LABOUR ASKS WHY SCOTLAND ADMINISTERS ITS OWN BENEFITS WHEN IT COULD BE DONE BY WESTMINSTER

One of the Scottish Governments most recent pieces of legislation was the introduction of a new benefit, the Scottish Child Payment, intended as a founding piece of progressive legislation which, once up and running and properly funded, is designed to try and aid some of the poorest across the country.

Yet instead of welcoming this the Labour Party opted to stand sneering on the sidelines and wring their hands. Gordon Brown, the man charged by new Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to craft an attractive and credible alternative to independence, said he doesn’t “see why” Scotland is administering its own benefits when it could be done by Westminster.

A government spokesperson said Brown’s comments “fly in the face” of the idea that Labour can offer Scotland anything new, adding: “Gordon Brown’s alternative is that we should all go back to sitting with our fingers crossed, waiting in hope for something good to ever come down from Westminster.”

“It suited the British Labour Party when they had Scots dependent on them for a break of some sort, whether in benefits, or with their taxes or with whatever other socio-economic policy that had an impact on our lives.

“This is one of the main reasons the Labour Party opposed anything further from being devolved back to Scotland. They know it robs them of their usefulness to the Scottish people, but when these powers are already back here and we're doing it for ourselves, people very quickly realised we don't 'need' them. The absolute hammering they were given by people the length and breadth of Scotland in the immediate aftermath of the first independence referendum serves as a spectacular illustration of this, and of course they've struggled to get more than a single seat in general elections ever since.

“All that's required for the country to come full circle, is for us to take back control of all our money now, which will enable us to properly fund these policies. We send north of £200 billion per annum to Westminster and are forced to sit with our hands outstretched while they send a mere fraction of it back, which barely meets our obligations to create and fund the policies that are required to help our people.

“People had long railed against the Tories in Scotland, believing that it was mainly them that were locking us into this 18th century political settlement, whilst jealously guarding our freedoms and our wealth as their own. And while a lot of that is true, if there is a party that is just as complicit in this, for their own selfish electoral reasons, it's the Labour Party. Let's never lose sight of that.

“While they try and paint our desire for full independence as some abstract notion that is somehow unconnected to the general health and well being of the country. The opposite is true. Independence is essential for us to be able to properly do these things.”

However, Keir Starmer claimed his newly announced commission, which Brown will advise, will aim to be “every bit as bold and radical as the programme of devolution that Labour delivered in the 1990s and 2000s”.

The former prime minister’s remarks were made at a Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) webinar last week in response to a question which asked: “The new Scottish Child Payment has been described as ‘game-changing’ by CPAG in Scotland. Should we be calling on the UK Government to match that ambition?”

In response, Brown said: “I’m actually disappointed by the delays in the Scottish Poverty Payment and I don’t see why they’ve created a completely separate social security system to administer it when it could have been administered through the Department for Work and Pensions.”

The Scottish Child Payment was intended to be up and running by the end of 2020. However, the pandemic meant the first payments weren't made until February 2021.

When it was first announced, John Dickie, the director of CPAG in Scotland, said the payment was "an absolute game-changer in the fight to end child poverty". It has been similarly hailed as “vital” by Action for Children Scotland.

Responding to Brown’s comment’s Neil Gray, the SNP MP for Airdrie and Shotts, said they showed “just how out of touch” the former Labour leader is and stressed that it is “the Scottish Child Payment – not the Scottish Poverty Payment”.

He went on: “To suggest at an event arranged to tackle child poverty that the Scottish Government should have done nothing and left it to the Tories at Westminster – who have a dismal track record of tackling child poverty – is ludicrous.

“If the Scottish Government had followed Brown’s advice weans in Scotland would be a lot worse off. This is a UK Government that had to be publicly shamed by a footballer into feeding hungry school-weans and is ignoring calls to make the Universal Credit increase permanent to prevent just under half a million children from going hungry south of the border.

"Labour should get real and join us in calling for the UK to match the Scottish Child Payment which has been hailed as a ‘game-changer’ by anti-poverty campaigners and start realising that it is only independence that gives us all the powers and tools we need to tackle poverty.”

The Labour Party did not offer comment.