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Agenda item two, tax credits. We have two panel witnesses here. I

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would like to thank everyone for the submissions sent in. They were very

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thorough, and thank you very much. We also received a letter which had

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been copied into us, mentioned by Eric. Thank you very much for that.

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The first panel who have given evidence today are the policy

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officer for citizens advice Scotland, executive director in

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gender, and policy worker Scottish women's aid. I will open the

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discussion up by asking the first question. I know from the

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submissions, and I'm sure other members will ask further questions,

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that the child tax credit is an area which basically fills your time.

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People ask most questions about child tax credits when they are

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seeking advice. Can I therefore ask, with an introduction of the cap, if

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you have seen an increase in people enquiring, and also how you perceive

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this legislation which is going forwards will affect your clients?

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In terms of child tax credits is one of the most common things that

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people will seek advice on. Around 13,300 cases in the last year. Since

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the introduction, because it has only been six weeks, and because it

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is only affecting children who were born after the 6th of April, there

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has not been a huge spike. What we would expect to see is a gradual

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increase over time, as more third children are born and people will

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come in for advice about that. Thank you. Our concern is for women

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experiencing domestic abuse, and the importance of Social Security as a

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safety net for women when they leave an abusive partner. The evidence we

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have submitted highlights the impact of the cuts to social security on

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women, particularly low in parents, the majority of whom are women. We

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see the two child limit is going to further impoverished women, which

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then limits of their capacity for action, their ability to make

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choices, their ability to leave an abusive partner. I think for women,

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the two child limit, if they are having a third child, and I think

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the case study we submitted from the woman currently receiving support

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from one of our organisations, where she is working part-time as a

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cleaner on very insecure contract, currently pregnant, has ill health

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as a result of domestic abuse she has experienced, it is a typical

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example of the women that women's aid works with, and will really

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affect women in that situation, in terms of can they make that move to

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leave an abusive partner or not, and they will have to weigh that up

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really carefully. It also reinforces the message is that women get from

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an abusive partner, that they are not of equal value, that they will

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not be able to manage on their own, that the children will suffer as a

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result of them leaving that partner. We don't have the service users, as

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we are a policy and advocacy organisation but along with a range

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of women's organisations, we have been doing work to test ideas around

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the proposed Social Security changes and the use of new powers in

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Scotland. Women are deeply concerned by the introduction of the two child

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limit, extremely horrified by the notion of the rape clause and other

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exemptions, but also just have a strong claws -- a strong sense that

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this is a signal from the UK Government that women who are living

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with poverty should not be having more than two children, that the

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same choices about how to plan their lives and families are therefore not

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open in the same way and not supported by UK Government, which is

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a profoundly stigmatising message to send through the Social Security

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system. Just a follow-up, obviously child tax credits top up, so in your

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opinion, if you are going to have three children and you are having to

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produce this letter, if you are going forward for any other type of

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benefit, would you perceive that people have to produce a letter as

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well? How will it have a knock-on effect, if most people are working,

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working families are not on benefits, will it have a knock-on

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effect for any other aspect of welfare assistance for these women?

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That is a good question and it is something around which we are still

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unclear. The letter that Rape Crisis Scotland and we sent to Damian

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Hines, UK Minister for employment, asked ten broad questions about why

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-- about the way the information will be gathered, and stored, and

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how it will be signified in communications that may need to be

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shown to other agencies. There has been some concern among England

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-based organisations that when parents are making applications for

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free school meals, they will be required to show a letter that may

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be coded in such a way that makes it clear that a child has been

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conceived as a result of rape. We are desperately concerned about the

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potential breach to privacy and dignity of the child, and of the

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mother that that would entail. But the implementation of the rape

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clause has been extremely open ache, and so the reason we have written to

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the Minister is to seek urgent clarification on a range of

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questions that women are certainly posing to us. I do not know if Joe

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has... The letter spells out a lot of our concerns about how that

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information will be used. If women were to choose to complete a form,

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which is questionable. And also the lack of privacy. As Emma said, if

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you are applying for a school clothing grant and you have to

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provide proof of income, there are only a couple of reasons why you

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would be receiving tax credits for three children. And so how will that

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information be protected? I think that is one of the key questions we

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have. Would you like to come in on that? Losing entitlement to tax

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credits will result in a loss of income. We have seen from previous

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changes in 2012, issues around tax credits being stopped, how much of

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an impact tax credits has on family income. People can be driven further

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into hardship. In terms of the technical interplay between the

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benefits, it may have an effect on people's entitlement to other

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benefits. We would need to go through particular cases to see if

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there was a change of entitlement. But yes, I think it is something

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that may have an impact on the wider things. Allison Johnson, you wanted

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to come in. Thank you, convener. Thank you, panel, particularly for

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some informative written submissions. I note from the

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submissions that they will be a particular impact that the two child

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limit on religious communities, on loan parents, the majority of whom

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are women, and black and minority ethnic communities. I am concerned

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about the evidence base for the policy. It very much seems to come

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from a view that those who claim child tax credits should, as you

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said, have to be subject to the same financial decisions as those who

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cannot claim. But as has already been noted, most people claiming tax

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credits are working, 69%, and thereafter macro parents in the

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home, 64%. So do you think there are any weaknesses in the way this

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policy has been justified? Yes. I think you have put your finger on a

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number of weaknesses in the development of the policy. I think

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our analysis of the statements that the UK Government has made

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throughout the development of the two child limit, but then the

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exemptions, has been that there has been very little clarity about the

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underlying thinking behind the policy, about the evidence base for

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the policy, and certainly a failure to impact assessment policy. And the

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UK Government is required, as all public bodies are, to undertake a

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quality impact assessment. The equality and Human Rights Commission

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has also written to Damian Hines to say that they do not feel that this

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has happened. And therefore, the impact on those communities that you

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innumerate, women, black and minority ethnic people, people from

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religious communities, has not been captured. But more fundamentally,

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there is not an evidence base that has been shown to the public to

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explain why the UK Government would think this would incentivise

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families to behave in a different way. There is one very brief

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reference to some work that the IFS has done in the impact assessment

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published on the entirety of the welfare reform and work act, and

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that does not amount to a convincing case to suggest that reducing tax

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credits will encourage families to make different choices about the

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number of children they have. I think common sense would tell us

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that if you can claim child tax credits up until the age of your

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child being 20, that people do not have a crystal ball to see into the

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future, and so bereavement, illness, disability, family breakdown,

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blending your family with that of another person, all of these things

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are not predicted by people but we know that they happen to millions of

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families across the UK. So to compound the weakness of the

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argument for doing it in the first place, comes the additional

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indignity that the needs of communities which are protected by

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law, including women, have just not been considered adequately in the

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development of this policy. Would anyone else like to comment? Yes, I

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think there are a range of situations where people who are not

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claiming tax credits at the time their child is born will

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subsequently need to claim, if a family breaks up, if people fall

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ill, if someone is made redundant, for instance. So it is not

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necessarily the case that at the time the child was planned,

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conceived or born that people would realise or predict that they would

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need tax credits at some point in the next few years. You mentioned

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there was a particular impact on loan parents. Lone parents who would

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have three or more children, who would be affected by other changes

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to the social security system, from the official figures published. We

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know that since the reduction in the benefit cap, that 57% of households

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affected in London are lone parents with three or more children. So

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there is a concern that there will be a double whammy between the

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benefit cap, between the Ben -- changes to the credit system, and

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other social security changes, such as the changes to employment support

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allowance and the reduction, the removal of the family element in tax

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credits. That will have quite a significant squeeze on family income

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is for people with three or more children. I think also with women we

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are working with and supporting, there is an assumption that the two

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child limit assumes equal control. And for many women who are

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experiencing domestic abuse, sexual violence and rape as a component of

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that domestic abuse is really common. So women don't have control

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over their reproductive rights. Did you want to come back in, Alison?

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You have spoken about rights quite a lot in your responses. I would like

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to understand your thoughts regarding the impact of the two

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child limit and the rape laws on the rights of the child and the rights

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of the mother. It is fair to say there has been some disagreement

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even in the chamber here over what the claimant has to do to prove

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nonconsensual conception. And the Conservative leader actually said,

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quoting from the report, the woman writes her name and a third-party

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professional who is helping her sets out the rest. Others have said this

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is not accurate, and as far as I'm aware there are no third-party

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referees confirmed in Scotland. No one is willing to undertake this,

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just to be involved in such a dreadful situation. Can you give the

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committee your view on the impact on the rights of women and the child

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and what actually has to happen? I think it's... The exemption raises

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serious doubts about the rights of woman and the child and it

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contravenes women's and children's rights to privacy. The form itself

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does require a lot more than the woman just signing, putting her name

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on a form and signing it. She has to write her own name. She has to write

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the name of the child that and signs to say she believes that child was

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conceived as a result of rape. The form has at the top of it a large

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font which says it is the form you're filling in to say your child

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has been conceived as a result of coercion or rape. Which we believe

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would be extremely distressing for women to even consider doing and we

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know from our work and the work of rape crisis Scotland how

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re-traumatising that, having to contemplate filling in a form to say

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that your child has been conceived as a result of rape would be for

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women at a time not of their choosing to do so and having no

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control over what might happen to that information. So we agree with

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the Equality and Human Rights Commission who wrote to the minister

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to say that in their view the invasive reporting requirements of

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intimate details was penalising woman and also was the real issue

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for women of their child perhaps potentially finding out that they

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were conceived as a result of rape and we know that women will go to

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huge lengths, that is the last thing they want their child to know they

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were conceived as a result of rape. We know that 80 clinical

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psychologists have written to the minister outlining their concerns

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and the impact that would have on women and also on children, because

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they work to support children who have found out they have been

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conceived as a result of rape and how traumatising that can be for

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children. On the point about third party referrers, we are not aware of

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any organisation that has agreed to be a third party referrer in

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Scotland. The DWP has aries of organisations under the survivor's

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trust umbrella, which is a body for organisations that work with women

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who have experienced violence and they have produced a blanket

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membership list from our discussion with the individual members, none we

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have spoken to has agreed to be a referrer. One question we have asked

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the minister is that, how can think be implemented in Scotland, given

