 I wish to finish the topical questions. We will now turn to the next item of business, a statement by Aileen Campbell on the interim findings of the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on UK poverty. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement. I would encourage all members who wish to ask a question to press their request to speak questions as soon as possible. I crawl on to the cabinet secretary Aileen Campbell. I'm sorry, but I apologise. Just over a week ago, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights professor Philip Alston issued it interim findings from his 12-day visit to the UK and he did not pull any punches in his devastating critique of the UK Government's deeply flawed approach to welfare reform and the damage being done to the wider social safety net. Professor Alston's report is a damming indictment of the systemic failings of the UK government, which has overseen the first sustained rises in poverty in recent years, sustained rises which threatened to engulf almost four in every ten children in Scotland by 2030. He described this prospect as not just a disgrace, but as a social calamity and an economic disaster all rolled into one, and I agree with that assessment. His message is clear. In a country as wealthy and prosperous as the UK, current levels of poverty and deprivation are already completely unacceptable. Further projected increases would be an attack on the very fabric of our society. The rapporteur sets out very clearly that welfare changes have been a political choice, not a necessity. As he points out, the UK government could have made the choice to end austerity in its recent budget, and here I quote, resources were available to the treasury at the last budget that could have transformed the situation of millions of people living in poverty, but the political choice was made to find tax cuts for the wealthy instead. The resolution foundation has outlined that the £2.8 billion to be spent next year on tax cuts will disproportionately benefit high earners. For almost half this cost—£1.5 billion—the UK government could have ended the benefit freeze instead. In Scotland alone, the four-year benefit freeze has led to the biggest reduction in spending—around £190 million in 2018-19 and around £370 million per year by 2020-21, impacting on 930,000 children. Professor Austin stated that the Department for Work and Pensions is more concerned with making economic savings and sending messages about lifestyles than responding to the multiple needs of those living with a disability, job loss, housing insecurity, illness and the demands of parenting. He also points out that the supposed savings that were to have been delivered have just been transferred to other public services. The costs of austerity have fallen disproportionately upon people in poverty, women, minority ethnic communities, children, lone parents and disabled people. He speaks of the gendered nature of the cuts imposed under detrimental impacts on children. The rapporteur calls for regressive policies such as the benefit cap and the two-child limit with its abhorrent rape clause to be reversed, and I hope that his remarks will add weight to the repeated asks that are made by Scottish ministers and many others for exactly the same changes. Professor Austin's findings also add weight to the evidence that there are fundamental flaws at the heart of universal credit. Those defects have been well aired in the chamber, so I will not repeat them all, but I want to pick up on one. The first initial problem that people face with universal credit is the inbuilt minimum five-week wait for payment, which for some can be much longer. Advanced payments intended to bridge that gap are then required to be paid back at a rate that substantially reduces household income. This is austerity by design pushing people into debt, rent arrears and to emergency funding and food banks at the very start of receiving a benefit. Again, the human cost is on people's health and wellbeing. No one should be going hungry because they cannot afford to eat or be anxious because they need to borrow money to put the heat on or worry about being made homeless because endless delays mean that their rent may not be paid. Professor Austin's findings are the latest in a long line of reports evidencing the damage of universal credit is inflicting on people and the communities in which they live. When the Rapporteur, the National Audit Office, the Work and Pensions Committee, devolved Governments and countless charities and other stakeholders keep telling youth the same thing, they knew must listen. We welcome the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions comments that she wants to deliver a fair, compassionate and efficient benefit system, but warm words are not enough. Change is needed to end austerity and to make universal credit fit for purpose. As the Rapporteur pointed out, those are political choices that can be reversed easily. Amber Rudd must also take heed and take the decision that her predecessors failed to. She must stop universal credit now and fix the problems. To do otherwise and ignore those repeated warnings is to risk condemning a generation of children and their families to a lifetime of poverty that they will struggle to rise out of. This is before we even start to consider the unknown impacts of Brexit. The Rapporteur highlights that those on low incomes appear to be an afterthought and that no consideration has been given as to what will happen to poverty levels following departure from the EU. I would say that this is one of many impacts that the UK Government has given no consideration to. We have called on the UK Government to publish an impact assessment, setting out the impacts of various Brexit scenarios on poverty. It is essential that the UK Government has a fully-formed plan for potential futures that it is considering. It must set out robust action to ensure that those on low incomes are fully protected against the negative impacts that will be delivered by