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Agenda item two, tax credits. We have two panel witnesses here. I | :00:32. | :00:42. | |
would like to thank everyone for the submissions sent in. They were very | :00:43. | :00:48. | |
thorough, and thank you very much. We also received a letter which had | :00:49. | :00:53. | |
been copied into us, mentioned by Eric. Thank you very much for that. | :00:54. | :00:59. | |
The first panel who have given evidence today are the policy | :01:00. | :01:04. | |
officer for citizens advice Scotland, executive director in | :01:05. | :01:08. | |
gender, and policy worker Scottish women's aid. I will open the | :01:09. | :01:15. | |
discussion up by asking the first question. I know from the | :01:16. | :01:18. | |
submissions, and I'm sure other members will ask further questions, | :01:19. | :01:23. | |
that the child tax credit is an area which basically fills your time. | :01:24. | :01:28. | |
People ask most questions about child tax credits when they are | :01:29. | :01:32. | |
seeking advice. Can I therefore ask, with an introduction of the cap, if | :01:33. | :01:38. | |
you have seen an increase in people enquiring, and also how you perceive | :01:39. | :01:44. | |
this legislation which is going forwards will affect your clients? | :01:45. | :01:55. | |
In terms of child tax credits is one of the most common things that | :01:56. | :02:02. | |
people will seek advice on. Around 13,300 cases in the last year. Since | :02:03. | :02:09. | |
the introduction, because it has only been six weeks, and because it | :02:10. | :02:17. | |
is only affecting children who were born after the 6th of April, there | :02:18. | :02:22. | |
has not been a huge spike. What we would expect to see is a gradual | :02:23. | :02:29. | |
increase over time, as more third children are born and people will | :02:30. | :02:39. | |
come in for advice about that. Thank you. Our concern is for women | :02:40. | :02:46. | |
experiencing domestic abuse, and the importance of Social Security as a | :02:47. | :02:49. | |
safety net for women when they leave an abusive partner. The evidence we | :02:50. | :02:58. | |
have submitted highlights the impact of the cuts to social security on | :02:59. | :03:02. | |
women, particularly low in parents, the majority of whom are women. We | :03:03. | :03:11. | |
see the two child limit is going to further impoverished women, which | :03:12. | :03:15. | |
then limits of their capacity for action, their ability to make | :03:16. | :03:20. | |
choices, their ability to leave an abusive partner. I think for women, | :03:21. | :03:25. | |
the two child limit, if they are having a third child, and I think | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
the case study we submitted from the woman currently receiving support | :03:31. | :03:34. | |
from one of our organisations, where she is working part-time as a | :03:35. | :03:39. | |
cleaner on very insecure contract, currently pregnant, has ill health | :03:40. | :03:45. | |
as a result of domestic abuse she has experienced, it is a typical | :03:46. | :03:48. | |
example of the women that women's aid works with, and will really | :03:49. | :03:54. | |
affect women in that situation, in terms of can they make that move to | :03:55. | :03:59. | |
leave an abusive partner or not, and they will have to weigh that up | :04:00. | :04:03. | |
really carefully. It also reinforces the message is that women get from | :04:04. | :04:08. | |
an abusive partner, that they are not of equal value, that they will | :04:09. | :04:12. | |
not be able to manage on their own, that the children will suffer as a | :04:13. | :04:18. | |
result of them leaving that partner. We don't have the service users, as | :04:19. | :04:24. | |
we are a policy and advocacy organisation but along with a range | :04:25. | :04:28. | |
of women's organisations, we have been doing work to test ideas around | :04:29. | :04:32. | |
the proposed Social Security changes and the use of new powers in | :04:33. | :04:38. | |
Scotland. Women are deeply concerned by the introduction of the two child | :04:39. | :04:43. | |
limit, extremely horrified by the notion of the rape clause and other | :04:44. | :04:49. | |
exemptions, but also just have a strong claws -- a strong sense that | :04:50. | :04:53. | |
this is a signal from the UK Government that women who are living | :04:54. | :04:57. | |
with poverty should not be having more than two children, that the | :04:58. | :05:02. | |