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that circumstance and given the communication from the cabinet

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Secretary for health that NHS staff will not be participating, as a

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breach of they believe their professional ethics, given human

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rights concerns. I think the House of Lords when the postlegislative

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scrutiny committee looks at this question, looked at the two

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statutory instruments that framed what is known as the rape clause,

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they asked a question about appeals and how an appeals process would

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work, because the DWP has articulated because of third party

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referrers, DWP staff will not be involved in making deliberation and

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won't have access to this sensitive information. The response that the

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DWP was the usual appeals process would apply in this circumstance and

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therefore DWP staff would have access to the most sensitive

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information, the contents of the disclosure if there was any question

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about the voracity of it. You wanted to come in? Yes a follow up to your

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answer to Alison on equality impact assessment. You mentioned

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specifically minority ethnic communities, we are talking about

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from April of this year, so we don't yet have you know, I don't know what

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assumptions we are making, but have you had any discussion with any

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organisations in the minority ethnic community and to my knowledge, no

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one has raised the issue of the Catholic community, of which I'm

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one, who tend to have big families or did in the past, and dependses

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view of what doctrine of the church you follow, but many women will

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follow the doctrine of the church by not using contraception. I mean do

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you have figures on the size of families in the communities that

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you're talking about and have you had discussions with the churches

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and the groups you're talking about. The churches and many faith-based

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community representative organisations made strong

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representations to the DWP during the performance lacing of the policy

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-- formulation of the policy based on concerns about this. In the

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consultation in November 2016 the DWP consulted on the implementation

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of exceptions for a period of one month. We sub mimented as others did

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- sub mimented evidence that outlined the issue for black and

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minority ethnic and faith-based communities and others who wouldn't

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want to access contraception or terminate pregnancies that arose

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when they already had two children. There is a question about the...

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Evidence-base on which the Government is acting and one

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question we have put to the minister is, how many term nations do you

:21:56.:22:00.

expect to arise as a result of this policy? Because it seeps to us

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without a clear equality impact assessment and without a clear

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publication of any evidence or thinking on the part of the UK

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Government that they are indeed expecting that women will terminate

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pregnancies that arise when they already have two children. I think

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that is insupportable given the attitude you have outlined of some

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religious and other communities to that particular Med xal practice.

:22:31.:22:39.

Interestingly to us the UK Government did not adopt the

:22:40.:22:44.

exception that is used in the case of American family caps and this

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policy has been copied from those in nineties Clinton welfare reform

:22:52.:22:56.

moves, it doesn't include an exception for the instances where

:22:57.:23:01.

long acting reversible contraception has failed. In America that was the

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case, if you used an IUD or an implant and that did not work, you

:23:09.:23:13.

would also receive an exception. That very question was put by the

:23:14.:23:18.

House of Lords to the DWP, who came back and said, we really need

:23:19.:23:22.

something which is easy to prove and so we are content with the

:23:23.:23:29.

exceptions as they stand. Which I think is quite inconsistent as a

:23:30.:23:38.

position about inducing thinking in families about the number of

:23:39.:23:42.

children they can afford. As to your question about have we spoken to

:23:43.:23:56.

black and minority ies and yes and they have specific, any service

:23:57.:23:58.

provision services that have contributed to the position of their

:23:59.:24:03.

umbrella organisations and in terms of the churches, we have drawn on

:24:04.:24:07.

the written material they have produced in response to these

:24:08.:24:13.

policies. Do you want to come in on this? I was interested in the

:24:14.:24:27.

comparisons that Engender drew among the American case studies and I

:24:28.:24:31.

don't know if there is any other points you want to draw out on that,

:24:32.:24:39.

particularly the fact that the family cap didn't change behaviour

:24:40.:24:42.

and actually pushed people further into poverty. I think I associate

:24:43.:24:50.

myself with the premises behind Alison Johnson's question, it is

:24:51.:24:55.

important to remember that this policy will affect a huge amount of

:24:56.:25:00.

people who are in work and given the research from Cardiff University

:25:01.:25:07.

that 60% of families in poverty are in work, this policy is important to

:25:08.:25:12.

remember that where this policy sits in terms of social, economic make up

:25:13.:25:19.

of the UK. I also if you don't mind, because the American question has

:25:20.:25:23.

been raised, as well as information on the American question... I would

:25:24.:25:31.

like to drill harder into the point raised about changing circumstances.

:25:32.:25:36.

Because I think that's, particularly from Women's Aid, you have said

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before that the policy ignores real life when contraception fails or

:25:42.:25:47.

there is unemployment or ill health and I think it would be good for all

:25:48.:25:51.

of us to understand what your feeling is on the ground around

:25:52.:25:55.

those issues and how this policy is and can affect and with Kath as

:25:56.:26:00.

well, although the statement was rightly made this will apply to new

:26:01.:26:10.

claimants, is it not important to remember about families being in

:26:11.:26:14.

work, if that is insecure work and people who are receiving tax credits

:26:15.:26:20.

may need to reapply in future and that will have an impact in terms of

:26:21.:26:29.

this family cap policy. So the question that you raise about

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Engender and the US evidence. I would be clear that we are not

:26:33.:26:39.

experts on the US experience, but we did a brief literature review when

:26:40.:26:42.

we were pulling together a response to the consultation and looking

:26:43.:26:47.

around for examples of where this had or had not functioned. The

:26:48.:26:51.

findings within the American context and in many states have had family

:26:52.:26:55.

caps in operation since the nineties, has been that they have

:26:56.:27:00.

not at all really affected the number of children born into

:27:01.:27:05.

families. They have slightly increased the rate of pregnancy

:27:06.:27:12.

terminations where state funding was available for those medical

:27:13.:27:22.

procedures and they have substantially impoverished women,

:27:23.:27:26.

principally lone parents and although the context is slightly

:27:27.:27:29.

different, because they were principally applied to the types of

:27:30.:27:34.

social security payments received by people not in work, they have had an

:27:35.:27:40.

effect of making its so that women could not afford such things as

:27:41.:27:45.

nappies, food for their children, housing costs. So really have

:27:46.:27:51.

profoundly impacted on women's security and dignity and standard of

:27:52.:28:00.

living and acted against children's rights and in Scotland we are trying

:28:01.:28:06.

to realise the ambitions of the convention on the rights of the

:28:07.:28:10.

child. Everything that goes into the committee on the rights of the child

:28:11.:28:16.

emphasises that social security payments to parents is a fundamental

:28:17.:28:23.

part of ensuring that children have an adequate standard of living. Do

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you want to come in? Yes it would be something that you mentioned... We

:28:33.:28:37.

will see a growing impact of the policy just doing a bit of... Rough

:28:38.:28:44.

calculations on the number of births in Scotland, there has been over

:28:45.:28:52.

7,000 children born since the start of April. So it's not a huge amount

:28:53.:28:59.

that would be affected by the policy as yet. But there is something like

:29:00.:29:07.

around 150 children born every day in Scotland. So the numbers are

:29:08.:29:15.

growing of people who will have a third child and then seek advice on

:29:16.:29:25.

how they can maximise their incomes. That's through claiming tax credits

:29:26.:29:34.

or not. So there will... Quite a large amount of advice we give is

:29:35.:29:40.

about making claims for child tax credits and for people who are

:29:41.:29:49.

either in work, they could be in precarious or insecure work or other

:29:50.:29:58.

work that needs support to pay basically the living costs. So I

:29:59.:30:05.

think it's going to be something that the impact may be slightly

:30:06.:30:11.

unpredictable in the extent we don't know... What's going to happen in

:30:12.:30:21.

people's lives but also the people will need support from tax credits

:30:22.:30:27.

in the future and won't be able to get the additional support that

:30:28.:30:30.

would come for a third child. Supplement what Emma said about the

:30:31.:30:45.

evidence from the United States, we did a quick literature review and

:30:46.:30:52.

find out how that worked for women experiencing domestic abuse and

:30:53.:30:55.

there have been some stuff coming out of research.

:30:56.:31:10.

To rebuild their lives and take care of their children but they did have

:31:11.:31:20.

similar experiences and they were largely unused because women didn't

:31:21.:31:29.

trust the agency and felt shame and humiliation in having to use these

:31:30.:31:38.

in order to get Social Security. The privacy deprivations from that

:31:39.:31:47.

process. That further impoverished them and their children because they

:31:48.:31:51.

began to slip out of the system altogether. That was a concern in

:31:52.:31:57.

terms of the women and children's health. We all saw no from the work

:31:58.:32:09.

I have done recently with women researching their own experiences.

:32:10.:32:13.

The impact of social security reform on their ability to rebuild their

:32:14.:32:17.

lives and become lone parents. Following the relationship

:32:18.:32:19.

separation. This difficult for them to access

:32:20.:32:38.

they are often ending up in low paid and insecure jobs where they need

:32:39.:32:45.

tax credits to supplement their income and to retain their

:32:46.:32:49.

independence. What we are beginning to see, support workers, when women

:32:50.:32:58.

come for an initial assessment for support or brought by the police or

:32:59.:33:04.

social work and looking at what they're entitlement will be to

:33:05.:33:07.

Social Security support, they often don't see these women again because

:33:08.:33:14.

they're having to weigh up her they're going to manage to support

:33:15.:33:17.

themselves and their children in the circumstances. That's really a huge

:33:18.:33:23.

concern to us and we have found evidence recently through the

:33:24.:33:29.

equality and human rights committee on the destitution of many women

:33:30.:33:32.

that we're seeing now in the circumstances. An increase in

:33:33.:33:40.

occurrences of what you've described. A lot of it is anecdotal

:33:41.:33:44.

regarding case studies and focus groups with women. That has been my

:33:45.:33:48.

experience in working with groups of women who have direct experience of

:33:49.:33:52.

these issues is that it is that it's what they're saying and struggling

:33:53.:33:57.

to come to terms with one they're encouraged to seek support that they

:33:58.:34:00.

shouldn't be living with domestic abuse but the reality of their lives

:34:01.:34:11.

after it is, particularly women the children, it leaves them with a

:34:12.:34:14.

sense of injustice and they often described as a real struggle. They

:34:15.:34:18.

don't see a way out of this situation.

:34:19.:34:21.

