Chamber and committees

I think that it is agreed that none of us wants to be in the position of approving the regulations, but it is a necessity. We are where we are, because of the UK Government’s shock decision to end universality on winter fuel payments, which has an impact on our budget here. We can debate until the cows come home what funding might be available from other announcements and from yesterday’s budget. However, I have been sitting here in this meeting, listening to the various arguments about what will or will not be available, and I have to say that I do not envy the task of the cabinet secretary or her colleagues, particularly the finance secretary, in trying to get to grips with what the budget means for us.

From our discussions today and previously, I recognise that the cabinet secretary does not want to be in that position either, and that she wants to do better for the people of Scotland. I am quite sure that she will come back with proposals. I talked about the shock that we had—which, obviously, the Government had, too—about the changes. However, the real shock is for the folk out there whose expectation was that they would get winter fuel payments this coming year, many of whom now will not. The short-term impact of situations that happen in this country, where shock comes into play, is unacceptable, and UK Governments must take cognisance of that and not do such things in the future.

I also recognise Mr Balfour’s point about the DWP. However, those of us who have, over many years, followed the discussions about the DWP, and its lack of flexibility in its attitude to the Scottish Government in the past, will not be surprised to hear that there has been no flexibility from the DWP on this issue.

The shock scenario is the worst aspect of this policy, not only for the Scottish Government but in particular for those folks out there who expected payments this year.

It is a pity that we canna broaden out some of the questions but, obviously, because of the current court situation, the sub judice rule is in play. Therefore, I will stick to the regulations that are in front of us. Cabinet secretary, I take it that you wish that you were laying different regulations in front of the committee today.

The UK Government’s policy change has an impact on people who live in the real world. You spoke about some of the mitigation measures that the Scottish Government has put in place, such as through the Scottish welfare fund and discretionary housing payments. Given that eligibility now largely rests on entitlement to pension credit, what discussions have you had with the secretary of state about the UK Government running a campaign to ensure that all those folk who are entitled to pension credit get that benefit, and therefore get the winter fuel payment?

Yes, I do. It comes back to Gordon MacDonald’s question and the answer that you gave about compensation. What happens in cases of fraudulent disposition—I think that that is the term—of which there have been examples in recent times in the north-east of Scotland and in West Lothian, if I remember rightly? How do you deal with those?

How do you react to any allegations of fraudulent disposition? How much of a priority is it for you to find the true answer for people who are obviously in very difficult positions?

You say that you will be able to look at the sasine register now and get an inkling of where ownership lies. What is the difference between being able to do that now, compared to a quarter of a century ago when that was not the case? What is different in terms of your setup? Obviously there have been digital changes. What else has taken place in that time so that you are more confident now than was the case 25 years ago?

I want to tease out a little more information on some of the areas where there may be contention. You said that 95 per cent of the land mass is covered. You stated in an email to the Scottish Parliament Information Centre that

“The remaining 4.4 per cent is comprised of smaller and older parcels of land which would be extremely time consuming and costly to complete, hence not representing best value for spend of public funds.”

Such parcels of land may often be used as ransom strips in other dealings. You say that dealing with them does not represent best value, but I imagine that some cases are taking you a very long time to resolve. Could you comment on that?

The question that I asked was whether that would be a priority for you. Obviously, everyone else will have to go through the process. That would be a priority for you, would it?

Before you go on, I want to give you an example. I will not give you an example from today because that would probably cause a great deal of grief, but I will go back to when I was first elected to Aberdeen City Council some 25 years ago. There was a small community who wanted to see street lighting on a certain path and it was impossible to decide ownership. At the time, I was very much in favour of the street lighting going in and persuaded the council to do that. An old solicitor at Aberdeen City Council said, “As soon as we do that, whoever owns that land will come forward and suddenly say, ‘You do not have my permission to do so and I am charging the council £X to do so.’” And that is exactly what happened.

Not dissimilar things happen in today’s day and age. The old solicitor back in the day said that those ransom strips were everywhere and had deliberately been kept. How many of those smaller and older parcels of land may be used as ransom strips that stop folk from doing things in their vicinity and even the likes of local authorities or other public services doing things in the vicinity of those bits and pieces of land?

As a minister, I introduced a fund whereby front-line staff could help homeless people quickly with small amounts of cash, and we could see the differences very quickly. For example, if folk who do not have the right official paperwork can get a wee bit of money to sort that out, we can see positive outcomes quickly because a lot of things are resolved. Sometimes, that flexibility can lead to positive outcomes quickly. The difficulty with that fund was that lots of folk were saying to me, “How do you audit that?” There was far too much emphasis on the audit requirements and worrying that we could not trust folk. Sometimes, with short-term funding, we can measure outcomes quite quickly.