Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 97
Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland
Published 23 Jun 2021
Addressed to Scotland Office
Scottish Affairs Committee Welfare policy in Scotland All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We heard evidence from various stakeholders that this amount of money was not adequate to ensure that claimants remain out of poverty and pay their essential bills. The Trussell Trust told us that ‘benefit issues and low benefit income are a reason behind four in five visits to food banks in the Trussell Trust network’.234 Polly Jones of The Trussell Trust said they have ‘seen a 30% increase in food parcels in areas where Universal Credit has been rolled out in the local authority, so there is a strong correlation between Universal Credit and demand for food parcels.’235 David Eiser from The Fraser of Allander Institute described the UK’s out of work and low-income benefit rates as ‘pretty meagre on many measures’236 in comparison to other countries.
From: Scottish Affairs Committee, Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland (HC 55), 23 June 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 19 November 2021 (deadline 23 August 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The UK Government "notes the Committee's recommendations" and responds to each in turn, accepting little of the report's welfare-policy proposals and referring several to the Scottish Government.
- On the £20 uplift and legacy benefits, it states "There was never any plan to extend the uplift to legacy benefits."
- On work allowances, it states it "has no plans to extend the work allowance to single adults".
- On Help to Claim funding, it "considers the existing resource to be sufficient", and says DWP agreed to fund Citizens Advice Scotland for another year, "up to 31 March 2022".
- On data sharing and Recommendations 2, 7 and 8, it says each data request "must be examined" by DWP as Data Controller, and treats several recommendations as "for the Scottish Government".