Adam, will you come in with a supplementary? A couple of

:34:22.:34:27.

supplementary of questions that Alison was asking a while ago. Think

:34:28.:34:30.

it very much for your very powerful evidence. The case that you make

:34:31.:34:42.

against the two child cap is a case that it is a policy that's illegal.

:34:43.:35:03.

Not arguing that the policy is unwise or inappropriate, they are

:35:04.:35:13.

legal points. My first question arising out of what you said so far

:35:14.:35:19.

is what action are your organisation is taking or proposing to take to

:35:20.:35:25.

challenge the policy in the courts in Scotland or England? I think we

:35:26.:35:38.

are considering our options in that regard. Why wait? If you would let

:35:39.:35:50.

the witness coming. Do you want to come back and on that one. I would

:35:51.:35:56.

agree with what ever he said. Foot on the first response has been to

:35:57.:36:00.

ask for much more detailed information from the Minister. I

:36:01.:36:13.

think as citizens advice have said, the policy is new. In terms of

:36:14.:36:21.

looking for evidence of taking any further action, that needs to be

:36:22.:36:23.

developed. We don't tend to bring test cases

:36:24.:36:44.

and there are other organisations looking at whether it's possible to

:36:45.:36:52.

bring a legal challenge but I think it would be something that the

:36:53.:36:56.

citizens advice Scotland would necessarily initiate. There is my

:36:57.:37:04.

outside question because over the course of the last decade or more,

:37:05.:37:09.

legal action taken in the court have been a very successful means of

:37:10.:37:16.

putting brakes on policies including welfare reform policies. The groups

:37:17.:37:21.

such as the ones you work with have thought to be contrary to basic

:37:22.:37:24.

provisions of the equality legislation or the provisions of

:37:25.:37:29.

data protection or privacy law. I think it's a useful avenue for you

:37:30.:37:34.

and your organisations to be thinking about. The second question

:37:35.:37:43.

is this, it seems to me also that the two child cap on tax credits is

:37:44.:37:50.

a test of something that was very important to the Smith commission,

:37:51.:37:54.

of which I was a member. What the Smith commission did was to agree

:37:55.:38:01.

that a whole range of welfare benefits should be devolved in full

:38:02.:38:06.

to this parliament and that in addition, the Scottish parliament

:38:07.:38:11.

would have the power to top up any reserved benefit. The idea being

:38:12.:38:16.

that the United Kingdom would set the floor on this parliament

:38:17.:38:22.

wouldn't have the power to lower that floor but the United Kingdom

:38:23.:38:25.

would not set the ceiling and if this parliament thought that the

:38:26.:38:29.

flaw had been set too low by the United Kingdom, we would have the

:38:30.:38:34.

power in this parliament to top up any reserved benefit, whether it

:38:35.:38:41.

is... Which would have been in devolved competence. There has been

:38:42.:38:44.

a vote in this parliament that says this flaw has been set to know, so

:38:45.:38:49.

my question is, what pressure are you bringing to bear on the Scottish

:38:50.:38:54.

Government to exercise its powers to ensure that none of these issues you

:38:55.:38:58.

are talking about apply in Scotland at all, given that we have the power

:38:59.:39:09.

to do something about it? Thank you for your advice about pursuing

:39:10.:39:13.

strategic litigation. The question about mitigation, I think, is quite

:39:14.:39:22.

an interesting one for our organisations and in terms of

:39:23.:39:27.

pressure to bear, I would echo the points about there being a lot of

:39:28.:39:30.

discussion with UK Government still to run on this question about

:39:31.:39:37.

whether ultimately the two child limit and its exemptions will be

:39:38.:39:42.

seen to be a useful policy. I think that there are a number of questions

:39:43.:39:47.

raised by the equality and human rights commission and our

:39:48.:39:50.

organisations that I think we are still at the discussion stage of and

:39:51.:39:54.

I think the most charitable interpretation is that perhaps the

:39:55.:39:59.

cause of a lack of equality impact assessment, some of these issues

:40:00.:40:04.

simply haven't yet been considered by UK Government. We are certainly

:40:05.:40:09.

not at the end of the process. The process of determining what would

:40:10.:40:15.

happen to the two child limit. The question for our organisation, which

:40:16.:40:19.

has been very much involved and engaged with the Scottish Government

:40:20.:40:25.

in the development of the new Social Security powers, is what is

:40:26.:40:30.

ultimately best for women's equality and we would want to consider that

:40:31.:40:40.

question undertaking adequate impact assessment and using mainstream

:40:41.:40:43.

approaches and pursuing the principles of dignity and human

:40:44.:40:49.

rights, which the Scottish minister for social security has indicated

:40:50.:40:53.

will be part of development. The short answer is that we have not yet

:40:54.:41:00.

determined whether it is in most women's interests and in the

:41:01.:41:03.

interest of women's equality to propose the mitigation on the

:41:04.:41:07.

specific policy as being the most useful avenue or actually a

:41:08.:41:10.

different decision with regard to the use of score Scottish Social

:41:11.:41:15.

Security powers and the budget is thereof would be most in women's

:41:16.:41:18.

interests and that would obviously require some modelling, perhaps, and

:41:19.:41:24.

a clearer sense of the content of what will be in the Social Security

:41:25.:41:30.

Bill which will be coming quite soon. We will continue to have those

:41:31.:41:35.

discussions and continue to push for women's equality and rights to be

:41:36.:41:39.

realised through the of additional Social Security powers Scotland.

:41:40.:41:45.

Would you want to common on this one? See people want to come in on a

:41:46.:41:54.

supplementary. Just basically, we welcome the changes, whether the UK

:41:55.:41:58.

Government or the Scottish Government were to mitigate them,

:41:59.:42:07.

there is obviously, our priority is that it is as simple and

:42:08.:42:10.

straightforward for people to claim benefits they are entitled to as it

:42:11.:42:16.

possibly can be. In mitigating policies, as we seem with the

:42:17.:42:23.

schemes run the bedroom tax and the removal of housing support for

:42:24.:42:30.

ageing- 21-year-olds, -- 18- 21 euros, it tends to be unnecessarily

:42:31.:42:37.

complicated and not as straightforward as not applying. The

:42:38.:42:41.

policy in the first place would be. That being said, if the Scottish

:42:42.:42:47.

Government is willing to make changes, then we would welcome that.

:42:48.:42:57.

Very quickly, given the potential cost of a judicial review to third

:42:58.:43:09.

sector organisations like yourself and given the potential cost on the

:43:10.:43:16.

Scottish Government given mitigation, shouldn't the focus

:43:17.:43:20.

remain right now on the policy at source and given there's a general

:43:21.:43:22.

election going on at the moment, should be not be putting pressure on

:43:23.:43:27.

the UK Government in the coming weeks and continue to do so going

:43:28.:43:33.

forward to abolish this policy at source, the policy that has been

:43:34.:43:39.

voted against in Scotland or at least to think about the

:43:40.:43:48.

geographical exclusion. I think if the policy can be amended and I mean

:43:49.:43:56.

the two child limit can be amended, changed or removed, that would

:43:57.:43:59.

ultimately be of most use to women in Scotland but across the rest of

:44:00.:44:05.

the UK, particularly in Northern Ireland where there are devastating

:44:06.:44:12.

consequences weather is mandatory reporting of serious crimes to the

:44:13.:44:17.

police and fire there is exceptionally limited access to

:44:18.:44:20.

abortion health, so incredibly difficult decisions to be made by

:44:21.:44:24.

the women of Northern Ireland who would not be assisted by any

:44:25.:44:26.

mitigation that was college specific.

:44:27.:44:31.

We could consider the use of our members' money to seek judicial

:44:32.:44:41.

money and would wish to spend as little as possible in achieving our

:44:42.:44:46.

policy ambitions. Anybody want to come back on that? No. Thank you. To

:44:47.:44:55.

bring the questions back to Scotland, if I understand you

:44:56.:45:00.

correctly, certainly Emma Rich, you say the whole issue and the issues

:45:01.:45:04.

that arises are being considered against the back ground of other

:45:05.:45:08.

matters and consideration and how the Scottish Government takes things

:45:09.:45:15.

forward. It's always easy to criticise a policy of whatever type

:45:16.:45:19.

and much more difficult to give an answer which provides a better way

:45:20.:45:23.

forward. I'm wanting to know from each of you that your organisations

:45:24.:45:28.

will be providing specific proposals to the Scottish Government as to how

:45:29.:45:33.

to approach this matter in context of social security system in

:45:34.:45:38.

Scotland, which of course is now and will increasingly perhaps differ

:45:39.:45:50.

from that in England. Engender has been creating a coalition of women's

:45:51.:45:55.

organisations working on social surt for a number of years. We have been

:45:56.:46:02.

vigorously critical of some of the implementation of social security in

:46:03.:46:08.

Scotland and what we see as weaknesses in gender mainstreaming

:46:09.:46:13.

within that. We will continue to be challenging to the Scottish

:46:14.:46:17.

Government as it develops it proposals for the use of devolved

:46:18.:46:22.

social security powers and would be commenting in great detail on the

:46:23.:46:26.

bill and engaging in all the consultation processes available us

:46:27.:46:36.

to to achieve that. We have been partnering with Engender and other

:46:37.:46:39.

women's organisations on providing evidence to the committee as well as

:46:40.:46:44.

reporting on our concerns about how social security has been implemented

:46:45.:46:50.

in Scotland and in particular campaigning on the need for split

:46:51.:46:55.

payments for universal credit as a means of ensuring women's financial

:46:56.:46:59.

independence and will continue to do that until it's actually happening

:47:00.:47:03.

for women in Scotland. Thank you. Did you want to comment on that?

:47:04.:47:16.

