Briefing for In-work Poverty Debate

This briefing summarises Shelter Scotland's position on in-work poverty for the debate in April 2019, following our written submission to the same inquiry in August 2018.

In order to address some of the issues the Scottish Government should:

- continue to engage with and apply pressure on the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to amend Universal Credit to be more responsive and meet the needs of people who use it. Shelter Scotland has backed the call for a halt to Universal Credit while problems are fixed and believe that this will have a particularly significant impact on
people in experiencing in-work poverty.

- consider the impact of the rising costs of goods on in-work poverty and explore ways of using new social security and taxation powers to address these.

- continue to invest in a house building programme which is sustainably affordable for low-income households.