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I am grateful for that, minister. In the memorandum that was set out at the start of the policy, the Scottish Government committed to leaving nobody behind or worse off. The figures that we have from SPICe and the figures that you have been using show that there will be people who are worse off because of the introduction of the new benefit. Why has that happened? Would you like to apologise to those individuals?

I will move on, as I am conscious of time, to two questions about the next area that we are considering.

You might not have this information to hand, minister, so I am happy if you want to write to us with it. You helpfully said that other benefits were available, and you mentioned several of them, but do you know the number of people for whom this will be the only winter payment that they receive? There might be older people who are not entitled to, say, any of the benefits related to children. Do you have a breakdown of people for whom this will be the only winter heating payment that they will receive?

There are four abstentions.

With respect, minister, that is not what you said this morning. You said that you hope that we will get the payment out in February, but you were not willing to guarantee that we will get it in February. That seems to be a failing of the system.

I appreciate that a lot of the work was done before the minister came into post, but I would have thought that, with an issue of this importance and with the need to get information from the DWP, at some point over the past few months—not just this week, but in July, August or September—the minister would have picked up the telephone to his counterpart in London and said, “Actually, can you make this more of a priority? I appreciate that we’ve got”—

Do you recognise that this is a new system devised by the Scottish Government? We have had a number of years to devise a scheme. Do you believe that this is the best scheme that could have been devised by the Scottish Government to cover everybody in Scotland and not just your constituents in Glasgow?

On a point of order, and for the record, I would like you to know that I will seek to bring the regulations to the chamber when we come back after the recess, so that the whole Parliament can consider whether the regulations are appropriate.

I am grateful that it is guaranteed, because it is not guaranteed. If the DWP were saying, “We will try to get a payment to you, but it might be several weeks late,” would that be acceptable? If it is not acceptable for the DWP, why is it acceptable for Social Security Scotland?

I will push on for the moment.

You could have said, “I am pleased that there is a good relationship between DWP, the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland, but could you get the information to us two or three weeks early?”

Can I clarify, again through you, minister, how many meetings officials had with DWP officials to discuss how the new benefit would work?

I will move on to my final question in this area. Your predecessor started with a blank piece of paper in designing a scheme. I accept that there were faults in the DWP scheme, and you have highlighted those, but the new system here has been criticised by a number of third sector charities. Did you consider any other scheme for deciding how to provide payments? For example, rather than take seven days at a certain temperature as the lower limit, did you look at three or four days? Why, in the end, did you come up with a scheme that, in certain years, will possibly leave a number of people in the coldest parts of Scotland less well off?