Yes, they're taking a substantial amount of work on the new security

:47:17.:47:25.

system. It is an opportunity from the work we have done... The

:47:26.:47:32.

substantial amount of engagement with CAB clients, advisors have

:47:33.:47:37.

submitted extensive evidence to the Scottish Government's consultation

:47:38.:47:42.

on a regular basis about details of the new system. So it is one of our

:47:43.:47:52.

biggest policy priorities over the next year. A small one. A quick

:47:53.:48:00.

follow up, on that, have you got draft proposals in relation to this

:48:01.:48:05.

particular issue that you have provided to the Scottish Government

:48:06.:48:09.

at this point for an alternative or is it as I understood Emma Rich

:48:10.:48:15.

said, something you're looking at in the over all picture, rather than

:48:16.:48:19.

saying the best way to respond to this particular issue that you're

:48:20.:48:24.

here to talk about today? I suppose I would refer back to my answer to

:48:25.:48:29.

Adam Tompkins and say that the question of how best to respond to

:48:30.:48:33.

what ultimately happens with this policy and we don't yet know the out

:48:34.:48:39.

come, there are a number of conversations which the minister's

:48:40.:48:43.

been engaged in, once the outcome of that is known we will be able more

:48:44.:48:48.

effectively I think to say what we think Scottish Government should use

:48:49.:48:54.

its resource in implementing the new social security powers to do that we

:48:55.:49:00.

will work with accuse downpourics o' - academics to do modelling,

:49:01.:49:05.

simulation, we have been involved in expert groups looking at some of the

:49:06.:49:10.

detailed entitlements within the new social security system. We will be

:49:11.:49:13.

contributing to discussions about the establishment of the agency. So

:49:14.:49:18.

we will be bringing details, proposals as detailed as we can with

:49:19.:49:25.

our capacity forward when the time is right. At the moment, we wouldn't

:49:26.:49:30.

want to comment on this policy in a vacuum as regards to mitigation.

:49:31.:49:40.

George Adams. Thank you and good morning, it has been, I have enjoyed

:49:41.:49:45.

listening to the evidence. Sometimes in this place you end up thinking

:49:46.:49:49.

you have heard everything when you hear a Tory member say that third

:49:50.:49:54.

sector organisations could run to the corporates to try and sort

:49:55.:49:57.

legislation, you have to ask yourself what kind of place are we

:49:58.:50:00.

working in here? And what environment. When at the end of the

:50:01.:50:04.

day would you not think it would be the case a better idea for an

:50:05.:50:09.

organisations like yourself to actually spend your members' money

:50:10.:50:14.

on other things and trying to mend Tory policies in Westminster. My

:50:15.:50:17.

main question, because I always seem to get here is the fact that from

:50:18.:50:21.

the opposition is to litigate or mitigate. That seems to be OK if

:50:22.:50:27.

you're a lawyer and many of the Tory benches are lawyers, that is maybe

:50:28.:50:31.

good for them. But let's get the policy right and get something

:50:32.:50:35.

sorted and do it the proper way and get the policy correct. We know this

:50:36.:50:41.

policy is immoral at the moment, one of the the things Engender said was

:50:42.:50:46.

that in America some of the states when they went down this route, and

:50:47.:50:52.

decide they would have a family cap. Many moved from it and not did they

:50:53.:50:58.

move away they found it got people into further above si and also would

:50:59.:51:05.

it not the case that we would find ourselves in a similaration similar

:51:06.:51:13.

situation with a policy that will lead to failure, buzz it doesn't

:51:14.:51:16.

make any difference to what it is trying to achieve in the first

:51:17.:51:27.

place. I think a point I would wish to re-emphasise is that equality

:51:28.:51:33.

impact assessment is critical to the development of complex policy. All

:51:34.:51:37.

policy. But particularly complex policy such as social security. I

:51:38.:51:41.

think some of the profound weaknesses in the thinking

:51:42.:51:44.

underpinning the two child limit would have been brought to the

:51:45.:51:48.

surface if that process had been undertaken with any kind of

:51:49.:51:53.

adequacy. So I think that's vitally important. To get policy right at

:51:54.:51:59.

the start, rather than to be seeking to either mitigate it or to

:52:00.:52:03.

challenge it in ways that become quite difficult. I think there is

:52:04.:52:09.

virtue to legal certainty I wouldn't want to rule that kind of approach

:52:10.:52:15.

out for organisations such as mine on every single topic. But certainly

:52:16.:52:23.

collaboration, participatory approaches to developing policy,

:52:24.:52:26.

hearing from women's lived experience would have produce adds

:52:27.:52:31.

dramatically different kind of policy and I would urge the

:52:32.:52:35.

committee to consider all those approaches when looking at the

:52:36.:52:38.

development of the new social security approaches that Scotland

:52:39.:52:44.

will be taking. So that it can avoid some of these mistakes in thinking

:52:45.:52:48.

that colleagues have perhaps had a chance to have. Anyone else? I think

:52:49.:53:00.

as I said, a welcome change is regardless of which ever route they

:53:01.:53:11.

came from. But we have asked the UK Government to reconsider the policy

:53:12.:53:14.

in light of the evidence from ourselves and from other

:53:15.:53:19.

organisations. And I think that would be the most... Straight

:53:20.:53:26.

forward step to changing policy in terms of sort of how it comes about

:53:27.:53:33.

and what tactics people might use. It is not... Sort of necessarily for

:53:34.:53:45.

me to say, all I can say is that we hope that people act on our

:53:46.:53:54.

evidence. Can I come in? You mentioned the fact that on behalf of

:53:55.:53:57.

the people you say in CAB you would prefer this to be scrapped

:53:58.:54:03.

altogether? Yes. Just to make that clear for the record. You have made

:54:04.:54:08.

submissions that it should be scrapped. Yes. That is great thank

:54:09.:54:18.

you. Ruth Maguire. Thank you for being here and for all your evidence

:54:19.:54:22.

and your work. We know that the two child limit applies to child tax and

:54:23.:54:30.

universal credit. But other forms to support income like income support

:54:31.:54:35.

and Jobseeker's Allowance have been amended to prevent an amount being

:54:36.:54:40.

paid for a third child from April. Even housing benefit regulations

:54:41.:54:44.

have been changed to prevent the effect of the policy being offset.

:54:45.:54:51.

Is this something that the panel recognises and what impact do you

:54:52.:54:57.

see from cutting off such vital income streams? I was I was alluding

:54:58.:55:06.

to earlier, it is still I suppose knowing what the impact will be,

:55:07.:55:14.

because it is a picture and may change entitlement to other benefit.

:55:15.:55:21.

In terms of when changes like this tend to happen, sometimes the impact

:55:22.:55:29.

on the ground in citizens advice bureaus is quite subtle. What they

:55:30.:55:37.

tend to find is that an increasing amount of people struggling to pay

:55:38.:55:45.

for essentials and needing support from whatever social security

:55:46.:55:54.

support they can get. Seeing if we, an increased number of people who...

:55:55.:56:00.

Been seek food bank referrals over the past three or four years. So

:56:01.:56:07.

it's something that I think probably will sort of see the impact as it

:56:08.:56:13.

comes in. But might be in the form of people who are struggling and

:56:14.:56:21.

difficult to get... Get... Suitable social security entitlement to cover

:56:22.:56:26.

their sort of all of costs. I want to come in? Sorry this is still

:56:27.:56:35.

evolving in terms of our being able to collect evidence from our members

:56:36.:56:39.

on the impact. But we know that Women's Aid groups are having to try

:56:40.:56:47.

and cobble together destitution funds to help women who can't afford

:56:48.:56:54.

nappies or formula milk. These are because of the cumulative impact of

:56:55.:56:58.

the cuts that women are experiencing and their inability to manage

:56:59.:57:00.

day-to-day living. We will be continuing to do that with our

:57:01.:57:07.

members to be... As this develops, to be gathering evidence from them

:57:08.:57:11.

directly and case studies of their experiences. Emma, did you want to

:57:12.:57:18.

come in? The women's budget group has come to a determination that 86%

:57:19.:57:25.

of all of the cults made in the decade of austerity between 2010 and

:57:26.:57:30.

20 twenty will come from women's purses. That is a staggering figure

:57:31.:57:34.

and repeated in work done in the House of Commons library and other

:57:35.:57:39.

places also. Successive UN committees when they have been

:57:40.:57:43.

looking at the UK's performance again vs its international on

:57:44.:57:50.

national obligations have required the UK to look at the combined

:57:51.:57:57.

impact of all of these different policy changes on disabled people

:57:58.:58:02.

and black and minority ethnic people and women and children and so far

:58:03.:58:07.

those calls have not resulted in any action and I think we would join the

:58:08.:58:12.

Equality and Human Rights Commission which has repeatedly urged the UK

:58:13.:58:17.

Government do that also, because we simply don't know, we can pull

:58:18.:58:22.

together all our evidence and say that these things collectively will

:58:23.:58:27.

be having a detrimental impact we can see from indicators such as food

:58:28.:58:34.

bank use increasing that real people and real communities are being

:58:35.:58:39.

affected by the withdrawal of services and income, but the UK is

:58:40.:58:49.

not looking at the picture painted by the reforms and is instead

:58:50.:58:55.

increasing the severity of those. If we are at a point where women are

:58:56.:58:59.

having to come and be give opinion nappy for their children and mill

:59:00.:59:07.

tock feed -- mill tock feeds them, it -- milk to feed them it sounds

:59:08.:59:12.

cruel. Scottish Women's Aid in your evidence there is a case study which

:59:13.:59:18.

I think sets out starkly the impact, probably more over than that,

:59:19.:59:24.

it's... Reflects how lacking in a grounding of what people's lives are

:59:25.:59:29.

like would that be reflected across the client base that you work with?

:59:30.:59:37.

It is it's a very typical example of the case studies we gather in terms

:59:38.:59:47.

of women only being able to access largely low paid employment,

:59:48.:59:49.

temporary employment, juggling that with childcare and school holidays

:59:50.:59:57.

and other care of elderly parents, and because of women who have

:59:58.:00:02.

experienced domestic abuse, they have been prevented from working

:00:03.:00:07.

outside the home for educational opportunities limited. They're

:00:08.:00:13.

likely to be experiencing more inherent poverty and risk of

:00:14.:00:26.

financial poverty. Anybody else want to come in on that answer?

:00:27.:00:34.

I suppose the court of public opinion will be testing in two

:00:35.:00:41.

weeks' time and people now well past judgment on this policy amongst

:00:42.:00:46.

others and I have to say the geographical exclusion is for the

:00:47.:00:49.

whole of the UK to reject this policy. Can I come to the cost of it

:00:50.:00:54.

because it seems to me that we seem different figures. I think the

:00:55.:01:00.

