Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank all members for their patience.

Following today’s proceedings, the clerks will prepare a draft report, and the committee is invited to decide whether to consider that draft report in private at our next meeting. Do members agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

As there are no further questions, we move to agenda item 3. I call the cabinet secretary to move the motion, and to speak to it, should she wish to do so.

Motion moved,

That the Social Justice and Social Security Committee recommends that the Winter Heating Assistance (Pension Age) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.—[Shirley-Anne Somerville]

From what I can see, there are no more questions from members—[Interruption.] Oh! I hear that that might not be the case. There was nothing in my chat box, but Kevin Stewart’s name has appeared twice now. Mr Stewart, over to you.

That might be helpful for future scrutiny. I appreciate that. We move on to questions from Jeremy Balfour.

Mr O’Kane, before you come back in, I note that we are moving slightly away from the regulations. I will not prevent you from coming back in, but I note that Marie McNair wants to ask a supplementary question. If you finish your line of questioning, I will then bring her in.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. We now move to questions from MSP colleagues, and I ask Katy Clark to kick off.

There will be a division.

For

Doris, Bob (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP)
McNair, Marie (Clydebank and Milngavie) (SNP)
Stewart, Kevin (Aberdeen Central) (SNP)

Abstentions

Balfour, Jeremy (Lothian) (Con)
Clark, Katy (West Scotland) (Lab)
O’Kane, Paul (West Scotland) (Lab)
Smith, Liz (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)

I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for their contribution to today’s meeting, and I also thank fellow committee members for how they conducted this morning’s debate.

We now move into private session.

First of all, as far as etiquette is concerned, it is completely fine to intervene on the convener. Indeed, you absolutely should do so, given that I specifically mentioned your comments.

You have again made a really important point: there will always been in-year budget revisions, and sometimes things go up and sometimes they go down. Ms Clark, you have identified a budget that is going up, but lots of other budgets are going down as a result of those revisions, and the Scottish Government must look at things in the round. I look forward to seeing what decisions the Scottish Government makes, and our committee will scrutinise them on a cross-party basis. That was a helpful intervention.

None of us wants to be in a position of letting politics get in the way of this important winter fuel payment being delivered to some of the most vulnerable pensioners. I suspect that most or all of us will wish that the benefit were being paid on a universal basis, but that is not to be at this stage. I will leave my comments at that.

As no other member wishes to speak, do you wish to sum up, cabinet secretary? You can waive the right—it is fully up to you.

Mr Balfour, if you really want me to do this, I will be happy to look at the Official Report for those occasions either in the chamber or in committee when you have questioned why we were building the system in the first place, and scrutinised the cost of the system and said that it might be more affordable and cheaper simply to run it from Westminster. If you have not said that, I will happily apologise, but I think that that has been a pretty consistent position of yours.

However, let us not personalise this issue between us. I am trying to make the point that there is a balance to be struck between having a flexible system and a system that provides value for money, that is cost-effective and which delivers the policies that we intend to deliver. That is the only point that I was trying to make, Mr Balfour, so I offer my apologies—I did not mean to trigger you with my contribution.

I thought that Katy Clark’s contribution was incredibly helpful. I hope that I am capturing correctly what she said, but she asked what more could have been done in spite of the decision from Westminster. That speaks to mitigations—although I will not mention them, as I want to stay away from the politics of this.

Katy Clark also asked what more could be done once the Barnett consequentials become clear. Again, that points to an uncertainty in the Scottish budget, not just until the Chancellor of the Exchequer gets to their feet, but until the consequences are known.

We are where we are, and we all understand why that is the case. This is not really a moment for politics—my understanding is that we do not pass—