality in our country today, an example of what has to change. I hope that those and many other issues we will genuinely work across party and they will get the full attention of the Scottish Government and this Parliament. To conclude, the next five years must focus on the social and economic recovery of the Covid-19 pandemic. For many of the most vulnerable in our society, we need to make sure that this Government and this Parliament focus on making sure that we work across party to respond to the challenging and changing circumstances that we will face. Pam Duncan-Glancy, to speak to and move amendment 263.3. It is a great privilege to lead this debate for Scottish Labour and I welcome the cabinet secretary to her new role and look forward to working with her and her Government. In Scotland today, 1 million people live in poverty. We are set to miss the child poverty targets we set ourselves in law. Half of families living in poverty have a disabled person in them. Precarious work is all too common. 400,000 people still earn below the living wage, 83,000 people are on zero hours contracts and over 200,000 people are going to food banks. The pandemic threatens even more further precariarity in people's lives. At a time when we need it the most, we have a social security system that fails us, with one Government implementing welfare reforms each seeming worse than the last and the other failing to use the powers it has and taking too long to deliver the change people in Scotland need. We cannot go on like this. We have to go hard and fast on poverty and inequality. When it comes to doing that, I am afraid, neither the UK nor the Scottish Government are doing nearly enough. Although the UK Government continues to impose the two-child limit, cut incomes of people on legacy benefits and ends the universal credit uplift, it cannot claim to be serious about human rights or ending poverty. That is why when I meet the shadow DWP team every week, adding the voices of the people of Scotland to the millions elsewhere who need these policies to end, we discuss all the ways open to us in the UK Parliament to end these rules as soon as possible. However, please do not let us fall into the trap of believing that there is nothing we can do here in Scotland. In my experience, when people say that they cannot, it is because they have not seen the potential to act. In Scotland, we have so much potential. That is why the amendment that we have put forward and that I have spent the last few days working across this chamber with colleagues across this chamber to develop focuses on action that we can take right here, right now, starting with social security. The Scottish Government can ensure to use all the powers that it has to establish a minimum income guarantee in Scotland. That would include using all the levers available to it to increase income from work, reduce housing and transport costs, support people who cannot work and make payments to protect people furthest from economic equality, like lone parents, disabled people, carers and students. If the Government does that, we will support it. Doubling the Scottish child payment and adding £5 supplement for families with a disabled person in them would help to protect those groups, too, and bring them up to the income that they need to flourish. That is why we believe that the Scottish Government should do that immediately, not in five years. Right now, all that we are doing with the powers that we have on disability benefits is improving the administration of them, which does, as I will concede, need to be improved. Ultimately, our ambitions must be bigger than administering it a little bit better than the Tories. Several years after getting the powers in this area, we are still using the rotten old DWP rulebook. It is still the people who deserve the support that get it. We did not set up the Scottish Parliament to be DWP-liked. I think that all of us can agree to that. We are here to transform lives. That is why, ahead of this debate, we asked all the parties across the chamber to seize the moment and do things differently. Our amendment asks the Government to move swiftly on disability assistance, open eligibility for it, so that people with fluctuating and mental health conditions can have access to it and to pay it at a rate that meets the extra cost of being a disabled person. Presiding Officer, they cannot wait. We need to work with disabled people to do this now. There are also an estimated 788,000 unpaid carers in Scotland who need us to go hard and fast on tackling the poverty they face too. That is why our amendment asks the Government to let carers earn more from part-time work and end the full-time study rule now. Our amendment must be a social security system that is easy to use, simple to access and automated where possible. It should be a social security system that protects people in precarious work, like creative and hospitality workers. It is there for those who cannot work and provides payments to people when times are tough. However, tackling poverty is not just the job of the social security system. It is a mission that needs all of government focused on it. It should be, as the Government motion says, a national mission. If the Scottish Government is serious about this, it should and made a minimum income and organising principle for how it works across government, as suggested by the IPPR, and took action now, it could help everyone in Scotland to get there. It could bring downhousing costs by capping rent rises and transport costs through free bus travel for under-25s, ensure work-pays by enforcing the living wage and collective bargaining through procurement and business support, and create more good, fair and unionised jobs. If it did all of those things, it would list thousands of people out of poverty, up to a level where they had enough money to live on. That is how we make sure that the people of Scotland have a minimum income to live on right now. We do not have to wait, as the Government in the Greens amendment says. The cabinet secretary will know from my reply to our letter that I in Scottish Labour welcome the transfer of employment law to the Scottish Parliament as vital protections for people's lives and livelihoods that were won by workers. We believe and welcome that doing that with the trade unions to shape the request and develop a UK floor across employment rights to ensure that we can see a raise to the top, not the bottom is necessary and we will work with the Government to do that. The cabinet secretary will also know that I feel strongly that the Scottish Government must use the powers that it already has to full effect. I was not elected to this Parliament to come and talk about what we can't do. We sit in this chamber with significant powers to reduce poverty and inequality, powers over social security, procurement, housing and transport, but I am hearing a lot about what we can't do yet. If I gave up every time I was told that I can't, I wouldn't have gone to mainstream school, I wouldn't have the care that I have right now, I wouldn't have the master's degree that I have now and I wouldn't have this job that I have right now. I ask everyone here today not to give up on the people of Scotland. If you want to change lives, if you want to do something, find a way to do it. Where there is a will, there is always a way. We can change the lives with the powers of this place and we should now. I move the amendment in my name. I now call on Maggie Chapman to speak to and move amendment 263.4, please. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I move the amendment in my name. Can I also welcome the cabinet secretary to her role and say that I look forward to working with her over the coming months and years? At the heart of our collective wellbeing must be social security, not a system or an idea but a fundamental right. We know that the societies that guarantee their citizens social security are the societies that perform best. They have the longest life expectancy, the lowest levels of crime and the highest levels of innovation and economic performance. We also know that poverty has a lifelong scarring effect. The damage of child poverty will be felt for decades and we will pay for it as a society as people die younger, lose the opportunity to fulfil their potential and suffer the consequences of life chances denied. We tackle poverty because it is the right thing to do. But we also tackle poverty because the costs, both social and financial, are too great not to. Austerity, as we have seen implemented by Westminster, is immoral. But it is also a gigantic false economy, as we have seen in the last few months in the pandemic. That is why we must find a way to end the benefit cap and with it the degrading to child limit and rape clause. This Parliament has already shown itself willing to break away from a punitive benefit system. We found a way to mitigate the impacts of the undoccupation penalty or the hated bedroom tax. We need to explore options to do exactly the same for the benefit cap, which costs some of our poorest families up to £2,200 a year. We also know that those societies that perform best during Covid are more equal societies, not for them the fate of the thousands sacrificed to a delayed lockdown and bungled government