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Perhaps that is something to which we will return in post-budget scrutiny.

Good morning. We heard in the minister’s opening remarks about the generic challenges in the implementation of the Children (Scotland) Act 2020. The committee is keen, I think, to understand what has caused the particular delay in relation to parenting disputes and whether there are different challenges, apart from the broad general challenges that the minister mentioned at the outset. It would be helpful if those could be elaborated on for the committee, if the minister is able to do so.

A number of stakeholders raised concerns that, particularly on the contact centre issue, implementation has been driven by finance and resourcing. What is the minister’s response to that? Given that he said in his opening remarks that he intends to bring in SSIs in 2025, is he content that the resourcing is appropriate?

I think that has been the story all week—I have been jinxing the cabinet secretary, every time that we have debated.

So, you are not able to say when you took the decision?

I am sure that the committee will look forward to having further discussion about that.

I will move on to my substantive questions, which are about statistics and data in relation to the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017, which colleagues will also want to cover. In the cabinet secretary’s opening statement and her responses to other questions, she referred to the Scottish child payment. She will know that I have been talking for some time about the need for data on the impact and effect of it, and I think that everyone shares that view. She spoke about the Government’s modelling. Is she content that the modelling will help us to understand the impact of the benefit?

We know that various models have been used that have suggested that 100,000 children have been lifted out of poverty, but I think that that is more about the number of children who have been kept out of poverty. Modelling is based on a projection of a number of different issues and different things that are done by the Scottish Government or other Governments, such as the uprating of benefits at a UK level. Does the cabinet secretary believe that we need to do more work to fully understand the impact that the Scottish child payment is having? Obviously, the child payment is supported across the Parliament.

For clarity, was the Government’s decision taken one week and one day ago?

The committee has also spoken about how we estimate poverty levels and how we consider a range of actions, as you have touched on.

We know that there are some challenges in relation to the family resources survey, and I think that that is true in several nations in the UK. We have seen interactions with the DWP in other parts of the UK to try to get more detailed data, and we have seen that at the local level—that happened in Glasgow, so that people could look at ward-level data.

It would be good to understand your engagement with the DWP to drill down into some of the data on a more local level. [Interruption.]

That is not something that I have trouble with, cabinet secretary. [Laughter.]

Thank you. With your indulgence, convener, I will start with a brief supplementary question to Marie McNair’s last line of questioning. The cabinet secretary touched on her policy announcement on the two-child limit. I am sure that the committee will have a chance to discuss the matter at greater length, particularly when we scrutinise the budget. However, the cabinet secretary mentioned the speed with which she wants to act, the interaction with DWP, the need for data, and the child poverty task force, which is working at a UK level. She and I have discussed the two-child limit in the context of that work, so it would be helpful for me to understand when the decision was taken to make that announcement. I understand that it was put into the budget document a week and a day ago and that the Scottish Fiscal Commission did not have time to cost or analyse the decision. Given the speed with which the cabinet secretary appears to want to act, it would be helpful to understand when the decision was taken.