Chamber and committees

Analysis of the financial memorandum so far suggests that there are known unknowns. We do not have clarity on how many women might come forward to use the scheme, so the finances are somewhat estimated at this stage. I am keen to understand what contingencies there are in the financial memorandum to account for any unanticipated increase in the number of women coming forward.

I would like to begin by restating what everyone in the chamber has said already, which is thank you. Thank you to all those who have contributed to the bill’s progress, and to all organisations that gave evidence and briefings that contributed to the passage of the bill. Thank you also to carers, who do so much and too often receive too little support and not enough recognition. We have heard from colleagues across the chamber just how challenging the past 18 months has been for carers—indeed, they have been the most challenging times that unpaid carers have ever faced.

Services continue to be squeezed, and enough respite care is still not available. Colleagues have alluded to that very powerfully today, including when Mark Griffin and Willie Rennie spoke about the experiences of people who are caring for loved ones. In the past few weeks, we have seen councils across the Lothians and in Glasgow, for example, cutting back on care-at-home provision and asking unpaid carers yet again to do more. All that is before we even get to the worst of winter.

At stage 1, I said that it is important that we hear the voices of carers in the legislation and respond to what they ask of us. That is the least that we can do, and those of us on the Scottish Labour benches have reiterated that through our amendments. Although there has been a very constrained timetable for the bill, we have sought to hear what carers have told us and to act on it.

The ability to increase the supplement, albeit for a limited number of months, is of course welcome. As colleagues have said, we have supported the bill and will support it today, because we believe that putting extra money into the pockets of carers in time for Christmas is a vital step in supporting them at a very demanding time of year and in the midst of a pandemic that is still very much impacting people’s lives.

However, the bill only goes so far and we must do more. That is what my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendments and Jeremy Balfour’s amendments sought to do. The bill provides a one-off increase in carers allowance, and it also gives the power to increase future payments of the supplement but, as we have heard, that is not guaranteed. The bill should not be a missed opportunity to ensure that there is a guaranteed bridge of uplift for carers so that they have more financial security until the advent of carers assistance, but I fear that it will be.

The Government had the opportunity to change the calculation, to use universal credit and fix that to the rate prior to the Tories’ shameful cut. That would have meant that eligible carers would be entitled to a higher supplement that was £480 more than the current supplement level, but the Government refused to take that amendment on board. I ask what that says to carers in Scotland. I was disappointed not to hear Maggie Chapman speak about that amendment, which she had pursued in the committee.

The Government could also have ensured that the increased supplement is paid every six months until carers assistance is rolled out. Currently, the bill guarantees only one payment of the increased supplement in December 2021, as we have heard. Mark Griffin talked about what we would hope to see as a long-term strategy and solution to providing a meaningful uplift for carers in carers allowance.

At stage 1, the minister suggested that the Government intends

“to introduce Scottish carers assistance for new applications long before 2025.”—[Official Report, 23 September 2021; c 93.]

Those were his words. Therefore, it would be helpful if, in his concluding remarks, he would clarify what is meant by that. When will carers have extra money in their pockets before 2025, and how long before 2025 will that be?

The convener of the committee, who is in his place now, said in his speech and, I think, in remarks to the Daily Record, that the additional payments from the supplement will ensure that we provide greater recognition to the people who help to look after a loved one. We have seen today that there is a consensus on that in the chamber, but we have to ask ourselves whether that recognition ceases at the end of December.

Scottish Labour will support the bill to make more support available to stretched carers, but it is a sticking plaster to cover a gaping wound, and carers and carer organisations have been clear that it is not sufficient to lift carers out of poverty. We can do more. We must do more. The Scottish Government must hear the voices of carers, who for too long have felt like an afterthought.

What should the memorandum of understanding that the Scottish Government has requested include, and how broad and wide-ranging should it be?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. In your opening remarks, you touched on the conversation that you will have with your counterpart tomorrow, but what dialogue has been going on so far and what response have you had from the UK Government on the issues that you have raised directly with it, as highlighted in your statement?

At present, councils across Scotland, including in the Lothians and Glasgow, are scaling back care packages and asking families to take on more support. The cabinet secretary has committed to increasing capacity in multidisciplinary teams, but the Government missed its deadline of April this year to embed multidisciplinary teams in general practices, and year-on-year cuts to local government—

—have made things perilous. With the onset of winter—

—does the cabinet secretary accept that councils and partners must straight away be provided with funding to recruit more carers?

Professor Bell spoke about the elephant in the room, which is finance. Pay is part of that, and trade unions such as the GMB are advocating for £15 an hour for care workers. I am trying to get a sense of whether procuring better and more sustainable rates of pay is the first step, and the other aspects that we have discussed—training, qualifications and social care being a longer-term career—will follow from that. Derek, do you want to comment on that?

The discussion help us begin to think about the context of coming out of the pandemic and what will happen as we move forward. I am interested in service redesign, which has been touched on in previous answers. I am interested in what we can learn from the pandemic about doing things differently and in ways that bring savings. I am thinking about digital technology in particular. With regard to social care, the use of technology-enabled care is interesting. I want to get a sense of where the opportunities are for some of that.

No, that was helpful. I have some questions on sustainability, but we can move on to that later.