Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you. Members obviously have a lot of questions this morning.

As I have said, I call Jeremy Balfour. Can you take us into theme 4, Jeremy?

The question is, that motion S6M-06818, in the name of Ben Macpherson, be agreed to. Are we agreed?

Members: No.

There will be a division.

For

Don, Natalie (Renfrewshire North and West) (SNP)
Dornan, James (Glasgow Cathcart) (SNP)
McLennan, Paul (East Lothian) (SNP)
Roddick, Emma (Highlands and Islands) (SNP)

Abstentions

Balfour, Jeremy (Lothian) (Con)
Briggs, Miles (Lothian) (Con)
Choudhury, Foysol (Lothian) (Lab)
Duncan-Glancy, Pam (Glasgow) (Lab)

Thank you for that. The committee will report on the outcome of its consideration of the instrument in due course. I invite the committee to delegate authority to me, as convener, to approve a draft of the report for publication.

Members indicated agreement.

I thank the minister and his officials for attending this morning.

We have spent quite a lot of time on the first section of questions, so I will perhaps need to hurry people along a little bit more as we move on.

We move to theme 2, which is on the level of payment, and I bring in Paul McLennan.

Jeremy, I will go straight back to you to lead us on to theme 4, which is on the qualifying date.

Agenda item 2 is an evidence session on the winter heating payment. The Scottish Government laid the Winter Heating Assistance (Low Income) (Scotland) Regulations 2023 on 16 November 2022. The committee will consider the instrument next week with the Minister for Social Security and Local Government, but we decided to hold an evidence session ahead of that.

I welcome to the meeting Frazer Scott, chief executive officer at Energy Action Scotland, and Dr Mark Simpson, acting co-chair of the Scottish Commission on Social Security, both of whom are joining us remotely. Good morning, and thanks very much for your attendance.

Before we start, I will make a few points about the format of the meeting. Witnesses and members who are attending remotely should please wait until I or the member asking the question says your name before speaking. Please also allow our broadcasting colleagues a few seconds to turn on your microphone before you start to speak. You can also indicate with an R in the BlueJeans dialogue box or simply with a show of your hand if you wish to come in on a question. Please do not feel that you have to answer every single question. If you have nothing new to add to what has been said by the other witness, that is okay. Colleagues who are in the room should indicate to me or the clerk if they wish to come in with a supplementary question. Members who are attending online should use the chat box or WhatsApp to do that.

We will kick off our questioning with Emma Roddick, the deputy convener.

I have sought some clarification on how many households received the cold weather payment during the past few years, so that we can get an understanding of who will lose out and who will gain.

Before Paul McLennan goes on, I think that Mark Simpson would like to come in on that point.