response. It is clear that we should have increased our statutory sick pay, but instead Westminster wasted billions on the disastrous Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which did so much to create the second wave of Covid last autumn. A clear case of putting the Westminster priority of punishing workers ahead of the health needs of the nation and even the economy. The Scottish Greens welcome the pandemic relief payment scheme, which will provide an essential additional income for families this year, right now, even more important at a time when financial uncertainty has caused so much anxiety. We also call on the Scottish Government to introduce a permanent doubling of the Scottish child payment at the earliest possible opportunity, a measure that would lift 50,000 children out of poverty. Those are important fixes to a broken system, but we are actually here to fix the system, not patch its flaws. We are here to make hope possible, and that requires us to be radical. Now is the time for a universal basic income, a basic commitment that could, at a stroke, eliminate poverty. It would have helped so many through the Covid-19 pandemic, a regular payment to all to ensure human dignity, a universal measure that will create the basis for social security, social solidarity and the care ethic on which we must base our society. That is why we call on the UK and Scottish Governments to work together to bring forward pilots at the earliest possible opportunity and to move to action as soon as we can to bring about a universal basic income, ending child poverty and going a very long way to creating a society that has social security as a fundamental right. I commend the amendment in my name to you. Shona is an excellent politician. It's great to see her back in front line politics in the cabinet. I work very well with her as health secretary. I hope to do so in this brief. It's a very, very important one. About three years ago, a story emerged about a little boy in Glasgow. A teacher had noticed him taking tomato sauce chassis from the canteen. He was taking them home, squeezing the ketchup out of the sachets and adding boiling water to them to make soup. He was doing this because he had literally nothing else to eat in the house. Thankfully, that was spotted. There was an intervention in a referral to a food bank. The parcels would include tins with ring pools on them so that the little boy could actually open them himself. He was starving in 21st century Scotland. There are countless reasons why families can find themselves in these situations, delays built into universal credit, insecure work and no recourse to public funds. We could debate any one of these catalysts to poverty for hours, and I hope that over time we will give each of them such attention. But this particular boy was facing such hardship as a direct result of his parents' mental ill health. Indeed, the links between mental ill health and poverty are something that I've been talking about and Liberal Democrats have been talking about for many years. It's one of the reasons that transformational investment in mental health is so important to us. The case that I've just described is symptomatic of one of the biggest yet often overlooked contributors to poverty in our country. That is Scotland's mental health crisis. It's one of the reasons that Liberal Democrats succeeded in asking this Parliament to declare a national mental health emergency in February. Everyone deserves the opportunity to work hard, to build a good life for themselves, their family and their community. Mental ill health is one of the biggest barriers to that. It disrupts people's education, training, entry into and progression within work. It does so to families and caring for them as well. While mental ill health does not discriminate as such, it is classeless, it undoubtedly walked hand in hand with poverty. The suicide rates in Scotland increase with increasing deprivation, with rates in the most deprived areas double those of the Scottish average. It is one of the most devastating health inequalities in this country, and it is linked directly and inexorably to poverty. My amendment covers education as a route out of poverty last year. Over the past year, much of the discussions around education have been focused on university students, exam levels, school pupils and rightly so, because they have been severely let down by the Government. Why that matters is that education provides a ladder to social mobility. It could be a leveler, it should offer opportunity, but far too often a broken system means that it only serves to widen the gap between our richest and poorest young people. At the age of five, children and families in the highest 20 per cent of earners were around 13 months ahead in terms of vocabulary compared with children and families at the bottom 20 per cent of earners. We know that that has worsened in the pandemic, but the only route to stable mental health and life changing education is through appropriate and decent housing. It is the rock on which everything else is built. If your home is making you sick, if it is keeping you up at night, if it is collapsing around you, then none of those routes out of poverty are available to you. My amendment acknowledges that three of Beverage's five giant evils that he first identified over 70 years ago still hold sway in our society. One of education, one of decent housing and one of sound health, particularly mental health, are destroying lives and are perpetuating poverty. Getting those right could be the antidote that we all see. But only if the Government takes action and uses the powers that it already has, this Government cannot blame the full extent of the poverty that exists in this country on a Government operating from another city, not when it has been empowered for years to address that poverty, but still elects not to. I move the amendment to my name. Thank you. Just before moving to the open debate, could I remind all members who wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons? Thank you, not naming names at this point. Moving to the open debate, could I please call Natalie Donne, who is making her first speech to our Parliament today. Welcome you to your new role. Can I also take the opportunity to welcome the Cabinet Secretary to your new role also? I am proud to be standing here in our Parliament today to give my first speech on a matter that is extremely close to my heart. Before I go on, I want to give a heartfelt thanks to the people who made this possible, my family, my fantastic campaign team and to all the voters. I am so honoured to represent the constituency that I have lived my whole life and loved so much. Renfrewshire North and West is a beautiful constituency, rich in history from airskin in the banks of the Clyde to the historic town of Renfrew to our many beautiful villages from Kilmocombe to Bishopton. But it is the people of Renfrewshire North and West that make it such a wonderful place. In terms of the debate today, however, poverty stretches right across my constituency, whether it is Gallow Hill or Bridget Weir, people are impacted by poverty deeply. I am pleased to see the huge steps that the Scottish Government is taking to eradicate poverty with real targets and policies that really benefit people's lives. There is certainly more to do but the Scottish child payment, free school meals, best start payments, widening access to childcare, removing financial barriers to education and empowering and enabling women to take up employment are just some of the ways that we are raising the bar. I am thrilled that the SNP won an election standing on bold policies such as a citizen's basic income and a minimum citizen's wage guarantee, policies that will genuinely make our country fairer and make a real difference to people's lives. But while we give to families with the Scottish child payment, Westminster takes it away from the same families, with the £20 uplift to universal credit being removed, a move set to plunge even more children in this country into poverty. Raising an attainment, tackling drug and alcohol abuse, protecting jobs, improving mental health and the creation of a greener environment are all things that I believe we want to see. Those progressive moves become more achievable not if but when we eradicate poverty and we can only do this with full powers over welfare, employment, drug policy, defence and many other matters. When you are living meal to meal day to day with no money, life is a struggle. Planning every penny really takes it out of you and too often that impacts on other parts of life. Living in poverty is tiring and what should be simple things in life, like weekly shops or buying clothes for the kids, become hard, laborious and at times impossible tasks. It's no wonder that this can lead to addiction to mental health problems even to suicide. Take our climate emergency, for example. It's the most pressing issue in our planet right now, but for someone who's just been sanctioned for being late at the job centre or someone fighting addiction after years of neglect or mental health problems, then I'm sure that recycling might not always be a top priority for them. For the children living in poverty, how many members actually know how hard it is to keep your mind on