Chamber and committees

I think that Mark Simpson wants to come back in before we move on to Miles Briggs.

I thank both our witnesses for giving evidence. As always, your report and your evidence will help us in our scrutiny function.

Thank you for your time this morning, Mr Dennis. It would be very helpful to the committee if you could get back to us by 8 June, if possible, with the information that you so kindly said you would provide to us. That would allow us to have the information when we need it.

That concludes our penultimate formal oral evidence-taking session for this inquiry. We will be hearing next from the Scottish Government, and I should also say that the committee will be meeting its experts by experience panel informally on 6 June to take stock of the evidence that has been heard and hear their suggestions for improvements.

I suspend the meeting for about five minutes for a changeover of witnesses and a comfort break.

That is perfect, thank you.

If you want to come in quickly on the previous question, that is okay.

Thank you. We move on to the final two questions.

We will always see some hiccups. I will point out to members that we are how many years down from the roll-out of PIP—we are 13 years in—yet it has still not been fully rolled out. That is why there are people on the disability living allowance and other legacy benefits. Also, as my colleagues are saying from sedentary positions, there is a five-week cruel wait before people get their first universal credit payment.

Our social security agency has been built for us all, and it was imperative that we took the time and made the effort to ensure that we did not replicate or bake in the shortcomings and inequity of the UK system. It is also incumbent on us all to work hard to make sure that we maximise benefit uptake. We want to figure out how to get past the practical issues of data sharing to ensure that families get everything that they are entitled to. I will repeat the minister’s call for members across the chamber to please get that information out on their social media channels and make sure that everyone knows what they are entitled to.

As Convener of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, I recently travelled to Social Security Scotland in Dundee with my committee colleague Emma Roddick, to hear at first hand about how the transfer of the adult disability payment was progressing. I was struck by how impassioned the staff were and how they appreciated the time that was afforded to them with the phased roll-out, as that enables them to be fleet of foot in the face of challenges and respond accordingly. They spoke about culture and practice being developed, which gives me the confidence that our guiding principles are playing out in real time. That was confirmed by the recent study that showed that 90 per cent of Social Security Scotland’s customers rated the service as good or very good.

It was the application form for ADP that resonated most with me on that day. That is not tinkering around the edges. That form could not be further removed from the application form for the personal independence payment: it has been crafted with lived and worked experience in mind and dignity at its heart. Both Emma Roddick and I were emotional, as we both know only too well the positive impact that it will have on those of us in Scotland who find ourselves eligible for such a payment. Indefinite awards and no dehumanising private sector assessments also signal a brand new approach.

So, despite the ludicrous Labour assertion that we are doing nothing with our powers, eligible families in Scotland will receive more than £10,000 by the time their first child turns six, and £9,700 for subsequent children. As the minister said, contrast that with only £1,800 in England and Wales, and only £1,300 for subsequent children. We are doing that with one hand tied behind our back. Just imagine what we could do with all the powers of a normal, everyday independent country.

Will the member take an intervention?

I rise to support the Scottish Government motion. It is extremely important that we take a moment to reflect on the fact that, in the four short years since the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 was passed—including in the face of a pandemic, when priorities rightly shifted—our Government has taken on the major feat of disentangling a complex benefits system. We must remember that this is a system so complex that, only a fortnight ago, the UK chancellor advised us that “computer says no” to uprating benefits more than once a year, because the antiquated system was simply an insurmountable obstacle to doing it in any other way; and that, although today he has been dragged kicking and screaming to agree an inflationary uplift to benefits, that will not happen until—surprise, surprise—next year.

Not only have we disentangled a complex and onerous system that had bits of paper warehoused all across the UK; we now find that our new Social Security Scotland agency is delivering 12 benefits, of which seven are entirely new and available only in Scotland—a feat that Audit Scotland has rightly described as

“a significant achievement ... in challenging circumstances”.

Those new Scotland-only payments, including the game-changing Scottish child payment, are payments that third sector partners across the rest of the UK are desperate to see replicated in their own countries. Sadly, the political will at the UK level is more interested in capping benefits than in investing in its people, while our Government chooses to mitigate the hated benefit cap that plunges predominantly women and children into abject poverty in ideological, austerity-created welfare warfare, which also involved women being told that a third child would be supported only if conceived as a result of rape.

UK-wide, that system plunged 400,000 children into poverty overnight, by removing the £20 universal credit uplift. That is shameful. I wonder whether any member on the Tory benches has made representation to their UK Government colleagues to reverse those callous welfare cuts. Analyses show that doing so would lift an estimated 70,000 people in Scotland, including 30,000 children, out of poverty by 2024.

Contrast that with our approach in this place, which decided that our agency was to be built with fairness, dignity and respect at its heart, and core principles that include seeing social security as an investment in the people of Scotland and as a human right that is essential to the realisation of other human rights and will contribute to the reduction of poverty across our country.

Right back at the beginning of that first new public service to be created since devolution, I remember, as part of my work as the community wellbeing spokesperson of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, being moved to tears as I heard from those who were involved with the experience panels about how much trauma was invoked by a brown envelope through the door. As someone who was previously in receipt of the said brown envelopes and who also supported many folk to navigate the often complex and cruel world in which brown envelopes become the stuff of nightmares, I was relieved to see such a level of engagement with lived experience shaping the way in which our new agency operates.

Does Carol Mochan appreciate the fact that we know that about 77 per cent of eligible children—or maybe even more than that now—are in receipt of the Scottish child payment? Has Labour undertaken analysis of the fact that, if we further increase the Scottish child payment, at some point in time that will have a knock-on effect on eligibility for universal credit from the DWP? That is a worrying factor for families throughout the country.