Minister for social security spoke about a ?12 billion saving at the UK

:01:01.:01:06.

level, we've seen figures of ?1.5 billion saved per annum across the

:01:07.:01:10.

UK and ?85 million saved across Scotland if this policy is applied.

:01:11.:01:17.

Do you get a sense looking at things, do you get a sense of where

:01:18.:01:21.

those savings are going to be reapplied, we apply to help the

:01:22.:01:24.

poorest in society or do you think they will be reapplied for tax cuts

:01:25.:01:32.

to those who are better off? Is there an election going on? Where

:01:33.:01:42.

the UK Government chooses to spend its savings as a matter for the UK

:01:43.:01:48.

Government rather than citizens of Scotland. One thing that is worth

:01:49.:02:00.

pointing out is that, talking about welfare savings, it doesn't

:02:01.:02:05.

necessarily mean that the taxpayer is saved money in the long term,

:02:06.:02:11.

this impacts on the health service, on housing, on crisis support and

:02:12.:02:16.

local authorities where people are struggling to get by, facing

:02:17.:02:22.

constant stress and worry, so it's not necessarily that money would be

:02:23.:02:28.

entirely saved, it would go somewhere else and it's the

:02:29.:02:34.

Sheffield Hallam University report for this committee, they have

:02:35.:02:42.

highlighted that money lost to the economy in local areas, so it's more

:02:43.:02:48.

of a complex piece than merely making a saving that is saved to the

:02:49.:03:02.

public purse. Richard, do you want to come back in again? No, that's

:03:03.:03:08.

fine. As advocacy organisations I thought you may have a view on the

:03:09.:03:12.

distribution of resources in society. I've already asked Rob if

:03:13.:03:19.

the benefit of the committee and the evidence we've heard, would you

:03:20.:03:24.

prefer to seek this legislation scrapped completely? Yes. I will

:03:25.:03:32.

call the meeting to a close just now, thank you very much for your

:03:33.:03:35.

evidence and we will give a few minutes.

:03:36.:03:44.

I just want to welcome today, the written evidence. That was very

:03:45.:03:51.

helpful for the committee. Welcomed John Dickie, director of action

:03:52.:03:59.

group for Scotland and director of policy and practice. I will start

:04:00.:04:06.

off with a basic question picked up from the previous witnesses and one

:04:07.:04:10.

of the issues which they replied to, one of my questions was with regard

:04:11.:04:14.

to the legislation and have it will have a knock-on effect any other

:04:15.:04:20.

benefit, such as school meals or school clothing grants. My question

:04:21.:04:26.

to the witnesses is how will that affect in the role that you play in

:04:27.:04:31.

child poverty, how will that affect children already living in poverty

:04:32.:04:35.

and how can that policy be implemented in that respect, so I

:04:36.:04:42.

open it up to the witnesses. Starting off, initially it's a high

:04:43.:04:47.

level. Our analysis looked at effectively evaluating the policy on

:04:48.:04:53.

its own terms. We have talked a lot just using numbers to look if it is

:04:54.:05:00.

making its objectives. One is changing behaviour on the other a

:05:01.:05:04.

saving money. In terms of responding to that particular question, what

:05:05.:05:10.

impact will it have specifically it affects a quarter of a million

:05:11.:05:14.

people who are already in poverty today, pushing deeper into poverty,

:05:15.:05:18.

just over a quarter of a million who are ever so slightly, a quarter of a

:05:19.:05:24.

million children who are currently above the poverty line who will live

:05:25.:05:34.

below from a UK perspective. 600,000 children who are above the poverty

:05:35.:05:38.

line on will remain above the poverty line and will be worse off.

:05:39.:05:42.

That's looking at the children who are born and what was you that

:05:43.:05:45.

support but also their siblings as well because this is by default

:05:46.:05:49.

affects larger families. The knock-on impact on other benefits

:05:50.:05:55.

does exist. It is relative to other reforms that are happening at the

:05:56.:06:00.

same time, relatively slight. The complexity of putting all of these

:06:01.:06:07.

and looking at this, the combined impact of these welfare reforms

:06:08.:06:11.

together is what we have to do. That is what affects people, it's what

:06:12.:06:20.

affects the families. They're interest in the combined impact of

:06:21.:06:24.

this, the benefit camp that are coming in. Their ability to meet

:06:25.:06:32.

spending commitments. The focus has been on the overall impact of this

:06:33.:06:37.

particular policy on levels of child poverty. I can go into that in a bit

:06:38.:06:41.

more depth in terms of the knock-on effects. Less work in terms of

:06:42.:06:48.

working out for the risks are for the devolved benefits like school

:06:49.:06:51.

clothing grants or free school meals. We have had commitment from

:06:52.:06:56.

Scottish Government that it won't impact on council tax reduction. We

:06:57.:06:59.

have to make sure there are similar arrangements in place that just

:07:00.:07:04.

because you have a third child in the family and losing entitlement to

:07:05.:07:09.

UK child tax credits or universal credit that it is not having an

:07:10.:07:16.

impact on benefits. That has to be checked through. I wanted to explore

:07:17.:07:23.

a bit, we will open that up to questions. I remember the stigma

:07:24.:07:27.

attached to children getting free school meals, you had a different

:07:28.:07:31.

ticket from everyone else. You would need to fill in a form. Would it

:07:32.:07:38.

possibly... Talking about Scotland, as a UK wide policy, is that the

:07:39.:07:41.

kind of form it could possibly take their people would be going back to

:07:42.:07:45.

having a stigma for school grants or free school meals? I need to go back

:07:46.:07:51.

and look at that and more depth to see how we can ensure that in

:07:52.:07:57.

Scotland lots of entitlement for a third and subsequent children

:07:58.:08:02.

doesn't be to any administrative barriers to devolved benefits like

:08:03.:08:05.

free school meals or school clothing grants. There is good work going on

:08:06.:08:11.

in terms of removing the need for application and in Glasgow, they are

:08:12.:08:17.

looking at optimising the entitlement to school clothing

:08:18.:08:19.

grants and to free school meals using data that they already have

:08:20.:08:23.

about people's financial support and making sure that happens in a way

:08:24.:08:28.

that doesn't just feed through the loss of universal credit and child

:08:29.:08:32.

tax credits and that impact on free school meal entitlement. It's

:08:33.:08:35.

something we need to look at. Would you have any thoughts on that. It is

:08:36.:08:42.

a UK wide legislation, do you have any thoughts on that, would that be

:08:43.:08:46.

the effect it might have on people? Rather than the stigma, if you think

:08:47.:08:49.

about some of the specific interactions that this policy will

:08:50.:08:52.

have, which was your first question on the knock-on implications for

:08:53.:08:56.

other benefits. A couple come to mind. The first one is that the

:08:57.:09:02.

commitment to ensuring council tax support isn't affected by this

:09:03.:09:05.

reform is relatively straightforward in the context of the current method

:09:06.:09:12.

of assessing council tax support. Universal credit does get that and

:09:13.:09:16.

it may get more complex. We have modelled council tax in 40 councils

:09:17.:09:21.

and many have been implement it and there are some interesting drivers

:09:22.:09:26.

are no universal credit context, particularly with a high

:09:27.:09:30.

administrative costs of administering council tax support

:09:31.:09:34.

and will make it more difficult to meet it with universal credit. A

:09:35.:09:39.

couple of other potential short-term knock-on consequences but in the

:09:40.:09:42.

longer term impacts on the take-up of other benefits is relevant as

:09:43.:09:47.

well. In some respects it could actually increase the demand and

:09:48.:09:52.

requirement for some types of later down the line anti-poverty measures.

:09:53.:10:00.

Eligibility for free school meals. You mention school clothing grants

:10:01.:10:03.

and a couple of others, the pupil premium policy. . Depending on what

:10:04.:10:10.

the future eligibility criteria for that policy are, if children are

:10:11.:10:15.

worse off effectively at the outset, that it was some of these other

:10:16.:10:18.

later down the line costs for government are likely to increase.

:10:19.:10:22.

Bruce, you wanted to come in. In written evidence, it was from

:10:23.:10:33.

child poverty action group, you mention that the coalition

:10:34.:10:37.

government estimated in 2010 that as many as 350,000 children and 500,000

:10:38.:10:45.

working adults can be moved off the property by these changes, referring

:10:46.:10:50.

to universal creditinto production. By virtue of the changes to

:10:51.:10:54.

entitlement and increased take-up of benefits. This clearly hasn't been

:10:55.:10:57.

the case, could you elaborate on the difference that you see now between

:10:58.:11:04.

now and the 2010 estimate and what is actually happening. How much was

:11:05.:11:09.

the UK Government wrong in its estimations? The original modelling

:11:10.:11:15.

was that universal credit itself would reduce child poverty by

:11:16.:11:21.

350,000 across the UK by 2020. That was against the backdrop of a whole

:11:22.:11:27.

series of other cuts to financial supported families, cuts to child

:11:28.:11:31.

benefit, cuts to other financial support. In itself, on paper the

:11:32.:11:36.

model was that it would reduce child poverty. We have looked in terms of

:11:37.:11:43.

what the actual impact on child poverty would be in terms of

:11:44.:11:47.

universal credit and it's looking like it will be a million more

:11:48.:11:53.

children in poverty by 2020. So clearly a massive difference in

:11:54.:11:57.

terms of the impact of universal credit. Not just about the two child

:11:58.:12:00.

limit, about the wider cuts that have been made to universal credit.

:12:01.:12:06.

