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Will the member give way?

I say to Mark Griffin that speaking up for Scotland’s pensioners is never wasted time.

In 2005, when Labour and the Lib Dems were in power here—and Labour was in power in Westminster—Labour led a debate on closing the opportunity gap. I focused on pensioner poverty, with one in five pensioners then living in poverty. Then, as now, the solution was a decent state pension. That, of course, as my state pension is, is subject to tax, if relevant, but then—as now—the UK state pension, compared to those in other European nations, including Norway, the Netherlands and Iceland, was abysmal. Then, as now, UK pensioners were forced to claim pension credit. Then, as now, the figure for those not claiming was more than 30 per cent. Some 20 years on, the figure for non-claimants is just under 40 per cent, so it has increased.

Therefore, Labour knew those figures then, as it knows them now, and those were, no doubt, factored into the savings that it would make, knowing that millions of pensioners will fall foul of pension credit rules. That was bad enough, but now it denies them their very basic right to their winter fuel payment. The online application form is bad enough, but I have the paper form here—all 24 pages of it, with 24 pages of notes. Here are some samples of the questions. On page 23, one of the questions is:

“Have you claimed Tax Credits in the last 12 months?”

If the answer is no, you go to question 102. Further down the same page, question 111 asks:

“Do you or your partner pay ground rent for the place where you live?”

If you answer yes, it says, “Please send us proof”. There are loads of questions such as that—they are bewildering. It is no wonder that people do not fill in the form. It is set up for people to fail to claim. No wonder applications are desperately low. On top of that, if you survive the application form and get to the end of the 24 pages, you might just be above the cut-off point.

By the way, when I received my winter fuel payment, like many other comfortably-off pensioners, rather than return it to the Treasury, I donated it to charities, many of which are necessary because of successive decades of austerity.

According to Independent Age, in my constituency 1,445 pensioners do not claim pension credit and 92 homes in Midlothian and 133 homes in the Borders will go cold, just because they do not claim pension credit. Of course, those figures are only for those who are entitled to pension credit.

To add insult to injury, in energy-rich Scotland, we have higher energy costs and colder, longer and darker winters, and we are losing this vital support as a result of a cruel policy that was dreamed up in the balmy home counties. Oddly enough, if you live abroad you will still get the winter fuel payment if you claim pension credit. Maybe we should all move to sunny Spain.

Seriously, in Scotland, there will be excess illnesses and even deaths. Shame on Labour—Labour, which I thought was for the people. It is not for the people. It looks after itself, but it will not look after Scotland’s pensioners. Shame on the 37 Scottish Labour MPs, who know the score but failed to speak up for Scotland’s pensioners. There is no need to wonder why there was not a single cheep about this in its manifesto, when it was obviously planned. If it had been in the manifesto, I do not think that there would be 37 Scottish Labour MPs.

Will the member take an intervention?

It is essential that we focus on the individual. As the cabinet secretary will remember, he recently visited the Borders general hospital with me to learn about hospital at home. The clue is in the name. At that time, 16 patients were opting for that, freeing 16 beds, and there was more than 90 per cent patient satisfaction, mainly from elderly people. Can that be rolled out further, to increase patients’ options?

That is very gentlemanly of you, Mr Whitfield.

I beg your pardon, Presiding Officer. The member is a gentleman. Does he think that making the winter fuel payment dependent on claiming pension credit is the right thing to do for Scotland’s pensioners? Yes or no?

I just want to say that the member actually does not benefit from that change, because his tax goes up accordingly.

I declare an interest as the golden eagle champion—not many members know that.

The South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project in my constituency has increased the number of golden eagles in the south of Scotland from 10 to nearly 50 over six years, with relatively small calls on public money. It has now advised me that it is at serious risk of closure at the end of the year unless it can access new sources of funding. Will the First Minister look into the matter to ensure that that valuable project, which has increased the population of an iconic bird, can continue?

On the Government’s amendments, the code of practice and the associated certificate are not legally binding.

It will help the committee if I quote the existing code of practice for the welfare of dogs. The second paragraph of the preface says:

“Generally, there is a duty to comply with legislation. Although the Code does not have legislative effect, it is intended to promote and give examples of good practice.”

Here is the killer line:

“Failure to comply with a provision of this Code, whilst not an offence in itself, may be relied upon as tending to establish liability where a person has been accused of an offence under Part 2 of the Act.”

The next sentence says:

“Equally, compliance with a provision of the Code may be relied upon as tending to negate liability by a person in any proceedings for an offence under Part 2 of the Act.”

Without trying to be too boring, I note that section 6(2) of my bill says:

“In any proceedings for a relevant offence—

(a) failure to comply with a relevant provision of the code of practice may be relied on as tending to establish liability, and

(b) compliance with a relevant provision of the code of practice may be relied on as tending to negative liability.”

That is lifted straight from the previous code of practice, so I do not see the problem. All that my bill does is replicate the existing code of practice. The issue is evidential and has nothing to do with perception.

Let me make progress, and I will answer the minister’s questions, too.

The minister says quite rightly—indeed, I moaned about this before to the previous Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee when it carried out post-legislative scrutiny of members’ bills—that a member’s bill gets the air of publicity when it is introduced and when it passes. Then it is left on the shelf. My view is that, in a democratic Parliament, all bills are equal once Parliament has passed them. Therefore, a member’s bill—not just mine, but any member’s bill that passes in the Parliament—should have the resources and the publicity that the Government would give to its own legislation on, say, minimum unit pricing, or to UK bills on not drinking and driving.

Obviously, the Government must consult the various charities and so on, but I would be looking at who our audience was and whom we would be targeting. We would be targeting people who click a button and see a nice wee puppy, rather like the one that I have on the picture I am holding up. He is a charming wee thing, and that is why I am against it. You never see any wrecks—you are never shown dogs that are not pretty. People see pretty dogs online. They spend longer buying a handbag; a man would spend longer buying a pair of trainers. They see the dogs and think, “Oh, that’s lovely.” The bill’s purpose is to make them reflect and ask where the puppy is from and why they are in the car park looking at one, thinking “If I do not get that dog, it will perish.” The fact is that, if they buy it out of a crate, another puppy will come off the production line to be miserable and fill its place.

I am content to go with the Government on what should be in the bill on this issue, but my point about publicity—I have been banging on about this for ages—is that I expect appropriate publicity for all members’ bills, and that we should not just tell people about them when they are passed by Parliament or if something controversial happens. I know that there are police officers who do not know about the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010, which I brought through. I imagine that Emma Harper is aware of police officers who do not know about her member’s bill, because it was not a Government one. To me, all bills are of equal merit once Parliament passes them.

The situation is not the minister’s fault, but I have made the point to previous ministers. My message to the Government is that I want to see a change in the culture of publicising all members’ bills, and not just mine.