Members' Business — S6M-12841 Clare Haughey: Seventh Anniversary of the Two-child Benefit Cap

That the Parliament regrets to mark the seventh anniversary of the introduction by the UK Government of the two-child benefit cap, and the associated so-called rape clause; notes with alarm reports that over 87,000 children across Scotland are affected by the cap, including 3,610 in South Lanarkshire; further notes the work of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which reports that the poverty rate for children in families with three or more children was almost twice as high as the poverty rate for children in one- or two-child families in 2021-22, at 43% compared with 23% and 22% respectively, as a result of UK welfare policies such as the two-child benefit limit; highlights what it considers to be the contrast between the inhumane practices of the UK Government’s Department for Work and Pensions and the compassionate approach of the Scottish Government’s Social Security Scotland; understands that the Scottish Government has already spent more than £733 million over the last five financial years to mitigate UK Government welfare policies, despite what it sees as a remarkably challenging financial environment and the fiscal limitations of devolution; notes that the Scottish Child Payment and other devolved policies are forecast to keep up to 100,000 children in Scotland out of relative poverty in this financial year; further notes the view that Scotland should continue to build a social security system that is founded on dignity, fairness and respect, and notes the calls urging the UK Government to reverse the two-child benefit cap and what it regards as the other abhorrent and ineffective welfare reforms that have been implemented over more than a decade of austerity.