A decent standard of life for all
Scotland is a wealthy country, but the top 2% of households hold as much wealth as the bottom 50% combined.
While a tiny minority controls enormous wealth, almost a quarter of Scottish children live in poverty.
Everyone has the right to an adequate income to live on, regardless of individual circumstance. Since our foundation more than thirty years ago, the Scottish Greens have been consistent advocates of a Universal Basic Income. Yet the UK government continues to block our attempts to carry out a full trial of this transformative policy, leaving us with a patchy social security system that splits benefits between Scotland and Westminster, and forces us to spend huge sums mitigating disastrous policies like the two-child benefit cap.
The Scottish Greens are proud to have been part of a government which introduced, then more than doubled, the Scottish Child Payment, putting money in the pockets of the families who need it the most.
We will continue to use this and other payments to work towards eradicating poverty, ensuring everyone is able to claim the support they are entitled to, and making Scottish social security easier to access. And we will tackle the spectre of debt which pushes more families into poverty, using all the powers we have to cancel public sector debt.
A dignified income for all
- Negotiate with the UK Government to secure the powers to introduce a comprehensive Universal Basic Income pilot. Short of this full pilot, we will roll out a basic income for care leavers, ensuring young people leaving the care system are given secure and regular financial support.
- Implement the recommendations of the Minimum Income Guarantee Expert Group, which will take us a significant way towards a UBI.
- Establish a legally-backed Pensioner Poverty strategy, following the model that is beginning to work for child poverty. This will require the Scottish Government to have targets for the reduction of poverty faced by older people, and set plans to reach these targets.
- Call for the UK Government to devolve Jobcentre Plus, so we can more effectively use employability services to help people gain well-paying jobs, and help people already in work to move into work with better pay and conditions.
Tackling Child Poverty
- Amend the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act to require the Scottish Government to meet targets for the reduction of the deepest forms of poverty.
- Increase the Scottish Child Payment to £40, with the aim of at least £55 by 2030, and offer SCP supplements to the poorest families.
- Increase Scottish Child Payment for young parents, to compensate for the UK Government’s unfair Young Parent Penalty, where parents under the age of 25 receive less support than older parents.
- Increase all Best Start Grants and Best Start Foods, and expand the range of items that can be purchased using the pre-payment card, supporting families who need it the most during the first year of a child’s life.
- Ensure all devolved social security payments increase annually, at least in-line with rising costs. Similar to the State Pension, payments aimed at children will be double-locked to rise annually with the higher inflation or increases in average incomes.
Ensuring everyone gets the support they deserve
- Deploy income maximisation advisers in schools, GP practices and other community hubs, to ensure every community has access to a money advice service, and that everyone is accessing the benefits they are entitled to.
- Introduce legally-binding targets for the take-up of social security benefits.
- Launch an independent review of the Scottish Welfare Fund and Discretionary Housing Payments to establish an adequate level of funding that can also respond to increased demand, and consistency of decision-making.
- Introduce automatic payments where possible, with social security payments made without the need for an application, using information already held by public authorities to determine eligibility.
- Increase fairness and accurate decision making in our social security system by providing compensation payments to applicants who have their payments wrongly cut or applications denied, where Social Security Scotland or councils were in error.
- Put pressure on the UK Government to make the changes to its systems that are needed for Scottish Universal Credit claimants to split their payments among different household members, to tackle the issue of single household payments being used as financial domestic abuse.
- Continue to call on the UK Government to pay what is owed to the WASPI women impacted by unfair state pension changes
Compassion in the collection of public debt
- Wipe out crippling Council Tax debt that pushes families further into poverty and reduce the amount of time that councils and other public bodies can chase public debts such as unpaid Council Tax, from the current 20 years to at maximum 6 years, as happens in England and Wales.
- End the role of private sector debt collectors, who cause misery and stress to vulnerable people, in collecting money owed to public bodies.
- Require all public bodies, including local councils, to abide by stricter rules focused on caring for vulnerable people who are in debt to them; and recognising that there may be no public interest in chasing vulnerable people for funds they cannot pay.
- Make it illegal for domestic abuse survivors to be chased for public debt arising from the period when they lived with their abuser.