any form of Brexit, in particular the disaster of a no deal. Let me turn now to Professor Alston's findings regarding Scotland. As part of his visit, the Rapporteur spent two days in Scotland to meet with ministers, including the First Minister and myself, the Inquise Scottish Government officials and organisations that represent a wide range of interests, as well as children and disabled people. I welcome the Rapporteur's recognition of the fundamentally different approach that Scotland has taken to poverty, social security and human rights. We have much to be proud of. We have established a new social security agency with dignity, fairness and respect at its heart and have already delivered a valuable top-up to carers allowance and will commence the first enhanced best start grant payments before Christmas this year. We have launched Fair Start Scotland, a dignified approach to employability support, which does not rule by fear of crippling sanctions backed up by up to £20 million each year on top of the levels of funding provided by the UK Government. Our Scottish welfare fund provides much-needed support for individuals in crisis, backed by £38 million of investment each year, funding that is not provided across England. In 2018-19, we are spending more than £125 million, £20 million more than last year, on welfare mitigation and supporting those on low incomes. However, I would prefer to be investing this money to pull out people from poverty. We can only mitigate against the worst of the cuts, because welfare spending in Scotland is expected to have reduced by £3.7 billion in 2021 as a result of the UK Government welfare reform since 2010. Frankly, the fact that we have to spend any of our resources to protect against another Government's policies is, as the report rapporteur rightly said, outrageous. He also notes that mitigation comes at a price and is not sustainable. The price of mitigating this full cut for this year alone would be the equivalent to three times our annual police budget or the entire annual budget of both NHS Clareglasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian. As the special rapporteur has made clear, austerity and welfare cuts are not a necessity. They are a political choice, and in Scotland we are making a different choice. As a Parliament, we have united in saying that current levels of child poverty are unacceptable and that we will take the radical action that is needed to change the fortunes of the 230,000 children in poverty today and the generations of children to come. Radical action starts with our first tackling child poverty delivery plan, which outlines the range of actions that we will take to lift children out of poverty, including working towards introducing a new income supplement, investing in intensive key worker support to help parents to enter and progress in the labour market, and our significant investment in early learning and childcare across Scotland. Through those and the wide range of other actions, we are using the powers of this Parliament to demonstrate to those in Westminster that there is another way forward, one that puts fairness, equality and human dignity at the centre of our approach. We are doing this not solely because it makes economic sense to do so, but because it is the right thing to do. I ask parties across the chamber to unite to call on Westminster to make the changes necessary or to devolve the powers in order to allow us to make those changes for ourselves. When Theresa May became Prime Minister, she spoke of the urgent need to tackle the burning injustices of the UK as a top priority. The rapporteur's report shows that it is high time for her to now start to deliver. I thank you very much, and I call Michelle Ballantyne to be followed by Elaine Smith. Professor Alston also notes that, while Scotland has the lowest poverty rate in the UK, and in part that is because it benefits from the highest amounts spent on public services per capita, Scotland also has the lowest life expectancy and the highest suicide rate in the whole of Great Britain. Both health and mental health are devolved matters, so will the minister also recognise that when it comes to poverty, her Government has to take responsibility for their record on those issues and address some of those issues at source. While I have responsibility for the policies that I own tackling poverty, it is absolutely the commitment and priority of this whole Government to do what it can with the powers that we have to help to improve the life chances of everybody. Of course we have some public health challenges and those were articulated within the document, and this Government is taking the actions that are necessary to help to ensure that people can have a life-enhanced sense of wellbeing and to reverse some of those challenges that we have. The finger of blame points fairly and squarely at the UK Government for the systemic cuts that it has made to social security and welfare reforms and the continued political, ideologically driven austerity that Professor Alston has said could be reversed easily if it took the decision to do so. The UK Government has a choice of two futures. It can continue to give tax benefits as it has done to the wealthiest, or it could change tax and it could gift a better future to people of Scotland across the UK. Thus far it has scaled, singularly failed to do so, and that seems to me that the politically, ideologically driven motivation behind those welfare reforms is going to be something very difficult for this Parliament to shift, and to do so we need to make sure that we have the powers here, or at least make sure that we can press hard for the UK Government to change tax. Michelle Ballantyne has shaken her head that she should do well to go and make the same passionate representations to her colleague down at Westminster. Elaine Smith, to be followed by Alison Johnstone. I thank the cabinet secretary for the early sight of the statement. It really is shocking that the UK has had such a dam in UN poverty report that