same choices about how to plan their lives and families are therefore not | :05:03. | :05:05. | |
open in the same way and not supported by UK Government, which is | :05:06. | :05:11. | |
a profoundly stigmatising message to send through the Social Security | :05:12. | :05:20. | |
system. Just a follow-up, obviously child tax credits top up, so in your | :05:21. | :05:24. | |
opinion, if you are going to have three children and you are having to | :05:25. | :05:28. | |
produce this letter, if you are going forward for any other type of | :05:29. | :05:31. | |
benefit, would you perceive that people have to produce a letter as | :05:32. | :05:36. | |
well? How will it have a knock-on effect, if most people are working, | :05:37. | :05:41. | |
working families are not on benefits, will it have a knock-on | :05:42. | :05:45. | |
effect for any other aspect of welfare assistance for these women? | :05:46. | :05:50. | |
That is a good question and it is something around which we are still | :05:51. | :05:57. | |
unclear. The letter that Rape Crisis Scotland and we sent to Damian | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
Hines, UK Minister for employment, asked ten broad questions about why | :06:03. | :06:08. | |
-- about the way the information will be gathered, and stored, and | :06:09. | :06:14. | |
how it will be signified in communications that may need to be | :06:15. | :06:18. | |
shown to other agencies. There has been some concern among England | :06:19. | :06:23. | |
-based organisations that when parents are making applications for | :06:24. | :06:27. | |
free school meals, they will be required to show a letter that may | :06:28. | :06:31. | |
be coded in such a way that makes it clear that a child has been | :06:32. | :06:39. | |
conceived as a result of rape. We are desperately concerned about the | :06:40. | :06:42. | |
potential breach to privacy and dignity of the child, and of the | :06:43. | :06:47. | |
mother that that would entail. But the implementation of the rape | :06:48. | :06:51. | |
clause has been extremely open ache, and so the reason we have written to | :06:52. | :06:57. | |
the Minister is to seek urgent clarification on a range of | :06:58. | :07:00. | |
questions that women are certainly posing to us. I do not know if Joe | :07:01. | :07:07. | |
has... The letter spells out a lot of our concerns about how that | :07:08. | :07:12. | |
information will be used. If women were to choose to complete a form, | :07:13. | :07:18. | |
which is questionable. And also the lack of privacy. As Emma said, if | :07:19. | :07:24. | |
you are applying for a school clothing grant and you have to | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
provide proof of income, there are only a couple of reasons why you | :07:30. | :07:32. | |
would be receiving tax credits for three children. And so how will that | :07:33. | :07:39. | |
information be protected? I think that is one of the key questions we | :07:40. | :07:44. | |
have. Would you like to come in on that? Losing entitlement to tax | :07:45. | :07:52. | |
credits will result in a loss of income. We have seen from previous | :07:53. | :08:03. | |
changes in 2012, issues around tax credits being stopped, how much of | :08:04. | :08:08. | |
an impact tax credits has on family income. People can be driven further | :08:09. | :08:20. | |
into hardship. In terms of the technical interplay between the | :08:21. | :08:27. | |
benefits, it may have an effect on people's entitlement to other | :08:28. | :08:37. | |
benefits. We would need to go through particular cases to see if | :08:38. | :08:44. | |
there was a change of entitlement. But yes, I think it is something | :08:45. | :08:49. | |
that may have an impact on the wider things. Allison Johnson, you wanted | :08:50. | :08:58. | |
to come in. Thank you, convener. Thank you, panel, particularly for | :08:59. | :09:02. | |
some informative written submissions. I note from the | :09:03. | :09:05. | |
submissions that they will be a particular impact that the two child | :09:06. | :09:10. | |
limit on religious communities, on loan parents, the majority of whom | :09:11. | :09:14. | |
are women, and black and minority ethnic communities. I am concerned | :09:15. | :09:19. | |
about the evidence base for the policy. It very much seems to come | :09:20. | :09:24. | |
from a view that those who claim child tax credits should, as you | :09:25. | :09:28. | |
said, have to be subject to the same financial decisions as those who | :09:29. | :09:31. | |
cannot claim. But as has already been noted, most people claiming tax | :09:32. | :09:38. | |