Changes to work allowances within universal credit, changes to the

:12:07.:12:11.

taper rate with universal credit as people increase their earnings. The

:12:12.:12:17.

whole series of cuts to the value of universal credit that is reducing

:12:18.:12:26.

its poverty fighting potential. Our key focus at the moment is to try to

:12:27.:12:30.

fix that and this has been ruled out by the UK Government but it can be

:12:31.:12:35.

fixed, you can invest in to ensure it has more of that poverty fighting

:12:36.:12:39.

potential that it had when it was originally designed. We will have

:12:40.:12:45.

more to say on how the original design work and how it would impact

:12:46.:12:49.

on levels of child poverty but what was in principle have had a poverty

:12:50.:12:57.

reducing impact in terms of the modelling that we've done, it's

:12:58.:13:04.

going to actually increase levels of poverty and the old BR has also

:13:05.:13:09.

acknowledged that overall the universal credit regime will be

:13:10.:13:14.

overall less generous than the system it's replacing. For those

:13:15.:13:20.

that those unaware, I was part of the team that developed universal

:13:21.:13:26.

credit as a policy concept. Initially, I think, and perhaps

:13:27.:13:29.

still, the complex behind simplifying the benefits system and

:13:30.:13:33.

that people are Ben more beneficial to be in work. It's sensible to

:13:34.:13:40.

think is universal credit is in two ways, the of changing the structure

:13:41.:13:43.

of the system and how that works and the second one is how much money we

:13:44.:13:47.

spend on the system both in terms of the Oettl product support and the

:13:48.:13:50.

levels of inner work support and toady taper off. From my

:13:51.:13:56.

perspective, I think reducing the levels of in work support to be less

:13:57.:14:00.

generous than they are under the current benefit system is a step

:14:01.:14:04.

backwards for a government that implemented universal credit of

:14:05.:14:13.

making work pay. Fiscal constraints aside, it's still a trade-off choice

:14:14.:14:16.

between other spending decisions elsewhere. I would also say that

:14:17.:14:23.

from my perspective, the policy concept behind universal credit of

:14:24.:14:26.

simplifying the benefit system and ensuring that people can clearly and

:14:27.:14:31.

conceptually see that they would always be better off in work and

:14:32.:14:33.

working more still stands. We do a lot of work on looking at

:14:34.:14:44.

the practical elements of implementing universal credit two

:14:45.:14:53.

and we see part of our role as taking the practical bodies and

:14:54.:14:59.

feeding them back into the policy process. Where there is a policy

:15:00.:15:07.

issue trying to iron those out. Do you want to come back? Thank you. I

:15:08.:15:18.

think I'm concerned by the evidence that we are hearing that once

:15:19.:15:24.

universal credit is rolled out the two child limit will result in

:15:25.:15:28.

another two thousand children being pushed into poverty. That is gravely

:15:29.:15:33.

concerning and the child poverty action group you say that 51,000

:15:34.:15:39.

families with Scotland with more than two children claimed tax

:15:40.:15:43.

credits and you make the point that 39% of children and families with

:15:44.:15:48.

more than three children live in poverty, compared to 26% with two

:15:49.:15:53.

children. What I feel and I think policy in practice you touch on this

:15:54.:16:01.

we are seeing a corruption of our needs-based system and that we are

:16:02.:16:08.

moving from the needs-based system on which the British welfare system

:16:09.:16:11.

was set up. We are saying, do you know what, that is just tough,

:16:12.:16:16.

because you don't meet these criteria, do you agree with that? Is

:16:17.:16:27.

there anything we can do to stop the rot that is setting in It is not

:16:28.:16:34.

just corrupting, it is breaking the link, the two child limit breaks the

:16:35.:16:40.

link between the the limit of support and the support available.

:16:41.:16:45.

That is one of the most invidious aspects of this policy, is that

:16:46.:16:55.

break. What concerns us is the mismatch between the apparent policy

:16:56.:17:00.

objective of the two child limit and the actual practicality of how it

:17:01.:17:05.

plays out. So the explanation given us to it fair introduce fairness

:17:06.:17:11.

between working families and those who aren't work and it will make

:17:12.:17:15.

parent ts think about whether they can aforked to bring up a child --

:17:16.:17:20.

whether they can afford to bring up a child. And the bulk of the people

:17:21.:17:28.

impacted, two thirds of the families who will be impacted are families

:17:29.:17:32.

who are working and two thirds are families who, where there are only

:17:33.:17:38.

three children, we are not talking about huge families. Two thirds of

:17:39.:17:42.

families affected being families who are in work. So it is hard to see

:17:43.:17:47.

how that's creating fairness between working and non-working families if

:17:48.:17:52.

any such unfairness exists at the moment and we would question that.

:17:53.:17:57.

The other assumption that somehow families can plan on the basis of

:17:58.:18:02.

financial security for the 18 years that it takes to bring up a child.

:18:03.:18:07.

Very few if any families are in that position and no family that I'm

:18:08.:18:10.

aware of can guarantee it is not going to be impacted by

:18:11.:18:17.

unemployment, by redundancy, by ill health or by widowhood or

:18:18.:18:20.

separation. These are all things that can happen over the course

:18:21.:18:27.

after child growing up and have a significant impact on family

:18:28.:18:30.

incomes. I'm not sure how families are meant to plan. It is not

:18:31.:18:38.

possible to plan for that and to have a social security system that

:18:39.:18:41.

fails to provide support on the basis of need when one of those...

:18:42.:18:49.

Source of insecurity hit a family, it seems to be a real... An

:18:50.:18:56.

undermining of what we mean by social security or what social

:18:57.:18:59.

security should be able to provide for families across in Scotland and

:19:00.:19:06.

across the UK. I'm sure the session will move on to ways forward, I

:19:07.:19:10.

wanted to answer the question in a way that got us thinking about that.

:19:11.:19:16.

Yes, it is a shift away from the needs-based, some of those

:19:17.:19:21.

needs-based principles, but it is worth thinking about how we assess

:19:22.:19:25.

and think about needs. Say that for two reasons, one the driver of how

:19:26.:19:30.

poverty is measured based on income means if you take money out of

:19:31.:19:37.

system, more people will be in poverty. There is a more

:19:38.:19:44.

sophisticated way of thinking about poverty. So we have done some work

:19:45.:19:49.

for a number of authorities again who to model the expected

:19:50.:19:54.

expenditure of different households based on different size levels,

:19:55.:19:59.

certain authorities have been used that to identify house holds that

:20:00.:20:06.

are coping and those that are in crisis and when you're trying to

:20:07.:20:10.

work with households you often have contact with those in crisis and

:20:11.:20:13.

they are the ones that are more likely to present. It would be

:20:14.:20:17.

interesting to see what level of intervention could happen with

:20:18.:20:20.

households that were, had gone from struggling to being at risk. So

:20:21.:20:26.

there is a potentially a concern and an opportunity to intervene. The way

:20:27.:20:29.

we go about that and the reason I wanted to mention it, with some of

:20:30.:20:35.

the powers that Scotland will have, thinking about new ways of

:20:36.:20:39.

developing a social security system that gets the right kind of support

:20:40.:20:42.

to the right people at the right time is something that is worthwhile

:20:43.:20:48.

putting a lot of energy into and is probably a step away from simple

:20:49.:20:55.

mitigation. Do you believe the cost of the policy will ultimately fall

:20:56.:21:02.

on children affected? I mean just we did a couple of bits of analysis f

:21:03.:21:09.

you look at where -- if you look at where sort of arguments the

:21:10.:21:13.

Governments have made for ring fencing certain aspects of social

:21:14.:21:16.

security, particularly for older people and those of working age, the

:21:17.:21:20.

driver has been older people don't have the ability to change their

:21:21.:21:23.

current circumstances, that is one of the drivers for one of the

:21:24.:21:28.

justifications for protection. I would apply that same argument to

:21:29.:21:32.

the children who are affected by this policy, both the babies born

:21:33.:21:37.

into families and their siblings of how much ability they have to

:21:38.:21:42.

influence that. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do anything about it.

:21:43.:21:47.

There are if the objective is to save money, you could reduce the,

:21:48.:21:54.

there are other policy alternatives. I think that's where our concerns

:21:55.:22:03.

stem from. You can't you know modelling the impact of the policy

:22:04.:22:08.

without the two-child limit and then with the two-child limit 200,000

:22:09.:22:12.

more children in poverty across the UK. And I home the evidence we have

:22:13.:22:18.

given about what the impact of growing up in poverty and in an

:22:19.:22:23.

income that is so far behind what is the norm in our society and what is

:22:24.:22:27.

needed to provide a decent start that, comes at a cost in terms of

:22:28.:22:32.

evidence we have presented to the develop in terms of education and

:22:33.:22:36.

health and well being, you can't drive children into poverty and

:22:37.:22:41.

increase levels of child poverty without significant impacts on

:22:42.:22:44.

children's well being and costs for all of us in society and as given in

:22:45.:22:53.

previous panels in terms of other public services. Do you want to come

:22:54.:23:02.

in? A question for Devon, you referred to this being a step

:23:03.:23:07.

backward against the background of considerations relating to the idea

:23:08.:23:11.

of being it should be I think pay more to be in work Nan than out of

:23:12.:23:18.

work. I'm not suggesting other considerations are not also

:23:19.:23:25.

important, but I think you mentioned in the written submission this, have

:23:26.:23:32.

you done calculations purely on that financial aspect to demonstrate the

:23:33.:23:37.

value or lack of value of this particular alteration in the tax

:23:38.:23:42.

credit system and is there a tipping point where even from a purely

:23:43.:23:46.

financial point of view you could show that it is worth it or not

:23:47.:23:59.

worth it. We have a minute's silence at 11 o'clock. It was announced

:24:00.:24:06.

earlier. You may start. I will stop. I will kick off with the response it

:24:07.:24:12.

won't take five minutes. But it is a good point. It is worthwhile

:24:13.:24:18.

raising, we have done, the modelling we do is impact assessment that

:24:19.:24:22.

others have mentioned and the Parliament has commissioned. The

:24:23.:24:26.

driver behind policy and practice's approach as well as modelling all

:24:27.:24:33.

the reforms including thing like mitigating measures like increases

:24:34.:24:36.

in the national minimum wage and the personal tax allowance in the

:24:37.:24:43.

context of this and universal credit, is also the ability to

:24:44.:24:52.

effectively do this at the individual house hold level and you

:24:53.:25:02.

look at data sets. Our work has been working with local authorities own

:25:03.:25:09.

data and working with that to track the impact that these policies are

:25:10.:25:15.

having on individual households and because you're tracking individual

:25:16.:25:18.

households, you can see causation between one policy and the next. So

:25:19.:25:22.

we have done this and I think this is relevant to Scotland which is why

:25:23.:25:27.