completely exposes the Tory approach to welfare as an ideologically driven political choice with austerity disproportionately impacting on women, children, minority ethnic communities, disabled people and those living in poverty. Is the cabinet secretary aware that, in his press conference, Professor Austin said of universal credit that it is a system that could have been designed by a group of misogynists? A system, as members know, that is driving the normalisation of food, baby and toy banks—the kind of charity that should not be the norm in a rich country. Instead, families should have increased household income. Although the report credits the Scottish Government for mitigating some of the effects of Tory welfare policy, it is not enough today to just attack the Tory Government. Will the cabinet secretary now take immediate action to lift 30,000 children out of poverty by implementing the £5 child benefit top-up by rolling out North Lanarkshire Council's club 365 scheme across Scotland as recommended by the Poverty and Inequality Commission and using powers to reverse the aborrent two-child policy? Scotland's children in need cannot wait any longer for radical action. Yes, I did see that Professor Austin had very damming things to say about the gendered nature of social security cuts and the austerity measures that the UK Government has taken forward. Of course, the rape clause in the two-child cap personifies and epitomises that gendered nature of their approach. It is something that Elaine Smith, myself and across all of our benches, we would agree on that it needs to stop. However, I would point out that sometimes the way in which she has articulated her question to me suggests that we are doing nothing that we are sitting idly by and just letting this happen, because we are not. We are taking concerted efforts in here and now to protect the people of Scotland as best we can. That includes £125 million spent on mitigation, mopping up the UK Government's mess through their failed policies. It includes the child poverty action plan, the actions that we have set out back with £50 million to try to help children across the country. It includes the £3.5 million that we are spending on food, dignified responses to food insecurity. It includes the work that Shirley-Anne Somerville has taken forward around the establishment of a new social security agency here, based on dignity, fairness and respect. That does not just mean that that is the totality of our work. We are looking to take forward the income supplement to lift children out of poverty just in the way that Elaine Smith described through the campaigns that had led up to that announcement. We will continue to work in a cross-party reasonable sense around how we make that happen, but we are doing a lot of work in the here and now, mopping up another Government's mess. Surely, if we had the powers here in this Parliament, we could do a lot more to help the people of Scotland. Professor Alston said that the local preparations that he saw for universal credit, a UK Government welfare reform, resembled, and I quote, the sort of activity that one might expect for an impending natural disaster or health epidemic. Of course, what we have seen is only the tip of the iceberg, because the major challenge will be when the bulk of people on existing legacy benefits are transferred from next year. What additional steps the Scottish Government is taking to help local authorities, the third sector and communities prepare for the final managed migration stage off the roll-out, given the UK Government's refusal to halt it, despite ever-increasing evidence of the damage caused by its many flaws? I know that the points that Alison Johnstone has raised are cleanly heard by my colleague Shirley-Anne Somerville, who has regular engagement with the UK Government, and certainly on the points that she has raised. That is something that has been pressed to Amber Rudd to make sure that she listens to those recommendations. Of course, we have regular engagement with local authorities, with COSLA across a range of different ministerial portfolios to ensure that they feel the support that is there that is necessary in order for them to cope with that managed migration. We also continue to work with the third sector organisations, who so often have the agility to respond to the needs of people who are facing destitution or poverty. We will continue to work with COSLA and the third sector and others wherever we need to to ensure that they can feel supported, as they themselves provide the support to the people across the country. Alex Cole-Hamilton will be followed by Angela Constance. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am very grateful for the early sight of the statement. Professor Olson also said of Brexit that anyone concerned with poverty in the UK had reason to be very deeply concerned. Given that many people who are reliant on the social security in the welfare state may have voted leave on the understanding that that would increase money coming into the Exchequer and that certainly nobody voted to become poorer, does the cabinet secretary agree with my party that those people should be offered the chance to revisit their decision in the form of a people's vote? I agree with Alex Cole-Hamilton when he said that nobody voted to become poorer during the EU referendum to exit the EU. Absolutely nobody voted to become poorer. Indeed, it did call into question some of the promises that were made in the whole course of the referendum. I remind Alex Cole-Hamilton that the people in Scotland voted to stay in the European Union. The First Minister has been very clear about the fact that she has never ruled out and would not stand in the way of a people's vote. Given the impact of Brexit on those most vulnerable across the country, we need to continue to work hard to do whatever we need to plan, to support local authorities, to support the third sector in the way that Alison Johnstone asked us to do to make sure that we are fully prepared for