This is the list of documents available for the submission Motion by Councillor Richard Bell:- "Council notes the transformative work that Glasgow City Council is undertaking to help tackle poverty in the city. Council welcomes the data and insight-driven 'Demonstrators of Change' programme and the workstream of the Child Poverty Programme in ten 'booster wards' across the city which have the highest numbers of children living in relative poverty; and notes that these are piloting and testing different early intervention and prevention approaches, finding out what works for communities, with their input, and scaling up the successes in reducing poverty across the city. Council agrees with the Resolution Foundation that anti-poverty initiatives like these along with measures like the Scottish Child Payment and universal free school meals are effective ways of lifting people out of poor health and poverty and contribute to the shared aim of the SNP administration in Glasgow and the Scottish Government to work towards eradicating child poverty across the city. Council is therefore hugely alarmed by the announcements of the UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves and the Work & Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall of cuts to the public sector and the benefits system and believes that these will totally undermine our efforts. Council believes that the Chancellor's Spring Statement is just the latest example of the Labour Government taking an axe to public services, and will mark the beginning of yet another cycle of cuts, harming an increased number of people and leading to higher demand. The announcement of the imposition of further billions of pounds of austerity cuts breaks yet another election promise by both Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar. Council notes the UK Government's Spring Statement has done nothing to fix the foundations of the UK economy after the previous Autumn Budget imposed Winter Fuel Payment cuts, increased employers' National Insurance, maintained the cruel Two-Child Benefit Cap, and ignored the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report which recommended WASPI women should be compensated. Council further notes that the Spring Statement was preceded by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall's Green Paper on health-related benefit reforms which heralded £6 billion a year cuts, and which the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and New Economics Foundation have exposed as the biggest cut to disability benefits since the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was created in 2010. Council also recognises that this is the largest social security cut since the summer of 2015, when a series of cuts and freezes to the system were implemented that have left the UK with one of the weakest social safety nets in the OECD, according to a NIESR report UK Living Standards Review 2025 published early March. Council agrees with Scope that , "These plans should shame the government to its core". Council also agrees with the Child Poverty Action Group Scotland "that the Children in a household where someone has a disability already have a higher risk of poverty and further cuts would only make life harder for many of these families. The UK government's forthcoming child poverty strategy must prioritise investing in the social security system, including by scrapping the two-child limit at source." Council further recognises that a number of Trade Unions have urged an immediate re-think of the proposed welfare reforms, warning they would disproportionately harm the most vulnerable in society and deepen existing inequalities. Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite, has stated that the government is in danger of making the wrong choices and Council agrees with her statement that "We must be protecting the most vulnerable in society and not pitting the poorest against the poorest." Council rejects the callous treatment of disabled and sick people and confirms its belief that there is no moral case for propelling even more people into poverty by cutting benefit levels or denying access to financial support to those who have no alternative, and that people with disabilities should not a scapegoat for a failing economy and are a community that deserves improved opportunities. Council believes that the effects of the UK government's proposals will be to make more people sicker, further undermine everyone's right to a decent quality of life and further entrench the barriers to access, employment, and social inclusion that many disabled people face. Council calls again on the Labour UK Government to scrap the cruel two-child limit and notes that this was one of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) series of recommendations to tackle poverty in the UK. Council believes that it is unacceptable that the people of Glasgow continue to pay for their economic incompetence and indifference to poverty of successive UK governments, and instructs the Chief Executive to write to Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar and the UK Labour Prime Minister to highlight the data available in Glasgow that confirms that the choices of the UK government will have the effect of punching down on the poorest and undermining the innovative anti-poverty work of Glasgow City Council.".

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