credits are working, 69%, and thereafter macro parents in the | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
home, 64%. So do you think there are any weaknesses in the way this | :09:44. | :09:50. | |
policy has been justified? Yes. I think you have put your finger on a | :09:51. | :09:54. | |
number of weaknesses in the development of the policy. I think | :09:55. | :10:01. | |
our analysis of the statements that the UK Government has made | :10:02. | :10:05. | |
throughout the development of the two child limit, but then the | :10:06. | :10:10. | |
exemptions, has been that there has been very little clarity about the | :10:11. | :10:15. | |
underlying thinking behind the policy, about the evidence base for | :10:16. | :10:18. | |
the policy, and certainly a failure to impact assessment policy. And the | :10:19. | :10:26. | |
UK Government is required, as all public bodies are, to undertake a | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
quality impact assessment. The equality and Human Rights Commission | :10:32. | :10:34. | |
has also written to Damian Hines to say that they do not feel that this | :10:35. | :10:40. | |
has happened. And therefore, the impact on those communities that you | :10:41. | :10:44. | |
innumerate, women, black and minority ethnic people, people from | :10:45. | :10:47. | |
religious communities, has not been captured. But more fundamentally, | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
there is not an evidence base that has been shown to the public to | :10:53. | :10:58. | |
explain why the UK Government would think this would incentivise | :10:59. | :11:01. | |
families to behave in a different way. There is one very brief | :11:02. | :11:08. | |
reference to some work that the IFS has done in the impact assessment | :11:09. | :11:14. | |
published on the entirety of the welfare reform and work act, and | :11:15. | :11:18. | |
that does not amount to a convincing case to suggest that reducing tax | :11:19. | :11:23. | |
credits will encourage families to make different choices about the | :11:24. | :11:27. | |
number of children they have. I think common sense would tell us | :11:28. | :11:31. | |
that if you can claim child tax credits up until the age of your | :11:32. | :11:35. | |
child being 20, that people do not have a crystal ball to see into the | :11:36. | :11:41. | |
future, and so bereavement, illness, disability, family breakdown, | :11:42. | :11:46. | |
blending your family with that of another person, all of these things | :11:47. | :11:51. | |
are not predicted by people but we know that they happen to millions of | :11:52. | :11:57. | |
families across the UK. So to compound the weakness of the | :11:58. | :11:59. | |
argument for doing it in the first place, comes the additional | :12:00. | :12:05. | |
indignity that the needs of communities which are protected by | :12:06. | :12:09. | |
law, including women, have just not been considered adequately in the | :12:10. | :12:13. | |
development of this policy. Would anyone else like to comment? Yes, I | :12:14. | :12:19. | |
think there are a range of situations where people who are not | :12:20. | :12:26. | |
claiming tax credits at the time their child is born will | :12:27. | :12:29. | |
subsequently need to claim, if a family breaks up, if people fall | :12:30. | :12:34. | |
ill, if someone is made redundant, for instance. So it is not | :12:35. | :12:38. | |
necessarily the case that at the time the child was planned, | :12:39. | :12:46. | |
conceived or born that people would realise or predict that they would | :12:47. | :12:49. | |
need tax credits at some point in the next few years. You mentioned | :12:50. | :12:58. | |
there was a particular impact on loan parents. Lone parents who would | :12:59. | :13:06. | |
have three or more children, who would be affected by other changes | :13:07. | :13:10. | |
to the social security system, from the official figures published. We | :13:11. | :13:16. | |
know that since the reduction in the benefit cap, that 57% of households | :13:17. | :13:21. | |
affected in London are lone parents with three or more children. So | :13:22. | :13:28. | |
there is a concern that there will be a double whammy between the | :13:29. | :13:33. | |
benefit cap, between the Ben -- changes to the credit system, and | :13:34. | :13:37. | |
other social security changes, such as the changes to employment support | :13:38. | :13:41. | |
allowance and the reduction, the removal of the family element in tax | :13:42. | :13:45. | |
