Chamber and committees

We will move to questions from Pam Duncan-Glancy, who will finish off our questioning.

We will move to questions from members.

I advise members that, next week, we will take evidence on the Scottish Government’s National Care Service (Scotland) Bill.

The committee will now move into private. Members who are attending remotely are invited to join the private meeting via the link provided.

As there are no comments from members, I invite the cabinet secretary to sum up.

Our main item of business is consideration of a statutory instrument, the draft Homeless Persons (Suspension of Referrals between Local Authorities) (Scotland) Order 2022. The Scottish Government advises that the order would suspend the discretionary power of local authorities to refer a homelessness applicant without a local connection to another local authority on the basis of the applicant’s local connection to that other area.

I welcome Shona Robison MSP, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, and thank her for attending today. I also welcome the officials from the Scottish Government who join us today: Karen Grieve, legislation and programme strategy team leader; Louise Thompson, homelessness policy manager; and Micheila West, solicitor from the housing branch.

The instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that Parliament must approve it before it comes into force. Following the evidence session, the committee will be invited under the next agenda item to consider a motion to approve the instrument. I remind everyone that Scottish Government officials can speak under this agenda item but not in the debate that follows.

I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.

Absolutely. That would be very helpful.

Motion agreed to.

We move to agenda item 3, which is the formal consideration of motion S6M-05955.

Motion moved,

That the Social Justice and Social Security Committee recommends that the Homeless Persons (Suspension of Referrals between Local Authorities) (Scotland) Order 2022 be approved.—[Shona Robison]

The committee will report on the outcome of its consideration of the order in due course. I invite the committee to delegate authority to me, as convener, to approve a draft of the report for publication.

Members indicated agreement.

No, I am not going to take any more interventions. I would like to make progress—thank you.

They are scraping up every penny they can from those who actually need it. It is shocking that a Conservative would even stand in this Parliament and defend the crooks who are running things down in Westminster.

Automation is an incredibly positive thing. Filling out form after form after form is trying, degrading and demoralising, so a system that works to simplify that is only going to help people. I think that that is one of the key points that sets this Government apart from the catastrophic DWP system. We recognise that there is still work to do to deliver the automation that we want to see, and that is why we are investing more than £20 million over the next four years in the social security independent advocacy service. That will ensure that people who are looking to claim what they are entitled to are given the support that they require in order to do so.

Encouraging take-up and making it easier for people to get what they are entitled to work toward reducing the stigma that exists around benefits. Stigma has been identified as one of the key barriers to the take-up of benefits, and the only way to reduce that in the system is to design it with input from the people who use it. Stigma exists within the system—

No. Sorry, I need to make progress. Stigma exists within the system because it is being bred through it. I remember attending the jobcentre and making my claim for what at the time was jobseekers allowance, and, honestly, feeling like a piece of dirt that someone had just scraped off their shoe. As a young teenager who left home under difficult circumstances, I needed support, not judgment, and it was not there.

That is why I am so happy that our social security system is taking a different route. Evidence from claimants and others who have used the system saw a clear contrast in the way in which people are treated. Not everyone can work, and that can be for a variety of reasons. Not everyone can work full time, not everyone can work regular hours and, over and above that, a person’s circumstances can change at any point in life. That is why it is key that we have a robust and compassionate social security system in place to protect our citizens.

Let us get down to the real issue here. We can highlight all day long the positive steps that the Scottish Government is taking with just 15 per cent of welfare powers. While the Scottish Government is actively encouraging benefit take-up and investing in social security, UK Government welfare policies are deliberately penalising those who need it the most in our society. It is notable that the UK Government does not have its own comparable benefits take-up strategy, but not only is the UK Government shirking its moral responsibility to encourage benefits take-up, its welfare policies are actively harming people, causing poverty, destitution and hunger. It is embarrassing to listen to members speaking about the “broad shoulders” of the United Kingdom Government, when that Government has imposed the two-child limit, the benefit cap, the removal of the £20 uplift and the continuation of the bedroom tax. Those are just some of the aspects of the UK benefit system that have deliberately hurt people.

Only with independence can we ensure that we have at our disposal all the economic levers to protect our social security budget from the car crash that the Tories have made of our economy—