Contents
Petition
Welfare Cuts (Mitigation) (PE1677)
Item 4 is a petition in the name of Dr Sarah Glynn on behalf of the Scottish Unemployed Workers Network calling on the Scottish Government to make more money available to mitigate welfare cuts. There is a paper by the clerk on the petition. Does the committee agree to note the petition and consider it later in light of the outcome of its current and planned inquiry work?
Members indicated agreement.
At what point is it likely that we will come back to the petition in light of our on-going work? The group is obviously very concerned. I am as frustrated as anyone else that the Parliament is frequently called on to use its devolved powers to mitigate the actions of another Parliament. I fully understand that. However, I also think that we have a duty to use those powers to the maximum. I would appreciate an idea of the timescale so that we do not forget to come back to what is an important issue.
Without making a definite commitment, I would say that part of our work today is to consider the evidence. We are going to write to the minister following consideration of the evidence that we have taken on the welfare fund and it would be prudent to wait to see what comes back from the Government on that. We could revisit the petition at that stage. I cannot put a specific date on it, but it would be fairly soon. Are you content with that?
Okay. Thank you.
If there are no other comments, we will now move into private for the rest of the meeting.
10:21 Meeting continued in private until 10:39.Previous
Scottish Welfare Fund