Seòmar agus comataidhean

I cannot recall the specific request and the correspondence that was potentially issued in response to that, but we consider, particularly in these times with the high cost of energy, what additional support can be provided. That is why, for example, the creation and then payment during the last years of the child winter heating assistance has been so important in providing additional support for those households. Colleagues will remember that, when we took through the regulations on the winter heating payment, I talked about the fact that we deliberately drafted those regulations to provide flexibility for the Government in the future should it wish to pay either a higher amount or an additional payment of the winter heating payment. That would be contingent on the financial resources available, which takes us back to the thrust of the challenge, which is how to provide more support in a situation where we have a largely fixed budget and limited powers.

There will always be calls on the Scottish Government to do more, but it is also important to recognise, acknowledge and emphasise that collectively, as a Parliament, we are delivering more support for people in Scotland than is available elsewhere in the UK. We are doing that with determination and dedication to help people and to make Scotland a more socially just place. We absolutely appreciate people’s needs and that there are demands for us to do more, but I hope that the committee and members across the political spectrum appreciate that, in good faith, the Scottish Government is trying to do as much as it can with its resources, such as the £428 million for the uprating that we are considering today; the £442 million for the Scottish child payment that is not available elsewhere; and the additional benefits such as child winter heating assistance.

That would require a piece of primary legislation to have been passed by this Parliament. It would have required additional financial resource to be found within a restricted budget. Of course, where we have been able to allocate additional resource using already established mechanisms, we have done so. We have provided additional support where we can and we also passed a bill in order to be able to pay carers allowance supplement in 2021. We also introduced the Scottish child payment from 2019 to 2021 initially for under-sixes and then rolled it out fully to under-16s. We have used existing mechanisms and created new ones to provide additional support, but primary legislation would be required for what Pam Duncan-Glancy refers to.

Susan Soutar, do you want to come in on anything further on that point?

As I have referenced before, we first need to deliver adult disability payment, which of course was nationally rolled out on 29 August 2022, and complete the case transfer process for individuals on personal independence payment and disability living allowance for working adults in Scotland to adult disability payment, which is under way. We need to undertake that process. Once everyone is in the Scottish system, we will consider matters for the future, which also relates to why we are consulting on adult disability payment. That consultation is live.

Thank you, convener and colleagues, for the opportunity to discuss with you this legislative consent motion on the Social Security (Additional Payments) (No 2) Bill. The bill was introduced by the UK Government on 7 February to provide further payments to support people through the cost of living crisis. That is extra support and we welcome it.

The help that is available includes £900 in extra cost of living payments for those on means-tested benefits, which will be paid in three stages over the 2023-24 financial year. Those in receipt of non-means-tested disability benefits include people who receive child disability payment or adult disability payment from Social Security Scotland, and they will receive a disability cost of living payment of £150. That payment will be made in summer 2023. Our analysis suggests that around 750,000 households in Scotland will receive the means-tested additional payment, and around 680,000 individuals will receive the disability additional payment.

It is the UK Government’s view that the provisions of its bill are reserved and it has therefore not requested the Scottish Parliament’s consent to the bill. However, the Scottish Government’s view is that the bill relates to devolved matters. It is my view that the payments are provided to individuals who have a short-term need for financial support to avoid a risk to their wellbeing and that that can be legislated for within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament. That is why it is necessary to lodge a legislative consent motion, although the UK Government has not requested one. In doing so, we will ensure that the devolution settlement is properly respected and, more importantly, that a precedent for overriding the devolution settlement is not established.

The alternative to a legislative consent motion would be to pass legislation in the Scottish Parliament on an extremely truncated timescale in order to match the UK Government’s timetable and ensure that payments are made when intended. The legislation would need to come into force by the end of March.

The UK Government bill will apply to the entirety of the UK. As a result, it is my view that introducing legislation in the Scottish Parliament is not necessary or proportionate. Instead, the most prudent course of action is to provide legislative consent to the provisions in the UK bill. That will support the payments while ensuring that the devolution settlement is properly respected.

I welcome the opportunity to take any questions as part of your consideration of the LCM.

Thank you for your important questions on the regulations. I hope that you will support them.

Motion agreed to,

That the Social Justice and Social Security Committee recommends that the Social Security Up-rating (Scotland) Order 2023 be approved.

There are important considerations around the Barnett formula and the fiscal framework, but it is also a fact that, in years past, Scotland has paid a surplus of resource into the UK Treasury. We need to bear in mind the wider considerations when thinking about these points. I emphasise that Scotland is making political choices within the devolved settlement to provide additional support. We have also had to make decisions to mitigate UK Government policy that is costly for Scotland, particularly aspects such as the bedroom tax, which costs tens of millions of pounds every year, which we would rather not have to spend. It would be much better if we could get rid of that policy, for example. That is also a reality of the situation.

I acknowledge the international situation and would never pretend that the war in Ukraine—the illegal invasion that we all wish was not happening—is not having an effect but, in the same way that that is a reality, it is also a reality that Brexit is having an effect on inflation and the strength of the UK economy, as are the repercussions of the decisions of the Truss Government in that brief period.

Of course, considerations around those on low incomes are at the heart of everything that we are doing with our social security system. The additional benefits that we provide and that are not available elsewhere in the UK are absolutely targeted at low-income households. The Scottish child payment impacts over 300,000 children, all of whom are in low-income households receiving reserved benefits that allow them to access the Scottish child payment, which is an additional £442 million of support.

In relation to what measures we consider when we are thinking about how to ensure that we are being responsive to low-income households when deciding the uprating policy, Scottish Government analysts—I will perhaps bring in Dominic Mellan to say more on this if he wishes to—undertake an annual review of the potential inflation metrics that could be used to uprate benefits. The CPI has been used consistently to uprate benefits by the Scottish Government and the UK Government—the DWP—as it is a leading measure of inflation used by the Office for National Statistics, it holds national statistic status, and CPI forecasts are published regularly by the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Bank of England.

We are aware of recent developments by the ONS and other stakeholders to develop supplementary price metrics to reflect that price rises in the economy do not affect all households equally, which is at the heart of Pam Duncan-Glancy’s question. For example, the ONS now publishes CPI rates by income decile. Scottish Government analysts use these additional price indices extensively for internal analysis and briefing of ministers. However, the ONS advises that those price indices are experimental and cautions against their use for anything other than research purposes at this juncture.

We are very focused on providing additional support to low-income households, which is why we provide the additional benefits that we do—the seven benefits are not available in the UK—and we keep in mind how we measure the uprating policy and how best to do that. Dominic Mellan, do you want to say any more on that?

I am—yes.

I think that I have already covered that point in my responses to Pam Duncan-Glancy and Paul McLennan. I do not know that I have anything further to add on the issue.

I will bring in Camilo Arredondo in a moment. I would not want to change the obligations under the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018. I think that it is right, as Parliament agreed, that there is an obligation to uprate the benefits by the consumer prices index, although of course we have increased the Scottish child payment by more than 10.1 per cent in this period.

I do not know whether Camilo Arredondo wants to say more about the obligations under the 2018 act.