THE SNP has called on the UK Government to use the Budget to deliver a major boost to incomes following shock figures showing that almost one in four Scottish children lives in poverty.
The “Tory decade of decline” in living standards is a result of both austerity cuts and the threat of Brexit, according to the SNP.
A report released last week by the independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) revealed that around 230,000 Scottish children are living in relative poverty.
Child poverty across Scotland fell in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but since 2010 that trend has been reversed “mainly due to UK Government-imposed social security cuts”, the foundation reported.
Now the SNP has called on the UK Government to “genuinely end austerity”, and get behind the party’s five-point plan to reverse the decline and put cash in people’s pockets.
The plan includes introducing the real living wage and abolishing the discriminatory minimum wage rates for younger people. The roll out of the controversial Universal Credit should also be halted along with an end to the benefit freeze, the two-child cap and sanctions. Instead, the pre-2015 work allowances should be reinstated along with the ESA WRAC severe disability premium.
Westminster should also reverse the cuts to housing support by abolishing the bedroom tax and reversing the cuts to housing benefit and council tax reductions, according to the SNP. In addition, energy costs should be reduced through a meaningful cap on energy bills, the maintenance of the fuel duty freeze, and the introduction of a fuel duty regulator.
The SNP is also calling on the UK Government to rule out a hard Brexit and instead commit to the single market and customs union membership to avoid decades of damage to incomes and living standards.
Kirsty Blackman, the SNP’s economy spokesperson, said the Tory record on living standards was “utterly miserable” – with rising poverty and inequality, real wages falling, social security slashed, and increased living costs leaving many families struggling to get by. “The UK Government must use the Budget to deliver a major and long-overdue boost to incomes – putting cash back into people’s pockets after a Tory decade of decline in living standards,” said Blackman, pictured.
“The Tory Government’s record on living standards has been utterly miserable – with rising poverty and inequality and plans for an extreme Brexit that it knows will deliver a body blow to incomes and living costs across Scotland and the UK.
“The Chancellor must reverse this decline by injecting much-needed investment into improving household incomes.
“By introducing a real living wage for all workers, lifting the benefit freeze, and reforming Universal Credit, the UK Government would help make work pay and reduce the increasing reliance on food banks and emergency aid, which have soared under the Tories.”
Blackman said that the SNP are forced to spend hundreds of millions of pounds every year to mitigate the worst of the Tory cuts but added that the only way to “truly end austerity” was at its Westminster source.
However she warned: “Any action to improve incomes and reduce living costs would face a dramatic set back if the UK Government continues down the path of despair to a Tory hard Brexit that will be catastrophic for the economy.
“Short of staying in the EU, as Scotland voted for, the only way to protect jobs and prosperity is to retain our membership of the single market and customs union.”
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