Chamber and committees

There are no plans at present to bring EMA within—[Inaudible.]—Scotland. It is not a social security benefit but, as there is on a number of different areas, there is significant engagement between local authorities, Social Security Scotland and different aspects of the public sector delivery landscape. One of the important tasks of recent years has been raising awareness of what Social Security Scotland does with partners and ensuring that we work as collaboratively as possible. EMA is a good example in which, in order to get people the support that we want them to have, a degree of engagement is required between different aspects of the public sector.

I hope that my answer reassures you that proactive engagement is already happening to ensure that people are aware of EMA and how to apply for it and to encourage them to do so. We will continue to consider that issue.

Those are, of course, important matters, and that is why the constructive dialogue that we have with the UK Government at official level and that I have had a ministerial level in my tenure as minister is important. There are constant considerations between, on the one hand, the reserved benefits, their future and any changes that might be made to them and, on the other hand, what we deliver in Scotland with our devolved powers.

The UK Government must constantly consider the balance relating to universal credit, incentives to work and supporting people—there is a balance between the universal credit requirements and the number of working hours that an individual undertakes. With regard to the cliff edge, we will consider and keep in mind the impact on second earners, for example. The evidence that we have to date from our interim evaluation is that the Scottish child payment might reduce barriers to education and to entering the labour market for recipients. That is, of course, positive. The money could be used to pay for travel to interviews, a new job or college, for example.

We recognise the potential for the design of the Scottish child payment to influence people’s engagement with work, but there is no evidence of significant effects in that regard to date. However, we will always keep the issue under review as we make decisions about uprating and consider the Scottish child payment more widely.

As we set out in our gender pay gap action plan, we are acutely aware of gender disparities in the labour market. We recognise the barriers that women, especially women with children, face in obtaining and progressing in work. We need to keep such issues at the forefront of our mind when considering our five family payments. Scottish Government analysts will continue to monitor the available data to assess the wider impacts of the Scottish child payment in relation to gender and the labour market.

Collectively, we need to consider the interactions with universal credit and UK Government policy and, more widely, access to the labour market through the Scottish child payment.

Yes, that analysis has been done. The Scottish Government estimates that reversing key UK Government welfare reforms made since 2015 would increase the incomes of the poorest households in Scotland by over 10 per cent in 2023-24, bringing around 70,000 people, including 30,000 children, out of poverty in Scotland. Such actions would include the reintroduction of the £20 per week uplift to universal credit, the removal of which represented the biggest overnight cut in benefits since the creation of the British welfare state. Overall, reinstating that uplift would move the most people out of poverty, although reversing historical reforms would have larger impacts on child poverty. The total cost to the UK Government of reversing the cut to universal credit and other reforms including getting rid of the two-child limit, removing the family element and the benefit freeze and changing universal credit work allowances and the taper rate would be around £780 million, but reversing those reforms would increase disposable income for households with children with the lowest 10 per cent of income by around 11 per cent and for households with children in poverty by 10 per cent.

A huge amount of difference could therefore be made. I could say more about the issues with universal credit, but the key message is that the UK Government could and should be doing more in this space. Even with the limited resources and powers that we have as the devolved Government in Scotland, we are doing all that we can to make a difference, not only to mitigate where we can—and, of course, a lot of mitigation has happened—but to be innovative and proactive by, for example, introducing, increasing and extending the Scottish child payment as well as a number of other devolved benefits that are making an impact on families in Scotland.

Of course, more could always be done, and we constantly look at ourselves and ask what more we can do with our limited resources and powers. However, we are proactive in the spaces where we can make a difference, and the regulations that are before us today show that very clearly.

There is a lot that I could say about that. I will be as brief as I can be. The decisions that we have taken have been made to deliver our second tackling child poverty delivery plan, and we have sought to go further and faster where we can, being mindful of the costs that families face in the current situation with the cost of living pressures and challenges and the levels of inflation.

The story of the Scottish child payment is a good case in point in that regard. Less than a year ago, it was payable at a rate of £10 per eligible child under six, with a manifesto commitment to increase the rate to £20 by the end of the current session of Parliament. In fact, the Scottish Government delivered that increase in full in the first year of the session, and we are now extending the Scottish child payment to under-16s and increasing it further. We took the decision to increase it by an inflation-busting 25 per cent, from £20 to £25, and to bring that increase forward by four months, from April 2023 to November 2022.

Those are significant interventions. At a rate of £25 per week per child, the enhanced and extended Scottish child payment could lift 50,000 children out of poverty, reducing overall child poverty by an estimated 5 percentage points in the next financial year. We should all welcome that, be focused on it and be passionate about achieving it.

Of course, that sits in the context of the other work that we are doing to tackle child poverty in Scotland, such as offering free school lunches during term time to all pupils in primaries 1 to 5, which will save families, on average, £400 per child per year. That will be extended to primary 6 and 7 pupils during the current session of Parliament. We have massively expanded the provision of fully funded, high-quality early learning and childcare. We have increased school clothing grants to at least £120 for every eligible primary school pupil and to £150 for every eligible secondary school pupil from the start of the 2021-22 academic year. We recently launched a scheme for free bus travel for under-22s, and there are a number of other interventions.

The Scottish child payment has rightly attracted attention and focus because of its innovation as a policy and its clear focus on and application to tackling poverty. However, along with our other devolved social security benefits, it is part of a wider set of policy interventions to reduce poverty and work towards meeting our targets, as well as helping people in the current financial position with the cost of living pressures and the challenges that so many households are facing.

I could say a lot more, but I will leave it there, convener.

Unfortunately—and I say this with genuine disappointment—the UK Government’s welfare reforms have reduced the incomes of the poorest households in Scotland and pushed households into poverty. Indeed, some of the policies such as the benefit cap and the two-child limit are targeted at households with children. Like, I am sure, other members around the table, I have had casework involving people who have been challenged because of these policies.

Of course, that sits in contrast to the Scottish Government’s commitment to tackling child poverty, as evidenced in the regulations that are being considered today and which to a large extent focus on the game-changing Scottish child payment. That payment has been created and implemented by the Scottish Government—and that is, of course, the contrast that has to be drawn. There are other aspects in which the UK Government could do more—I am thinking not just of social security but elements of employment law such as minimum wage levels, which are reserved to Westminster—and in which, if changes were made with a focus on social justice at a UK level, a bigger difference could certainly be made.

Will Pam Duncan-Glancy take an intervention?

I will bring in my colleagues in a moment if they have anything further to add. As I emphasised in my previous answer on processing times, the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland, as the delivery agency, have a strong commitment to paying people as quickly as possible. We considered whether the four-week period was appropriate, and that is why we are seeking to make the change through the regulations. There is a strong focus at a delivery level on getting money to people as quickly as possible.

I will bring in Janet Richardson to see whether she wants to add anything. I do not know whether Karen Clyde might also want to add something from the perspective of the Scottish Government legal directorate.

I will bring in Merlin Kemp at the end if he wishes to add anything, but I will just say, first of all, that what is in the regulations is what we intended to happen all along with regard to the linking period. It was intended that the agency could re-award the Scottish child payment by making a determination without application within 12 weeks of someone losing their award due to their no longer being entitled to a qualifying benefit or no longer being responsible for the child in question.

The most likely scenario in which that could happen would be a person losing their universal credit entitlement for a short period of time. We knew that that could happen under universal credit, and we did not want to people to have to submit a brand new application just because they lost the benefit for a month or two. The situation could also apply to someone who temporarily did not have responsibility for a child.

Unfortunately, what happens at the moment is that the 12-week linking period applies from when a decision is made on a change in circumstances. In practice, there can sometimes be a long delay between the change of circumstances taking effect and that change being notified to Social Security Scotland. That can mean that the agency automatically re-awards the Scottish child payment after the client has not been eligible for much longer than the originally intended 12-week period.

Therefore, the change that we seek to make in the regulations is consistent with the original policy intention to ensure that individuals are not automatically awarded the Scottish child payment after long periods of ineligibility. That change will allow for proper checks to be carried out to ensure eligibility and to check for any other changes of circumstances.

I will mention the circumstances in which there would be a long delay between a client losing entitlement and Social Security Scotland making a decision to stop the Scottish child payment. If a client was late in reporting to Social Security Scotland a change in their circumstances relating to their qualifying benefit or responsibility for the child, or if there was a delay in the client reporting the change to the Department for Work and Pensions or His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, that would result in their losing entitlement to the Scottish child payment.

An example of how that could happen in practice would be a client reporting that a child had left the household one year ago to live in another household but that, as of today, they were back living with the client’s household. In those circumstances, it would be appropriate to end the claim with an effective date of one year ago, when the client became no longer responsible for the child, and for the client to apply again for Scottish child payment for the child at today’s date.

I appreciate that there is a lot of detail in that answer. I hope that I have articulated it in a way that is helpful for the committee. I ask Merlin Kemp whether there is anything further that he wishes to add.

As far as I recall—I will bring in Ian Storrie in a moment—the last formal engagement between parties on the future of the council tax took place when I was public finance minister back in the spring of 2020. Those discussions, with the agreement of all the parties that were involved—the Conservative Party excluded itself from those discussions—were then postponed. Following the election, the Bute house agreement included a commitment to considerations around public engagement on the future of the council tax and a citizens assembly, but that would be a question for the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth to answer in any further detail.

To build on what the cabinet secretary has said, I will add that within the pay negotiations and the fiscal framework discussions and considerations around the new deal, discussions are on-going, between officials and at elected level, on ring fencing and the future settlement for local government in the next financial year. I am sure that the committee may have questions about the fiscal framework and the new deal, but all that has been considered within the pay negotiations in recent months.