Seòmar agus comataidhean

Pam Duncan-Glancy has a supplementary. Please keep it brief, Pam, because we are moving into a much wider discussion than the issue that the committee is focusing on this morning.

Miles Briggs has a supplementary question on that point.

I invite questions from members.

Thank you all. The committee will report on the outcome of both instruments in due course and I invite the committee to delegate authority to me as convener to approve a draft of the report for publication.

Members indicated agreement.

The next item is a legislative consent motion on the UK Parliament’s Social Security (Additional Payments) (No 2) Bill.

I welcome back Ben Macpherson MSP, the Minister for Social Security and Local Government, and I welcome the officials who are joining us remotely: Susan Soutar, reserved benefits policy manager, Scottish Government; and Kayleigh Blair, solicitor, Scottish Government.

Minister, I understand that you would like to make a short opening statement.

I call Jeremy Balfour.

We will now move back to Foysol Choudhury, who is online.

We will move on to questions from Foysol Choudhury, who is joining us online.

That is fine, thank you, minister. Foysol, those points have already been covered. You can check the Official Report for that information.

We will now move on to theme 3. We are running slightly behind, so I ask members and the minister to keep questions and answers succinct and to the point.

If you could hold off just now, because I have a few supplementaries on the point that you just raised, I will come back to you.

Minister, can I clarify something on that last point? You said that the Scottish Government had originally wanted the data at the beginning of January. In future, will that be what we are looking to? Obviously, we do not know what will be happening—you mentioned the Scottish child payment in November and the DWP’s issues to do with the cost of living crisis—but is there scope to move the winter payment date forward in the coming year?