your schoolwork when you're worrying about where your dinner is coming from tonight? Or what state your parents are going to be in when you get home from school? And how fast that actually makes a child have to grow up? Poverty is not a choice and it is certainly not inevitable either. It is a lifestyle that is inflicted on people. No child should grow up hungry in Scotland. We have food banks and homeless people, while the UK spend billions on palaces, boats and nuclear missiles. That's 21st century Great Britain for you. Tony Blair did not end child poverty. David Cameron and Nick Clegg normalised it and now Boris Johnson encourages it. We will never see an end to child poverty while we're tied to this UK Government. The Scottish Government can make bold move after bold move, but we cannot mitigate everything. That is why it must be our mission in our Scottish Parliament to give the people what they voted for in an independence referendum, so we can get these vital powers away from the out-of-touch politicians in London and into the hands of the people of Scotland. I want to finish off by saying to anyone who has, or has experience in poverty, going to food banks right now, to anyone from a bad background, any child that doesn't understand why it's happening to them, questioning why they were born into this life, to anyone who thinks the system is against them, please don't give up. I am living proof that you can make it out the other side of the UK Government's complete neglect of Scotland's working and underclasses, and I won't abstain on you. Until we see an end to child poverty in an independent Scotland, I can promise you that I've got your back in here and I am fighting for you. A bit of latitude there to first speaker, but I would remind members who've been here a while to please try to stick to four minutes, and the next speaker will be Jeremy Balford to be followed by Richard Leonard. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I welcome you to your post and others. I congratulate Natalie Dawn on her maiden speech, which said with real passion. I suspect that we were disagreeing a lot, but her passion was very clear, and I wish her well in the next five years. It is slightly disappointing, Deputy Presiding Officer, that the Minister for Social Security is not even in the chamber this afternoon, and that perhaps said something about the urgency that this Government has given this responsibility over the last number of years. I had the privilege, along with the cabinet secretary, of being on the last social security committee, with Ben Macpherson, who isn't here this afternoon, in taking through the bill and making the social security an act. So, assume that, yes. Be very clear that Ben Macpherson and I have joint responsibility for social security. I have attended more meetings with social security officials than anyone else, so please be assured that that's a joint responsibility because we take it so seriously and we know that it's so important. I look forward to working with you and Mr Macpherson over the next number of months and years. However, what we have seen in the previous Parliament was a lack of urgency by this Government in being able to deliver the social security that has been devolved to this Parliament. We can spend a lot of time talking about universal credit, we can talk about powers that we don't have, but I think that we do need to spend a bit more time talking about the powers that we do have and the delay that has taken place. I know that, probably when someone is up, we will be told that the delay is all because of a pandemic and if it hadn't been for my dynamic, all those powers would have been delivered. However, that is factually just not the case because we had statements after statements from cabinet secretaries and ministers telling us that those benefits would not be done on time and there was always going to be delay. That has held back what we could deliver and should have been able to deliver. However, I also suggest that there is a total lack of ambition within the Scottish Government. I hope that, with a new cabinet secretary, we can go back and look at what has been delivered. If we look at the consultation that was sent out just before Parliament rose in regard to DLA and PIP for adults, there is there an absolute almost copying, comr by comr, of what is in the regulations and in the legislation in Westminster. We have had discussions at committee and in this chamber about people who have different conditions, perhaps conditions that are not easy to put into a box, missing out on getting PIP. That was an opportunity for us to address that. It was an opportunity for us to address the 20-metre rule and whether that is fair on those who have mobility. I was interested in a number of all the Huston meetings that I did with Jeremy election campaign. Every person who spoke at those Huston meetings from all parties said that that has to change and move. However, we see within the consultation exactly the same rules being followed by the Government. I hope that the cabinet secretary will look at what has been put forward and bring forward radical change in regard to those amendments, or I and other MSPs will vote against them. In conclusion, we have power. The act gave us power to create new benefits. If we see gaps within the system, let's use the powers that we have rather than talking about what we cannot do. I now call Richard Leonard to be followed by Bill Kidd. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I welcome you to your position. I also welcome the cabinet secretary's priority of making an attack on child poverty her top priority. She informs us that many of the leavers are not at her disposal, but she knows that many of them are. From bad housing to poor schooling, from regressive taxation to environmental injustice, from the yawning gap in life expectancy to hardship in old age, it is the work in poor who suffer the most and that this Parliament and this Government has got the power to do something about it. When I listen, as I have done attentively to some very powerful first speeches, if I can make some progress, I will come back, to some very powerful first speeches in this Parliament over the last two weeks, including this afternoon, it is self-evident, that rank, that wealth, that status, that privilege, that class are still bedeviling this society. If anyone believes that Scotland is not class ridden, go and look at the patterns of land ownership, go and look at who controls the economy, the corporations and the banks, go and look at who owns the media, because I tell you that ownership is power and property capital and power is increasingly concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. I hear the SNP talk about the transfer of powers in their motion this afternoon, instead of limiting its horizons to the transfer of powers from one Parliament to another. Why doesn't it use the leave as it has got to bring about a bit more self-government of our land, to bring about a bit more self-government of our economy, to bring about a bit more self-government to our local government? We know that poverty does not simply stop at a shortfall in wealth, it is as well a basic lack of power, and it is that powerlessness which is the most corrosive, which is cumulative, which breeds acquiescence, which in turn leads to self-reinforcing hopelessness. And this poverty, this inequality, this lack of power does not just diminish those living with it, it diminishes all of us. So when we debate poverty as we do this afternoon, we must not simply debate its amelioration, we must not simply limit ourselves to piecemeal reforms. We must understand that nothing less than a fundamental redistribution of wealth and power will do. So let me finish with some advice from the excellent child poverty action group. Alison Garnham says in her forward to this important report, If we can't talk about tax, how can we campaign successfully for an end to child poverty? And in this report, David Iser of the Fraser of Allander Institute writes, and I quote, The Scottish government has been somewhat conservative in its policy on property taxation and local tax reform more generally. He calls for a bold review of new taxes, for example options for introducing Scotland's specific taxes on wealth, on inheritance. I hope that this is something that the Scottish government and this new Parliament will take a serious look at, and that it will open the books for a transparent public debate, because poverty and inequality is not fixed, it is not the natural order of things, it is man-made, so it is up to us to bring about the change, to extend democracy, to hold in check powers that are unaccountable at the moment, and to demand economic equality as well as political democracy. My determination and my will to pursue those causes of Labour, of democracy, of justice and of socialism is stronger now than it has ever been, and that is how I will dedicate my next five years in this Parliament. I now call Bill Kidd, to be followed by Sue Webber. There we go. