Emma J
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emmahaslanded.bsky.social
Emma J
@emmahaslanded.bsky.social
8 followers 72 following 40 posts
Here to promote an idea I call Universal Credit Scottish Mitigations, catchy name huh? See pinned thread and new blog https://ucscottishmitigations.blogspot.com/
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emmahaslanded.bsky.social
The Scottish Fiscal Commission have set out how much it would cost to mitigate the 2 child limit in Scotland, with today’s news this is how much the Scottish Government has extra to spend on child poverty. fiscalcommission.scot/wp-content/u...
Table from Scottish Fiscal Commission report showing cost of mitigating 2 child limit in Scotland as £155m next year rising steadily to £198m in 2029-30
November 23, 2025 at 10:05 AM
emmahaslanded.bsky.social
It’s the UK budget this week and the Scottish Budget in January. If Rachel Reeves announces the abolition of the 2 child limit on Wednesday then we need to hold John Swinney to this promise. www.gov.scot/news/fm-remo...
“And secondly, if the UK government does the right thing and abolishes the two-child cap across the UK, the resources we have committed to this policy will continue to be used on measures to eradicate child poverty in Scotland.”
November 22, 2025 at 1:37 PM
emmahaslanded.bsky.social
I’m reading the Scottish Government’s consultation on mitigating the two child cap. www.gov.scot/binaries/con...
It clearly makes the case for mitigating at source but says this “could” mean slower progress for delivering the change. Would it not be a good idea to test this with UK government?
“DWP removing the two-child cap in Scotland would require extensive work. It would require the UK Government to introduce legislation and make system changes in order to remove the two-child cap from Universal Credit calculations for families in Scotland. The introduction of the these payments would depend on the UK Parliamentary process, as well as DWP’s timescales for making the necessary technical changes, which could mean slower progress toward delivering payments.”
February 21, 2025 at 3:33 PM
emmahaslanded.bsky.social
Another reason to mitigate the bedroom tax, benefit cap and bedroom tax all at source in Scotland is take up rates. Take up is good for the bedroom tax but only 57% for the benefit cap mitigation. researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN...
February 16, 2025 at 12:19 PM
emmahaslanded.bsky.social
But what the Scottish Government did do was use Discretionary Housing Payments to mitigate the bedroom tax and the benefit cap (note the benefit cap is different to the 2 child limit, it is a cap on maximum amount of Universal Credit a household can receive) www.gov.scot/publications... 2/x
Section on the Scottish Government website setting out the Funding Methodology for Discretionary Housing Payments: “The Scottish Government fully funds the mitigation of the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS), also known as the “bedroom tax”, and, since January 2023, the Benefit Cap. The budget for these mitigations is based on the forecasted cost of reimbursing local authorities for mitigating tenants’ losses to RSRS, and the maximum cost of the Benefit Cap to claimants during 2024-25.”
February 15, 2025 at 9:37 PM
emmahaslanded.bsky.social
Once upon a time the Scottish and UK Governments promised to work together to scrap the bedroom tax at source - through Universal Credit www.gov.scot/policies/soc.... That didn’t happen because they were both busy with other things. 1/x
Excerpt from Scottish Government website saying they are working with UK government to “abolish the bedroom tax at source for recipients of UC”
February 15, 2025 at 9:24 PM