I bring it up. We have done it in London and pulled together data

:25:28.:25:36.

across 14 years, over two years, that is 450,000 low income

:25:37.:25:39.

households with individual data points each month. Some of the

:25:40.:25:46.

questions, more analysis tends to lead to more questions, but some of

:25:47.:25:51.

the things that's pointed us towards us, so we were asked to look at the

:25:52.:25:57.

cost of Kempry accommodation -- temporary accommodation when

:25:58.:26:04.

affected by the benefit cap and we found 80% of households had been in

:26:05.:26:09.

temporary accomodation for more than 12 months. Those 20% we now have to

:26:10.:26:16.

ask the question of are they affected by the benefit cap because

:26:17.:26:22.

they're in temporary accommodation and the costs are higher. Or that

:26:23.:26:28.

drove them to leanest leave a tenancy and these are questions we

:26:29.:26:32.

can now answer. The other way in which some of the work can happen is

:26:33.:26:41.

in targeting support from reading other submissions, discretionary

:26:42.:26:44.

mitigation is one route forward for families affected by this. There are

:26:45.:26:49.

some serious challenges in terms of cost of administration and in terms

:26:50.:26:55.

of getting support to family that are affected that is a challenge

:26:56.:27:00.

without being able to pin point individual households. This is for

:27:01.:27:04.

policy and practice this is a very powerful and important way forward

:27:05.:27:09.

to think about how we address these broader questions of social

:27:10.:27:12.

security, so the ability to model policy through to 2020 and the crux

:27:13.:27:16.

of question is have we done the modelling? Yes taking into account

:27:17.:27:22.

the reforms together and modelling multiple scenarios so there is a

:27:23.:27:31.

pre-Brexit and post-Brexit scenario, looking at difference in increases

:27:32.:27:34.

in wages and rent levels. I will pause there. I think we are close to

:27:35.:27:36.

11. One last point in the last 20

:27:37.:27:46.

seconds I think the other reason #i9d is relevant to mention is I

:27:47.:27:50.

think data and nfgss has been very power -- information has been

:27:51.:27:53.

powerful in influencing Westminster and when I look at the local

:27:54.:27:57.

authorities success they have had they have come with local

:27:58.:28:00.

authorities that know how to use and wield the power of information.

:28:01.:28:34.

I think we all benefitted from that minute's silence and our private

:28:35.:28:43.

thoughts. Could I continue obviously the discussion? Gordon Lyndhurst did

:28:44.:28:50.

you want to come back in? Briefly. In relation to this specific issue

:28:51.:28:58.

of the child tax credit cap, it may be there has not been the time or

:28:59.:29:03.

opportunity to do these sorts of calculations or broad considerations

:29:04.:29:06.

yet, will you be undertaking these? We have done this for a number of

:29:07.:29:11.

individual local authorities. So for example for Croydon their ability

:29:12.:29:15.

now to pin point households with two children that could be affected. Now

:29:16.:29:24.

exists. The next step is to tie that into information around life, births

:29:25.:29:28.

and other considerations around things like that. That is the way in

:29:29.:29:33.

which this kind of information, the use of this kind of information

:29:34.:29:38.

could be applied, similarly if it around mitigation where a third

:29:39.:29:44.

child was born and notified, notified the relevant authorities,

:29:45.:29:48.

you could then target mitigation to the household.

:29:49.:29:59.

I find what you said very interesting, so I will switch my

:30:00.:30:09.

questions. Of course, there was a point where we didn't have child tax

:30:10.:30:13.

credit, the Labour government introduced it, something I would

:30:14.:30:16.

wish to continue to defend. I believe in it and I believe it has

:30:17.:30:19.

reduced poverty across Britain but the context we live in now, as you

:30:20.:30:24.

previously mentioned, a financial crash where people lost their jobs,

:30:25.:30:30.

more people fell into poverty and Brexit has to be a factor in all of

:30:31.:30:34.

this and more families will be in poverty. It's hard to make

:30:35.:30:42.

assumptions because the object of the policy is to get people to think

:30:43.:30:45.

about planning their families if the state is paying. They may ignore

:30:46.:30:51.

that and the need to do it anyway to have more children even if it is not

:30:52.:30:56.

supported by the state. What you are telling the committee about trying

:30:57.:31:00.

to identify those families who are struggling against those families

:31:01.:31:07.

who are coping is quite important evidence. I recognise what you're

:31:08.:31:10.

seeing is what we've listen to comedy with the role of local

:31:11.:31:14.

authorities, crucial work on tackling poverty, they can only do

:31:15.:31:20.

that if there is an increase in the resources to do that. Is it your

:31:21.:31:25.

view that it should be addressed in terms of government policy. If the

:31:26.:31:29.

government of the day are not going to reverse the policy itself, only

:31:30.:31:34.

supporting two children with some exceptions, are you suggesting that

:31:35.:31:39.

this should be an argument made to the government, the UK Government,

:31:40.:31:43.

that there should be some other way of recognising that the policy might

:31:44.:31:49.

have quite a dramatic effect years down the line and there should be

:31:50.:31:55.

some way of recognising how the policy can be adjusted? We have to

:31:56.:32:00.

think about this policy, that point in two ways. The first, how do we

:32:01.:32:06.

use information and analysis around this is to influence the poverty

:32:07.:32:13.

level and how might we use it, once the strategic policy direction has

:32:14.:32:19.

been determined, to make better off initial choices. Our work with local

:32:20.:32:23.

authorities, local policy and strategy but also local operational

:32:24.:32:27.

decisions. At a broader level, you can ask some quite important

:32:28.:32:32.

questions about this particular policy. For example, is the cause

:32:33.:32:38.

and impact on fertility rates evident? You can easily compare the

:32:39.:32:47.

likelihood... Changes in fertility rates between two different

:32:48.:32:55.

families, somebody who was affected by this change and somebody who

:32:56.:32:59.

wasn't. These questions can I be answered. There are some relevant

:33:00.:33:05.

points made in the first session about the impact assessments and how

:33:06.:33:09.

and detailed that be but fundamentally I think it's a

:33:10.:33:15.

relevant responsibility for everyone concerned about these choices.

:33:16.:33:21.

Equally at an operational level as well, perhaps that's not the place

:33:22.:33:27.

for this committee but I do think, I agree with the point made that the

:33:28.:33:31.

local authorities do a lot of important work on getting the right

:33:32.:33:36.

kind of support to particular the most vulnerable families and the

:33:37.:33:38.

ways in which they use information to show whether or not their

:33:39.:33:43.

interventions are effective or not is very relevant and useful to

:33:44.:33:47.

themselves and their future direction and other local

:33:48.:33:53.

authorities and best practice. I think there's a real role for local

:33:54.:33:58.

authorities in terms of this change to Social Security and this cut but

:33:59.:34:03.

also others in terms of identifying the households affected and doing

:34:04.:34:06.

all they can within their powers to support those families. I'm a bit

:34:07.:34:11.

concerned we are moving away from the fundamental problem here, which

:34:12.:34:15.

is the two child limit. We have a range of evidence from policy and

:34:16.:34:20.

practice, a quarter of a million more children in poverty by the end

:34:21.:34:25.

of the decade, the analysis, 200,000 more children into poverty by the

:34:26.:34:32.

end of the decade. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, 200,000 more

:34:33.:34:35.

children in poverty as direct result of the two child limit. It has to be

:34:36.:34:40.

on repealing the two child limit, the focus and do all we can to

:34:41.:34:43.

ensure the next UK Government does that. I suppose that's a key point

:34:44.:34:52.

and in terms of the other dynamic effects in terms of the suggestions

:34:53.:34:56.

as to why this policy is there, to encourage parents to plan more, to

:34:57.:35:03.

encourage them to have fewer children. The first panel, evidence

:35:04.:35:08.

from the US, very small if any effect on fertility and the number

:35:09.:35:13.

of children low income families are having. UK Government's on impact

:35:14.:35:19.

assessment doesn't attempt to incorporate any such effect, saying

:35:20.:35:22.

they are uncertain. The policies coming from their and you'd think

:35:23.:35:28.

they would justify find the evidence this would have an impact that it's

:35:29.:35:33.

meant to have, there is no evidence presented that it will have the

:35:34.:35:36.

impact that it's supposed to have but we have a whole lot of evidence

:35:37.:35:39.

that it will have an impact on levels of child poverty and somebody

:35:40.:35:45.

earlier suggested the ISS suggests there is some evidence that Fred

:35:46.:35:51.

fertility decisions can be affected by benefit changes and quoting

:35:52.:35:55.

timing effect on the impact of the total number of children, so it is

:35:56.:36:00.

very limited evidence it will have that impact. The other point I would

:36:01.:36:07.

make is that it's encouraging families, those working families,

:36:08.:36:10.

the family is out of work, whoever they are, to have fewer children. Is

:36:11.:36:16.

that the policy intent we want in an ageing population. Are we really

:36:17.:36:18.

saying that working families should be having fewer children? I just

:36:19.:36:23.

want to get back to the fundamentals of this policy and why we have to be

:36:24.:36:33.

focusing on repealing it. Can I just say, it's our job to interrogate all

:36:34.:36:37.

the evidence before us and I'm just interested to hear. At the moment I

:36:38.:36:43.

don't see that the current government seem convinced, the

:36:44.:36:48.

debate we had in Parliament was embarrassing for the current

:36:49.:36:50.

government, but it doesn't seem to have resulted in a policy change, so

:36:51.:36:56.

I'm just interrogating the idea that if we feel and who knows what will

:36:57.:37:00.

happen on June the 8th, we have to come up with something, we have two

:37:01.:37:06.

continue. I do believe we are heading for something much bigger, I

:37:07.:37:10.

do believe there will be on impact of Brexit on the policy and it would

:37:11.:37:15.

be quite useful to get your evidence on that that will be an added

:37:16.:37:19.

dimension. We are only months down the line of the implications of

:37:20.:37:24.

