The social justice secretary title is unique to Scotland, but Somerville is responsible for the devolved aspects of the social security system. Her counterpart is the work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden in Westminster.
Somerville claimed she had requested a meeting with McFadden while in London but received no response.
“It’s deeply disappointing when UK government ministers don’t have a working relationship with the Scottish government. We’re ready to work with them. They need to actually pick up the phone or respond to a letter to allow us to be able to do that,” Somerville said.
The social justice secretary also claimed that there have only been “very limited discussions” on a ministerial level ahead of the upcoming child poverty strategy, and she remains “concerned” that there will not be enough action taken to fight child poverty in an effective way.
A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said: “We are determined to make sure the views and voices of people across Scotland are part of our reforms to tackle child poverty. We have engaged with the four nations as part of our ambitious strategy to address the structural and root causes of child poverty.
“We have secured for Scotland the largest real terms settlement in the history of devolution – delivering a record annual figure of £50.9 billion – for spending on policies that are key levers to tackling child poverty including housing, education, childcare, debt advice and employability.”
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Somerville, who is a member of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and an MSP for Dunfermline, said she had hoped for better from a Labour government.
Ahead of the autumn budget, and with key Scottish parliament elections coming in May, she explains to the Big Issue why the mission to tackle child poverty is so vital and what must be done to achieve it.
Why are you calling on the UK government to end the two-child limit and the benefit cap?
We’ve been very clear with the UK government consistently over many years that the two child limit should be scrapped. It is an immoral part of the social security system to punish children simply because they’re in a larger family. It’s also the single policy that the UK government can change that makes the biggest impact on child poverty.
Importantly though, they also need to lift the benefit cap, because we have a social security system within the UK that is inadequate for people to make to meet their basic needs. We can’t have a situation where people’s benefits are being capped.
The Scottish Government already mitigates against the benefit cap. We use Scottish government money for that. We’ll continue to do that if the UK government refuses to lift the benefit cap, and we’re ready to lift the two-child limit, but if the chancellor could put this in the budget, it would allow us to use the money on other anti-poverty measures.
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What can Westminster learn from Scotland?
We have a different narrative and a different way of talking about social security within the Scottish government. We see social security as an investment in people, an investment in individuals and in our communities. Social security is, in our mind, a human right. It should be there to support people in times of need. The vast majority of social security is still reserved to Westminster, so they still play an important role in what they do within social security. They can lift people out of poverty, or they can push more people into poverty, depending on how they run their system.
I had hoped with an incoming Labor government that we would have seen an end to austerity and an end to this narrative about social security being in some way a bad thing, and unfortunately, what we’re seeing is a continuation of that. I hope that we might get some change within the budget around the two-child limit, but that is only one example of inhumane parts of the social security system that the UK government runs. Whether it’s the benefit cap, the punishment for young parents, there are a number of different things embedded in the system that need to change to make it more humane.
You had hoped to meet work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden while in London but haven’t received a response. How do you feel about that?
It’s very frustrating. I appreciate the secretary of state’s diary is very busy, but we do need to have those types of discussions. And if he can’t meet today, my diary is open. It’s similar to the work of the child poverty taskforce that the UK government has – there’s been very limited discussions on a ministerial level as that taskforce has continued. It’s now coming to its end, finally, and I remain concerned about what we’ll see in that, whether there’ll be enough of an impact for us to be able to see change. It’s deeply disappointing when UK government ministers don’t have a working relationship with the Scottish government, because the two systems are very intertwined. We’re ready to work with them. They kind of need to actually pick up the phone or respond to a letter to allow us to be able to do that.
How have you felt about Westminster’s dithering on the two-child limit?
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I think what it demonstrates is a lack of principles and values behind the government. The first minister in Scotland is very clear that his defining mission is the eradication of child poverty. Every single minister within the Scottish government knows that whether you’re in transport, education, health. That then allows you to look at different policies to challenge yourself to work towards that mission. What, unfortunately, we seem to have within the UK government at the moment is what’s best for Keir Starmer with his backbenchers, and what’s best for Keir Starmer against some of the people that are maybe wanting his job in future months. It’s no way to run a budget, and it’s no way to run a government.
How have you felt broadly about Westminster’s attitude to welfare?
