Chamber and committees

That is helpful to the committee in thinking about how we engage. I am grateful.

I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of the statement. The cabinet secretary and colleagues have said much in recent weeks about the impact of winter pressures and cold temperatures, but today’s statement appears to be old numbers put together in a new way to suggest that the Scottish Government is taking action on those issues; perhaps that is why it was pre-briefed to the media.

I want to ask the cabinet secretary about this, because we have had this conversation in the chamber before. Scottish Labour has been calling for a package of measures to support people this winter from that £41 million consequential that the Scottish Government received from the household support fund, which the cabinet secretary said did not exist. Instead, the cabinet secretary seems to have announced simply the plugging of gaps that were created by real-terms cuts in the previous budget. We have had no detail since that statement on the practical measures to deploy the funding. Will the cabinet secretary therefore outline how much of that funding is already out of the door and how many people it is supporting?

Finally, the cabinet secretary is aware that we have called for those consequentials to be used to reinstate the fuel insecurity fund as an alternative mechanism to target those who are most in need. Freedom of information responses have shown that, when the Government made the decision to cut that fund, fuel insecurity partners expressed great concern that they could no longer

“deliver innovative measures that were taking people out of crisis situations”.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that that move was regrettable? Will she confirm whether the Scottish Government has looked at the option to revive that fund in line with calls from this side of the chamber and campaigners?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I seek your guidance regarding the statement. It appears that, once again, the content of a statement has appeared in the media before the statement has been made to Parliament—indeed, I note that the Scottish Government appeared to have an embargoed press release on its website at one minute past midnight.

I raise that because this is not the first time that issues such as the winter heating payment and broader matters have been pre-briefed to the media. If the Government contends that no detail in the statement was not already in the public domain, that begs the question of what point there is to having the statement at all. I believe the principle is that this chamber, and not the media, should be the place where statements are made, so I would appreciate your guidance on the matter, Presiding Officer.

I appreciate what you are saying about the move to a steady state. We know that the main benefit that still needs to be devolved is employment injury assistance, and we have just touched on the Government’s intention to mitigate the two-child limit. We had this discussion before the Christmas break, but that decision was taken a week and a day before the budget was announced—you may want to correct me if I am wrong about that. To what extent has that decision been factored in, given the potential delay that could be caused to the closure of the programme? Was planning done prior to that decision being made? Were projections considered on the impact of the decision on the wider programme?

I have a question about future changes. As you rightly point out, it is for any Government to decide what to do when more mainstream social security becomes devolved. I noted that the Deputy First Minister made some public comments yesterday about the two-child limit, suggesting that the reason why it had not previously been considered was that the DWP was not willing to give information.

Regarding long-term planning for social security, we have had a discussion about costs and we know that there will be structures for that. Has the cabinet secretary been planning that for some time? Has she considered the preparation of some of that? That seems to be what the Deputy First Minister was alluding to yesterday. Within that, has the cabinet secretary previously asked the DWP for those powers?

The point is that the Labour Government has been in power for six months but the two-child limit existed for many years before that. We also know that the Scottish child payment came in in 2021, so my question to you is whether you asked for those powers at any point.

Good morning, cabinet secretary and officials. I will move on to the theme of planning and administration of social security in Scotland.

The gateway review in February 2024 concluded that

“successful delivery appears feasible but significant issues ... exist requiring management attention”.

In your view, have those issues been addressed? What progress has been made?

Finally, regarding the Deputy First Minister’s comments yesterday, is she confused about the position? She seemed to think that the powers had been asked for previously, but you are saying they had not been asked for.

If Mr Swinney allows me to make a little progress, I will allow him back in.

The point that I was moving on to make is about the length of time that we have spent looking at the issues. The Government has set its motion in the context of the budget. For many months, the First Minister and his front bench sought to project the budget as though it was the first budget of a new Government. However, in 2025, we enter the 18th year of the SNP Government being in power. Indeed, the current First Minister started passing budgets when I had not long left secondary school. He has had those wide-ranging levers of power for almost two decades, including as finance secretary, as education secretary and as Deputy First Minister before he came to the office that he now holds.

We must consider that, despite the three First Ministers in my short time in this Parliament and four across the SNP’s almost 20 years in Government all stating that child poverty is the top priority, the most recent estimates show that 30,000 more children are in poverty now compared with when the SNP came to power in 2007.

On the First Minister’s point about the legally binding targets, alarm bells are ringing with regard to where he has had the power to make changes. Indeed, in its report last year, the Poverty and Inequality Commission said that progress has been

“slow or not evident at all”

and it predicted that it is now

“improbable”

that those legally binding child poverty targets will be met.

We must reflect on that, because we are almost at the 20-year mark of the SNP having the levers that I spoke about. We have to be honest: one budget is not going to provide the change of approach and direction that is required to meet the scale of the challenge before us.

I put on record Scottish Labour’s pride in and clear support for the UK Labour Government’s ending the era of austerity and ensuring that there is additional money coming to the Scottish Government. The investment of £5 billion into the Scottish Government’s budget is vitally important and should be recognised. I am disappointed that the Scottish Government did not see fit to recognise that in its motion.

There have also been other welcome down payments on tackling child poverty at a UK level, which I will speak about after I have taken an intervention from the First Minister.

Is Russell Findlay genuinely trying to get the rest of the chamber to agree that he, as an ardent supporter of Liz Truss, should be trusted on how to support and grow the economy and lift people out of poverty? Is he genuinely asking us to take him seriously on that point?