Chamber and committees

I am keen to move on to talk about other policy drivers that can help address poverty.

Thank you. We have covered quite a bit of ground on some of the themes that we are looking to explore later in the meeting. I will bring in Emma Roddick to discuss the Scottish child payment.

Does Chris Birt have anything to add on those two areas?

Your point about the UK Government having more social security powers is interesting. If we had the time, I would have loved to have had a discussion about Governments’ ability to deliver demand-led social security without sufficient borrowing powers, but time is against us.

Before I ask Pam Duncan-Glancy whether she has any supplementaries, I can see that Bill Scott has something to add about housing costs as a driver of poverty.

Thank you very much. I am looking around the room to get an indication of whether members have questions.

Your statement throws open areas of concern that we have about the interaction and relationship between UK Government and Scottish Government, and underlines why we are so keen to have the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions come before us, at a time of her choosing, to discuss those areas and to ensure that the two Governments are working and communicating well together in order to ensure the best delivery of social security.

I want to return to the theme of the key drivers of poverty. Does any of you have an estimation for the total value of social security cuts that have been made over the past decade, and the impact that they have had on child poverty levels in Scotland?

Does Bill Scott or John Dickie have anything to add on estimations of cuts and their impact on poverty?

Agenda item two is another decision to take business in private. Members are invited to agree that we consider a draft letter or a draft report on the 2022-23 budget in private at future meetings, are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Our next item of business is an evidence session on the committee’s pre-budget work in preparation for the Scottish Government’s publication of its 2022-23 budget. The focus of this morning’s session is on the spending needed in 2022-23 to meet the 2023-24 interim targets for reducing child poverty.

I welcome to the meeting our panel, who are joining us remotely. Chris Birt is the associate director for Scotland of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation; John Dickie is the director of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland; and Bill Scott is the chair of the Poverty and Inequality Commission. Good morning, colleagues, thank you for joining us.

I will mention a few housekeeping points before we kick off. Please allow our broadcasting colleagues a few seconds to turn your microphones on before you start to speak; that includes colleagues joining remotely. If witnesses want to come in on a question, please indicate that with an R in the chat box. Please do not feel that you all have to answer every single question—if you have nothing new to add to what has already been said, that is okay. We have about one hour and 15 minutes for this session. I invite colleagues to ask questions in turn, starting with Marie McNair.

Marie must have lost her connection, so I call Pam Duncan-Glancy, who also wanted to speak on this subject.