Edinburgh Pentlands MSP Gordon Macdonald has welcomed the planned introduction of the new Low Income Winter Heating Assistance benefit to help households both across the Edinburgh Pentlands constituency and the wider city pay their energy bills.
The support is being introduced by the SNP Scottish Government and will guarantee an annual payment of £50 to around 400,000 low income households from February 2023.
It replaces the UK government’s Cold Weather payments which were only triggered during a ‘cold spell’ of seven consecutive days below zero degrees, whilst the new payment from the Scottish Government will provide a reliable, stable guaranteed payment in winter, no matter the weather.
It will be the thirteenth social security payment introduced by the SNP Scottish Government and will be only available in Scotland.
Commenting, Gordon Macdonald said: “The SNP Scottish Government is providing a guaranteed payment of £50 to low-income households across Edinburgh to help pay their energy bills every winter, starting in February 2023.
“Once again the SNP Scottish Government is stepping up to support households within its limited budget, and despite the majority of powers lying with the Tories at Westminster.
“The Scottish Government’s annual £20m investment will mean households will get an automatic payment. The UK Cold Weather payments only reached 11,000 households in 2021/22.
“As the Scottish Government continues to step up and provide support to households across Scotland, it does so with one hand tied behind its back by the UK Tory government.
“That is why it is only with the full powers of independence can we start to build a fairer, more equal country.”
SNP MSP Gordon Macdonald has welcomed nearly £4.7 billion of extra investment for Scotland’s Health and Social Care portfolio over the next 4 years.
The Resource Spending Review, outlined by Finance Secretary Kate Forbes this week, invests in frontline services and outlines over £70 billion of investment in the Health and Social Care budget between 2023/24 and 2026/27.
This investment will increase capacity in the health service, help establish the National Care Service, help deliver care in the community, and tackle health inequalities.
Gordon Macdonald MSP said: “The SNP Scottish Government has invested significantly in difficult financial times to ensure our NHS and social care sector are fit for the 21st Century.
“I’m delighted that this week’s Resource Spending Review will see significant investment in the Health and Social Care budget – which will help health services across Edinburgh as Scotland recovers from the pandemic, where there will undoubtedly be pressures on the healthcare sector.
“The SNP Government’s twin approach of delivering record investment and taking forward vital reforms will help ensure that the people of Scotland get the care they need in the right place at the right time.
“None of this would be possible to deliver without our hard-working NHS and social care staff working across Edinburgh. I’d like to extend my personal thanks for their tremendous efforts over a very difficult few years.”
HOUSEHOLDS ACROSS EDINBURGH TO BE SUPPORTED BY £23 BILLION
As communities across Edinburgh recover from the pandemic and face a Tory made cost of living crisis, yesterday the SNP Government’s spending review outlined record social security spending to help households facing increasing pressures. The Scottish Government allocated around £23 billion for social security over the course of the parliament.
The focus on supporting households under increasing pressure reflects the SNP’s commitment to create a fairer Scotland by tackling child poverty, reducing inequalities and supporting financial wellbeing in Edinburgh, and builds on current efforts to help families and mitigate Westminster welfare cuts.
The Resource Spending Review outlined over £23 billion worth of payments, with a total of almost £1.8 billion for the ‘game changing’ Scottish Child Payment alone. By 2026-27 the budget for Social Security Assistance will have increased by £6.3 billion.
This is despite the Scottish Budget for this year being cut in real terms by 5.2 per cent by the Tory UK government and the SNP government already spending almost £770 million on cost of living support, including several measures for families in Edinburgh not available elsewhere in the UK, such as:
Doubling the ‘game changing’ Scottish Child Payment to £20 per child per week with plans to increase it to £25 and extend it to under 16s by the end of the year – reaching a possible 450,00 young people.
Investing £86m to mitigate the Tory Government bedroom tax and benefit cap and support 90,00 people in their tenancies
Uprating eight Scottish social security payments by 6 per cent
A brand new Low-Income Winter Heating benefit that guarantees a £50 annual payment to over 400,000 low income households in winter 22/23
The Carers Allowance Supplement which will support around 90,000 carers with an additional £450 a year
Providing everyone in primaries one to five and over 140,000 eligible children and young people access to a free school lunch
Making free bus travel available for nearly half of Scotland’s population through concessionary travel
Additionally, the Scottish Government is making investment in areas like energy efficiency to bring down costs and the spending review set out how the SNP will build on these over the coming years.