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and welcome to your role. I'm assuming that I'm going to thank the new cabinet secretary and welcome her to her role as well. It's clearly impressed on MSPs that it's our collective duty to use every means at our disposal to address poverty inequalities in Scotland. With renewed ambition, I believe that the Scottish Government will tackle this pervasive and contracted issue head on. It's within our capacity across the chamber to reduce poverty over this parliamentary session, building on the work of the past five years to bring more children out of poverty. The effect will be to break cycles of poverty that have gone on for generations. I welcome the Poverty in Scotland report 2021, which was led by the Child Poverty Action Group, the Scottish Poverty and Inequality Research Unit, iSphere and the Poverty Alliance. I'm grateful for all their tremendous efforts in pulling this extensive work together and the report provides direction for policy makers. I will draw attention to a couple of those areas, namely fair work and housing. Fair work is a core aspect of tackling poverty head on and building a prosperous, productive nation. Fair work consists fundamentally of dignity in work. That means that we do not support business models that exploit loopholes with abusive power dynamics in place. An excessive power dynamic of business above plate employee is something that needs to be tackled in Scotland. For example, the rise in zero hour contracts is highlighted by the Fair Work report in 2021 is worrying. Helen Martin also highlights that in her contribution to the Poverty in Scotland report, she explains how the Covid pandemic has laid bare the unfairness in our economy with low earners, young workers, black and ethnic minority workers impacted to a disproportionate extent. Often, those groups are exploited in unfair work dynamics, for example being made to sign waivers to go over their maximum hours with no recourse to speak against this due to fear of job loss. This leads to exploitative conditions and hours without fair pay or compensation. Obviously, fair wages must allow workers to maintain a decent quality of life in Scotland. That needs and must apply to people who are single and also those with families to support. I back the Poverty in Scotland report's call for employers, trade unions and government to collaboratively establish fair work structures in the Scottish economy. I also welcome findings that the proportion of people earning under the living wage has decreased. However, wages should never have been at this level and so much more still needs to be done to address the issue. Housing is another core aspect of reducing poverty. Another contributor to the Poverty in Scotland report, Tony Cain, impressed the importance of understanding housing primarily as a human right and not as a welfare activity. A combined approach of building more quality affordable housing and capping foreign investment that purposefully drives up costs in the rental sector or superficially inflates house prices would be welcome. Analysis suggests that poverty is lower in Scotland compared with the rest of the UK due to lower housing costs. Housing must be protected and improved as a means of reducing poverty. Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank some of the incredible organisations in my constituency of Glasgow, Annie's land, who are working to break cycles of poverty head on, White Inch Transformation, Hope Connections, DRC Generations, Drumchapel Food Bank, 3D Drumchapel, CAP, White Inch, Lynx and many more. Those organisations have brought an incredible impact of hope and practical support to the Annie's land area. I look forward to working with colleagues across the chamber with the intention of accelerating poverty reduction over the course of this parliamentary session. I welcome the chance to speak today in this debate because, across my region, poverty is a huge problem and I am eager to have the chance to address this. I will focus on child poverty and homelessness. In my region, child poverty figures make for quite shocking reading, reading with all my might. According to new research published by the End Child Poverty Coalition, the number of poverty-stricken youngsters has gone up from 7,499 in 2014-15 to 8,740, and that is in West Lothian. The research has shown that child poverty has risen in a number of places in Scotland. The research has shown that child poverty has risen in every Scottish local authority since 2015. That is appalling. As I said in my amazing speech last week, we need to support and prioritise our young people's future before it is too late. Child poverty is a serious concern in the Lothian region, but it is not the only one. Homelessness is a huge issue and it is getting worse under the SNP. Someone was made homeless every 17 minutes in Scotland last year and figures show that that number of people assessed as homeless is the highest that has been for six years. The number of homelessness deaths is also up by nearly a third in two years. The SNP's focus on the second independence referendum has led them to presiding over rising poverty across Scotland. I was recently contacted by a constituent who shared their experience of the treatment of homeless people in Edinburgh and I was deeply concerned to hear how their case had been handled by the City of Edinburgh Council. My constituent and his partner have been homeless for 15 months. They were initially put into a single room guest house. They had no facilities to wash clothes or cook meals. They are carers themselves and therefore it is imperative that they remain clean and healthy to care for the vulnerable. They were then moved into service departments, which were thankfully more suitable to their needs. However, after a year of no contact from Edinburgh Council, they were told that they were to leave this place with no information given as to where they might go next. They were unable to contact anyone in the council housing department and as a result of the months of uncertainty have been suffering from poor mental health and have been experiencing suicidal thoughts. Thankfully, they were recently contacted by the council housing department, but it was to inform them that the council had made a mistake. They were not offered an apology or any reassurance that this will not happen again. They were ultimately informed that it could take up to three years of living in emergency temporary accommodation for them to receive a council house. My constituent said, This is truly outrageous. We don't feel safe in temporary accommodation when situations like this loom over our heads every single day. I just don't know if I have the willpower nor the mental health capacity to wait so long for our own home. This has been a truly torturous 15 months. I'm learning the ropes, I said. The Conservatives have bold, ambitious plans to tackle these issues. We would deliver the biggest social housing programme since devolution and pledged building 60,000 new affordable homes, including 40,000 in the social rented sector over the next five years. Measures like these are urgently required. It is heartbreaking to hear of people suffering in these circumstances and this constituent is not the only one in this situation. We have all received emails this week. People need homes, not hotels or service departments in the case of my constituent. We want to build a Scotland that not only supports those in financial crisis but helps to lift people out of the poverty cycle by tackling root causes and will push the SNP Government to do more to tackle the causes of poverty and ensure everyone in Scotland is given the opportunities to succeed. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I call on Marie McNair to be followed by Pauline McNeill, and this is McNair's first speech in the chamber. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and best wishes to you in your new role. I can also congratulate the cabinet secretary on her return to government and I wish her well in her new post. It is an immense honour to make my first speech in our Parliament. I thank the people of Clydebank, Magai and Bersden North for putting their trust in me. To become the MSP for where I was raised and still live is truly humbling and is a real motivation for me when trying to secure the best for my constituents. As it is my first speech, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my campaign team for the considerable efforts, my amazing partner, family and friends for their tremendous support. I know they are aware of how much their backing means to me. I also put on record my respect for my predecessor, Gil Paterson, for everything that he achieved for my constituents. To become the first woman MSP for Clydebank and Magai and one from a working-class background is a proud moment. We are going in the right direction to ensure that our Parliament starts to look like the Scotland we are here to represent. Going about my business, I know that my community rightly expects a grown-up and co-operative approach to politics, one that will secure a better deal for those in greatest need, an approach that recognises that many have been left behind and one that puts securing it a better way forward first. To that approach, I bring real-life experience. Only last week I was doing my last shift as a health and social care worker in the heart of my constituents. Or, as my several users describe it, living in the real world. It is that real-world experience that we must