Emma Roddick is MSP for Highlands & Islands and served as Minister for Equalities
The welfare system tells you everything you need to know about a government. It’s more than a line in a budget, but the size of that line tells you where our true priorities lie: do we leave folk to fend for themselves, or do we stand up for the wellbeing and dignity of all citizens? Across the UK, this question is currently being answered in two profoundly different ways. In Scotland, we are building a progressive system driven by the principles of dignity, fairness, and respect. It’s an approach focused on lifting people up, trusting that investment in individuals pays off. But while we lay that positive groundwork, Westminster is focused on one cruel, outdated goal: cutting the welfare bill, even if it means actively kicking people while they’re down. This difference represents a deep moral chasm in how we treat the most vulnerable.
The conference resolution Bob Doris and I have put forward lays out this contrast clearly. On one side, we see concrete, effective action. The SNP is set to scrap the cruel two-child cap from March 2026. This will be a lifeline for 43,000 children in Scotland, according to the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s own estimates. This decision translates into food on the table, warmer homes, and better prospects for thousands of young people, who will be less likely to get to school hungry, tired, and picked on for their clothes, and less likely to develop chronic and avoidable health issues. We know this is the likely result of planned efforts because it is already demonstrated in the powerful impact of the Scottish Child Payment, which has helped ensure Scotland is the only part of the UK where child poverty rates are currently falling
On the other side, the UK Government is choosing regression. We condemn the brutal new Universal Credit and PIP Bill. These policies aren’t about reducing dependency or anything else Keir Starmer claims; they are designed to create more barriers and make it harder for the people who need help most to access it. The UK Government is making a conscious, ideological choice to manage its budget by weaponising poverty. As knowledgeable stakeholders like the Glasgow Disability Alliance have demanded, these measures must be scrapped immediately. They are rooted in a nasty, discredited philosophy that says poverty is a personal failure, not a failure of the broken system.
I’ve been that young person who saw no way out of perpetual worry about how to afford rent, food, and the bus to work; I know how that fear sits on the mind, and I know the impact on the person suffering and the cap it sticks on their potential. Thousands of people are stuck at home in a constant state of fear and burnout instead of taking up education opportunities that lead to filling desperately-needed skilled vacancies, having children that will look after the older population, or generally being productive members of communities.
This is where the argument shifts from policy to pure hypocrisy. We in Scotland are doing this with one hand tied behind our backs. The Scottish Government operates under severe fiscal constraints; our budget is dictated by Westminster, which refuses to give us further powers to raise our own revenue. This means we are forced to spend millions just to mitigate the damage caused by policies like the two-child cap and the devastating Bedroom Tax. We are sweeping up the mess left by decisions made hundreds of miles away, yet we still manage to find humane solutions.
Here is the critical difference: the UK Government has the complete power, now, today. Its ministers hold the fundamental levers of fiscal control; they set the structure of Universal Credit entirely, and they control the whole UK’s welfare budget. There is absolutely nothing stopping them from following our lead. Their failure to act is not due to a lack of resources, a constitutional problem, or an economic impossibility. It is purely about a lack of political will, a lack of moral courage, and ultimately, a lack of compassion. It is a choice to keep millions of families trapped in poverty. The research is in, and it’s irrefutable: if the UK Government matched key Scottish policies – abolishing the two-child cap, abolishing the Bedroom Tax, and raising the child element of Universal Credit by £27.15 per child per week to match our Scottish Child Payment – 1.8 million families would be lifted out of hardship.
The Scottish blueprint is on the table. It is an evidence-based roadmap for change. that puts people, not profit, first. The choice the UK Government has in front of it is crystal clear: continue down the path of pointless austerity and cruelty, or follow Scotland’s bold, progressive lead and choose dignity. They just need the heart and the guts to pick up that blueprint.
Image Credit: Roger Blackwell from Norwich, UK, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