Brexit and I presume that there will be more families in poverty as a

:37:25.:37:27.

result of it. Would that be your view? Certainly the modelling that

:37:28.:37:34.

was done for us factors in the employment rates, the tax and

:37:35.:37:40.

benefit modelling based on what we know about the cost of living and

:37:41.:37:46.

employment rates, so I think there is substantial evidence out there

:37:47.:37:49.

that the cost of living is likely to increase and we are already seeing

:37:50.:37:58.

that happening. If we see the family benefits being frozen and reduced

:37:59.:38:00.

and lots of different ways, clearly that will have an impact in itself

:38:01.:38:04.

in terms of the levels of family poverty. I take the point, it's

:38:05.:38:11.

important we look at what we can do pragmatically as well. I was taking

:38:12.:38:19.

it down slightly geeky path of data driven analysis. The main point

:38:20.:38:26.

around that fundamentally is how you change policy in Westminster and

:38:27.:38:33.

also how you deliver mitigation operationally, they can be heavily

:38:34.:38:38.

influenced by how you build this information. A lot of it sits within

:38:39.:38:42.

the local authorities in Scotland, we have done a lot of work on North

:38:43.:38:49.

Ayrshire and it is no mean feat to pull some of this information

:38:50.:38:55.

together with the power Scotland will have with the Social Security

:38:56.:38:59.

Bill, how you think about how you implement those in the broader

:39:00.:39:03.

scheme of what's happening to the Social Security system, is what well

:39:04.:39:06.

thinking about how you use that information to do that and to

:39:07.:39:09.

achieve your objectives. For me, it's not quite clear to me whether

:39:10.:39:15.

or not to influence Westminster and have this national bill repealed or

:39:16.:39:20.

whether it's to think about how Scotland can mitigate the impact. In

:39:21.:39:24.

either case, how you use the data is slightly different but still

:39:25.:39:33.

relevant. Thank you for your evidence. In the policy and practice

:39:34.:39:41.

paper, you stated that over a million children will be hit by the

:39:42.:39:45.

policy by the end of this Parliament. We will take that in the

:39:46.:39:50.

coming years. 2.1 million families at risk of being affected, should

:39:51.:39:56.

they have another child. As well as the impact on both have on the

:39:57.:39:59.

well-being of the individuals involved and the well-being of our

:40:00.:40:04.

society, do any of the panel members for a see any long-term costs of

:40:05.:40:09.

this two child limit on the economy specifically? Critically given

:40:10.:40:13.

forecasts of hundreds of thousands of more children being pushed into

:40:14.:40:18.

poverty as a result and given that we know the costs of poverty are

:40:19.:40:22.

significant and children who grow up in poverty have lower productivity

:40:23.:40:26.

as adults and have a higher risk of falling into unemployment. Work I

:40:27.:40:36.

have done on outcome based governments looks at the cost of

:40:37.:40:40.

policies, the benefits of policies on the costs of policies in three

:40:41.:40:45.

main ways. Fiscal, economic and social. The analysis we did in that

:40:46.:40:49.

paper looked specifically at the fiscal because within its own terms,

:40:50.:40:53.

does it save money? It was the question we were looking to ask, we

:40:54.:40:58.

identified a number of fiscal costs that would come into effect offset

:40:59.:41:01.

that. What we didn't look up alongside it, which is why it is a

:41:02.:41:05.

very good question, we didn't model the economic and social

:41:06.:41:08.

implications. I think it's relatively clear to me through

:41:09.:41:15.

common-sense that families, children moving into poverty, the children

:41:16.:41:19.

that are already in poverty and the family is already struggling with

:41:20.:41:23.

meeting their obligations around rent and other things, that will

:41:24.:41:27.

have long consequences for other services but on the well-being of

:41:28.:41:30.

children and those families and it's very difficult to say exactly what

:41:31.:41:34.

that will be. But net it's is unlikely to be very positive. It is

:41:35.:41:38.

likely to have a negative impact on their ability to pay attention in

:41:39.:41:42.

school, the evidence points towards all of that. From an economic

:41:43.:41:48.

perspective, if they're not doing as well in school, there are concerns

:41:49.:41:52.

and this policy will likely have long-term fiscal and social

:41:53.:41:55.

implications well into the future and it's a nod towards not fully

:41:56.:42:02.

costed but quite concerning scenarios as to what happens to the

:42:03.:42:05.

children growing up in those families. At the same time, there

:42:06.:42:10.

was a point earlier to say that net spending on social security, the IFS

:42:11.:42:19.

did this, it is still higher than it was before the introduction of tax

:42:20.:42:27.

credits. I think there's a driver here from the current government and

:42:28.:42:35.

previous government to say he is with the benefit system is too

:42:36.:42:38.

generous and it on making calls as to who and who should not get the

:42:39.:42:43.

support. I think they are valid questions for politicians, whether

:42:44.:42:46.

or not they are being done in the right we can only really be answered

:42:47.:42:50.

against the policy's on objectives, which is why we have looked at this

:42:51.:42:54.

policy in the way we have. If you try to influence Westminster to see

:42:55.:42:58.

you wanted to achieve, the only other point while sub at the

:42:59.:43:01.

microphone is to say that, in the context of behaviour change, as well

:43:02.:43:07.

as the evidence that said Will it or will is not affect policy, it's

:43:08.:43:10.

important not to forget how much effort has gone into making people

:43:11.:43:14.

aware of what has gone into this policy to influence their behaviour.

:43:15.:43:20.

A lot of what has gone into this -- a lot of work has gone into this, so

:43:21.:43:27.

this work is entirely possible. I don't think, if you think about nine

:43:28.:43:30.

months before this policy introduced how many families were aware of it,

:43:31.:43:37.

next to none and if that's a policy objective, how much effort did you

:43:38.:43:42.

put towards achieving it is valid question. These are the kinds of

:43:43.:43:48.

questions that can be powerful. Do you want to reply to that? By giving

:43:49.:43:53.

you an extra five minutes. In terms of the cost is policy we don't have

:43:54.:43:57.

anything specific on what the costs of the specific policy are. We know

:43:58.:44:03.

that the overall loss to Scottish households of cuts to the value of

:44:04.:44:07.

Social Security post 2015 cats is over ?1 billion, that's money that

:44:08.:44:17.

family's pockets and communities across Scotland. That's money not

:44:18.:44:21.

being spent on local businesses and local shops. There is a knock-on

:44:22.:44:25.

impact, not just for the families themselves but for the economy. In

:44:26.:44:29.

terms of the cost to child poverty, work done their modelling the actual

:44:30.:44:34.

costs of child poverty, ?29 billion per year in the UK, the cost of both

:44:35.:44:39.

picking up the pieces in terms of the additional pressures on

:44:40.:44:43.

education, social services, health and the rest of it as well as the

:44:44.:44:47.

lost income as a result of having a generation of children who are less

:44:48.:44:52.

likely to be in work and less likely to be earning decent wages. So there

:44:53.:44:57.

are big costs to tolerate a situation of pushing for even more

:44:58.:44:58.

children into poverty. Adam Tompkins. Given what you said

:44:59.:45:11.

about the modelling that has been done about the number of children

:45:12.:45:15.

pushed into poverty as a result of this, I understand the force of the

:45:16.:45:19.

argument about trying to tackle this at source and it is UK and not

:45:20.:45:23.

Scottish policy, we have a child poverty bill in front of us in this

:45:24.:45:28.

Parliament, this committee's reported on it already, and will

:45:29.:45:34.

deliberate on it next week in the chamber, is there anything specific

:45:35.:45:39.

in the child poverty bill that we should be thinking about

:45:40.:45:45.

strengthening or changing or adding to the bill, with this particular

:45:46.:45:51.

policy in mind? You got that in at the end. There is nothing to do with

:45:52.:45:55.

what we are talking about. I think what you're trying to say, you

:45:56.:46:00.

managed to get... Three words I think. What you're saying to Mr

:46:01.:46:07.

Dicky is is there anything from this child poverty, this two child clause

:46:08.:46:11.

which would be affecting the child poverty bill, is that correct? I

:46:12.:46:14.

think the way I expressed the question was clear than the way you

:46:15.:46:20.

did. We may argue that point. I think Mr Dicky know what is I'm

:46:21.:46:24.

saying. John do you want to come back on that? It is the extension of

:46:25.:46:31.

the mitigation question. The figures thing, again I would say the policy

:46:32.:46:38.

affects children across the UK. Our purpose is to end child poverty

:46:39.:46:43.

across the UK. This policy is unacceptable whether you're a family

:46:44.:46:46.

living in Liverpool, Carlisle or Edinburgh and we will continue to

:46:47.:46:51.

focus in terms of our work and picking up on Mr Tompkins points

:46:52.:46:59.

challenging this legally, we believe the policy is unlawful and our legal

:47:00.:47:06.

officer in London is exploring how we bring a judicial review and

:47:07.:47:10.

challenge the policy and working with families to challenge the

:47:11.:47:14.

policy in the courts. We will won't to do that. That is where our focus

:47:15.:47:21.

is at the moment. We given a couple of extra minutes you're said you're

:47:22.:47:27.

challenging it, I take it you would like to scrap the policy. Would you

:47:28.:47:31.

have any thoughts on that particular one? From where I'm sitting, if

:47:32.:47:40.

you're a low paid and you're a woman and got more than two children, if

:47:41.:47:44.

your well off, you're not affected by this. I see anomalies within the

:47:45.:47:51.

policy. I don't want the put you on the spot. An interesting point we

:47:52.:47:57.

haven't touched on is the idea is the policy is likely to be popular

:47:58.:48:04.

with the electorate. Suggests there is something in it that people like

:48:05.:48:10.

and that is worth investigating. For me, taking the academic response is

:48:11.:48:16.

to look at whether or not the policy meeting the objectives in its own

:48:17.:48:20.

terms, I think it probably isn't and there is case to ask the Government

:48:21.:48:26.

to reassess. Very diplomatically put. I will bring this meeting to an

:48:27.:48:33.

end and we will move into private session. Thank you very much.

:48:34.:49:08.

A Huppe hundred years ago when women were battling for the vote this

:49:09.:49:20.

place was on the front line. Suffragettes has been fighting to

:49:21.:49:25.

win the vote. One group decided to take direct action - the women's

:49:26.:49:29.

social and political

:49:30.:49:31.

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