I think what we’ve seen is a lift and shift from the Tories. I would have hoped we would have seen the change in narrative. I would have hoped you would have seen a way of being able to deliver a social security system that actually supports people. And what we’ve seen really is a continuation of that. The changes to PIP were only backtracked on because of the unrest on the back benches. It points to a government that was trying to design a policy to save money, rather than what was right for disabled people. One of the points of the social security system is to be able to support people with disability or a long-term condition. If your starting point is how to save money, you can never come up with a policy that is good for disabled people.
You’re also calling for an essentials guarantee. Why is that?
We need to recognise that the universal credit system, which is reserved to Westminster, doesn’t allow people to get the essentials in life. It keeps people in poverty. It keeps children in poverty. So we need to recognise how much families actually need – not to live a life in largesse but to actually get the bare essentials in life. And we don’t have that system at the moment. The Scottish child payment is one way that the Scottish government has been trying to deal with the inadequacy of universal credit. We’re spending more than half a billion pounds on that investment. But we can only do so much when the vast majority is still reserved down to Westminster.
Big Issue is calling for legal targets to hold the government accountable on child poverty with our Poverty Zero campaign. Is this something you would like to see?
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We have targets in Scotland that are in statute. They are exceptionally challenging for the government, but that’s the right thing to do. So we as a Scottish government are being challenged on our 2030 targets and whether we’re going to have the policies in place to be able to meet that. But if the defining mission is to eradicate child poverty, and we have targets for 2030 to see reductions in relative poverty, that focuses the mind of government. It is a very important part. It’s not the only part, because it’s not just about what happens to poverty in 2030 but also longer term. How do you lift families out of intergenerational poverty, and how do you make systemic change? That’s all really important as well, but the targets are important. As a government minister, it does make your life more difficult, but it doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.
Ahead of the budget and child poverty strategy, how hopeful are you?
I think my main frustration is that we have a government in London in disarray, a government that seems more focused on what’s right for certain individuals and their long-term career prospects, rather than how do you eradicate child poverty – or even what was supposed to be their defining mission around economic growth. We had a budget last year that actually crippled economic growth with the increases in employers’ national insurance contributions.
I think what you’re seeing is a government in disarray, and that cannot make for a sensible budget. And that’s my real concern, because while we talk about the politics and the pantomime of the politics and the personalities, the decisions that the chancellor will make will either lift children out of poverty or not. Now we stand ready, as the Scottish government, to lift children out of poverty with the mitigation of the two-child limit if she doesn’t, but this is just no way to deliver a budget, and surely deep down, she knows that, Surely she knows that this is not the right way to be able to set policies and to have the impacts that she would want to see in the longer term.
What would additional anti-poverty measures look like if you didn’t have to mitigate the two-child limit?
We’re hearing a number of suggestions about how we can spend money and invest money in education, employability, travel. We know that investment and money from social security, income from social security, is an important way to lift people out of poverty, but it’s not the only way. So the real challenge for all governments is to think about what to do with social security, but also what to ensure we can do to support families in the round. But that’s exactly why the first minister is determined to look at how you support families holistically. We’re not just looking at one issue, but we’re actually asking families what they need to be able to deal with the situation that they’re in. Some of it may be poverty, some of it may be other challenges that they’re facing. And if you start with that premise, it will allow the Scottish government to be able to invest that money in what makes the biggest difference to families.
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What would you do if you saw a mother stealing baby formula? [This was a question Big Issue also put to Keir Starmer and Sadiq Khan].
I think one of the issues that this touches on is around the fact that there is not enough support for young mums, and we are seeing the price of baby formula is far too high. There’s lots of work going on to be able to deal with that, but it’s a real challenge. What I would say to any mum that I saw doing that is to guide her to the help that is available within communities to be able to support her in that time of crisis. Because it’s not just about that one thing that I may be observing.
It’s what drove that mum to that point which she did not want to get into, which I’m sure has brought shame to herself. And you want to help not just to take her out of that one crisis point, but how do you help that family? There is help for children and for young mums or any mum in Scotland. But how do we be able to provide that support to a mum where she doesn’t feel stigmatised and she doesn’t feel shame, but she actually feels that somebody is reaching out to her? Surely that’s what an individual should do. I also think that’s what government should do as well.
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