Seòmar agus comataidhean

That concludes the public part of this morning’s meeting. Next week, the committee will take evidence from the Minister for Social Security and Local Government on the Scottish Child Payment Regulations 2020 and the Disability Assistance for Children and Young People (Scotland) Regulations 2021 (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2022.

Thank you for that, cabinet secretary. I think that colleagues on the committee will share my concerns about the matter. It would be helpful, not least because I hope that we will have a UK Government minister before the committee soon, if we could have sight of the correspondence that has been going back and forth between the two Governments. I hope that you can agree to that.

Thank you, cabinet secretary.

I will bring in Pam Duncan-Glancy, unless Jeremy Balfour has a final question.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. I turn now to questions from colleagues, starting with Pam Duncan-Glancy.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. On potential changes to UK disability benefits, you mentioned the green paper and potential challenges that it could pose for passporting if there are changes to Scottish benefits. What discussions have you had with UK ministers about the concerns that you have highlighted about the green paper; for instance, the potential merging of the assessment processes for universal credit and PIP and whether the UK Government will, in principle, agree to the ADP diverging and still being a passporting benefit?

You touched on the potential role for local government. I have heard the cabinet secretary and other ministers describe the anti-poverty work as a national mission, which I think is absolutely right. What more can local authorities, employers and all of us across society do to support the goal of bringing down child poverty in Scotland?

Good morning. Happy new year and welcome to the first meeting of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee for 2022. Apologies have been received from Foysol Choudhury MSP. I welcome back Natalie Don MSP, our deputy convener, who returns after a period of maternity leave. We are very pleased to have you back. I thank Evelyn Tweed MSP for her significant contribution to our work while substituting for Natalie.

Our first item of business is to decide whether to take item 4 in private. Do we agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

The next item on the agenda is an evidence session on the Scottish Government’s budget 2022-23, which was published on 9 December. We focused our pre-budget work on meeting the child poverty targets and we received a response to our pre-budget letter, also on 9 December. I welcome to the meeting Shona Robison MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government. Joining the cabinet secretary we have Shirley Laing, director for housing and social justice, and Kevin Stevens, head of strategic and programme finance at the Scottish Government. Welcome to you all and thank you for joining us. I invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement.

Welcome back. We will now hear from Sara Cowan, who is the co-ordinator of the Scottish Women’s Budget Group. Good morning, Sara. We appreciate you giving your time to the committee today.

I remind everyone to type an R in the chat box if they would like to come in with a supplementary question or an answer. My colleagues will ask their questions in turn.