Seòmar agus comataidhean

Welcome back, everyone. Our focus with our second panel will be on public policy research and analysis addressing poverty. I welcome Jack Evans, Scotland policy and partnerships manager at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation; Philip Whyte, director of IPPR Scotland; and Emma Congreve, knowledge exchange fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute.

I will invite members in turn to ask questions on different themes. Theme 1 is on child poverty trends and the economic context, and I bring in Miles Briggs to ask about that.

We need to wrap up.

Marion, that is a very important note on which to wind up this panel. The committee is running an inquiry on problem debt and poverty. I am sure that some of you have already submitted responses to it, but if there is anything on that subject that you would like to follow up with in writing to the committee, that would be most helpful.

Thank you for joining us this morning.

Pam, do you want to move on to your second theme?

That is okay.

As we have no more questions from members on this part of proceedings, we move to the formal debate on the motion. I remind the committee that only members and the minister may take part in the formal debate. I invite the minister to move the motion.

Motion moved,

That the Social Justice and Social Security Committee recommends that the Social Security (Up-rating) (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2022 be approved.—[Ben Macpherson]

Motion agreed to.

I invite the committee to agree that the clerks and I will produce a short factual report of the committee’s decision and arrange to have it published later today. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

I suspend the meeting briefly to allow a changeover of officials.

Thank you very much. We have no further questions, minister, but we look forward to hearing updates on the work of the kinship care collaborative and on how the guidance is being shaped to ensure that learning and best practice are passported across all 32 local authorities and that the allowance is set at the level at which we want it to be set. Again, I thank you for coming along this morning.

That concludes the public part of this morning’s meeting. Because Parliament is in recess next week, the committee’s next meeting will be on Thursday 21 April. I invite members who are joining us remotely to leave the meeting and to join us on Teams.

Thank you very much, minister. We will now move to questions from members. We have two themes: the first is on uprating for inflation, and the second is on increases not related to uprating.

Pam Duncan-Glancy, who is joining us remotely, will start us off on theme 1, and she will be followed by Marie McNair, who is also joining us remotely.

If you could just go for it now, Pam, as we are so tight for time, that would be very helpful.

All right. Everybody’s else’s questions have been answered, so we will have Marie McNair’s question.