the impact of Brexit, because it is those people, those most vulnerable people, those that are going to be hit hardest, the ones that do not have the financial resilience or the security that stand to lose most. Again, I would point out that the UK Government has a lot to be considering, as well as they progress Brexit in the shambolic way that they are taking it forward, and they need to think very hard about Professor Alston's report and the impact of Brexit that they are taking forward, which will extend to consign a lot more people to a lot more heartache over the years to come. Angela Constance is to be followed by Oliver Mundell. Does the cabinet secretary agree with the UN rapporteur when he said that it is patently unjust and contrary to British values that so many people are living in poverty in the UK and that British compassion has been outsourced and replaced by punitive, mean-spirited and callous approaches to tackling poverty? The values that this Government and what we are focusing on are the values that are written into our Social Security Act of dignity, fairness and respect. None of those values can be easily found in much of what the UK Government has attempted to do through welfare reforms, austerity and social security cuts. With the rapporteur himself describing cuts as draconian and sanctions as cruel and inhumane, it seems as though he agrees with that departure from those key values of fairness, respect and dignity. Oliver Mundell to be followed by Bruce Crawford. I wondered if the cabinet secretary agrees with the special rapporteur when he said of devolved welfare powers that it is clear to me that there is still a real accountability gap that should be addressed. The absence of a legal remedy or a more robust reference to international standards in the Social Security Scotland Act is significant and should be addressed. What does she plan to do about that? The whole point and purpose of the Social Security Act, the whole premise by which it has been created is to firmly have within its heart human rights. The Social Security Charter has a direct accountability to Parliament as well. In relation to the answers that I gave to Patrick Harvie last week, of course we will take on board what the rapporteur says, but certainly everything that we do and continue to do, the policies across the whole of government, has human rights at its heart and is written in within the very foundations of the Social Security Act. Again, we will take on board the rapporteur's comments, but I think that he should be looking a wee bit closer to home to his own party to see whether not human rights are certainly not part of the UK Government's approach. The cabinet secretary is aware that, today, despite the UK being the fifth richest country in the world, there are as many as 14 million people living in poverty, including as many as 4 million children. Is she also aware that, under the Tories watch, 600,000 more children have fallen into relative poverty? Does the cabinet secretary agree with me that this is the biggest failure in public policy this century, which, according to the United Nations, is a result of massive cuts to Social Security and misguided reforms to welfare payments? It is noticeable that the Tories are not even prepared to stand up in this chamber today to defend their own government. That shows you the utter shameful position of the UK Government. Bruce Crawford talked about 600,000 more children falling into relative poverty as a result of the UK Government's policies. That is 600,000 reasons to do something different, to take a different path and to try and reverse the cuts that the UK Government has inflicted upon so many. It is an absolute disgrace that UK Government policies are driving. The first sustained rise in poverty levels in recent years is why we are taking a different approach, a different act in this Government. That is why our tackling child poverty delivery plan laid the brilliant for rising child poverty levels firmly at the door of the UK Government, and that is why we will continue to take the actions that we need to reverse as best we can the cuts that the UK Government is taking, but to protect the most vulnerable, to lift children out of poverty, to take forward the policies that we know will work and to make sure that we can give the children in this country a better future. Mark Griffin, to be followed by Ruth Maguire. Once again, I am grateful that the cabinet secretary has said that the Government will use its powers to create a new benefit and is working towards a new income supplement. With thousands of children being caught by the welfare reforms now, will the cabinet secretary confirm that the June report will not only confirm the budget for the income supplement, the value of the income supplement but also the timis introduction in the next financial year? We are taking forward work on the income supplement to develop it in a way that ensures that we can have the maximum reach and to support the most children that we possibly can in order to lift children and families out of poverty. We will continue to keep the member informed of the progress that has been made. We are continuing to work with organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group, Poverty Alliance Scotland and others to make sure that we get this right. It is complex work that we are taking forward, but we are committed to that work and we are committed to the success that we know it will deliver and the impact that it will have for people and families across the country. Ruth Maguire, to be followed by Annie Wells. Does the cabinet secretary agree with the UN rapporteur's assessment of UK Government policy that if a group of misogynists got together in our room and said, how can we make a system that works for men but not women, they would not have come up with too many more ideas than what is already in place? Does she agree with me that by embedding equalities in human rights assessments into decision making, the Scottish Government can and will do better