SNP MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, Gordon MacDonald, said: ““I am very glad to see this record investment in social security by the SNP Government, putting such a strong focus on tackling child poverty and helping households both across the Edinburgh Pentlands constituency and the wider city who are facing severe pressures right now which seems likely to only increase for the next while.
“Many families across Edinburgh are already benefitting from support like the Scottish Child payment, a £150 council tax reduction, the Scottish Welfare Fund and Discretionary Housing Payments which mitigate Westminster’s cruel bedroom tax.
“These are policies that build on the SNP’s current efforts. They will make a real difference to people’s lives and build on long standing measures that we benefit from every day – such as free prescriptions, free university tuition, free personal care, and 1,140 hours of free early learning and childcare which will continue to be maintained.
“When times are tough, Governments have to make tough decisions and I’m grateful the SNP government continue to focus on what matters most to people but, it is acting with one hand tied behind its back as Westminster continues to inflict its cruel austerity agenda at a time when people need support the most.
“Once again, it is clear that only with the full powers of independence, that we can stop spending a fixed budget on protecting households against Tory cuts and start to properly build a fairer, more equal Scotland.”
SNP MSP Gordon MacDonald is urging the people of Edinburgh to play their part in planning for future services across Edinburgh by completing the Scottish census.
Speaking ahead of the May 1 deadline for completing the census, Gordon MacDonald said: “The census is the official count of every person and household in the country, takes place every 10 years and it is in the interests of everyone in Edinburgh to complete it accurately and on time.
“The census benefits everyone because it helps the government and other service providers like local councils make important decisions about vital services such as education, healthcare and employment. Completing the census helps officials make better decisions about the things that matter to you.
“By setting aside just a few minutes to answer questions about yourself, your household, and the place where you live, you play a vital role in helping shape important community services across the city, from the building of new schools and hospitals to improving transport links and understanding health needs.
“So, it is hugely important to play your part to make sure everyone is heard, and everyone’s individual needs are accurately recorded.”
Every household in Scotland must complete Scotland’s Census. It’s a legal responsibility and householders are responsible for making sure they respond. Anyone who hasn’t completed the census by the 1st of May could face a fine.
For anyone who has yet to complete it, help and support is available on the website census.gov.scot or via a free helpline on 0800 030 8308.
Guidance is available for every question in English and 16 other languages on the website.
An interpretation service covering most languages can be accessed by calling 0800 030 8333.
You can also request copies of the guidance in Braille, large print or on audio CD or USB.
There are guidance videos in British Sign Language on the key pages of the website and a video relay service offered by contactscotland-bsl.org can be used by BSL users to access advice from the helpline.
SNP MSP Gordon MacDonald has welcomed figures which show children across Edinburgh are excelling under the SNP Scottish Government.
Schools across Edinburgh are benefitting from £7.2m of funding for the coming year to reduce the attainment gap in the area.
As a result 95.1% of young people in the area go on to positive destinations. The latest figures also show that 19,523 have went into a modern apprenticeship under the SNP Scottish Government.
In helping to close the attainment gap, there are currently 10,016 children receiving free school meals.
Commenting, Gordon MacDonald said: “Since the SNP formed a government in 2007, attainment and the number of pupils going on to positive destinations has improved across Edinburgh.
“This is down to the funding the SNP Scottish Government has provided to reduce the attainment gap and I am delighted that this will continue as £7.2m has been committed to reduce the gap even further for the coming year.
“The SNP Scottish Government is also ensuring that P1-3 children have the best start to their day by providing free school meals. This will also be extended to all primary schools within this parliamentary term.
“It is only the SNP who can be trusted to protect Scotland’s education system and on May 5 the people of Edinburgh have the chance to send a message to the Tories that we do not trust them with it.”
SNP MSP GORDON MACDONALD SLATES ‘MORE TORY BROKEN PROMISES‘
SNP MSP Gordon MacDonald has slated the Westminster Tory Government for failing the people of Edinburgh by short-changing them by the equivalent of £14.6 million through the so-called Shared Prosperity Fund.
Following Brexit, which the people of Edinburgh did not vote for, the UK Government promised to replace every penny of the money Scotland previously received from the European Union. For this year, it is estimated that would have been £183 million.
However, figures just published show that Scotland will receive only £32 million this year. That is £151 million short of the £183 million promised and works out at an estimated equivalent of £14.6 million for Edinburgh.
