Chamber and committees

Good morning to the committee, the clerks and the cabinet secretary. I thank the cabinet secretary for joining us this morning, and for setting out her vision and the budget.

As it stands, only one in four children will benefit from the doubling of the Scottish child payment. As the cabinet secretary knows, we support the doubling of the Scottish child payment—I think that most MSPs do—but we think that it needs to be doubled again to meet the targets. As it stands, only one in four children will get the doubling because the higher rate applies only to children under the age of five, for some of the reasons that the cabinet secretary has just described. However, that still means that only one in four will get it. That leaves hundreds of thousands of children on Scottish child payment bridging payments: 170,000 will be left without access to the doubling of the payment and 125,000 children will not have access to the bridging payments. Will the Government double the bridging payment so that those families who get it will also get £20 a week? I ask the cabinet secretary to tell us a little bit more about some of the complexities with the data that she just described.

Thank you for your answers so far, cabinet secretary. I think that people will find it quite frustrating that we are still sending 90 per cent of the social security budget back to the DWP to administer. It is quite unfair to say that it would just be simpler and better if we were doing it here, ourselves; I am not sure that really is the case.

On the rate for unpaid carers allowance, you know that my party thinks that the carers allowance needs total reform. We need to get moving on that for unpaid carers and disabled people. Bill Scott gave evidence to the committee a few weeks ago. He said that had the disabled people and unpaid carers who were asked for their opinions on priorities known that “safe and secure” transfer of benefits would mean that there would be no significant change to eligibility for, or the amounts of, those payments until at least 2025, and possibly 2026, which is nearly 10 years after they were asked the question, they might have prioritised something else.

I have one question on carers and one on PIP specifically. When the Carers Allowance Supplement (Scotland) Bill came to the committee, carers told us how important it was that the carers allowance supplement had been doubled, and how important it is that that should happen again in the future. When he attended, the minister said that we did not need to write into primary legislation that the payment would be doubled, and that when you looked at unpaid carers assistance there would be regulations that would allow the Government to double the payment, if that was the will of the Parliament. We do not see any indication of that in the budget, so does that mean that the Government has tied its own hands? Can carers expect a double payment of the carers allowance supplement again this year?

I appreciate that; that is helpful to understand.

My last question is about the relationships between yourselves, other police authorities and the National Coal Board. You spoke briefly about those relationships earlier, but it would be good to understand a bit more about them. How much conversation went on about individuals, where they were, what they were doing and the approach that you might or might not want to take with them?

Thank you for your candid testimony.

I want to touch a little on compensation and on the psychological impacts that the strikes had on communities—the people who participated and their families. Could we hear a little from Bob Young and Alex Bennett—and Nicky Wilson, if there is time—about the feeling among communities at the time about the way they were being treated, and about the emotional, psychological and financial impact that that has had in the long term? I had hoped then to hear your views on compensation—I heard yours, Nicky, and I think that some form of compensation looks to be appropriate, but it would be good to hear what Bob and Alex think of that as well.

I have a supplementary question, if that is okay.

I thank both Bob and Alex for their testimony. Some of the experiences that you describe are shocking. I had thought that I had a real understanding of how bad it was, but that is incredible. What accounts for the difference between the number of arrests, disciplinary hearings and dismissals in Scotland and the number elsewhere in the UK? I ask Jim and Bob to have a go at that question.

It is, thank you, convener—and thank you so much to all those on the panel who have spoken already. Before I go on to the questions that I seek to ask, I convey my solidarity to the miners who were on strike in the early 1980s. I was really young at the time, but I heard a lot about it, and the name Arthur Scargill was commonly heard in our household. I send my solidarity to those communities, particularly Blantyre in the Glasgow region that I represent.

My specific question is a follow-up to the point that you just made, Jim, about what was going on in communities. I think that you said that the board caused tensions by exposing strikers to conflict. I was interested to hear your point about people in communities not necessarily being covered by the bill. Can you talk a little bit about the sorts of things that were going on in communities and about what was happening to those people who are not going to be covered by the bill unless—as I hope it will be—it is changed?

Thank you, Jim and Tom, for your candid, open and honest evidence this morning. I echo what my colleague Karen Adam said about stretching a hand across between miners and police over the years. The sense of that has come across strongly.

I want to ask a couple of questions about areas where things do not necessarily add up; given what we have heard this morning from the earlier witnesses and then from you. We just need help to get a little bit of clarity.

It is absolutely the case, as Tom Wood has noted, that the job of police is to protect people, their livelihoods and their homes. It was picked up earlier, however, that in some cases some people did not have that protection. In particular, people who were striking did not have that protection, and you will have heard what a witness said earlier about their cat being poisoned and their windows being smashed, and about their view that they perhaps did not get the same protection from police as people who had gone to work did. What are your views on that?

Similarly, can you help us understand the difference between the way that people tended to be treated in Scotland and how they were treated elsewhere? We know that, proportionally, there were more arrests and more people lost their jobs in Scotland. That is the first area I will ask about, and then I want to come in on one other thing.

I thank the witnesses for the evidence that they submitted in advance and Dame Susan for her extremely helpful presentation.

My first questions are on a similar theme and relate to the evidence that has just been given. When the higher costs of the Scottish child payment in 2023-24 were included, how much were those costs at the time? In your written evidence, you say that some factors, such as eligibility and uptake, have been revised downwards. I am keen to understand a bit more about that downward revision and your assumptions about eligibility and uptake.

I have another couple of questions but those are on a different subject.

Thank you for your responses, which are very helpful.

I have a further question on some of the assumptions but this time in relation to unemployment figures. You have assumed—[Inaudible.]—and you have now amended that to 4.9 per cent. How much of that employment is secure work? Do the figures break down so that we can look at how specific groups—for example, women, black and minority ethnic people and disabled people—are affected? How do they fit into the forecasts?

I echo the convener’s thanks for your flexibility on this work. In your future estimates for adult disability payment, have you estimated how many people’s awards would increase, decrease or stay the same? If so what are those assumptions?