Stewart Paterson: Dishing out money will not solve poverty in Glasgow

There are various eligibility criteria, involving universal credit, tax credits, income support and earnings thresholds, but the bottom line is the money coming in is not enough to feed the children so the state has to support them.

The alternative is hungry children.

This week, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that Scotland is unlikely to meet its targets on reducing child poverty unless further action is taken.

Many parents are in work. They are working but are not earning enough that it is considered they are able to feed their own children.

We have laws on the minimum wage and other employment laws which state what employers can and cannot do.

The fact that there are so many people working but not able to properly feed their children shows that these laws are not enough.

The minimum wage is not enough for someone to pay their absolute essentials of housing, heating, food and basic clothing.

If it was, we wouldn’t have people needing to apply for top-up benefits.

The employment laws around contracted hours and conditions are not fit for purpose, otherwise we wouldn’t have people not knowing from one week until the next when they are working, how much they will earn and requiring a system as shambolic as Universal Credit to try and plug the gaps.

Then there are the regulations around those who provide the services that must be paid for.

The controls on the private rented sector are not adequate. If they were, there wouldn’t be people being evicted on the whim of a landlord, or ridiculous rents asked for properties that shouldn’t be allowed to have tenets in the first place.

The controls on the energy market are also not good enough.

If they were, there wouldn’t be poorer people on the highest tariffs charged over the odds for pre-payment meters.

If there was adequate legislation on all these areas that were designed to work in the interest of those who use the service rather than those who provide them, there would be less chance of people not having enough money to meet what should be the first priority of feeding their own children.

As it is, people are left with the decision of what to do with the last fiver of the month.

Do they go to the supermarket and see how much they can get and how long they can eke it out for?

Or do they put it in the gas and electric meter and try to make it last.

The choice between heating and eating is real for too many people.

I cannot count the number of stories written in this paper about food and fuel poverty.

Some that spring to mind include a man who had been surviving on just water for four days before he went to a Glasgow foodbank for help.

He had no cash for food and had run out of credit for gas and electricity while he waited for a new Universal Credit benefit claim to be processed.

Another was a man who was at a food bank and asked for food that didn’t need heating as he had run out of electricity.

There are many, many more and they are individual tragedies that collectively amount to a national scandal.

So many solutions for tackling poverty are about giving out more money.

Expanding eligibility for free school meals, a Scottish Child Payment, an extra £20 on Universal Credit.

Right now, given the crisis, they are needed.

What we need in the long-term is policies that mean we do not need to be handing out money to working people but policies that allow parents to earn enough to pay for housing, pay their heating bills, feed and clothe their children and still have income left over to pay for other things that better off people take for granted.

If it means more powers for Holyrood to do so then no-one should stand in the way of that.

Then we can focus on supporting those who are unable to work for whatever reason.

We are coming up to an election and manifestos are being written, party election broadcast, scripted speeches crafted.

There will be many issues raised and many solutions proposed.

The pandemic has exposed many injustices and inequalities to the wider consciousness.

The education system needs reformed and how pupils are assessed following last year’s SQA algorithm debacle.

The NHS is woefully under-resourced and the underfunding of decades has come home to roost as we see staff and services stretched to breaking point.

Resources have to be prioritised and all these issues require attention.

If however, a society is unable or unwilling to ensure parents can feed their children, it is unlikely to be able to get the other things right either.

Is it possible at this election we can see parties list that as their absolute number one priority? If so, please let me know. I might even consider voting for you.