put at the heart of our efforts. We must not be tempted to cut bits of that real-world experience out because it does not support a political narrative. I say this when I believe that the Scottish Government should be doing more to tackle poverty and injustice. I will say so. Equally, if our Parliament requires more powers to make real change, I will also say so. To do anything else, we will be letting our country down and failing to fully address the issues that are fueling poverty and injustice. In the real world, the biggest driver for child poverty is inadequate levels of universal credit, especially the £20 uplift is to be removed. The choice of a five-week wait on immediately going into debt with an advanced payment is the two-child poverty policy and the need for the rape clause. The benefit cap that denies families with children, the basics, forced them to use food banks and into poverty. I saw this when my work as a councillor and I volunteered at my local food bank. When delivering food parcels, you see the real world that the war and welfare has helped to create. You see the poverty, you see the empty kitchen cupboards, the despair and misery in people's eyes and children being held back by unavoidable poverty. It is a crime and we must have an honest ambition to bring it to an end, so let's get real about this. We cannot fully design a modern compassionate system of social security when it is heavily shaped by a firefighting approach to UK Tory welfare cuts. We need the powers to end this approach and then design a system that is there for people when needed. One that gives the respect and dignity that is essential if we are to tackle injustice and stigma. Equally, the proposal to devolve employment policy to Scotland is significant and it is backed by the STC and its people's recovery. Wouldn't it be great if we had the powers in Scotland to end the exploitative zero-hour contracts and fire in higher practises? As a Parliament, we cannot recognise that there are 83,000 people on zero-hour contracts one week but not want the powers to do something about it the next. Those are not about divisions of the past but in fact it is essential to make those draconian policies a thing of the past. As a new SNP MSP, I call on everyone here to put tribal politics aside and focus on the scale of what is needed now to end injustice and the misery that is inflicting. I also want to formally welcome Shona Robison to her post. I know that she's personally committed to this work and I think it's a really crucially important job. I think that I've already welcomed you to your new role. Every time I go to welcome Annabelle Ewing, there's a shift change so perhaps I will get to do that eventually. Scottish Labour did make a significant contribution to creating a framework for social security that treats people with dignity and rights unlike the DWP. I have paid tribute in the past to Jeane Freeman, the minister, who presided over that. I think that it's important to remember that there is a shift in the way in which we are going to do that. I think that it's important to recognise the work of Mark Griffin, for example, who pushed for the annual uprating of benefits. Abandoned private sector for assessments in the social security system. My own amendments to ensure that an wider application of benefits is an automatic check of what are their entitlements that people are entitled to and a much simpler appeal system. settlement that people are entitled to, and a much simpler appeal system. And our own Presiding Officer, Alison Johnson, while she was on social security, made very significant contribution to the rights of people applying for social security benefits. I hope that that is recorded and accepted that this is what we can achieve as a Parliament when we work together. I wholeheartedly support the motion in the name of Pam Duncan-Glancy, Dyna gael iawn i gyfo swyddfennig gyrfaeth rhagor o ymateb i ddyfawr gw dementia yn geniant gwybod mwy o g ActiveWell yn ei ch��라고요 ag i gyfan mwy a leiawch i'i dod o omfodrigio i chi ar gyferogymaeth stryd o barh o firingo sy'n roedd yna bod cyfano wiynau hpor taith a'r Unigılar i Gwbl Gw Reynolds fydd gan byw ddim iawn i gwasanaeth shop� iawn i gyfeirio pwyllwyr gwAm yn cyfano ar gyferfaith honno, iawn i g noun yn gwneud ein grit Christmas выwyd, Llywydd, y ffordd o ni'n gwybod i ran ffarnoedd o fyfaniausol a'r eich ymwy pinsadvaeth y pand stan. Tour yw, wrth gwrs, ond mae'n gwybod eich hyfforddiad o beth oedd yn fwy o fawr i wedi'i gael chi diddygau'r cyddiant, ac mae'r fawr iawn i chi'n gwybod i fod yn fwy o fywyd y pand stan, oedd tyngau i ddechryddio eu gwil o fywyd o fawr i bubur o hyfforddiad o gwyrdd o fywd rhaid o'r reduction in hours. There are often people who are maybe previously just coping before the pandemic, but they are now really struggling. I am pleased to say that the First Minister agreed that it was important to do that analysis. A social security report, in fact, like the last one that was done published on 17 March, refers to very serious gaps in support for people impacted by Covid. For example, they point out that the discretionary housing payment scheme is restricted to tenants. We called on the UK Government to help those who cannot meet their mortgage payments if they lose their income related to the pandemic because there previously was that provision, and we had made it clear that we do think that it is the UK Government's responsibility to recognise that people who have mortgages, too, will need some help. The Trus or Trust has highlighted any immediate sustained surge in needs across food banks, although Aberlour and one parent family Scotland have seen an increase in demand for their hardship funds. We can see that, once again, the increase in food banks has demonstrated how big the crisis is going to be. Time goes very quickly when you only have four minutes, so I will cut to the summary of what I wanted to say. It did as Cabinet Secretary of Parliament would be a focus to protect renters because now more than ever, renters need the protection of poverty to be found in families who live in the private sector more than any other sector. It is time to be bold on behalf of renters in order to do that, and I look forward to reading the Government's bill when it comes about. Natalie Dodden, an excellent speech, talked about UK politicians that have failed, but I hope that they will be recognised that Gordon Brown, when he was Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Shetland, brought in the most far-reaching measures of child tax credits and working families tax credit, which lifted tens of thousands of children out of poverty. It is important to recognise that our good work has to be done, but those child tax credits are under threat as people are forced to migrate. Let us stick together on this for those who believe that that will make a difference to poverty. We now move to closing speeches. I call on Alex Cole-Hamilton to wind up for the Liberal Democrats. I would also like to pay tribute to my colleagues across the chamber who have spoken with real passion and eloquence very movingly so. Especially those who are making their first speeches today, I think that it is very clear that Mary McNair and Natalie Donoghan make significant contributions to this chamber. I welcome them both to their places. Scotland has a poverty problem and it is a problem that is growing in menace. A report recently published by the Scottish Association for Mental Health found that currently 29 per cent of people in Scotland are unable to avoid three or more of the 22 basic necessities identified as being essential and which no one should go without. Being forced to decide between eating and eating is not a choice. It is a relation of violation of human rights. The SNP fought this election on the basis that it would not seek to hold another referendum until Covid has passed us. Even if the Government meets its target of reducing child poverty to below 18 per cent, which is by no means a given, that still leaves us up to 40,000 children living in poverty. It needs to address this issue before we turn to matters of the constitution. Although I am not entirely surprised, my colleagues and I were disappointed that the minister felt the need to hijack this debate and tend it on to yet another excuse to squabble with Westminster before the motion had even been tabled. The Government will boast proudly of its achievements in reducing poverty in Scotland, but it is not enough and it simply is not doing everything that it can. That is why I intervened on the cabinet secretary. Far from doing down our social security system, I want to empower it. I want to give it the reach that was imagined for it by the signatories of the Smith commission in 2014—all of them—that would recognise that the Scottish social security system, under full sale, would have command under it, £4 billion worth of spending. Imagine what you could do to level the playing field and to address poverty and social inequality in this country with that kind of reach. Instead, we have taken the leave as a butt of just 3 per cent of that opportunity. It will boast proudly of a range of achievements, but when food bank usage in this country is at a record higher, it cannot lay everything at the feet or at the door of