Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you, convener, and good morning. I welcome you and, indeed, committee members to their roles. I had the privilege of serving on the Social Security Committee between 2016 and 2018, and I am honoured to be back again as the social security minister as, together, we look to take forward the proposals that lie ahead of us over the next five years. I look forward to working with everyone on the committee.

I will start by expressing my gratitude to and admiration for the thousands of unpaid carers across Scotland who make an immense contribution to our society. In the three years in which we have had the legislative powers to introduce social security benefits, we have introduced 11 benefits, including seven brand new ones, to support the people of Scotland. The first was the carers allowance supplement.

We invest more than £350 million a year in supporting carers through carers allowance, the carers allowance supplement and the young carer grant, and we are committed to supporting carers to protect their health and wellbeing so that they can continue to care, if they so wish, and, just as important, to have their own life alongside caring. We recognise that carers have had added pressures to deal with as a result of the coronavirus pandemic; indeed, many carers have had to step in to provide care that would normally have been provided by statutory services such as schools and day care centres.

In 2020, therefore, we delivered extra support to unpaid carers in receipt of carers allowance by doubling the amount of carers allowance supplement paid in June of that year as part of the wider package of Scottish Government support to help mitigate the impacts of coronavirus.

If the Parliament agrees, the bill will increase the amount of carers allowance supplement paid in December 2021 to £462.80 for all carers allowance supplement recipients. That will not only mitigate the negative impact of the virus on carers, their finances and their wellbeing, but help them to continue to play their vital caring role.

We recognise that the pandemic has highlighted a need for greater flexibility in how we support carers experiencing changing circumstances. As a result, the bill includes a power to enable ministers to introduce regulations that could increase the amount of the carers allowance supplement for a future period. We are also committed to improving the carers allowance and are working with carers and stakeholders on developing a replacement benefit called Scottish carers assistance.

In closing, I want to put on record my appreciation of the committee’s work in securing an expedited timetable for the bill. Together we will need to meet the various deadlines that we are required to meet if we are to increase December’s carers allowance supplement payment.

I look forward to members’ questions.

As you will know, I was Minister for Public Finance and Migration during the pandemic. Rightly, considerations to do with the council tax reduction scheme regularly crossed my desk and, of course, measures were taken to assist with that.

The council tax reduction scheme reduces tax liability based on an assessment of household income, household composition, household characteristics and other factors, as you rightly highlighted. Carers can get a carers premium added to the calculation, potentially meaning that they will get a greater council tax reduction and pay less council tax. The majority of households that get a carers premium in council tax reduction are already on 100 per cent council tax reduction, or close to it, and analysis shows that, in practice, increasing the level of carers premium in council tax reduction would not have a big impact on carers generally. We continue to consider across Government what support we can give to carers.

On the point about data, we have to work with the DWP on these matters because of the considerations around passporting and ensuring that nobody’s entitlement is affected as an unintended consequence of our actions. We continue to consider what data is available but, as matters stand, we have to co-ordinate with the DWP when it comes to the payment mechanism and operating within the law.

That is another important question. I record my thanks to SCOSS for all the work that it does and, in particular, for all the work that it has done in recent months.

I presume that Mr Choudhury is referring to the enabling power in the bill.

Just for clarity, I point out that, as members will know, it is normal procedure to wait for two months after a bill receives royal assent to commence the provisions in it. However, given the need to ensure that the provisions in section 1 are in force in time for the December payment, we have instead proposed that sections 1, 3 and 4 will come into force on the day after royal assent, which is as quickly as possible. As the same urgency does not apply to the enabling power in section 2, we intend to commence that in the normal way. That is the only reason for the difference in commencement.

For clarity, do you mean a reporting duty on the development of Scottish carers assistance? Could you be more specific?

As members will be aware, the Scottish Government updates Parliament as appropriate, and as Parliament would rightly expect, on the delivery programme for Social Security Scotland. In relation to progress towards Scottish carers assistance, we have developed our overall aims and options for improvement. As the committee will be interested to know, we are currently discussing those with carers organisations and engaging with stakeholders to carry out a detailed options analysis on what Scottish carers assistance could and should include, and we will consult on proposals in winter 2021-22. That work is progressing at pace and we will keep the committee updated as appropriate.

There are more conversations and discussions to be had. Officials have good working relationships with their counterparts in the DWP, and we are grateful to DWP officials for working with our officials in Social Security Scotland and the Scottish Government to deliver for the people of Scotland and to bring our new benefits programme forward in a responsible and effective way.

Of course, Scottish ministers will raise these matters with UK ministers, too. In fact, we will be meeting UK ministers shortly to discuss all these points with them and to get clarity on the issue of passporting, not just with regard to Scottish carers assistance but more generally. We want to ensure that we are all clear on what the position will be, and we will be happy to engage with the committee again on those points in due course.

I would be grateful, convener, if I could bring in Kate Thomson-McDermott, who may wish to say more about that.

We are looking at all that very seriously and analysing what can be delivered, what changes on eligibility we want to make collectively in due course, and when those changes can be made. We will keep the committee and the Parliament updated as appropriate on those considerations, and I look forward to engagement on those important points in the period ahead.

I will bring in Andrew Strong, as he has had specific engagement with the sector on that point in order to ensure that we raise awareness of the benefits of the bill and to encourage applications and uptake, should Parliament pass the bill, which we really hope that it will. As you have highlighted, one of the key considerations around that remains the interactions between the carers allowance and universal credit. That is also a key consideration in developing and analysing options for Scottish carers assistance.

Does Andrew Strong want to talk about his recent engagement with the sector?

That will mean that those who are in the most intense caring roles who, as Pam Duncan-Glancy understandably emphasised, tend to be on lower incomes, will receive up to £694.20 more than the equivalent carer south of the border, so we are already stepping up and making that additional difference. I do not know whether you have any further supplementary questions on that.