Benefit cuts may infringe the human rights of claimants and the UK Government's approach to the topic is a joke, Scotland's leading expert has claimed.
Alan Miller, chairman of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, made the comments discussing the so-called bedroom tax during a debate on welfare reform.
Speaking at The Gathering, the annual charities conference in Glasgow, Mr Miller claimed the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had not addressed the question of human rights when framing the policy. "They asked, 'Is there an impact on human rights?' and ticked the box marked 'No'," he said. "That is not a proper impact assessment. It is a joke, or would be if the consequences were not so serious."
The change means people in social housing who have rooms they are deemed not to need will lose a proportion of housing benefit, so they receive less than the cost of their rent. Mr Miller said if people were forced into arrears and evicted as a result, it was likely their right to a family life and home could be infringed. "The Government should have taken that into account," he said. He added that the UK authorities had failed to put into place internationally agreed standards on social and economic rights, citing Germany and Latvia where such a framework is constitutionally guaranteed.
German-based asylum seekers have forced the Government to review the payments they are expected to survive on by asserting a right to human dignity, while in Latvia pensioners used their laws to prove their Government had brought in austerity measures which disproportionately affected older people, forcing leaders to review its policy across the board.
"This internationally agreed framework hasn't been brought into force in the UK," Mr Miller said. "Scotland's next step – regardless of the outcome of next year's referendum – has to be to give more status to these economic and social rights.
"If we had them the UK Government would have to look across its budgets, not just zero in on welfare reform. That is what is missing. Unfortunately at Westminster the rhetoric is all about going back from human rights."
However some panel members at the event, hosted by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, took a different view.
Morag Gillespie, a poverty researcher from Glasgow Caledonian University, said it should not fall to those on low incomes to bring about change through the courts: "These are not welfare reforms, they are social security cuts," she argued. "One of the mainstream political parties needs to realise what we need is a social security system, not an American-style welfare system reliant on people taking human rights cases to get decent support. Will people have the resilience to go through claims and challenges to bring human rights cases and force a better system?" she asked.
Conservative Edinburgh City Councillor Ian McGill defended the changes, saying they were a response to the complexity of the current system and to "a feeling that benefits had extended from providing what folk needed to providing something more The changes will empower people on benefits to have many more choices."
The DWP didn't comment by the time of going to press.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article