Chamber and committees

—and to protect ourselves from red Tories in the Labour branch office who bow to their masters down in London and will indeed overlook Scotland, as they already have for decades. We will—

How many households does the Scottish Government estimate are being helped through that initiative?

Unlike the situation elsewhere in the UK, Scottish Water is publicly owned. The Scottish Government continues to use its limited budget and constrained powers to cushion the impact of UK Government policies, which are at the heart of the cost of living crisis.

My understanding is that the water charges reduction scheme discount has increased from 25 to 35 per cent. The scheme targets support to households with the lowest income, which is clearly a key priority during the cost of living crisis.

I will wind up.

The motion that we are debating today is truly a positive one, and I continue to be proud of the social security system that we are building here in Scotland. We have built a system that is kind, fairer and more progressive than anything that we have seen before. It is a system that does not treat social security as a burden on the state but actively encourages people to take exactly what they are entitled to.

I whole-heartedly believe that social security is a significant investment in the people of Scotland. Let us imagine for a minute that the benefit powers that have been devolved were still under the DWP system. There would be no Scottish child payment, for a start, and many families, children and people with disabilities all across Scotland would still be stuck under the degrading, stale and discriminatory DWP system.

I am disappointed with the amendments that we have in front of us today. Although there is always more to do and scrutiny is essential, it would be easy to sit on the Opposition benches and cast negativity and doubt on every positive move that this Government makes to improve people’s lives.

I never said that I cannot understand why you are pushing us to do more; I said that there is always more to do. I just find that the negativity that comes from the Opposition benches often overlooks the positive steps that the Government is making.

I move on to an important point that is in line with the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s forecast. The Scottish Government is committing £4.2 billion to benefits expenditure this year, and the forecast rises to £6.5 billion in 2026-27. To put that into perspective, it is more than £460 million above the level of funding that is forecast to be received from the United Kingdom Government in 2022-23, and it is anticipated that that difference will increase to £1.3 billion by 2026-27—still a massive shortfall.

Those figures show the divergence between the Scottish and the UK Governments. We are investing in our people; meanwhile, the Tories are doing everything that they can to put people off benefits. Rishi Sunak is burying his head in the sand when it comes to raising benefits in line with inflation—

The figures that I was relating go up to 2026-27. I believe that we will be a flourishing, independent country by that point, so I think that we will have much more freedom in where we allocate our resources.

Thank you for coming this morning. We have spoken quite a lot about passengers’ needs for reliable and frequent services, and about the size of vessels. Thinking about the service as a whole, do you think that commercial ferry operators are better attuned to passenger needs than state-supported services are? If so, will you explain why? Can you give any relevant examples of times when your companies have reacted to a change in circumstances in a way that a state-supported service could or would not react?

Okay.

Over the course of our inquiry, we will speak to all relevant parties, so we will seek such information. However, it is important to get your view and hear how you go about understanding customers’ needs and how you act on that. Your answers have been helpful, so I thank you—unless you have anything else to add.