Lorna Slater, the Scottish Greens MSP for Lothian has welcomed the Scottish Government’s announcement of a national rent freeze and an eviction ban until at least March, which they say will provide “vital stability and support” for tenants across Lothian at a time when many are suffering.
The announcement was made as part of the Programme for Government and will help tenants across Lothianwhere the average monthly rent is £942, which is an increase of 41.7% since 2010.
Scottish Green MSP for Lothian, Lorna Slater said: “With soaring inflation and skyrocketing bills, these are desperate times for tenants all across Scotland. People in Lothian have been hit by increasing rents.
“We are facing the biggest social emergency for decades. The rent freeze and eviction ban that the First Minister announced will provide vital stability and support for tenants across Lothianand beyond at a time when many are suffering.
“It is one of the steps we are taking, in partnership with the Scottish Government, to mitigate the damage being done by Downing Street and the energy companies.”
“Improving tenants’ rights and tackling inequality are at the heart of the cooperation agreement that we agreed with the Scottish Government and must be at the heart of our recovery.”
“Over the course of this parliamentary term Scotland will see the biggest expansion of tenants’ rights since devolution, with more rights for tenants to make a house a home by keeping pets and decorating, better protections from eviction and, perhaps most importantly, a robust system of rent controls.”
Assemble 10:30am: Johnson Terrace, EH1 2PW March off: 11am
Rally at the Scottish Parliament 11.30 – 1pm
The Cost-of-Living Crisis is hitting people across the country. Public service workers in particular are facing a fresh set of real terms pay cuts on top of years of stagnating wages.
The STUC and our affiliated unions are campaigning for a range of urgent actions to stem this crisis, including action to reduce energy bills, support for those of all ages on benefits, rent caps and action to reduce transport costs.
The ultimate responsibility for the Cost-of-Living Crisis sits with the Tories at Westminster. However, this does not mean that the Scottish Government is powerless. It needs to start by funding inflation level pay rises for Scottish public service workers.
Join us, as we demand better for the public service workers of Scotland.
HMRC recently confirmed that HMRC’s first Cost of Living Payment to 1.1 million claimant families receiving tax credits will be made between 2 and 7 September 2022. The first HMRC payments will total around £360 million.
We are now letting you know that we have started to issue these payments.
If tax credits customers believe they are eligible but have not received a £326 payment between the published payment dates, they should wait until 16 September to contact HMRC. This is to allow time for their bank, building society or credit union to process the payment.
The UK Government is offering help for households. Customers should check GOV.UK to find out what cost of living support they could be eligible for.
Background:
Details of HMRC’s first Cost of Living Payment to tax credit-only customers, with quotes and scam warning advice, can be found here:
Cost of Living payments were announced in May 2022. Details of DWP and HMRC payments were also publicised in June,JulyandAugust 2022. The latest payment schedule information is available here.
As well as the Cost of Living Payment, other government support includes:
£400 discount from the UK Government to help with the cost of energy bills from October onwards
£300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment that will be paid alongside Winter Fuel Payments
£150 Disability Cost of Living Payment from 20 September for those receiving an eligible UK disability benefit.
This is in addition to changes to the Universal Credit taper rate and work allowances worth £1,000 a year on average for 1.7 million working claimants; a rise in the National Living Wage to £9.50 an hour; and a tax cut for around 30 million workers through a rise in National Insurance contribution thresholds.
Since the election of a Tory Government there has been such a severe reduction in living standards all over the country that poverty is being seen as normal.
This Tory attack on working people is deliberate policy. How else could these people be so incompetent and so wicked at the same time?
They are responsible for the continuing rise in prices daily. This autumn there has been a massive government-sponsored rise in the cost of living; the rise in electricity prices was a devastating blow to most people in the country; the price of fuel for cars, etc. has rocketed, giving the fuel suppliers millions of pounds in profits which was promptly given to shareholders while the price of heating and food rose.
The Tories now intend to show how much they don’t care as they have already announced a 10% increases later on this winter.
Yes, this is what the Tories will do and continue to do. All workers must do all they can to resist the Tories.
Charity prepares for influx of dogs being given up as new school year begins
As millions of children across the country return to the classroom after the summer break, Dogs Trust, the UK’s largest dog welfare charity, is encouraging dog owners to head Bark to School with their pups in a bid to reduce the number of dogs potentially being handed into rehoming centres.
The charity, which is already experiencing its busiest period on record in terms of handovers due to the rise in the cost of living, is preparing itself for a possible further spike as families return to a post-holiday juggle of work and school, and their young dogs struggle to cope with being left home alone, causing them to exhibit bad behaviours.
Many pups acquired during the pandemic are now well into adolescence, a tricky stage for any dog owner, particularly those short on time and juggling family life, and many families may feel they are unable to cope with problematic behaviour. Many of these issues can be resolved through basic training and education of dog owners.
Last year on September 6th, the start of the new school year in England, Dogs Trust saw an uplift in enquiries from dog owners looking to rehome their dog. The charity received 163 enquiries to handover their dogs on the first day of term – more than any other day during September – and during the first week of September, saw an uplift in enquiries from struggling owners compared to the previous week.
John-Paul Maguire, Head Coach at Dog School Glasgow, explains:“Whilst the majority of dog owners see their dogs as much-valued family members and have loved spending time with their four-legged friends over the holidays, sadly we do see an uplift in handover enquiries as soon as children go back to school.
“In many cases, dogs are not equipped to deal with this sudden change in routine where they suddenly have to get used to having less attention which means they may start displaying undesirable behaviour.”
Aside from the rise in the cost of living, one of the main reasons dogs are handed over to Dogs Trust is because of behaviour-related issues that may have been prevented or managed with training. Which is why the charity is urging dog owners to go ‘Bark to School” and take action now by signing their puppy or adult dog up to training classes to avoid future problems so they can live happily together.
Dogs Trust runs affordable dog training and puppy classes in locations across the UK. Dogs Trust Dog School classes operate nationwide and are available throughout the year. At these classes, owners will learn how to teach their dogs how to meet and greet other dogs politely, walk nicely on the lead, come back when called, overcome chewing and mouthing as well as understand dog body language and what your dog is trying to tell you.
John-Paul adds: “Dogs Trust is always here to help families who are struggling to care for their dog, for whatever reason, but we hope that anyone that is finding their dog’s behaviour challenging after the summer holidays will consider heading Bark to School and sign up to Dog School classes to help their dog fulfil their potential and make sure families and four-legged friends can continue to live happily together.”
A total of £84 million has been paid to families since it was introduced less than 18 months ago.
The payment of £20 per week, unique to Scotland in the UK, began in February 2021 as a direct measure to tackle child poverty. It provides regular, additional financial support to parents and carers to help with the costs of caring for a child.
As of 30 June 2022, it is estimated that 104,000 children were actively in receipt of Scottish Child Payment and 1.4 million payments have now been made.
By the end of this year the payment will increase to £25 per week and extend to include all eligible children under the age of 16 when it is expected that over 400,000 children will potentially be eligible.
Responding to the latest official statistics on Scottish Child Payment published today Deputy First Minister John Swinney said: “We are taking a number of urgent actions to address the current cost crisis.
“This includes efforts to maximise financial support to those most in need so that they get all the money they are entitled to. The ongoing work to extend eligibility for and increase the value of the Scottish Child Payment is a vital part of these efforts.
“We created our game changing Scottish Child Payment to provide direct financial support to tackle child poverty. Every penny of support is absolutely vital at the moment, which is why we are using our devolved powers and resources to make a difference for as many households as we can.
“We doubled the payment to £20 in April and will increase it to £25 when we extend it to under 16s by the end of the year – a 150% rise in this important benefit which is one of five family benefits we are now delivering.
“The Scottish Government want to support families during these difficult times.”
Scottish Child Payment is part of a wider package of five family payments including: Best Start Grant Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment, Best Start Grant Early Learning Payment, Best Start Grant School Age Payment and Best Start Foods
Is sustainability your bag? Sign up to Second Hand September and show the world that any outfit looks fabulous when it’s helping to protect the planet!
By shopping only second hand for 30 days with Oxfam, you can give everything from t-shirts to trousers a brand new lease of life.
Plus, you’ll reduce demand for new clothes, help reduce damage to our planet, and raise money to help communities hit by poverty and the climate crisis.
Sign up to get:
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Share your eco-friendly outfits on socials using #SecondHandSeptember and tag @OxfamGB
The latest Deadline to Breadline report from Legal & General has found UK households’ financial resilience has shrunk by 21% since 2020 (from 24 days to 19 days)
People overestimate (by nearly six weeks – actually 41 days) how long they could fund basic living costs (such as housing costs, loans/ credit card repayments, utility bills and food) if they lost their income
Cutting back has become the norm but the 5 million poorest workers in the UK have no financial safety net in the event they lose their salary
On average, working households are only 19 days from the breadline, according to a report from Legal & General. The new research has shown that households have seen the amount of time they can fund basic expenses decrease by 21%, five days less than in April 2020.
Households have average savings of £2,431 and debts of £610. Accounting for average daily expenses of £93, this would see the average household run out of money in less than three weeks if they were to lose their income.
The research found that most people underestimate how long their money would last, assuming they would have 60 days of breathing room were they to lose their job.
With household costs increasing significantly, and more businesses under pressure, this has raised concerns that many people across the country could be especially vulnerable to financial shocks should the worst happen.
Household energy bills, for instance increased by 54% in April 2022, a record increase, and are likely to rise substantially again in October and the New Year. 2
Cutting back ‘the new norm’
While a quarter of households are yet to notice an impact from the increased cost of living, cutting back – on both essentials (69%) and luxuries (81%) – is the new norm. Even the majority of those with no debt and a higher income (over £50k annually) are being more cautious. 61% of those with a household income of over £50k are cutting back on essentials.
Nearly 2 million adults have no money left each month, a rise of 330,000 in the last 2 years. Concerns are particularly high for the UK’s poorest workers. Those earning under £20,000 a year – 5 million people in the UK – are living paypacket-to-paypacket and the average household in this group has no safety net should the worst happen.
Legal & General’s recent Rebuilding Britain Index also found that the cost of living crisis is increasing inequalities between different parts of the country, disproportionately affecting households in areas where there is a greater need for levelling-up initiatives.
Older workers most at risk of overconfidence
Older workers in the UK (55 to 65 years old) tend to have higher levels of financial reserves they can draw on, meeting their expenses for an average of 99 days in the event they lose their income. However, these households are also the most likely to overestimate their safety net, assuming they can manage for at least 180 days.
This raises concerns as older households have less time to build their savings back up before retirement and typically find it harder to find new roles following redundancy.
Bernie Hickman, CEO, Legal & General Retail, said:“Our latest research presents a challenging picture for working households across the UK. We often talk about managing money month-to-month but, as our findings indicate, for some it’s a case of day-by-day.
“The cost-of-living crisis is squeezing the purses of people all over the country, leaving households of every shape and size with money worries. The fact is there is only so much people can do to manage their budgets in these difficult times but there are resources available that can help.
“Half of all people in the UK (52%) haven’t taken advantage of financial guidance available, including free services like MoneyHelper, to help make the most of what they have.
“It may feel overwhelming but we encourage people to do what they can now so they are best prepared for a further squeeze on finances coming this autumn.”
Legal & General’s Deadline to Breadline report, published later this year, will explore the financial resilience, security and engagement of working households across the UK.
To help people better understand their money and make informed decisions, the insurance and retirement provider has put together a financial safety net content hub signposting tools and resources.
The months ahead are going to be tough, perhaps very tough (writes Prime Minister BORIS JOHNSON). Our energy bills are going to be eye-watering. For many of us, the cost of heating our homes is already frightening.
And yet I have never been more certain that we will come through this well – and that Britain will emerge stronger and more prosperous the other side.
Let us remember who caused this global surge in the cost of energy, and what is at stake.
Yes, we were already seeing supply chain pressures last year, caused by the aftershocks of Covid, and that was causing a rise in some global prices.
But by the end of last year we were fixing it. The world was finding the lorry drivers. The container ships were moving. We were sourcing the silicon chips.
What no one had bargained for was the decision of Vladimir Putin – and it was his decision alone – to launch a vicious and irrational attack, on February 24, against an innocent European country.
It was Putin’s barbaric invasion that spooked the energy markets.
It is Putin’s war that is costing British consumers. That is why your energy bill is doubling. I am afraid Putin knows it. He likes it. And he wants us to buckle.
He believes that soft European politicians will not have the stomach for the struggle – that this coming winter we will throw in the sponge, take off the sanctions and go begging for Russian oil and gas.
He believes we will tire of backing Ukraine and begin discreetly to encourage the Ukrainians to do a deal, however nauseating, with the tyrant in the Kremlin.
That would be utter madness. In this brutal arm-wrestle, the Ukrainian people can and will win. And so will Britain.
With every month that goes by Putin’s position grows weaker. His ability to bully and blackmail is diminishing. And Britain’s position will grow stronger.
We must and we will help people through the crisis. Colossal sums of taxpayers’ money are already committed to helping people pay their bills. That cash is flowing now – and will continue to flow in the months ahead.
Another chunk of the £650 is already due to go to the eight million most vulnerable households this autumn. There is another £300 going to pensioners in November, £150 for the disabled and £400 for all energy bill payers.
Next month – whoever takes over from me – the Government will announce another huge package of financial support. It is worth remembering why we are in a position to make these payments.
We have the cash to support families across the country because we have already proved the pessimists wrong.
I remember sitting in the Cabinet room for an economic briefing in 2020 as the waves of the pandemic broke over the world and we saw the biggest drop in output for 300 years. They told me UK unemployment would top 14 per cent.
They said that millions would be thrown on to the economic scrapheap – with all the consequent costs to the Exchequer.
They were wrong. After becoming the first country in the world to approve an effective vaccine, we staged the fastest vaccine roll-out in Europe, the fastest exit from Covid. As a result we had the fastest growth in the G7 last year and instead of mass unemployment we have about 640,000 MORE people in payrolled employment than before the pandemic began.
Instead of being at 14 per cent, unemployment is at 3.8 per cent, nearly the lowest for almost 50 years. That is giving us the fundamental economic strength to endure this crisis – as the Russian economy continues to melt down.
We are ending our dependency on Russian hydrocarbons. In June, for the first time in decades, we did not import any fuel from Russia. The UK has already stepped up production of domestic gas – 26 per cent more this year than last.
With every new windfarm we build offshore, with every new nuclear project we approve, we strengthen our strategic position. We become less vulnerable to the vagaries of the global gas price and less vulnerable to Putin’s pressure.
It is this Government that has reversed the apathy of decades and greenlighted new nuclear plants.
We are going to build a new reactor every year and will have a colossal 50 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 – almost half our total electricity consumption.
This British Energy Security Strategy is just a part of a vast programme to make the economy more productive and competitive.
In just three years we have increased the coverage of gigabit broadband from seven per cent of households to 70 per cent. We are strengthening the economic sinews of the country with the biggest investment in rail – three new high speed lines – for a century.
We have invested massively in skills, so that people can improve their qualifications throughout their lives.
We have taken decisive steps to make this the best place in the world to invest and start a business. We are axing dozens of burdensome EU laws – including Solvency 2 and MiFID, that acted as unnecessary deterrents to investment.
We are creating eight new free- ports, cutting taxes on investment and lengthening our lead as a science superpower – with £22billion of investment in science and a new Advanced Research agency to crack the big problems of our time, from dementia to zero carbon aviation.
All this is paying off in jobs and growth. In the first quarter of this year the UK attracted more venture capital investment in technology than China.
We have more tech investment than France, Germany and Israel combined and we produce a new billion pound “unicorn” company roughly every two weeks.
These new ideas are blooming not just in the golden triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London but across the whole UK as we drive forward our levelling up agenda.
We have laid the foundations for long-term gains in prosperity and productivity. We know we will bounce back from the crisis in the cost of energy as we rapidly build up our own UK supplies.
That is why we will succeed and why we cannot flinch now.
If Putin is allowed to get away with his murder and mayhem, and to change the borders of Europe by force, then he will simply do it again, elsewhere on the periphery of the former Soviet Union.
Other countries will draw the lesson that violence and aggression can pay off and that will usher in a new cycle of political and economic instability.
That is why we must continue to back the Ukrainians – and their military success continues to be remarkable. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has shown his country is fundamentally unconquerable.
Now is the time for the West to double down our support, not to go wobbly.
We have more than enough resilience to get through tough months ahead. We have shown that before.
And we have made the long term decisions – including on domestic energy supply – to ensure that our bounceback can and should be remarkable and that our future will be golden.
Around 1.1 million claimant families receiving tax credits will get their first Cost of Living Payment from Friday 2 September 2022, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has confirmed.
This £326 UK Government payment will be paid automatically into eligible tax credit-only customers’ bank accounts between 2 and 7 September 2022. The first HMRC payments will total around £360 million.
Nadhim Zahawi, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said:“I know people are really concerned by rising prices so I’m glad that over a million more low earners will shortly receive their first Cost of Living Payment. We are also preparing options for further support so the new Prime Minister can hit the ground running.
“Alongside £400 off most people’s energy bills, tax cuts and the Household Support Fund, these direct payments are a very important part of our £37 billion package of help for households, which is targeted at those who need it most.”
Angela MacDonald, HMRC’s Deputy Chief Executive and Second Permanent Secretary, said:“This first Cost of Living Payment will provide vital financial support for eligible tax credit-only claimants across the UK. A second payment will be made to eligible customers from the winter.
“The money will be paid automatically into bank accounts, so people don’t need to do anything to get this extra help.”
These latest payments mean that more than eight million eligible households in receipt of a means-tested benefit will have received the first of two automatic Cost of Living payments of £326 from 14 July.
The second means-tested payment of £324 will be issued later this year – from the autumn for DWP benefit claimants, and from the winter for tax credit-only customers.
Tax credit claimants who also receive benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions will have already received their first Cost of Living Payment from July 2022.
The Cost of Living payments from the UK Government are part of a £37 billion package of support, which will see millions of low-income households receive at least £1,200 this year to help cover rising costs.
As well as the Cost of Living Payment, other UK Government support includes:
£400 discount from the government to help with the cost of energy bills from October onwards
£300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment that will be paid alongside Winter Fuel Payments
£150 Disability Cost of Living Payment from 20 September for those receiving an eligible UK disability benefit.
This is all in addition to changes to the Universal Credit taper rate and work allowances worth £1,000 a year on average for 1.7 million working claimants; a rise in the National Living Wage to £9.50 an hour; and a tax cut for around 30 million workers through a rise in National Insurance contribution thresholds.
The UK Government is offering help for households. Customers should check GOV.UK to find out what cost of living support they could be eligible for.