credits. That will have quite a significant squeeze on family income | :13:46. | :13:50. | |
is for people with three or more children. I think also with women we | :13:51. | :13:59. | |
are working with and supporting, there is an assumption that the two | :14:00. | :14:12. | |
child limit assumes equal control. And for many women who are | :14:13. | :14:16. | |
experiencing domestic abuse, sexual violence and rape as a component of | :14:17. | :14:21. | |
that domestic abuse is really common. So women don't have control | :14:22. | :14:30. | |
over their reproductive rights. Did you want to come back in, Alison? | :14:31. | :14:35. | |
You have spoken about rights quite a lot in your responses. I would like | :14:36. | :14:41. | |
to understand your thoughts regarding the impact of the two | :14:42. | :14:44. | |
child limit and the rape laws on the rights of the child and the rights | :14:45. | :14:49. | |
of the mother. It is fair to say there has been some disagreement | :14:50. | :14:52. | |
even in the chamber here over what the claimant has to do to prove | :14:53. | :14:58. | |
nonconsensual conception. And the Conservative leader actually said, | :14:59. | :15:02. | |
quoting from the report, the woman writes her name and a third-party | :15:03. | :15:05. | |
professional who is helping her sets out the rest. Others have said this | :15:06. | :15:11. | |
is not accurate, and as far as I'm aware there are no third-party | :15:12. | :15:15. | |
referees confirmed in Scotland. No one is willing to undertake this, | :15:16. | :15:21. | |
just to be involved in such a dreadful situation. Can you give the | :15:22. | :15:25. | |
committee your view on the impact on the rights of women and the child | :15:26. | :15:28. | |
and what actually has to happen? I think it's... The exemption raises | :15:29. | :15:40. | |
serious doubts about the rights of woman and the child and it | :15:41. | :15:45. | |
contravenes women's and children's rights to privacy. The form itself | :15:46. | :15:51. | |
does require a lot more than the woman just signing, putting her name | :15:52. | :15:56. | |
on a form and signing it. She has to write her own name. She has to write | :15:57. | :16:03. | |
the name of the child that and signs to say she believes that child was | :16:04. | :16:07. | |
conceived as a result of rape. The form has at the top of it a large | :16:08. | :16:13. | |
font which says it is the form you're filling in to say your child | :16:14. | :16:18. | |
has been conceived as a result of coercion or rape. Which we believe | :16:19. | :16:23. | |
would be extremely distressing for women to even consider doing and we | :16:24. | :16:30. | |
know from our work and the work of rape crisis Scotland how | :16:31. | :16:35. | |
re-traumatising that, having to contemplate filling in a form to say | :16:36. | :16:39. | |
that your child has been conceived as a result of rape would be for | :16:40. | :16:43. | |
women at a time not of their choosing to do so and having no | :16:44. | :16:48. | |
control over what might happen to that information. So we agree with | :16:49. | :16:53. | |
the Equality and Human Rights Commission who wrote to the minister | :16:54. | :16:59. | |
to say that in their view the invasive reporting requirements of | :17:00. | :17:06. | |
intimate details was penalising woman and also was the real issue | :17:07. | :17:12. | |
for women of their child perhaps potentially finding out that they | :17:13. | :17:14. | |
were conceived as a result of rape and we know that women will go to | :17:15. | :17:19. | |
huge lengths, that is the last thing they want their child to know they | :17:20. | :17:25. | |
were conceived as a result of rape. We know that 80 clinical | :17:26. | :17:30. | |
psychologists have written to the minister outlining their concerns | :17:31. | :17:34. | |
and the impact that would have on women and also on children, because | :17:35. | :17:40. | |
they work to support children who have found out they have been | :17:41. | :17:43. | |
conceived as a result of rape and how traumatising that can be for | :17:44. | :17:51. | |
children. On the point about third party referrers, we are not aware of | :17:52. | :17:55. | |
any organisation that has agreed to be a third party referrer in | :17:56. | :18:01. | |
Scotland. The DWP has aries of organisations under the survivor's | :18:02. | :18:11. | |
trust umbrella, which is a body for organisations that work with women | :18:12. | :18:16. | |
who have experienced violence and they have produced a blanket | :18:17. | :18:20. | |
