Chamber and committees

There is no loss of flexibility in that regard. We set a budget allocation on projections, which involves the Scottish Fiscal Commission. We also project based on the fact that we will be encouraging people to take up benefits. As you know from the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 and Scottish Government policy intention and documentation, we are strongly committed to promoting benefit take-up and undertaking what is necessary for that. We have had good discussions at the committee on how we collectively can all play our part in promoting benefit take-up. That becomes even more pertinent in the period ahead.

I call again on all members to work with the Government and the different public bodies involved in that collaborative effort to raise awareness in communities of what support is available, encourage people to apply if they think that they might be eligible and tell their friends and neighbours about it so that we can spread the word about what support exists. Some of the benefits that we will be promoting are ones that we intend to uprate by 6 per cent, as I have set out.

I saw some of the previous session. I am happy to correspond with the committee on those important points that Mr Briggs raises. It is a question not only for social security ministers but for the finance portfolio, so there is a question about how the committee might want to consider those points.

I am not fully clear on the specifics of your question, so I hope that this generic answer will suffice, but please let me know if you have any further points.

On cost of living support, Ms Forbes took action with regard to the council tax position just a number of weeks ago. We have the council tax reduction scheme, the Scottish welfare fund—which we are still making a significant investment in—and the mitigation that we are undertaking with regard to the bedroom tax, which costs us tens of millions of pounds a year, so there are a number of different measures already in place to support people as much as we can.

The devolved social security system that we have, which I know the whole committee supports, allows us to get money to people and into their pockets. That is the real advantage of having that system and we will continue to develop it in a coherent and strong way for the period ahead and for decades to come.

Thank you, convener, and good morning, colleagues.

I offer my sincere thanks to the convener and the committee for accommodating the last-minute changes to the scrutiny process for the Social Security (Up-rating) (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2022, which we were intending to cover today, as the convener said.

The committee will be aware of the cost of living pressures, which have grown significantly since we took the decision on uprating benefits some time ago as part of the Scottish budget process. We know that those pressures might yet rise further and that they will disproportionately impact the poorest households. That is why I decided to see what more could be done to support people using our social security powers.

I am now seeking to use the uprating regulations to provide that additional support, which will primarily help low-income families and unpaid carers. In order to do that, it is necessary to withdraw the previous regulations and lay them again under expedited procedures, which I am doing today. Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience that that causes. However, I am sure that the committee will understand the reasons for that, and I sincerely hope that it will support the relaid regulations.

I understand that the committee will now consider those regulations on 31 March but, given the interest that the committee will have in them, it is worth broadly outlining the changes now. Of course, I am happy to come back later in the month if the committee wishes me to do so.

I am proposing additional support by further increasing several forms of devolved social security benefits and assistance from the previous 3.1 per cent increase to the 6 per cent rate. That will apply to the job start payment, the young carer grant and funeral support. Subject to parliamentary approval, uprating will now be almost doubled for those benefits.

The best start grant will also be increased by 6 per cent, and there will be future regulations to increase the carers allowance supplement. We will also increase child winter heating assistance by 6 per cent—greater than the 5 per cent already proposed—to support 19,000 families of severely disabled children with heating costs.

As the committee is aware, we have already taken the decision to double the Scottish child payment from £10 a week to £20 a week—a 100 per cent increase—which will immediately benefit about 111,000 children.

In August 2021, we increased the best start foods payment from £4.25 to £4.50 a week. That 5.88 per cent rise exceeds the rate of inflation and is close to the 6 per cent uprating for other benefits, so there will be no change to that benefit.

I turn to the immediate task at hand. Today, the committee is considering the Social Security Up-rating (Scotland) Order 2022, which uprates benefits for which we have executive competence but which are currently administered by the DWP under an agency agreement on Scottish ministers’ behalf. It is important to note that we have no discretion around the level of uprating of those benefits. The agency agreements that are in place with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that allow the DWP to deliver those benefits on behalf of Scottish ministers mean that we are committed to uprating them at the same rate as the DWP. They will therefore be uprated by 3.1 per cent, in line with the September consumer prices index. It is, however, a matter for the Scottish ministers to make an order to effect the uprating, which is what you see before you today.