Westminster. When a household is made homeless in this country every 19 minutes and when those in the most deprived parts of the country are more than twice as likely to fail to get a higher at level A, every second spent bickering about Westminster in order to push forward the constitutional debate is the second not spent assisting those in Scotland who need this Government the most. The Liberal Democrats will always hold Westminster to account, but only when it is relevant to the progress of our society and we will never try to push forward that constitutional agenda. I welcome Miles Briggs back to his place. I look forward to working with him on a cross-party basis. Pam Duncan-Glancy, I thought, again bringing it with typical passion to the debate, is a compelling argument about that our two Governments will have to carry some of the responsibility for this together and they will have to work together in some aspects and I thought that I was very eloquently put. Maggie Chapman again rightly points out that the instantaneous impact that doubling the child payment and the universal basic income could do to this poverty problem in our country would be transformational overnight. It's within our grasp in lots of ways and I think we just need to reach for it. Natalie Donne, again, as I said at the start of her first speech, was a passionate one and I think it will mark many contributions to come. And it was great to hear from Richard Leonard as well. I think to listen to Richard Leonard speak about poverty is inspiring. I think he sets a challenge and a high bar for which we should all seek to reach. Presiding officer, the Liberal Democrat amendment today I think calls for urgent interventions to include an immediate end to the scandal of thousands of children and adults waiting over a year for first-line mental health treatment. That is keeping so many people from fulfilling their potential but not just them, those people who care about them and care for them and live around them. I will do, because prevention is always better than cure and if we are to eradicate poverty in Scotland, which I believe we can, we need to work together and put aside the constitutional differences of the past. Poverty is a political choice, there is nothing inevitable about it and it is also a scourge on our society. It is our duty therefore to do whatever we can to eliminate it and to change the systems that cause it. That is why the Scottish Greens want to see the devolution of full powers over employment and social security and it is for this reason that I am sorry to say that we cannot support the other opposition amendments. However, I would like to say thank you to Pam Duncan Glancy for the approach that she has taken when drafting the Labour amendment seeking cross-party consensus and being willing to give up some ground to get that consensus. There is little disagreement here about the substance of her amendment but unfortunately we cannot support it not because of what is there but because of what is not there. It removes the vital call for full devolution of all employment and social security powers and we need these powers to be able to create genuine social security as a fundamental right rather than just tinker around the edges of a system that we know to be broken. I hope that in future we can continue to work together on a collaborative basis and maybe even get a better process in place that avoids the frantic scrubble that we had yesterday afternoon. I would like to thank all the organisations that work to alleviate poverty across Scotland for their work and for the information that they have provided us in advance of this afternoon's debate. I look forward to constructive discussion with them all over the coming months. However, to return to the topic of our debate this afternoon. In many ways, a couple of hours on a Tuesday afternoon does not do justice to the profound impacts that poverty has on too many people's lives. We have rightly focused in many ways on social security this afternoon but we need to look at the wider range of public services and human rights that contribute to our collective wellbeing. As is so often the case with structural inequalities and systemic crises, we need to take a holistic approach to understand how best to create a different system that does not have inequalities built into them. Whilst we have seen some progress in some areas, the fair work agenda, investment in childcare, free bus travel for young people, energy efficiency, the Scottish child payment, some limited improvements to tenants' rights, we need bolder action. Because one in five people in Scotland, one in four children, still live in poverty, many of the families affected are working families. Those statistics are a pretty damning indictment on a system that has seen the wealth of the 10 richest people in Scotland balloon by over £2.7 billion in just the last year. We can, we must do so much better. I and my Scottish Green colleagues look forward to working with all members of the Scottish Government and members of other Opposition parties on housing, community engagement and empowerment, education, the economy, mental health support and so much more to tackle poverty. Because only when we take a genuine, mission-based approach to something that affects all of our lives will we see the transformation that we need to see. I draw members' attention to my entry in the register of members' interests. It is not unreasonable to say that tackling poverty and striving to make Scotland fairer has always been a mission for this Parliament. We might not have previously declared it a national mission, but it is fairly clear to anyone who has been watching precedence here since the establishment of this Parliament that we do on that agree. It does appear that there is enough agreement on policy solutions with some real and genuine debate about how those solutions might be implemented. The cabinet secretary, my Labour colleagues and others, spoke about the need to retain the £20 uplift. He also spoke about the ambition to double the child payment to £20 per week, but Pam Duncan-Glancy underlined the importance of doing that immediately. Miles Briggs talked about supporting those who are recently bereaved, particularly bereaved carers, and we fully support a change in entitlement around carers allowance to give people the space to grieve, to give those who are recently bereaved the space to think about how they go forward with their life after the sad loss of someone they cared for. Like almost every other party who took part in the Hustons through the election period, I agree with Jeremy Balfour that we should look at the 20-metre rule and how we look at all of those regulations that will come forward to whichever successor committee is to the social security committee, and how we adapt that system to fit the needs of the people of Scotland, not just lift and shift a system that is already in place and discriminating against so many already. What Richard Leonard said should ring true in any debate, but particularly about this one, how can we talk about poverty reduction? How can we talk about eradication of poverty without talking about taxation, without talking about redistribution of wealth? We can't talk about both of those separately in a vacuum. Pauline McNeill outlined some of the positive changes that we made through the progress of the social security bill that is now the Social Security Act, but those changes have not been implemented because those powers are still within the full control of this Parliament. Much of them still lie with the DWP. Much of the build-up today's debate is focused on the powers that we do not have as opposed to the people facing the daily battles to pay the rent, put food on the table and get through the pandemic. I believe that it is no secret that the Labour Party supports the devolution of employment law. I believe that employment law will be devolved to this Parliament, but those powers in itself will not help anyone overnight. A minimum income guarantee, a double child payment and a mandatory real living wage in our procurement contracts would, though. As a member on the Social Security Committee for the full term of the last Parliament, like Jeremy Balfour and others who have expressed disappointment, I am really disappointed, but it has taken so long after we reached consensus across the chamber on how to devolve how we set up that new system that we still do not have those Social Security benefits fully administered here in Scotland that we can adapt to the needs of people who live here. The committee in the previous Parliament also secured landmarks stretching child poverty targets that many of us here today agreed with, but we also agreed that we might struggle to hit. We do have powers that we could use to hit them. We do have powers that give us a role in employment, and the Government could immediately reset its relationship with workers and employers. I have proposed that we put workers and trade union members who have experience of workplace disease and injury in the driving seat to design a policy process for the replacement of industrial injuries benefit, a key benefit for those disabled at work. I hope that the cabinet secretary would agree that that is an example of how we can use the powers that