membership list from our discussion with the individual members, none we | :18:21. | :18:26. | |
have spoken to has agreed to be a referrer. One question we have asked | :18:27. | :18:32. | |
the minister is that, how can think be implemented in Scotland, given | :18:33. | :18:37. | |
that circumstance and given the communication from the cabinet | :18:38. | :18:42. | |
Secretary for health that NHS staff will not be participating, as a | :18:43. | :18:47. | |
breach of they believe their professional ethics, given human | :18:48. | :18:52. | |
rights concerns. I think the House of Lords when the postlegislative | :18:53. | :18:58. | |
scrutiny committee looks at this question, looked at the two | :18:59. | :19:02. | |
statutory instruments that framed what is known as the rape clause, | :19:03. | :19:08. | |
they asked a question about appeals and how an appeals process would | :19:09. | :19:14. | |
work, because the DWP has articulated because of third party | :19:15. | :19:19. | |
referrers, DWP staff will not be involved in making deliberation and | :19:20. | :19:22. | |
won't have access to this sensitive information. The response that the | :19:23. | :19:30. | |
DWP was the usual appeals process would apply in this circumstance and | :19:31. | :19:36. | |
therefore DWP staff would have access to the most sensitive | :19:37. | :19:40. | |
information, the contents of the disclosure if there was any question | :19:41. | :19:48. | |
about the voracity of it. You wanted to come in? Yes a follow up to your | :19:49. | :19:54. | |
answer to Alison on equality impact assessment. You mentioned | :19:55. | :20:01. | |
specifically minority ethnic communities, we are talking about | :20:02. | :20:06. | |
from April of this year, so we don't yet have you know, I don't know what | :20:07. | :20:11. | |
assumptions we are making, but have you had any discussion with any | :20:12. | :20:18. | |
organisations in the minority ethnic community and to my knowledge, no | :20:19. | :20:22. | |
one has raised the issue of the Catholic community, of which I'm | :20:23. | :20:25. | |
one, who tend to have big families or did in the past, and dependses | :20:26. | :20:34. | |
view of what doctrine of the church you follow, but many women will | :20:35. | :20:39. | |
follow the doctrine of the church by not using contraception. I mean do | :20:40. | :20:44. | |
you have figures on the size of families in the communities that | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
you're talking about and have you had discussions with the churches | :20:51. | :20:54. | |
and the groups you're talking about. The churches and many faith-based | :20:55. | :21:00. | |
community representative organisations made strong | :21:01. | :21:03. | |
representations to the DWP during the performance lacing of the policy | :21:04. | :21:10. | |
-- formulation of the policy based on concerns about this. In the | :21:11. | :21:16. | |
consultation in November 2016 the DWP consulted on the implementation | :21:17. | :21:21. | |
of exceptions for a period of one month. We sub mimented as others did | :21:22. | :21:28. | |
- sub mimented evidence that outlined the issue for black and | :21:29. | :21:35. | |
minority ethnic and faith-based communities and others who wouldn't | :21:36. | :21:40. | |
want to access contraception or terminate pregnancies that arose | :21:41. | :21:46. | |
when they already had two children. There is a question about the... | :21:47. | :21:51. | |
Evidence-base on which the Government is acting and one | :21:52. | :21:55. | |
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 | :22:01. | :22:06. | |
without a clear equality impact assessment and without a clear | :22:07. | :22:09. | |
publication of any evidence or thinking on the part of the UK | :22:10. | :22:15. | |
Government that they are indeed expecting that women will terminate | :22:16. | :22:20. | |
pregnancies that arise when they already have two children. I think | :22:21. | :22:26. | |
that is insupportable given the attitude you have outlined of some | :22:27. | :22:30. | |
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 | :22:45. | :22:51. | |
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 | :23:02. | :23:08. | |
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 | :25:37. | :25:41. | |
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 | :26:30. | :26:32. | |
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 | :28:24. | :28:32. | |
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. |