Gordon MacDonald MSP said: “Not only did the people of Edinburgh not vote for Tory Brexit, we are paying a very high price for this disastrous Tory obsession.
“EU funding has supported infrastructure projects and community initiatives across the country since the 1970s, with Scotland receiving and delivering more than £6 billion of EU Structural Funds.
“Being short-changed again by the Tories, this time to the equivalent of £14.6 million, really adds insult to injury for the people of Edinburgh.
“This demonstrates exactly why the Tories’ sick joke of ‘levelling up’ actually means our community losing out, with Edinburgh facing the estimated loss of £14.6 million had Scotland not been taken out of the EU against our will.
“Not only that, the Scottish Government previously made decisions about how best to spend the EU money based on local priorities. Now a UK Tory Government – which Scotland did not vote for and hasn’t done for a lifetime – is cutting Scotland’s elected Government out of the decision-making process.
“That is both a betrayal of democracy and a disgrace that money will be spent on Tory priorities which will fail to meet the needs of communities in Edinburgh.
“This is yet another shocking demonstration why the Tories cannot be trusted with Scotland’s future. Scotland deserves better than Partygate liar Boris Johnson’s litany of broken promises.
“By voting SNP in the local elections on May the people of Scotland will send a crystal clear message to Johnson’s Tories that they will never be trusted.”
Pentlands SNP MSP Gordon MacDonald has welcomed the package of measures announced yesterday by the Scottish Government to provide immediate support and break the cycle of child poverty for people across Edinburgh.
Shona Robison, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, announced an increase of a further £5 to the ‘game-changing’ Scottish Child Payment – bringing the total payment to £25 per week per child at the end of the year, following the increase to £20 next week.
This move will see the SNP Government’s package of five family benefits for low income families, including the increased Scottish Child Payment, now totalling over £10,000 to low income families by the time a first child turns 6, and £9,700 for subsequent children.
It directly benefits 7,995 of children across Edinburgh already in receipt of the payment.
In contrast, families in England and Wales receive less than £1,800 for the first child and under £1,300 for subsequent children.
The SNP Cabinet Secretary also announced:
· an increase in employment services with the aim of supporting up to 12,000 parents into fair and sustainable work, backed by investment of up to £81 million in 2022-23
· investment of up to £15 million in a new fund to tackle the financial barriers parents face when they enter the labour market
· immediate steps to mitigate the Tories’ Benefit Cap, which is impacting many families already struggling to make ends meet, backed by up to £10m
It is estimated that, through these and current Scottish Government actions, 60,000 fewer children will be living in relative poverty in 2023/24 compared with 2017.
Gordon MacDonald said: “This package of measures to tackle child poverty is hugely welcome and the impact it will have on households across Edinburgh cannot be underestimated – increasing the Scottish Child Payment even further, to £25 per week per child, will make such a difference to families struggling to cope with the Tory cost of living crisis right now.
“This stands in stark contrast to the Tory Chancellor’s spring statement which utterly failed to provide any meaningful lifeline support for people across Edinburgh who are facing soaring energy bills and a cost of living crisis now – and that was a political choice.
“I am glad that families across Edinburgh have an SNP Scottish Government taking serious, life-changing action to protect them where it can within limited powers and a fixed budget. The significant parental employment package also announced will help people across Edinburgh into fair and sustainable work.
“Other political parties must now recognise the reality that whilst the SNP is doing what it can to put money in people’s pockets in Scotland and tackle poverty, Westminster is consistently undermining Scotland’s efforts through their damaging policy agenda.
“These actions from the Scottish Government make it crystal clear that Edinburgh and the people that live here, would be better off with independence and all the levers to tackle poverty and hardship.”
NHS Lothian has recorded record numbers of staff levels this year with 23,116 employed by the health board – a 15.1% increase over the past five years.
Scotland wide, more than 155,000 staff have been hired, with increases in whole-time equivalent (WTE) staff for ten consecutive years.
Across NHS Lothian there has been a 4.3% increase in the past year in staffing levels and a 15.1 % increase in the past five years.
Edinburgh Pentlands SNP MSP Gordon MacDonald said: “Our staff across NHS Lothian have shown incredible dedication and commitment to our health service in the past two years and beyond. We will never be able to thank them enough for their heroic efforts.
“Under the Scottish Government, staffing levels in the NHS have increased to record levels. The Scottish Government’s long-term investment in the workforce has accelerated since the outset of the pandemic and we are seeing that in reality, with a 15.1% increase over the past five years here in NHS Lothian.
