Welfare Reform Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Official Report 421KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Welfare Reform (Consequential Amendments) (Scotland) (No 3) Regulations 2013 (SSI 2013/142)

Our next item of business is consideration of a statutory instrument. The Subordinate Legislation Committee considered the regulations at its meeting on 21 May and raised no points.

We are joined by Scottish Government officials. I think that Ann McVie is going to make a comment or two before we open up the session to questions. Is that all right?

Yes, that is perfectly fine.

Good morning. Thank you for inviting us along to talk about the latest set of welfare reform regulations. As the Deputy First Minister outlined in her letter of 20 April, the regulations make a number of further minor changes relating to the UK Government’s introduction of personal independence payments, commonly referred to as PIP. More substantially, the regulations provide for recipients of the new armed forces independence payment—AFIP—that the Ministry of Defence is introducing to access the same benefits, disregards and allowances as recipients of the existing disability living allowance or the new PIP.

AFIP is designed to provide financial support to service personnel and veterans seriously injured as a result of service to cover the extra costs that they might have as a result of their injuries. AFIP is a substitute for disability living allowance or PIP. The financial value will be the same as that of the higher rate components of PIP. The main difference is that the recipients of AFIP will not have to undergo the periodic reassessments that people in receipt of PIP will have to undergo.

AFIP is a Ministry of Defence benefit that the DWP is administering; it does not fall within the Scottish Government’s ambit. The MOD estimates that there could be about five recipients of AFIP in Scotland each year and that about 50 people might be eligible from the outset. A small number of people will be affected by the change.

At the same time, the regulations make changes to the National Health Service (Travelling Expenses and Remission of Charges) (Scotland) (No 2) Regulations 2003, commonly referred to as the TERC regs. Those changes will ensure that any dependants of universal credit recipients are not required to pay any health charges. That is during the pathfinder period for universal credit that has now started in the Manchester area of England.

Last but not least, the 2013 regulations amend instruments on legal advice and assistance and on civil legal aid to ensure that any payments that are made from the new Scottish welfare fund are disregarded from the calculation of disposable income and disposable capital, as well as from any payments that are due to be recovered for solicitors. In these regulations, we have rolled up the disregard for the new welfare fund, which was introduced in Scotland at the beginning of April.

That has been quite a helpful clarification. It appears that members have no questions, so do members agree to note the regulations?

Members indicated agreement.

11:47 Meeting continued in private until 12:06.