Scottish Budget risks making poverty in Scotland worse, ministers warned

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said it was ‘very disappointed’ with the spending plans

The decisions outlined in the Scottish Budget risk making poverty in Scotland worse, it has been warned.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), a leading anti-poverty charity, said the tax and spending plans were "very disappointing". The body said cuts to affordable housing were “brutal” and should be reversed, with good quality housing needed to tackle poverty.

In the draft Scottish Budget published in December, the affordable housing supply budget was cut by almost £200 million – more than a quarter in real terms. On Tuesday, Holyrood’s finance committee heard evidence from a number of groups as it scrutinised the budget.

Ministers have been warned about the impact of the Budget

Chris Birt, associate director for Scotland at the JRF, said there was “welcome protection” for schemes such as the Scottish Child Payment. But he added: “I don’t see anything else in the Budget which will significantly reduce poverty and I think there’s a significant risk, with the huge cuts to funding for affordable housing in particular, that this Budget could lead to a rise in poverty as well."

He continued: “I am concerned by this Budget and I think the Scottish Government could certainly have done more around poverty.”

Mr Birt was asked about his written submission to the committee, which said it was “baffling that the affordable housing supply programme should be the victim of such a brutal cut”.

The submission added: “To slice a quarter from the budget, in the face of both the immediate and longer-term issues facing the housing sector in Scotland, is surely something that will have to be reversed during the Parliament’s scrutiny of the Budget. If this is a hard choice as part of the Budget, it is the wrong choice.”

During his appearance before the committee on Tuesday, Mr Birt was pressed on what alternative choices he thought could have been made to either raise money or cut elsewhere. He said: “Council tax is a very obvious one. We’ve talked about council tax reform for years and everybody has dodged it. Let’s stop dodging it.”

However, Mr Birt praised the Government’s approach to social security for disabled people, in response to a question from MSP John Mason who noted the overall social security budget has gone up “dramatically” from about £5 billion to £6bn.

Mr Birt, who has called for the Scottish Child Payment to be increased further, said it was necessary to break with the “dehumanising” welfare system for disabled people in the rest of the UK.

Looking at a separate element of the Budget, Professor David Bell, of the University of Stirling, told the committee: “Ostensibly it doesn’t look like the Budget particularly favours economic growth.”

He was asked about the revenue from the ScotWind offshore leasing round, with MSP Michelle Thomson saying some of it had been applied to resource spending.

Dr Bell likened the ScotWind money to a sovereign wealth fund and said it should have been used for the benefit of future generations. He said: “To be equitable, you should spread it not just on the generation that has been lucky enough to have the revenue gathered. As with oil, there seems within the British Isles to be a willingness not to think in those more longer-term perspectives.”