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I appreciate the member’s argument, but people who are entitled to the winter heating payment will not need to hope: they will get it. That is the different nature of the benefit. It will be delivered safely and securely to those who are entitled to it, and it will not rely on weather conditions.

Good morning, convener and colleagues. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss with you the draft Winter Heating Assistance (Low Income) (Scotland) Regulations.

The regulations will introduce our 13th Scottish benefit, which is called the winter heating payment. It will support around 400,000 people, replacing the United Kingdom Government’s cold weather payment. In contrast to cold weather payments, which are dependent on certain weather conditions, the winter heating payment will be an annual, reliable £50 benefit delivered by Social Security Scotland, beginning in February.

Our approach will differ from that of the Department for Work and Pensions. To receive a single payment of the DWP’s cold weather payment, someone must live in an area where the average of the mean daily temperature for seven consecutive days is 0°C or below—identified through weather stations, which often do not represent local conditions. By comparison, for the winter heating payment, we have removed the requirement for any period of a specific temperature being reached; instead, we will provide stability to people on low incomes, who are less likely to be able to afford additional heating costs during the winter.

The cost of living crisis has had a significant impact on everyone, but those who are likely to feel the increase in energy prices the most are those with the lowest incomes and the highest need for additional warmth. That includes older people, disabled people and households with young children. Our new winter heating payment targets those groups, ensuring that they receive a reliable contribution towards their winter heating expenses and do not have to hope for periods of cold weather to be sustained for seven days just to trigger a payment, as is the case with cold weather payments.

Between 2015-16 and 2021-22, an average of only £8.3 million was spent on cold weather payments in Scotland, supporting on average around 185,000 people each year. By comparison, we anticipate that our reliable £50 winter heating payment will provide at least £20 million to 400,000 people every year, as I have said.

We are facing challenging times, and we are working within a largely fixed budget in Scotland. An investment of £20 million each year is significantly more than the corresponding level of funding that we are forecast to receive from the UK Government under the block grant adjustment. Again, that reflects our principle that social security is an investment in people and can contribute to tackling poverty. For context, in four of the past 11 years, low-income households received less than £1 million from cold weather payments to help with their heating bills.

As well as the £20 million that we have allocated for the winter heating payment, the Scottish Government is spending hundreds of millions of pounds on devolved social security, including our Scottish child payment, child winter heating assistance, carers allowance and other benefits that are available only for people in Scotland.

My officials and I are grateful to the DWP for its collaboration in delivering the winter heating payment as part of the joint delivery of our devolved social security programme. Our ability to meet our target of beginning payments in February is based on the DWP providing the Scottish Government with the right data at the right time. To ensure that payments can begin in February, it is critical that the DWP maintains its commitment to providing data to Social Security Scotland by 31 January, to allow us to conclude our internal assurance of the 400,000 records. That is really important. We continue to work closely with the DWP to ensure a safe and secure transition.

Lastly, members will be aware that the draft regulations were referred to the Scottish Commission on Social Security in June. We received its report in August. The Scottish Government’s response to its recommendations was laid in the Parliament on 16 November, along with a final draft of the regulations. As always, I am extremely grateful to the Scottish Commission on Social Security for its scrutiny and recommendations.

I welcome the opportunity to be with you today and to take any questions as part of your consideration of these important regulations.

I thank the member for raising those important points. Of course, they are considerations that I and my ministerial colleagues are engaged in. We are seeking, with the mechanisms and limited resources that we have in a largely fixed budget, to provide additional support to people. I appreciate that you recognised that in your question.

We will always seek to consider what more we can do but with mindfulness around how we do it. There are demands on other aspects of the public sector. There is strong demand across the board around what people need during this cost of living crisis. We have provided significant extra support over and above what we have from the UK Government with the block grant adjustment for social security, which is approximately £460 million in this financial year.

The evidence of creating the child winter heating assistance benefit, of seeking to provide the winter heating assistance to more households and of introducing the Scottish child payment and increasing it by 150 per cent shows that the Scottish Government is doing what it can to provide additional support, but we appreciate and absolutely recognise that people face significant challenges at the moment. We are working to identify, where we can, resource to support people in extra ways.

When it comes to addressing fuel poverty, there are wider aspects around people’s dwellings and energy efficiency. I know that there was, quite understandably, a lot of discussion on those matters during the evidence that you took last week. I encourage engagement with my ministerial colleague Mr Harvie. I am sure that he would be interested in coming back and speaking to the committee about what the Government is undertaking to help people with their heating costs and dwellings and to reduce their energy consumption in order to help with those cost pressures as well.

I thank all colleagues for the discussion that we have had today, the evidence that the committee heard last week and the constructive way in which it has been given. I challenge several parts of members’ contributions. Of course, I have already done that through interventions, and I appreciate that there are time constraints, so I will not dwell on them all. However, I will pick up on Mr Balfour’s point about engagement with the UK Government.