“The SNP also continues to recognise the effort of our staff having offered them the best pay rise in the UK. They also continue to be the best paid health staff compared to their counterparts in the rest of the UK.”
Funds spent protecting Scots from Tories means less money available to fight cost of living crisis, says SNP
The SNP Scottish Government had to spend £57.3 million in Edinburgh to mitigate vindictive Tory UK Government policies in Scotland this financial year, meaning there is less money available to support hard-pressed Scots families through the deepening Tory cost of living crisis.
Across Scotland as a whole, the range of Scottish Government spending commitments to counter negligent Westminster policies is now an astronomical £594 million a year. And the figures do not include almost £3.5billion of social security benefits which, while devolved, are needed to support and supplement insufficient welfare benefits paid by the Tory UK Government.
The figures also do not include the £290m announcement by Finance Secretary Kate Forbes last week to give hard-pressed households £150 each.
SNP MSP Gordon Macdonald said: “To protect the people of Edinburgh, the SNP Government is having to commit an estimated £57.3 million – a substantial amount from its restricted budget – to mitigate vindictive and immoral Tory policies inflicted on our community.
“If these Tory policies – which bring misery to the country’s most vulnerable – did not exist, then it would free up Scottish Government cash to spend the equivalent of an extra £109 for every man, woman and child in Edinburgh to deal with the spiralling cost of living.
“Devolution was meant to provide Scotland with the opportunity to do things differently but, with Westminster holding the key economic levers like borrowing, the Scottish Government is severely constrained.
“That opportunity is even further restricted if it is continually having to commit eye-watering amounts simply to right the wrongs of the Tories’ underhand austerity agenda at Westminster which is targeted at ordinary people and families.
“It says something about their priorities that, while they cut funding to help ordinary people, they pursue a tax cut for banks that will benefit them by £4bn at the expense of public spending.
“Scotland’s opposition parties are constantly demanding the Scottish Government spends its limited budget on opposition priorities without ever identifying where the money is coming from. Well, this is many millions of pounds that could be diverted to these areas if it was not being used to protect Scots from the worst elements of Westminster control.
“And it’s not just the Tories to blame. Labour and the LibDems, through their support for Westminster control, perpetuate vindictive Tory governance on the people of Scotland. In 2014 those parties promised that Westminster would be better at tackling those problems for Scotland. The sad fact is that those promises of Westminster support were empty.
“Almost £600million is a vast amount. If the Tories at Westminster would only properly fund the areas in which the SNP Scottish Government must spend to mitigate and protect people, jobs and businesses, this cash could be redirected to make transformational changes in other areas of Scottish life.
“Sadly, the direction of travel of this Westminster Government means things will only get worse. It is why the people of Scotland will have the opportunity to choose a different path with a post-pandemic independence referendum once the crisis has passed.”
Edinburgh Pentlands MSP Gordon MacDonald has added his support to the campaign to introduce paid leave for families who experience a miscarriage before 24 weeks.
One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, however, under current UK legislation, workers are only entitled to paid bereavement leave following a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy.
As a result, families across the country are forced to rely on their employer’s good will or sick leave to allow them to grieve their loss.
On 3 December, a Private Members’ Bill introduced by Lanark and Hamilton East MP Angela Crawley which would see three days of paid leave for parents who experience a miscarriage before 24 weeks will receive its second reading in the House of Commons.
A petition has been launched calling for the UK Government to support the campaign and MPs from all parties have backed the bill.
Many parents have spoken of the stigma associated with miscarriage and this bill would finally close gap in support.
Some companies have already gone further than the bill proposes and offer paid leave for between seven and 14 days for people who experience a miscarriage at any stage of the pregnancy.
Other countries, including New Zealand, have written similar provisions into law and in September Australia became the latest country to adopt paid miscarriage leave.
Gordon MacDonald MSP said: “I know many parents in Edinburgh Pentlands have experienced miscarriage and too many of them have to rely on their employer’s good will or take sick leave when it happens.
“Miscarriage is no one’s fault yet the stigma associated can often put parents in a position where they are unable to properly grieve their loss.
“Countries like Australia and New Zealand have already taken the progressive step to ensure all parents affected by miscarriage are entitled to paid leave.
“It is time that the UK followed in their footsteps and I fully support this bill to provide the much needed, long overdue support grieving parents need and finally end the stigma associated with miscarriage.”
Angela Crawley MP’s private members’ bill is due to be debated today – Friday 3rd December 2021
