Chamber and committees

I think that it is a mark of success if those who are eligible for a benefit are supported to get it and no longer feel any stigma in getting what they are entitled to. One of the reasons why expenditure on benefits, and particularly adult disability payment, is going up to a greater extent here than it is in the rest of the UK is that, as the Fiscal Commission and others have pointed out, people are being supported through that process. There is analysis to ensure that, if they are eligible, they will get it and, if they are not eligible, they will not get it, but the process is a supportive one, and people are now coming forward who, because of the stigma, did not come forward under the previous system.

I am happy to go into a lot more detail on this, and I am sure that David Wallace will be, too. However, as I said at the start of this session, it is factually incorrect to say that the Scottish Government is not moving forward with any analysis of, and then action on, the historical debt that was built up with the benefits administered by the Department for Work and Pensions. We can spend as much time as you like going through this, Mr Hoy, because I am content that we have a robust process for dealing with fraud, as David Wallace has laid out, as well as a process that ensures that what we do with overpayments is robust but fair.

I go back to my point that the legislative basis for the Scottish child payment is for recipients to be in receipt of universal credit. I have not seen evidence that would suggest that universal credit is given to people who are not in poverty or that it is somehow a profligate measure that allows people to live with great expanse. Indeed, all the work that is done by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Institute for Public Policy Research and others suggests that people who receive universal credit lack the ability to get the basic essentials of life. That is why we have called on the UK Government to deliver an essentials guarantee. We have to be very cautious about talking about people who are in receipt of universal credit as if they are living in a profligate and expansive financial context. The evidence, not just from the Government but from others, is that they are not.

The work that is being done by Professor Bauld is exceptionally important because, now that we have had what is still a relatively small number of years of devolved social security, we are continuing to build on the impact of that system on child poverty or on the support for disabled people and their carers. Those aspects are looked at.

One of the other areas that we are keen to look at touches on the point that the convener made at the start about the impact on poverty levels of policy A compared to policy B. There is that which gets children and the family out of poverty immediately compared to a policy that will help that family to get out of poverty in the longer term, such as in five or 10 years. Things are never black and white, and it is not an easy comparison to make, but that is the type of work that we are doing to look at how many children are lifted out of poverty not just by social security policy but by changes to childcare and employability. There is also the additional layer of complexity of not working in silos, because a change to childcare might not make a difference unless we also ensure that there are supportive employability measures to go alongside it.

We are therefore taking a multilayered approach to that work as we develop the next delivery plan for tackling child poverty at the same time as we are going through our budget and spending review processes. Those two processes, for finance and tackling child poverty, need to be interlinked right across the Government as we do that forecasting. That is difficult, particularly when we look at longer-term impacts, but it is necessary when we are looking at policy choices.

We are still undertaking work with the DWP to get an understanding of what sits behind that £36 million—that is, what proportion of that £36 million is for disability benefits, what is for carers and what is for industrial injuries—because those will have different recovery proportions. We cannot do that piece of work alone; we need to do it with the DWP in order to get that information. Ian Davidson can provide some information—as much as we can provide, because two Governments are working on it. I do not want to put either of them in a difficult position.

That requires us to get information from the DWP. We will endeavour to do what we can to provide you with that information, but we need information from the DWP to assist us in understanding what benefit it is from. I also caution against an assumption that it has an impact on next year’s budget. It does not have an impact on one year’s budget. The work that we do to recover overpayments is done over time—it is not only about one year. With those two caveats, I would be happy to provide information if we can at all.

My apologies if I was not clear enough to the convener earlier. It ties in to the work that I just spoke to Ross Greer about—the work that is going on as we draft the next child poverty delivery plan and as we go through our budget and spending review processes. As part of that, we are looking across Government—social security being quite a small part of that—to see the differences that policies could make.

That is the type of work that is being undertaken as we deliver the tackling child poverty delivery plan, which will be published next year. Of course, we need to take account of the decisions on that as we move forward with the budget. That is the type of work that is being undertaken on those measures to compare one policy to another.

If we look at the aspects around free school meals, it is clear that the Scottish Government remains committed to universal free school meals in primary schools. We are working on the pilots for those children in secondary 1 to 3 who are in receipt of the Scottish child payment. We are not moving forward with universality for primary 6 and 7 pupils at this time; we are targeting provision to those in receipt of the Scottish child payment, because, given the financial context, we have taken the decision not to have universal free school meals but to target it to those who are in poverty. I suggest that that demonstrates that the Scottish Government has taken a very difficult decision not to move as fast as it would like on universal free school meals, because it has targeted the level of expenditure for P6 and 7 and for the pilots to those who are in poverty.

We are still committed to universal free school meals for primary-age pupils. What has changed is the timescale for delivery. The levels that we have in social security are targeted. You point to the 2018 act, which is targeted at those on low incomes, those who are disabled and those who are carers. There are parts of Government policy in other portfolios that are universal because the Government has taken that decision. I am sure that there is a debate to be had among our stakeholders and others about universalism, but the Government has tried to give people the important reassurance that we would not take entitlement away from people.

The matter has another important aspect, which came through very clearly at the round-table discussion that I had with DPOs and other stakeholders: the number of people who are coming forward for disability benefits because of mental health or other conditions that they previously had not been supported to apply for, or because stigma in society had prevented them from coming forward. I heard very compelling evidence from contributors at that round table that many people are now coming forward for mental health reasons who would not have come forward in the past. Although they were eligible for benefits in the past, they did not come forward.

There is then a question of whether that is a good or a bad thing. I think that it is a good thing if stigma around poor mental health is reduced, so that people can have open discussions and get a benefit to which they have always been entitled but never felt they were able to achieve. There are changes in our societal discussions around some disabilities and conditions that have seen a particular increase in certain case loads. I would add that aspect to the discussion.