we have now to make that system fairer, particularly when we see people living with long Covid, when we look at the gender gap and how payments in that particular benefit are made overwhelmingly to men and those who work in male-dominated industries. The interventions made by the UK and Scottish Governments and implemented by a formidable army of key workers in local government have been nothing short of astonishing. There have been problems, but they have been powerful nonetheless. Furlough, business rates holidays, year round free school meals, the £20 uplift and payments for carers and low-income families, all of those were designed to protect livelihoods while lockdown sought to save lives. Using the powers that we have implemented quickly because there was political will to do so. They might have been delivered under emergency powers, but there is nothing stopping us doing that again under emergency powers to tackle the emergency that is poverty. Last spring, we also banned evictions and took people off of the streets and into warmth and safety, but are we going to risk another homelessness epidemic when the pandemic is over or as we ease our way out of restrictions? The manifesto of every party here said that every family in Scotland should have accessed a warm, safe home. A shelter in their brief in the pandemic did not cause the housing emergency, but it has exposed it as never before. I would ask the cabinet secretary and ministers to consider extending that ban on evictions. We have called for an extension to furlough. We have called for an extension to the £20 uplift. We should call and agree an extension to that ban on evictions. This debate should be about what we can do now, what we can do to support families and those who need it now, not further constitutional arguments. I ask members to support our amendment and reject those that kick things into the long grass. Let's get to work now, change in Scotland. I call on Alexander Stewart to have seven minutes, Mr Stewart. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and may I, first of all, take this opportunity to congratulate you on your new appointment and your new role, and may I take this opportunity also to welcome new members who have made their maiden speeches today, Natalie Donne and Mary Menon. I very much look forward to working with you in the chamber over the next five years. I would also like to congratulate the cabinet secretary on her appointment to the role. It has been a privilege for me to serve across the constituency of Mid-Scotland and Fife, and this is the first opportunity that I have had to speak at once since I have returned and delighted to be given the chance to have a second term. As I said, it has been a privilege to cover areas such as Clackmannanshire, Stirling, Persia, Cynrosia and Fife, and I very much look forward to representing them over the next five years. I am particularly pleased to be able to participate in this afternoon's debate on tackling poverty and building a fairer country in my first role as my party's shadow minister for equalities and older people and to be summing up today. I have always been passionate about promoting equalities during my time as a councillor for 18 years, and over the Parliament session last time I had the opportunity to sit on the Equalities Committee. During that time, I worked with local charities, the third sector and many other organisations to ensure that we were supporting. In the past, I have worked with ArcHousing, which was an organisation that looked after individuals with learning disabilities in the community. I look forward to participating with the public, the private and the third sector to ensure that we tackle many of the issues that they are bringing to our attention in this Parliament. However, I am slightly disappointed at the tone of the motion today by the SNP, which very much focuses on attacking the UK Government rather than addressing many of the issues that are covered. However, it is no surprise that the record of the Scottish Government is deflecting from the failings that it has brought over its tenure in office. The motion demands the devolution of all employment and social security powers to this Parliament, yet the SNP has failed to deliver any of the benefits that were devolved by the Scotland Act 2016. The SNP promised that there would be a new Scottish welfare system, which would be fully in place by 2021 election. I have lots to cover and time is limited, but even before the pandemic in 2019, the Social Security Minister described and clarified that it would hand back the service and disability allowance to the Department of Work and Pensions because there was unnecessary duplication. Now, the Scottish Government has said that it wants to take full responsibility, but that will not happen until at least 2025. How can it be possible that we take nearly one decade to secure such a system? Let us not forget that this is the same party that assured voters that Scotland could come fully independent from the United Kingdom within a space of 18 months. Yet the SNP has the gall to demand that further social security powers be devolved and devolved now. The SNP needs to sort out the mess that it has created so far, long before it takes on new responsibilities and asking for new powers to be devolved. Despite the First Minister's protestations that education was her number one priority, we have seen that the attainment gap has remained stubbornly wide. Between 2017-18 and 2018-19, the gap between the percentage of the most deprived and the least deprived in P1 to P3 pupils expected to achieve university standards did not reduce at all. Between 2016-17 and 2018-19, the attainment gap for the proportion of S3 pupils achieving the standard literacy grew from only 13.6 per cent to 13.8 per cent. However, Scotland has challenged the SNP on the way that it is tackling and ensuring that its funds for the Scottish attainment challenge go further because they say that they do not go far enough and that they are limited in their scope. However, education has been fully devolved and has been since the recommencement of this Parliament. The Scottish Conservatives, on the other hand, have a positive plan to tackle poverty, and it is welcome to see that some of our initiatives have already been adopted by other parties in this chamber. We, for example, were the first party to announce proposals to ensure that school free meals for all primary schools. We want to go further. We want to extend and give five extra hours of a wrap around to school children from each within primary 1 to primary 3. That would help to remove the barrier that prevents too many parents, particularly mothers, from returning to the workplace. We also have pledged to deliver the biggest social housing programme since devolution, with 60,000 new affordable homes. That, together with an accelerated housing first scheme, would ensure that the scandal of rough sleeping is removed by 2026. I have only got a minute or two to go, and we would enshrine that within law to ensure that the Scottish Government would deliver a ring-fence percentage of its annual budgets to local councils. Councils need the money. That would restore budgets back to where they were in 2007, before the SNP decided to ensure that they cut budgets with them. Our job, over the next five years, is to shine a light on the current Government's failings and to ensure that there is a positive vision for the future. I would also like to make some contributions to my colleagues who have come forward today and spoken in the debate. Miles Biggs talked about ensuring that there was long-term impact from homelessness. He talked about the need for a national first. Jeremy Balfour spoke with passion again, as he always does, about social security and talked about the lack of ambition from this Government. Our new member, Sue Webber, spoke about child poverty and homelessness and gave some harrowing examples of what is happening on the ground in the communities that she represents. In conclusion, we in the Scottish Conservatives are determined to seek action on tackling poverty and building a fairer country. There might talk a good game on those issues, but when it comes to scratching beneath the surface, they are failing to secure information and support for so many. During their time in government, we have seen poverty levels in Scotland remain far too high. We have seen the attainment gap between the richest and poorest peoples remain stubbornly wide, or when we have also seen an increase in homelessness. There are some of the examples, but there are many other examples. It is because the SNP continues to prioritise its obsession with independence over anything else. If they are truly serious about tackling poverty and building a fairer country, they need to end the division, stop blaming Westminster, use the vast array of powers for welfare that they already have, and start to promote funding and secure for local councils. Until that happens, more Scots will continue to be failed by this Government in Scotland. I call on John Swinney to wind up the debate. Cabinet Secretary, you have nine minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. One of the many problems with the speech that Alexander Stewart has just delivered is that it rather