Humza Yousaf on cost of living crisis in exclusive chat

Over two days we will highlight the First Minister's answers to questions on poverty, council funding, Michael Matheson, Operation Branchform, family life and dealing with personal abuse.

Humza Yousaf says his vision as First Minister is “pretty simple”.

During his time in office, he wants to “reduce inequality and poverty".

He adds: “If it was up to me. I'd like to eradicate it."

He is not making big, bold claims, however, because, as you might expect, he doesn’t think it’s fully possible under the current constitutional arrangement.

He quickly issues the caveat: “To do that, of course, I need the full powers of any normal, independent nation.”

The First Minister spoke exclusively to the Glasgow Times at the Pearce Institute in Govan as he approaches one year in the job.

On what he wants to achieve, he said: “Part of the vision, as you'd imagine from somebody in my party is to make sure that the country has all the powers it needs to tackle inequality and poverty because there are too many people in this country,  a country that's wealthy, and the UK generally is a wealthy country, too many people living in dire, dire poverty."

One of the big SNP anti-poverty policies is the Scottish Child Payment but the recent weekly rise of just £1.70 from £25 a week was a disappointment to many. It fell short of his pledge, before he was First Minister, to raise it to £30 a week.

He returned to the constraints of devolution.

Yousaf said: “I said I'd hope to if the finances would allow us to.

“Now, the difficulty, of course, is the financial constraints we’re under, with £500m of real terms cut over the last two years from the UK Government.”

But the payment, he argues is making a difference.

He said: “It’s part of a suite of measures, and of course we did increase it, obviously by inflation.”

He cites a number of 90,000 fewer children in Scotland taken out of poverty as a result.

Yousaf said: “Where we can go further, we absolutely will. We want to make sure we get the balance right over the child payment.

“Our commitment to tackling poverty, particularly in comparison to other governments in the UK, but even standing on its own, our commitment is unwavering. I’m sure we can demonstrate that.”

Today, Glasgow City Council is meeting to set its budget with its top finance official informing political leaders there is a spending gap of £107m over three years.

READ NEXT:Council faces more than £100m of cuts over next three years

Asked if the Scottish Government was cutting the council’s budget the First Minister, said: “No. Local government is getting an increase.”

On the £107m deficit, he said: “I don’t recognise the figure.”

He added: “We'll obviously have a discussion with Glasgow and I meet with Glasgow City Council, as you can imagine, with some regularity.

He continued: “First and foremost, of course, we have all been hit by a significant cost of living crisis, where energy prices have gone up, so the council's energy bills have gone up.

“Inflation has gone up and the council, I’m afraid, is not immune to that.”

He returns to the role of the Westminster government.

Energy bills and inflation he states are “not in my gift”.

Instead, he adds: “That is a direct result of complete economic mismanagement from the Conservative UK Government.”

Councils, he said have been given a real terms uplift for 2024/25 but again he adds: “Let me just be honest with your readers.

“We're operating under a straitjacket, a financial constraint because of what is given to us in our budget from the UK Government.”

One of his first policy announcements was to freeze Council Tax for the coming year.

He refers back to the cost-of-living crisis and while energy bills and inflation may be outside his control, he said: “One of the bills we can control is the Council Tax and being able to stop, for example, the rises that we've seen in some parts of England, of 10%” which he said “breaches the cap the UK government had imposed”.

He added: “I don't want any person living in any local authority area having to pay an increase in the bills by 10%, 15%, 20%”, which he said some had forecast.

He defended the policy against claims that it is not progressive and benefits the better off while not helping those on the lowest incomes.

The cost-of-living crisis he said was also affecting people on average and above average earnings.

Yousaf said: “Come into my constituency office. Sit down with me when I do my constituency surgeries and you will see people that are not just on the lowest incomes but on above average incomes that are coming in asking for support.

“People are really suffering. I accept the lowest incomes are absolutely getting hammered here because of this cost of living crisis.

“But I'm telling you it's hurting people who are police officers, teachers, nurses. I’ve had all of them in the office.”

He said it is also “fully funded” and is not the reason why councils are making cuts.

The First Minister said: “This idea that they have to cut services because of the Council Tax freeze, I’m afraid, doesn't work.

“It's an above-inflation Council Tax freeze. If a council wants to raise Council Tax above inflation, they really need to justify that in a cost-of-living crisis and I wouldn't want to be in that position.”

READ NEXT: Michael Matheson quits as Health Secretary as report awaited

The day before we met, Michael Matheson had resigned as Health Secretary over the £11k iPad roaming charge bill.

The First Minister said he had been thinking about a reshuffle and had spoken to Matheson the week before he resigned about the parliamentary probe due to report.

He said: “Michael and I had spoken even last week about the fact that obviously, the parliamentary corporate body process was drawing towards a conclusion.

“And, he added, “I had been thinking about a potential reshuffle for a period of time and that's why I was able to move quite quickly.

On Matheson, he said: “He made a mistake. There's no ifs, buts or maybes about that, he’s made a mistake.

“He’s apologised for it. He's paid a price for it. And my future focus is how we deliver on the priorities for the people.

“I'll tell you specifically, and he addressed this in his parliamentary statement. He said that he wasn't honest at the time when he found out from his boys when they told him the truth about the use of the iPad and he apologised for that. That was a mistake.

“He also gave the context, he said he was trying to protect his kids. And I think we have kids we can understand, but it's not to say it was the right thing to do, but it wasn't. And that's why he apologised.”

Tomorrow: family life, succeeding Nicola Sturgeon, operation Branchform and coping with personal abuse.