Chamber and committees

As I alluded to in my opening remarks, the UK Government’s changes to winter fuel payment eligibility will reduce the Scottish block grant by an estimated £150 million in 2024-25. That is more than 80 per cent of the cost of the Scottish Government’s replacement benefit. Particularly given that the chancellor’s late decision was taken without notice, despite officials from both Governments working closely on the social security programme, the financial constraints and the lack of prior consultation with the Scottish Government mean that ministers have reluctantly concluded that eligibility must be restricted to those in receipt of a relevant qualifying benefit.

You raise an important point. Many organisations and different parts of Government have done what they can to increase take-up of pension credit, and I pay tribute to councillors and to the many MSPs who have done their own proactive work to encourage their constituents to come forward and claim what they are eligible for.

We have always known that the uptake of pension credit was challenging and that it needed to be increased. I am delighted that councils have responded proactively and encouragingly to the situation that we are in this year. I thank them and everyone else who has been involved in that work, including the many organisations, third sector charities and so on that have done their utmost to increase the uptake of pension credit.

I am sure that councils have undertaken a number of pieces of work on that issue. The point that you raise about how we share that good practice across councils and across the board is interesting. If the Government can do anything on that, we would be happy to assist.

We indeed had the discussion that Paul O’Kane refers to. Given that the UK budget was delivered only yesterday, we are still working through the finer detail, as I think that Paul O’Kane will appreciate, but we have said that the budget includes proposals, certainly in some areas, that are a step in the right direction.

Clearly, once we have considered the budget fully, we will be able to consider how any consequentials that flow from it could be used across Government, including on the aspect that we are discussing. If there are consequentials, the Government will consider how much they are and what they could be used for. I will be happy to carry on that conversation with Paul O’Kane once we are a bit further down the track of analysing the fine detail of yesterday’s budget.

It appears that there will be additional consequentials. I hope that you will forgive me if I anticipate that, over the next couple of days, a number of calls will be made as regards how to spend those consequentials, and I note that such calls often add up to a lot more than the consequentials that are received. Additional consequentials may be coming, but the important thing at this point is for the Government to analyse that.

I accept that Mr O’Kane has made calls on the matter right from the start, but other colleagues from his party and other parties will perhaps ask us to spend those consequentials in different ways and, as I said, the total of those calls often adds up to more than the money that we get.

However, with all those caveats, I absolutely take Mr O’Kane’s point and I will be happy to carry on that conversation with him and colleagues as we move forward and progress on to the budget.

As we look at how we could use any consequentials—if, indeed, there are any—ministers will receive advice on alternative ways by which we can provide support to pensioners in addition to what is already provided here that is not available in England.

The system was built on the assumption that the Scottish Government’s policy intent of a universal benefit would be carried out. Theoretically, a system could be built within the agency that could cope with myriad different issues, but we would then be challenged about why we were building a system that tried to second-guess what may or may not happen in the future and why we were wasting resources on that when we should be building the system for the Government’s policy intent.

That was the policy intent, that is what we intended to deliver and that is what the system was built on. Clearly, the system can be changed. It will have to be changed for next year. That will require work, which involves additional expense. Each suggestion that the system could do something different requires funding to allow that to be built. These things take time. It could not be changed overnight, which is why we have had to rely on the DWP this year, because the system could not be changed over the timeframe that we were given, but it can be changed for next year.

The system could be changed in myriad different ways, but I hope that the committee would expect that systems are built based on the policy intent that the Government wants to take through. I am not sure how we could second-guess what is going to happen in the future or how many variations of that we would want to build a system for, and, in any case, that would be a highly inefficient way to build a system.

The system was built for the provision of a universal benefit, which was the Scottish Government’s intent. Given how long it takes to build a social security system, we cannot change it for this year in just a couple of weeks.

Mr Balfour, you and I have had many conversations over many years about the nuances of agency agreements. You and I both know that the agency agreement is to absolutely follow what the DWP does. There have never been any options for the Scottish Government to do anything different. That is not how agency agreements work, so we would not have got into that—

You raise an important point about benefit take-up in general. One of my first asks of the secretary of state was to do with take-up. I appreciate that the DWP has undertaken some work on that, and we have seen an increase in uptake, but we are still keen to see what more can be done.

As I said in my opening remarks, we, as the Scottish Government, are keen to play the role that we can in that regard, even though pension credit is not our benefit. Local authorities and others have played a role in that, too. In essence, I am very keen that the DWP does what the Scottish Government has done on that. For some time, the Scottish Government has had a benefit take-up strategy; we are the only country in the UK that has such a strategy. Take-up of pension credit is important, but take-up of other benefits is also important, which is why having a wider take-up strategy is important.