Chamber and committees

I echo what we have heard already, which is that the regulations are welcome. They will open up opportunities for advocacy for other people.

My final point is about training for the advocacy providers. Have you given thought to the sort of training that they might get in relation to disabled people or carers, for example? In the past—not here, but in other jurisdictions—some providers have not necessarily had the training or support required to give clients the full support that they need. Will the training take into account the range of conditions that the people who they will be supporting might have?

I appreciate the minister taking a second intervention. You are right to point out that it is based on a budget that was set in spring but, this week, the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee heard from organisations, including carers and women’s organisations, that the time between the programme for government and the budget process is a bit restrictive, in exactly the way that you have just described. You can set out your programme for government and all your aspirations, but you can therefore continually claim that you have to wait to make any material difference to people’s lives by putting the budget in place. Will you consider a way in which we could change that? In addition, that committee also heard that, although you have to work within the budget, you have to be sure that you are using the maximum available resource and targeting that at the people who need it the most. I would consider that those people are unpaid carers.

I thank Evelyn Tweed for taking another intervention. I take the point about planning, but I would hope that considerable planning is going on anyway as a result of the Government looking at introducing carers assistance in the future. I also ask the member to consider the planning that unpaid carers have to do given their financial circumstances and household bills. It is far easier for people to plan when they have certainties, rather than decisions being left to the discretion of ministers, who might at any point decide that they will not double the payment.

Will the member take an intervention?

I thank the witnesses for their submissions and for their contribution to this morning’s discussion, which has been really helpful, as my colleagues have said.

I want to dig a little more into what the minimum core means for specific groups of people. Notwithstanding the significant gaps in data that you have all highlighted and that we really need to address—I hope that we can do that—it is clear from the data that exists that there are problems with the minimum core, particularly in relation to disabled people. For example, the SHRC produced a paper in the summer on the impact of Covid restrictions and the social care system on disabled people’s rights, with some people living entire days, weeks and months in one chair. The Fraser of Allander Institute has recently done very good research on the minimum core of rights of people with a learning disability. In addition, of course, there is the significant work that is being done on the fact that so many children live in poverty and do not have an adequate standard of living.

Will you say a little more about the details of the minimum core? What data have you used to tell that story and show how important it is? What does the minimum core mean for addressing some of the gaps, particularly in relation to how we use public spend on social security and how we see the care service working, particularly for women or disabled people?

I thank all the witnesses for their submissions, which are characteristically excellent and really helpful in informing our work.

My question is around human rights budgeting and the idea of a minimum core, which we heard a bit about this morning. Notwithstanding the data gaps that Jatin Haria mentioned and that others have noted, it appears that, for a number of groups in society, the minimum cores are not being met. Those groups include women, disabled people, unpaid carers and, in particular, children, given the level of child poverty.

How could a human rights-based approach to budgeting start to address that? What needs to go in the budget lines? I ask that you comment in particular on some of the bigger spend around social security. Hearing your comments on the national care service might also be quite interesting. I know that all your submissions pointed in particular to the national care service as something that might make an impact on women and disabled people’s equality.

Women have also ended up having to pick up unpaid care. For example, throughout the pandemic, a lot of people lost the social care that they relied on, and it was assumed that somebody would step in and do it. We have heard in other committees, in Parliament and, I am sure, in our engagement that carers in the past year have been working their fingers to the bone without a break, and a lot of them are women. Is there anything that we can do or suggest through the committee’s work on the budget that could begin to address that?

The figure of £15 million a day is staggering. I assume that that includes having to do unpaid care as well as childcare; if not, the figure will be higher. I am interested in whether you can think of any ways that we can begin to redress that balance and, in particular, stop the regression of women’s rights that we have heard about today.

I have a follow-up question. I appreciate that it will take substantial staffing resources to deliver the payments as they stand, but they would be delivered with exactly the same eligibility and in exactly the same amounts as the reserved benefits. For example, in response to the ADP consultation, the Government said that it favours largely replicating the eligibility criteria as they exist in PIP, for reasons of staffing resource. How many extra staff would you need in order to start moving on eligibility and adequacy for adult disability payment? Do you believe that the current criteria that are used for PIP are fair, and what is your view on the 20m rule?

Thank you for the opportunity, convener. Cabinet secretary, you are right to highlight the perfect storm that people are facing; I am genuinely terrified for families and what they will be able to do about fuel poverty, particularly with the cut to universal credit. It is a shame, given that we could have had a publicly owned energy firm that could have addressed some of that issue.

I will focus on two of the groups that you identified—children and disabled people—in relation to poverty. First, with regard to the Scottish child payment, we heard evidence last week that social security will have to do the “heavy lifting” if we are to meet the targets on tackling child poverty. I understand that the £20 cut to universal credit is catastrophic and should not go ahead; however, the targets were set without caveat by the Parliament, which means that we need to look across everything that we do here to find ways of meeting them. Will you commit to doing all that you can to meet the child poverty targets, regardless of what is happening elsewhere? Our view is that the Scottish child payment needs to be doubled and doubled again next year. Can you set out how you intend to meet the targets?

Secondly, have you made an assessment of the extra costs of living as a disabled person, so that we can begin to address some of the poverty that disabled people face?

The cabinet secretary will be aware that, for some time, thousands of disabled people across Scotland have been unable to access homes and have been considered to be, in effect, homeless. In the Glasgow region, the council is building accessible houses on a very small scale—only about 8 per cent are accessible. The current Government target is 10 per cent, but that is not in legislation. Given the huge variability across the country in relation to those builds, and the significant need for accessible housing for disabled people, will the Government consider making that a statutory target?