for women? Absolutely, I agree with Ruth Maguire's assessment and assessment of the UN rapporteur around UK Government policy, which has a disproportionate impact on women across the UK. That is why, if we had the powers here, we would not have measures such as the two-child limit or the appalling rape clause that goes with it. Sedentary comments come from the other side. The Labour party needs to stop weaponising this policy. We want to work together in order to make the difference to women's lives across the country. Again, I would underline the fact that we are doing what we can with the powers that we have, the Social Security Scotland. We are bringing forward the best dark grant that will launch and will improve the financial support that is available to low-income mothers. It will not just be on the birth of the first or second child, but we will not have a cap on the number of children that it will help. We will continue to ensure that human rights and equality are embedded with the policy approaches that we take, not just in my portfolio but right across the country, because that is when we get better decisions and when we are able to help women across the country. Annie Wells will be followed by Bob Doris. It is noted in Professor Olson's report that, in Glasgow, only 3 per cent of local welfare fund applications were decided in a day, as compared with 99 per cent elsewhere. Will the cabinet secretary promise a review into either such disparity? I think that Glasgow will have a different assessment of that, but, from our perspective, we will happily look into that and ensure that we can see where the truth is and how we can make some of the changes or improvements that are necessary. Bob Doris is to be followed by Daniel Johnson. Cabinet Secretary, the UN special rapporteur slams the excessive UK Government stating that they have presided over the systematic dismantling of the social security safety net, and it adds that universal credit and welfare cuts have undermined the capacity of benefits to loosen the grip of poverty. Does the cabinet secretary share my concerns that this dismantling, which, for instance, turns tax credits from an entitlement into a benefit now subject to sanction, is pushing families further into inward poverty? I know that the work that the member has done in the committee has been investigating that incredibly real and increasing problem. One of the main factors that influence levels of inward poverty is social security. Therefore, the cuts that will see social security spend reduced by £3.7 billion in 2020-21 alone will only serve to compound already high levels of inward poverty. In Scotland, two thirds of children in poverty come from how homes where an individual works, and one third come from homes where an adult works full-time. That is unacceptable. That signals families working damn hard and never getting out of the bit, and that is something that we need to turn around. Other factors are hours and hourly pay, which does not keep in pace with the cost of living. However, there is no doubt that, with the powers over social security employment, at least devolved to this Parliament, we would be able to take much more action to pull people out of poverty. We are already, though, with the powers that we have, making sure that people can benefit from the living wage. Scotland has a disproportionately higher number of people in receipt of the living wage across the country. That is using the powers and influence that we have to try and push that improvement forward. Daniel Johnson, to be followed by Fulton MacGregor. The rapporteur is clear in terms of the link in cuts to local government funding and poverty. Given that the Scottish Government funding to local authorities has fallen by 7.1 per cent since 1314, whereas funding to the Scottish Government has only fallen by 1.8 per cent, the rapporteur has raised concerns about the lack of awareness of the Scottish welfare fund. Can I ask what the Scottish Government intends to do about that? In terms of local government, we continue to treat local government fairly with the funding settlement that is agreed to. I would also point to the fact that, alongside that settlement that we give to local authorities, the £125 million in mitigation that we spend, the £3.5 million that we are spending on dignified approaches to food, insecurity and the work that Shirley-Anne Somerville and her team are doing around the social security agency. That continued engagement that we have in partnership with local government to ensure that we can protect those who are most vulnerable. In terms of the Scottish welfare fund, we will do what we can. If there are issues that we can raise and we can make improvements, we will look at it. However, to date, 306,000 individual households have been helped through that fund. We will continue to do what we can to help even more. Fulton MacGregor The UN special rapporteur said in his remarks that he was shocked that the Scottish Government spending £125 million on welfare mitigation. As the MSP covering Coatbridge, that is not a shock to me. As referrals to the local food bank and kool school uniforms go through the roof, people are suffering with universal credit and North Lancer Council implements heavy cuts to key services. Does the cabinet secretary therefore agree with me that the Scottish Government in fact has to spend much more than that to mop up the damage of UK austerity and has the Government done an analysis on those figures? Right to point out again that we are mopping up the mess and the consequences of decisions made by another Government. We will be spending probably in the way that he has articulated, spending a lot more to mitigate the worst impacts of UK austerity. For example, the council tax reduction scheme and increased funding to support employment programmes. We are actively considering and conducting an analysis that brings that together and continues to work with the member and let him know and let him know as when we continue to make progress on that.