Chamber and committees

You talk about joining all this up in a network and priority areas for developing, and you gave some welcome news for the next stage. Putting aside the timescale, the phasing and the prioritisation, is there anything that project union is not doing but should be doing?

I have no further questions. For the record, I point out that Mr Ireland was agreeing with that as you were saying it, Tim.

I am sure that another member will let you come back in later. It is one of those issues on which another witness seemed to give a converse view, so I was trying to work out where we are with it.

I feel like we are almost having a hydrogen economy version of “Yes Minister”, listening to all this. I am not an expert, and that is something that I need to get my head around and work out the best way forward, so I really appreciate that.

Mercedes Maroto-Valer, do you want to come in?

That is helpful, because—

I think that we have been speaking about that for the past few minutes, so I invite people to make any additional comments. We have heard about how Scotland might need an alternative system and about the relationship with the DWP if the Scottish system diverges from the UK one, so that we have an alternative assessment process. I think that we have covered all that. I can raise one or two other matters if you think that that would be helpful, convener. If the witnesses have any other comments about abolishing the work capability assessment, they should raise those, but I think that we have covered most of it.

There is a thought in my head about those who get the health element of universal credit. It is not clear who will or will not be pressurised into seeking employment once the work capability assessment is abolished and it is also not clear when conditionality will kick in. Are there additional concerns about that? It would be helpful to hear about those.

PIP is an entitlement for those with disabilities and is not related to being in work. I hate to make the matter sound worse, but do the witnesses think that there has been a deliberate blurring of that? If there is, might we be looking at a future situation where there are questions about whether people should be getting both PIP and the health element of UC? That is not something that I would ever suggest, but might that be the UK Government’s wider direction of travel? That could cause further serious damage to those living with disabilities.

I know that the question theme was supposed to be work capability assessments, but I think that we have fleshed most of that out with Jeremy Balfour’s line of questioning. Does anyone want to take up the cudgels based on my wider thoughts?

Other members will ask about those other aspects, so I do not want to step on their toes, but that is very helpful—thank you.

Good morning. Erica Young mentioned financial planning to leave an abusive relationship. Earlier, we heard that, in order for discretion to be used to give someone an exemption from sanctions or conditionality, the victim/survivor must not be living in the same household as their former partner. Where a work coach identifies or suspects that abuse is going on, is there any mechanism in the universal credit system to make an application in private in advance and for decisions to be made in principle, so that a victim/survivor can see what their financial situation would look like if they decided to leave?

The system does not seem fit for purpose for someone who has to leave in a chaotic situation without any planning, because they then have to deal with all the inbuilt delays that come with universal credit in the first place. Has any consideration been given to that or has the DWP done any work on it? Whether it is Social Security Scotland or the DWP, should we start to do that?

We need both.

There is a theme coming out of all this about a victim/survivor needing certainty in advance of taking the massive decision to get out of an abusive relationship. For some, it will be a crisis moment—very specific circumstances—that will mean that they have to flee. For many, from what the committee has heard, the decision is made over time as they reach certainty and clarity. What has come up, however, is that there is a lack of support and a lack of a pathway for everyone.

I want to explore whether there is enough money in the system already. If the DWP provided certainty up front and with privacy to the victim/survivor so that they knew the amount of cash that they would get if they left and knew that that would not be an advance, and if discretionary housing payments and the Scottish welfare fund did the same, would we start to get to a quantum of cash in a system—money that the victim/survivor might eventually get anyway but in a fragmented way over time and with great uncertainty—that would mean that they could do something meaningful and in a more dignified way in order to get out of an abusive relationship?