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It is fine, convener. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to explore the interaction between Scottish and UK policy. I might come back in later to ask about the interaction between the finances and delivering our climate change ambitions.

Professor Bell prompted me to segue—or so I had thought—into a question about the proposed heat in buildings bill, so I will put that question now. In the 2023 progress report, you say that the proposals for the Scottish heat in buildings bill were “strong” and

“could act as a template for the rest of the UK”,

so nations and regions could learn from one another. What impressed you about it? What elements of the bill could make a real difference?

I have one final question, but I should first of all point out that we might be repeating your comments from the Official Report of the meeting in a few years’ time, once those matters have come to fruition and the obligations are in place for the private rented sector, property owners, purchasers and the like. We just need to do this, because it is the right thing to do. There is also a longer-term benefit for businesses and home owners.

My final question is about the cost outlay, which will be challenging for a purchaser of a property, a landlord with a small number of properties or anyone living in a property. Professor Bell has talked quite a lot about the fact that none of this is cheap. We need to consider the budget at Scotland’s disposal versus a four-nations approach to working together to decarbonise heating; after all, Scotland’s funding does not work in a vacuum. Would it be helpful if the rest of the UK and Scotland worked in partnership and, if you like, to Scotland’s timetable? That might release some capital to Scotland and allow us to identify cash that we could use to support households and businesses to do some of this stuff; it would mean that we would be able to share the cost between the private sector or the home owner and the public sector. That is the difficult situation that politicians find themselves in.

My question follows on from Marie McNair’s earlier question and is about whether the redetermination process should remain or whether individuals who are appealing should go straight to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. It is fair to say that we had conflicting evidence from third sector and advice groups on that. Some people thought that it was vital that the redetermination process stayed and others thought that it got in the way. The sector was not speaking with one voice on the issue.

I was wondering, however, whether redeterminations could be run in tandem with the tribunals service. Let me say what I mean by that. If there were no redeterminations and if things went straight to a tribunal, I think that, pretty quickly, Social Security Scotland would do a very quick review of any application to ensure that it got it right in the first place and a lot of applications to the tribunal would never get there anyway.

Is it possible to have a hybrid system, and might the Government think about that? I am not saying that that idea is well thought out or that there are not lots of potential unintended consequences, but we are progressing this proposed legislation and I was wondering whether a hybrid system is possible. Is that something that the Government could consider?

In England and Wales, the Department for Work and Pensions already has a system of compensation recovery. For those who are not aware of that system, I note that if a person receives benefits as a direct result of injury, accident or disease but later gets compensation, the compensator must reimburse the DWP for those benefits. I welcome the fact that a similar system will be put in place in Scotland through the bill that we are scrutinising.

The bill will make it a criminal offence for the compensator not to comply with those requirements, but the power to make that a criminal offence will be in regulations—secondary legislation—not in the bill. That was of significant concern to the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, because that is not the normal way in which such matters are conducted. Why did the Scottish Government not take the option of putting that power in the bill?

That is helpful. I am not suggesting that the approach has not been taken in the past, but the DPLR Committee looks at such matters weekly across all Government legislation and has said that what is being done stands out as an outlier when compared with the approach that the Government normally takes. We echo some of the concerns.

Has work taken place to flesh out what should be in the bill if the Parliament decides that it wants such provisions to be included? I am open minded either way.

I will follow up on that very briefly, convener. Again, we will have to reflect on whether that is the right level of parliamentary scrutiny. I put on the record that I was not suggesting that that would be the right level of scrutiny; I just wanted to know what the level of scrutiny would be.

I would not expect anything less. The reason for asking that question was to draw attention to the fact that the sector does not speak with one voice about what the best system should look like. The Government can perhaps reflect on that to see whether improvements can be made. Parts of the sector say that redeterminations get in the way, while other parts say that they are really important. We want to ensure that all people are serviced appropriately by whatever system we have in place.

Thank you for the opportunity, convener.

It was good to hear from those seeking to be commissioners and the new chair informally before this meeting. I have just a brief observation to make. I was struck by the diverse mix of candidates, who range from people in academia and policy research to people involved at the coalface of planning, service delivery, working daily on the ground with young people and families to tackle poverty and people with direct lived experience. We want our commissioners to have that diverse range of skills and experiences, to be a critical friend of Government and to be fiercely independent. From what I heard this morning, I am enthused by the candidates who will, I hope, take up those roles.

My goodness, cabinet secretary. Do you mean that I have got the Government to move within seconds, if it is not affirmative? That is a first.

To double check, does that mean that the system might mirror the DWP route but that there will not necessarily be an agency agreement?