It is completely unfair and unreasonable to challenge ministerial engagement with the UK Government during the period of change that we have been through, when there has been turmoil at ministerial level in the UK Government. I assure Mr Balfour, the committee and the Parliament that my officials engaged regularly with UK Government counterparts on the need for us to receive a scan in good time. We came to an agreement on that, and we are grateful to the DWP for that. I have taken the two opportunities when I have had a conversation with my new ministerial counterpart to raise that point. Of course, he has been in post for only a number of weeks. The scenario in the summer made ministerial engagement very challenging. I assure the committee that, when I can, I undertake engagement with ministerial colleagues in a serious way to press the issues that are of concern to the people of Scotland and to ensure that we deliver social security in Scotland safely and securely.

On the wider points, as I have set out in my opening statement and throughout the discussion, the changes that we are making will help significantly more people—tens of thousands more people—on a reliable basis. People will be able to rely on the winter heating payment from the Scottish Government. They will be able to budget knowing that it is coming. It will not depend on weather conditions and will therefore, along with other support, help people who are in situations of fuel poverty and financial challenge.

First, I thank Mr Briggs for raising the issue and for his work in that area. I know that, over the past year, Mr Briggs has questioned me on a number of different areas relating to the matter of terminal illness. Perhaps we can arrange a meeting in 2023 to discuss those issues more roundly. I think that that would be helpful.

Of course, we all want to make sure, as much as we can, that no terminally ill person has to worry about their finances at such a difficult time. As a Government, we recognise the specific requirements of those living with life-limiting conditions and the call for greater support. However, there is also a consideration of whether the winter heating payment is the correct vehicle for extending provision in those circumstances. Some people who receive disability benefit in relation to their terminal illness may already be eligible to receive a winter heating payment through entitlement to one of the qualifying low-income benefits and relevant premiums.

More generally, we have introduced a range of support measures for terminally ill people and their carers. For instance, as members know, when we introduced our Scottish disability benefits, we changed the definition of terminal illness to be more sympathetic in order to enable people to access the social security support that we want them to receive. We have done that in Scotland by removing any time requirement from our definition of terminal illness. That allows child disability payment and adult disability payment to provide people who are terminally ill with fast-tracked access to financial assistance at the highest rates to which they are entitled, ensuring that accessing financial support is as straightforward as possible for them. Our person-centred approach to child disability payment and adult disability payment relies on the judgment of clinicians, as I said, rather than fixed periods of life expectancy.

Any potential improvements, including an extension of the eligibility criteria, will be considered once this new benefit of winter heating assistance has been delivered and its initial evaluation has been completed. I thank Mr Briggs for raising that. As I said, more generally, I would be happy to meet him in the new year on the issues surrounding terminal illness.

As part of the net zero agenda, as well as the tackling child poverty national mission that the Government has, ministers and partners are working collegiately on how we reduce demand and improve the quality and energy efficiency of people’s dwellings. My cabinet secretary, Shona Robison, has social security and housing within her remit. The engagement between the work of Mr Harvie and the work of Social Security Scotland and how that all comes together to help to reduce demand for energy and for social security is absolutely part of the focus of two of the main pillars of the Government’s work, which are the net zero agenda and the mission to tackle poverty—child poverty, in particular.

The issue is about the efficiency of housing but also the cost of housing. The fact that the Government is investing capital in significantly more social housing than anywhere else in the UK means that costs are lower for people. That means that their costs overall are reduced, and that is an important aspect of what the Government has delivered over the past decade. The recent action by the Government and Parliament on rents is also important to consider in the overall scenario.

If I may elaborate, most respondents to the consultation—76 per cent—agreed with breaking the link to the cold weather payment. If we reflect even on last winter, we can understand why. DWP estimates show that, in 2021-22, cold weather payments were triggered on only six occasions at only four of the 27 Scottish weather stations. That resulted in total payments of only £325,000 to approximately 11,000 individuals. If we had had the winter heating payment last year, there would have been £20 million of investment, compared with £325,000, and it would have supported 400,000 individuals rather than 11,000. The unreliability of cold weather payments means that the situation is different each year, but it is worth comparing last year with what we will be able to do this year, should the regulations be passed.

I appreciate the point. The way in which the question was correctly worded around the terms “if” and “should” demonstrates why we need to get to a reliable position for people. Mr Balfour asked a question in the chamber yesterday about areas that would have received support under the cold weather payment system if there had been a prolonged period of several instances of seven consecutive days, which is unusual. In Scotland, we also have our fuel insecurity fund, which we have doubled, and we encourage people to engage with that support. We also have the different support mechanisms that are detailed in our cost of living website campaign, and I encourage people to look at that package of support and access all the support to which they are entitled. Of course, if the weather were extreme to the extent that the cold weather payment would have been initiated, many of the households that would have received it in such a scenario would also receive additional support from the Scottish Government through the social security system—for example, through the Scottish child payment and, potentially, the carers allowance supplement. Those households are rightly receiving a lot of additional support from the Scottish Government.

Will you take an intervention?

Owen, do you want to answer that for Mr Balfour, please?