SNP MSP Clare Adamson has lambasted the UK Government after new analysis shows Westminster has presided over the least supportive unemployment benefits system in north west Europe.
The analysis from the House of Commons Library has revealed that when 16 types of households on average unemployment benefits are compared over twenty years across 14 states in North West Europe, the UK ranks lowest in 95 per cent of cases.
The figures, using OECD data, show that unemployed people in the UK receive 16 percentage points of their employed income less than the average North West European country.
When compared to small countries similar in size to Scotland, this rises to 19 percentage points.
Even with the uplift to Universal Credit, which the Chancellor has said will end, a single person in the UK receives less than a fifth of the average unemployment benefits provided by other European countries.
Ms Adamson, the MSP for Motherwell and Wishaw, said: “The UK already has the lowest state pension in the developed world.
"And now this new analysis shows that the UK Government is leaving unemployed people high and dry compared to our neighbours.
“The Tories have presided over a sustained assault on those on low incomes and I fear the worst is yet to come. Can we expect anything other than a protracted period of austerity underhandedly packaged as an attempt to recoup COVID-19 spending?
“We are suffering from the twin ills of the pandemic and Brexit. We need a social security system which lifts people out of poverty - not one that plunges them into it.
“The UK Government could act now by making the £20 uplift to Universal Credit permanent but they will, as they always have done, choose to abandon low income families.
“The measure of a society is our ability to protect our most vulnerable citizens and time and time again the Tories come up short.
“The residents of Motherwell and Wishaw deserve better than this. Scotland deserves better than this.”
Central Scotland Conservative MSP Meghan Gallacher insisted the UK Government spends billions each year supporting the most vulnerable members of our society.
She said: “It is not possible to compare benefits systems across Europe based on one statistical point as it fails to take into account the additional support measures that have been put in place across the UK.
“Furthermore, the Scottish Government already has the ability to top-up existing benefits, offer discretionary payments where necessary, and create brand new benefits in devolved areas if it wishes to do so.
“The SNP has consistently handed power to manage welfare systems in Scotland back to Westminster. Clare Adamson is right about one thing, the residents of Motherwell and Wishaw deserve better than this.
“Scotland deserves better than this. We all deserve better than a failing SNP Government continually looking for someone else to blame.”
