Chamber and committees

I have sat through far too many debates and speeches from members on the Government benches in which it has been suggested that all aspects of welfare policy and its delivery are easy, that there are no difficult decisions to be made and that more money must be found. As my colleague Jeremy Balfour and other members have already said, who can forget the promises that were made to the people of Scotland back in 2016?

We were led to believe that, if only those powers were in the hands of SNP ministers, all would be well. As is so often the case from this nationalist Government, the reality does not even come close to matching the rhetoric, and today’s tone, whether from the minister or from SNP back benchers, shows exactly what the problem is. Rather than admit that they have failed, they tell us that everything is still all right, that there is no problem and that people should just be patient.

I am not going to take an intervention: as the minister’s own back benchers have shown, four minutes is very tight.

The Government is not delivering a radical departure from the culture and practices of the DWP, a point well made by Pam Duncan-Glancy, whom I might otherwise disagree with. There is a mismatch between rhetoric and reality. At best, we have seen more of the same, under a different logo; at worst, we have seen completely avoidable delays. Real people are being let down by a Government that is more interested in grabbing the headlines with flagship policies than delivering in a real and meaningful way.

Today’s debate is an example of that. A Government minister or a Government that is serious about having a grown-up debate would have sought to work across Parliament to give a reasonable amount of time for the programme business case to be tested and scrutinised. Today comes from the same, SNP knows best until it doesn’t, approach that I have already touched on. The Government does not want to be questioned and it believes in its own hype. If the shoe was on the other foot and the same practices came from the UK Government, I can guarantee that SNP members would not be so accepting, nor would they believe the excuses, especially those about data.

There are many areas of concern. Perhaps the minister can, in his closing speech, start by explaining to me and my constituents where the SNP will find the £760 million needed by 2026 to fund its welfare policies. Audit Scotland is right to sound alarm bells and many of my constituents will see that as the inevitable consequence of the SNP’s failure to be honest with people about the cost of its welfare policies or about who will end up funding them. We all want to see support for those who need it most, but we cannot pretend that funds are unlimited.

It would also be good to hear the minister’s thoughts about the rising running costs of Social Security Scotland. Where will that end? Does he really believe that the organisation is providing value for money?

People across Scotland deserve a Government that makes good on its promises. They expect a Government that is, at the very least, willing to hold its hands up and admit that things have not gone as well as it hoped. They want a Government that not only believes in dignity and fairness and speaks up for those ideals in this chamber but lives up to them in practice.

At present, we cannot say with any confidence that that is what we have. Instead, we have a Scottish Government that brushes off concerns and makes excuses. After years of hiding behind the DWP, the Government itself has been found wanting. It has massively underdelivered, while at the same time, it has overspent.

In relation to the second instrument, on short-term lets, I want to put it on record that, although I will support it and I recognise that the six-month extension will make a big difference to a number of individuals, it will not solve all the problems. The need for the instrument could have been avoided if concerns that were raised by the Short Term Accommodation Association and other industry stakeholders had been taken into account when the licensing scheme was first proposed. I therefore think that the delays and challenges that we are now seeing were entirely predictable, and that the Scottish Government needs to refocus its efforts on rebuilding relationships with stakeholders.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app does not seem to have registered my vote. I would have voted no.

A number of people got an increased payment after their application was looked at again, and maybe that number of people is a bit higher than you would have hoped for or expected, so I guess that my question is, were you are satisfied with that? I know that it is a new scheme and that this is a sensitive issue, but it struck me that that number was a wee bit higher than you might have hoped.

I appreciate that.

That speaks to Mr Doris’s earlier point. I am aware that some applications that were sent in very soon after the scheme opened have still not moved forward, and I guess that they probably fall into that category. We are talking about people who were there on day 1 to make sure that they did not miss out.

Both of those points were helpful, and what you said will be appreciated.

A number of individuals who have life-limiting and serious health problems feel slightly frustrated when they hear “terminal illness”, because although they want other people who are in difficult circumstances to be successful and do not want to slow things down for them, they fall just short of the medical description of a terminal illness, and they feel that time is running out for them.

Thank you. That will be appreciated.

The other thing I want to ask about is the appeals process. You said before that there have been 277 applications and that 255 offers have been accepted. The information that has been provided by the Scottish Parliament information centre suggests that 15 people had requested an appeal. Are those appeals included in the 22 who have not made a decision about whether to accept their offer?

Obviously, in the process of verifying and looking again at the information that is there—