Influential coalition says Westminster government needs to apply founding principles back into social security system
A coalition of over 60 leading charities, unions and faith groups has written to Scotland’s Westminster election candidates calling for “dignity and respect” to be placed back at the heart of the country’s social security system.
The Scottish Campaign on Welfare Reform (SCoWR) says years of benefit cuts and welfare reform have plunged too many people into deeper poverty and is leaving many without any support at all.
The coalition has written to all parliamentary candidates calling for increased benefit rates so that no one is left in poverty and he charities urge prospective MPs to back a greater focus on benefits that are not means tested.
They also call on candidates to roll back “punitive conditionality” and sanctions, which they describe as "ineffective, complex, costly and stigmatising”.
We must now invest in our social security system, not undermine it.
Campaign spokesperson John Dickie, director of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) in Scotland, said: “Over recent years we have seen massive real terms cuts to benefits and tax credits and hopelessly inappropriate sickness and disability assessments.
“These changes undermine the support that ordinary families rely on, whether they are in or out of work. But now organisations from across Scotland are united in calling on prospective MPs to back a fundamentally different approach to welfare reform in the next parliament.”
Its manifesto states that current UK welfare reform "is creating a system which is leaving more people without access to any support at all", "lacks compassion" and fails to treat people with "dignity and respect”.
Dickie added: “Our wellbeing as a nation depends on protecting and enabling people when they face unemployment, ill health, disability or additional caring responsibilities.
“We must now invest in our social security system, not undermine it."
SCoWR includes the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, the STUC, One Parent Families Scotland, Inclusion Scotland, Engender, Poverty Alliance and the Scottish Refugee Council among others.
