ALBA Party Call on Scottish Government to Mitigate Two Child Benefit Cap to save Scotland from the immoral Labour & Tory policy

Alba Party‘s National Council has called on Humza Yousaf to step in to mitigate the two child benefit cap in Scotland. 

Alba Party says that in doing so the Scottish Government “would uphold the traditional Scottish values of community and compassion, whilst the Labour Party abandon their values to gain Tory votes in the South East of England”. 

Back in 2014, Alex Salmond’s Government struck a deal with the then Labour Opposition to back his Scottish Government’s Budget which effectively ended the Bedroom Tax in Scotland by fully mitigating against the impact of the welfare reform which affected almost 80,000 Scottish households. 

Delegates at Alba Party’s National Council have now urged Humza Yousaf to do likewise again to end the two child benefit cap in Scotland. Speaking from today’s National Council, the party’s National Membership Convener Jacqui Bijster said “this wouldn’t be only be about using the Scottish Parliament as a sticking plaster to protect Scots from the abhorrent policies of Westminster but but it would highlight to the people of Scotland that when the Scots Parliament makes decisions about their welfare they will always be better decisions than those made by Westminster. The two child cap is a policy that pushes children into poverty. Scotland needs children, every child that is denied their right to thrive is a child that has their future stolen and every penny we invest in children is an investment in Scotland’s future. ” 

The Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland estimates the cost of abolishing the two-child limit across the UK would be £1.3bn.

That would lift 250,000 children out of poverty - up to 15,000 of them in Scotland - the group says.

The cap has already affected over 80,000 children in Scotland and 1.5m across UK.

Alba say that the estimated cost of fully mitigating the policy in Scotland would be around £85m which they say is less than one fifth of one per cent of the entire Scottish Government budget. 

Alba Party say that the Scottish Government could do this by striking a deal with Local Authorities in Scotland to increase the funding received for discretionary housing payments or by using existing mechanisms in place to increase the Scottish Child Payment. 

Commenting Alba Party’s National Organiser Denise Findlay said:

“The Scottish Government already provinces funding through discretionary housing payments - that is how we mitigated the unacceptable hardship of Westminster’s bedroom tax. If the Scottish Government added a further £85Million in funding this would mean that, if you are affected by the two child benefit cap, just like those that were affected by the bedroom tax, you could simply apply to your local authority for a discretionary housing payment and you should get one or the Scottish Government could simply increase the Child Payment. If Scotland took this approach we wouldn’t need to wait for a new Scottish benefit to be created by Social Security Scotland and the two child cap could be fully mitigated in Scotland with money in the pockets of hard-pressed families by the end of September .”