ignored the outcome of the election, because all of what Mr Stewart said in his contribution to the debate was peddled out by the Conservative Party day in, day out in the run-up to the election. The Conservative Party made not a scrap of progress in the election and this Government was returned with more seats than when we went into the election. That is, I am afraid, the blunt hard reality that the Conservative Party has got to face and move on from because they just got beaten in the election and the debate has moved on. On that note, I want to welcome the contribution that Miles Briggs gave to the debate, because Miles Briggs talked about some of the important areas where we can work together across the political spectrum. I am all for that on free school meals and on the child payment, really important reforms, but ultimately they have to be paid for. When it comes to budget day, I will be reminding Miles Briggs and the Conservative Party and testing them about whether they have engaged substantively in a real discussion about putting the money in place to afford those reforms, or whether that was just an afternoon of posturing that we have all been treated to by the Conservative Party. That will be the test. Of course, I will give way to Miles Briggs. In the spirit of what the cabinet secretary has said, will he acknowledge that both Scottish Governments have acted and that the UK Government has provided the Scottish Government with record money throughout the pandemic? That is showing how the Governments can work together and make the changes that we all want to see. Anyone listening to any media interview or parliamentary exchange has been involved and will have heard me saying all of that. My point is that when it comes to the agreement of the budget that this Parliament has to put in place to fund our public services, the Conservatives are posted missing when it comes to voting for the provisions to be put in place. Miles Briggs shakes his head. I am afraid that I am factually correct here when I was France minister. I managed to nudge the Conservatives into voting for my budgets, but they have not done it of recent years because of the posturing that is going on in those questions. On that question, Pauline McNeill could perhaps bring some beneficial goodwill to the process, because she quite rightly talked about what can be achieved when across the political spectrum we work together in common purpose. She paid tribute to the work of Mr Griffin, of Jeane Freeman, of Aileen Campbell and of the engagement with the cabinet secretary. On the Government's behalf, I make it absolutely crystal clear, despite my rather blunt remarks to the Conservative party this afternoon, that we are committed to working across the political spectrum to make advances on some of those issues. One of those areas will be in the field of the minimum income guarantee, where we want to establish cross-party dialogue with expert representation to assist us in that process. The cabinet secretary has secured the participation of the chair of Scotland's Poverty and Inequality Commission, Bill Scott, who has confirmed that the commission will be happy to be involved as a member of that discussion forum to ensure that the commission's insights are incorporated into this important and ambitious work. There will, of course, be an invitation to all parties to be part of that process. Can you confirm whether third sector and civil society organisations will be invited to join that group? That will be the case. I made the comment that the group will involve expert representation and, frankly, so many of the organisations to which Pam Duncan-Glancy refers are the experts in this field. It is vital that we hear their voices and their input, and that we truly learn from all that. In that atmosphere of cross-party co-operation, the Government will be active and willing players in all that, but there are, of course, some hard truths that lie at the heart of the debate around poverty, which we cannot, as a Parliament, escape if we are going to genuinely address a subject of this seriousness. Parliament was assisted in its consideration today in the questions by the excellent first speeches that were made by my colleagues Natalie Donne and Marie McNair. Natalie Donne's contribution was spirited, graceful and forceful in equal measure, but she did bring out the hard truth that what we give out in child payment Westminster takes away and cuts to universal credit. That is a hard truth that is inescapable. The Parliament is taking widely supported measures that will tackle the issue of child poverty, which is being undermined by the steps that have been taken by the Westminster Government. The point that Natalie Donne made was a powerful point that Parliament cannot escape. I do hope that the institution does not feel as if it is far away from the real world, but I know from the contribution that Marie McNair made that she will bring us back to the real world at all times. She made the point that firefighting on those questions is not acceptable on an on-going basis. That is why the constitutional debate is relevant. That is why we have to be in a position where we do not find ourselves, as Natalie Donne said, on the one hand taking measures to tackle child poverty, but finding the situation only gets worse because of the actions of the Westminster Government. That is a dichotomy that Scotland has got to address, and that is why the constitutional issue is relevant in this debate. In relation to the amendments that we have before us, the Government welcomes many aspects of the Labour Party's amendment that has been put forward and that was set out by Pam Duncan-Glancy in her contributions, but, like Maggie Chapman, the issues that the Labour Party's amendment removes are the ones that give us difficulty. There is a welcome development in the Labour Party's position, which was in its manifesto, of recognising the importance of the devolution of employment responsibilities to this Parliament. That is a reform that we, as the Government, have long supported. I argued for it unsuccessfully in the Smith commission, because it is important that the Parliament is able to tackle the issues of fair work and the question of in-work poverty. It is able to tackle the effects of working practices that contribute to in-work poverty for individuals. The devolution of that responsibility is vital to enable the Parliament to fully exercise its responsibilities and to make a positive impact on the lives of individuals within our society. For those reasons, we cannot support the Labour amendment, but we welcome many of the terms of the Labour amendment. As the cabinet secretary has made clear, we look forward to engaging in dialogue with the Labour Party and with all parties in relation to those questions. Maggie Chapman made the point about the importance of the agenda in tackling poverty to be a bold agenda. She called for early steps on the doubling of the child payment, and I assure Maggie Chapman and the chamber that the Government is looking to undertake that development as early as we possibly can during this parliamentary term. That is why I thought that Mr Griffin's charge of issues being kicked into the long grass was somewhat uncharacteristically uncharitable for him. We are seized of the need to tackle those issues. One of the things that characterised the public sector response to Covid in 2020 was the speed at which public bodies moved fast to address the human need and suffering of individuals. It should not take a pandemic to activate all of us to ensure that we take the necessary steps to essentially solve rough sleeping in our streets, literally in a matter of days. That happened in March 2020. Let us not forget it, but the challenge is to identify the ways in which we can emulate that and to make sure that swift action is taken to protect the lives and the wellbeing of individuals and to tackle poverty in our society. Thank you. That concludes the debate on tackling poverty and building a fairer country, and it is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of business motion 287, in the name of George Adam, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau, setting out a revised business programme for this week. I call on George Adam to move the motion. Is your card in, Mr Adam? That is it. I just gave it a wee dunt there, Presiding Officer. Yes, thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and formally moved. No member has asked to speak on the motion, so the question is that motion 287 be agreed. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed. There are five questions to be put as a result of today's business. I remind members that if the amendment in the name of Miles Briggs is agreed, then the other amendments will fall. If the amendment in the name of Pam Duncan-Glancy is agreed, then the amendments in the name of Maggie Chapman and Alex Cole-Hamilton will fall. The first question is that amendment 263.1 in the name of Miles Briggs, which seeks to amend motion 263 in the name of Shona Robison on tackling poverty and building a fairer country, be agreed. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed, therefore we will move to a vote and there shall be a short suspension to allow members to access the digital voting system.