Chamber and committees

The final set of questions comes from the personification of patience that is Miles Briggs.

Marie, do you have any further questions?

I can see that John Dickie wants to come back in.

Welcome back, everyone. We move to agenda item 4, which is consideration of a legislative consent memorandum on the Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill. It is a UK Government bill that was introduced in the House of Commons on 8 September. It is following an expedited timetable and is currently awaiting its second reading in the House of Commons. The bill will change the law on devolved matters, so legislative consent is being sought from the Scottish Parliament.

I welcome Ben Macpherson, the Minister for Social Security and Local Government, and Matthew Duff, who is a social security policy adviser with the Scottish Government. I invite the minister to make a brief statement on the LCM, then we will turn to questions from members.

I appreciate that response. Are there any other questions?

Good morning, colleagues, and welcome to the fourth meeting in 2021 of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. Apologies have been received from Natalie Don; Evelyn Tweed is attending in her place.

Our first item of business today is a decision to take items five and six in private. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

That is a sobering statistic if ever there was one for us to hear. John Dickie and Chris Birt, do you have anything to add on the impact of not extending the uplift to legacy benefits?

Thank you. We will move to the next theme, which is human rights and poverty proofing .

Thank you. We lost you just at the end there, but I think that you were saying that it is easier to access the Scottish child payment. Bill Scott will have the final word.

Thank you very much. As the three of you have done for the past hour and 40 minutes, you have given us much to chew over with that last point. I thank John Dickie from the Child Poverty Action Group, Chris Birt from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Bill Scott from the Poverty an Inequality Commission for your time. It is greatly appreciated and we will no doubt speak to you again soon.

I will briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses.