Chamber and committees

Good morning, and welcome to the 11th meeting in 2022 of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. Our first item of business is a decision on whether to take item 5 in private. Do members agree to take that item in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you, minister, for providing that clear and concise explanation of why we will be looking at relaid regulations. Given the pressures that households across the country are feeling right now, I think that that will be a welcome decision for us to make on 31 March.

I will bring in Jeremy Balfour.

Agenda item 2 is consideration of two financial planning documents: “The Scottish Government’s Medium-Term Financial Strategy” and the “Resource Spending Review Framework”. I welcome to the meeting Emma Congreve, who is a knowledge exchange fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute, and David Phillips, who is associate director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Thank you for joining us remotely this morning.

Members have a lot of interest in and questions about the two documents, so we will move directly to questions. My colleague Natalie Don, who joins us remotely, will ask the first questions on theme 1, which is the risk to the budget from social security. Then, I will bring in Miles Briggs, who is in the room.

Thank you very much for that. Perhaps the committee could have a dialogue with you about that.

It looks like Simon Coote left, came back in and would like to try again. I will bring him in.

Simon, we still do not have any volume for you, unfortunately. Perhaps you will have to come back to us with your point in writing.

We will move on to a question from Marie McNair, who joins us remotely.

Thank you very much, minister.

I remind the committee that only members and the minister may take part in the formal debate. I invite the minister to move motion S6M-03002.

Motion moved,

That the Social Justice and Social Security Committee recommends that the Social Security Up-rating (Scotland) Order 2022 [draft] be approved.—[Ben Macpherson]

Motion agreed to.

Thank you very much. That concludes the public part of the committee’s meeting. I thank the minister and his officials—even if we had some gremlins and we could not actually hear from the officials—for their evidence this morning.

Pam Duncan-Glancy has a final question.

Thank you very much for that, David. It was helpful for you to set that out in the way you did.

Jeremy Balfour’s question on the theme has been answered, so we will move on to questions from Foysol Choudhury.

We now move to questions from Emma Roddick, who is with us in the room, and then Marie McNair, who is joining us remotely.

We will now consider one affirmative instrument. We were also due to consider the Social Security (Up-rating) (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2022, but the committee received a letter from the Minister for Social Security and Local Government yesterday that explained that those regulations were due to be withdrawn and relaid. I hope that the minister can provide some information about that this morning.

I welcome to the meeting Ben Macpherson, the Minister for Social Security and Local Government. The minister is joined online by Scottish Government officials Simon Coote, the head of the cross-cutting policy unit; Camilo Arredondo, a solicitor; and Dominic Mellan, an economic adviser in social security analysis.

I invite the minister to make an opening statement.