Chamber and committees

That is interesting.

My final question is on the child disability payment. You are right to say that there seems to be an increase in child disability payment expenditure across the whole of the UK, but there seems to be a larger increase in Scotland percentage-wise. Have you or Social Security Scotland done any analysis to find out why that is happening? Is it to do with the people who are applying? Is it to do with people in Scotland having health conditions that are not found in other parts of the UK? Is it to do with the way in which people are being assessed? Has any work been done in relation to that particular benefit?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. Again, for the record, I point out that I receive adult disability payment.

I will follow on from Mr MacDonald’s question about the direction that the Scottish Government might take, if, as we have read, fairly major cuts to social security are likely to be announced at Westminster. Obviously, with regard to this year’s winter fuel payment, you had to go along with what the UK Government did and follow suit. If a change were announced at Westminster to benefits such as the personal independence payment, would the Scottish Government have to mirror that in this financial year, or is there any way that that could be mitigated so that it would not have to be passed on in Scotland?

Like Liz Smith, I welcome the instruments that we are considering today and will vote for them.

I understand that the money is a social investment in Scotland, as you have said on a number of occasions, but that investment comes with a cost that has to be met in the Scottish budget. You will have seen the forecasts for 2026, 2027 and 2028, which are figures of more than £1 billion. I presume that that money will have to come from other budgets, so what work are you doing with your colleagues in that regard? Which budgets are you looking at taking that money from, so that that social investment in social security can be made? I do not think that there would be any other way of finding the money, except by raising taxes. Would you raise taxes, or would you take money from other budgets?

I will push you a wee bit on that. You might have heard this morning’s evidence from a GP, who said that she had spoken to colleagues who were unaware of some of what she was talking about. At a strategic level, who do we hold responsible for that? You said that things are different from what they were two or three years ago, but if some medical professionals are still not aware of certain routes and information, there must be gaps. I am not sure whether responsibility for that falls to the health boards or to you. How do we ensure that there is joined-up thinking between statutory bodies, non-statutory bodies, local government, national Government and the NHS?

Good morning, cabinet secretary, and good morning to your team. You will have seen that, in its collective statement, the people’s panel says:

“the same conversations keep happening, with the same actions being agreed but not enough has been implemented.”

We heard earlier from a couple of witnesses that the reality on the ground is not meeting the policy. Across Scotland, there is a very mixed approach, depending on where you live—there seems to be a postcode lottery. Strategically, how do we pull this together? What is the Scottish Government’s view? Do you agree that there is not enough action at grass-roots level?

Good morning. Thank you for coming along and sharing your experience. In your collective statement, you said that there needs to be

“a cultural change across Scotland and the Scottish Government must be brave and bold”

Could you unpack that a wee bit more? What do you mean by “brave and bold”?

That is helpful. I am conscious of the time, so I do not want to go round every person, but does anybody else have anything to add to that?

I am conscious that we have only around 10 minutes left. Looking ahead, as we just heard from Debbie Horne, we are going to have a growing number of people of pension age, including some of us around the table, in the next five to 10 years. I am looking for one sentence on this. What—he asked, selfishly—is the one thing that we should be doing now to start safeguarding the system for 10 years’ time? Genuinely, if we are looking ahead to a growing number of older people, what should we do now to protect those people in five to 10 years?

We cannot do this in five minutes, but it is interesting that, in the past hour and a half, every person has asked for more money for their particular area, and rightly so. The question that we have to grasp, as politicians, is how we pay for all that. At some point, it would be interesting to put the challenge back to those who are asking for the money. Where do we find it? Do we prioritise it over other areas? I appreciate that that topic is not for today, but it is worth noting that, quite rightly, everyone has asked for more money for their area. Where we politicians would find that money is a bigger debate that we need to have, although maybe we will get the answer from Richard Gass.

Some of this has been covered already, so I would be interested in hearing any new remarks that people might have.

As Adam Stachura and Debbie Horne have pointed out, a substantial number of older people rent—they do not own their accommodation. That comes with its challenges. You have touched on this already, but is there more that we could be doing about that? How do we target help particularly at those who are in rented accommodation?