I thank the committee again for its scrutiny of the uprating order and its forbearance, given the need for urgent changes to the uprating regulations. I look forward to any questions that the committee might have.

Budgets always have a degree of flexibility. We will consider the cost pressures in the course of the financial year, but we feel that we can absorb a £2.7 million increase.

As I said in my opening statement, the carers allowance supplement will be uprated by 6 per cent. In the period ahead, the Government will give on-going consideration to the carers allowance supplement additional payment, on which we passed additional legislation a number of months ago. I am sure that we will discuss that with the committee and in the chamber in the months ahead. However, I can confirm that the carers allowance supplement will be uprated by 6 per cent.

I respect Pam Duncan-Glancy highly, but I just want to emphasise again that since 2018 we have been building from scratch an agency that is now highly performing and which employs nearly 2,000 people. We have delivered several benefits; we will start to deliver our 12th on Monday; and seven of those 12 benefits, some of which we are discussing uprating today, are new and available only in Scotland.

That is an important question. I do not want to go into too much detail on the complexities of the internal correspondence within Government, although I will bring in Dominic Mellan if he wishes to add anything that is relevant.

Ministers have, of course, looked collectively at the situation that is before us, with the real pressures that families are encountering and will encounter in the period ahead, and we are determined to provide assistance and help where we can, using the powers and resources that we have. We looked at what we could absorb within the social security budget. The additional amount that we are allocating in order to undertake the uprating for the financial year ahead is £2.7 million. We have absorbed that within the social security budget.

I thank Marie McNair for those important questions. We have had no indication from UK ministers in the DWP or the Treasury of an intention to uprate above the September CPI figure of 3.1 per cent. Of course, we would encourage them to do so. In the regulations that we are laying, we have set out our intention and determination to uprate the six social security benefits that we can fully determine by 6 per cent. Of course, we are increasing the Scottish child payment by 100 per cent.

We are doing what we can, with the powers and resources that we have, to provide assistance. I would encourage the UK Government to also do the right thing and uprate social security benefits across the UK, especially in the areas where there is the current dual process of delivery and introduction by the Scottish Government and case transfer with regard to disability benefits—in particular, the child disability payment and the adult disability payment.

I would encourage the UK Government to increase PIP and the disability living allowance for working-age adults above 3.1 per cent and to look again at universal credit. The case for increasing universal credit and the other benefits that it controls is compelling and I hope that the UK Government does the right thing in the March statement.

Members will be aware that short-term assistance is available only in the Scottish social security system and not in the DWP system. I emphasise that that is another point on which our system will be different and more supportive of people.

As members will know, short-term assistance supports people when challenging a decision and accessing their rights under the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018. That addresses barriers to accessing justice by removing certain financial disincentives to challenging decisions that exist in the UK DWP system. However—this is the important point in answer to Mr Choudhury’s question—child disability payment and adult disability payment are separate forms of assistance with different eligibility criteria, and short-term assistance is not designed to be a bridge payment between two forms of assistance.

Extending the scope of the short-term assistance in that way would represent a significant departure from the current policy intent, as it would require short-term assistance to be paid based on an award for which a client was no longer eligible, because of their age or because they are in receipt of the adult disability payment.

Continuing to pay a client’s previous award during a redetermination relies on the client having a previous award for a particular form of assistance that has been reduced or stopped. If short-term assistance were to be extended to cover moves between forms of assistance, it would be paid based on a different payment relating to different eligibility criteria to cover a period where a client was challenging a decision on a separate form of assistance. In effect, short-term assistance is available for the redetermination and appeals process, not as a bridging payment.