Chamber and committees

Assuming control of a wide range of social security payments is one of the most challenging tasks that this Parliament has ever undertaken. UK Governments have spent years trashing our social security safety net by cutting payments, attacking benefit claimants, putting hurdles in the of way of being able to appeal, and making vulnerable people endure humiliating assessments. Those UK Government attacks on the system triggered a United Nations investigation, which concluded that changes

“since 2010 amount to retrogressive measures in clear violation of”

the UK’s

“human rights obligations.”

Therefore, rebuilding the social security system in Scotland with the powers that we have is a huge task, but it is one to which this Parliament must rise.

The biggest challenge is the introduction of new payments for disabled people. They account for about half of the expenditure for all the benefits that have been devolved, and they are claimed by as many as one in 10 Scots. They have also been some of the most brutally cut, with some people losing as much as £7,700 as they were moved over to PIP, with women being more likely than men to lose entitlement.

A better way of assessing applications is an important part of restoring fairness to the disability benefits system. Face-to-face assessments for PIP, which rarely proved to be necessary before PIP, were part of a deliberate and callous strategy to cut support for some of our most vulnerable people.

As a result of years of campaigning by disabled people, Scottish Greens won a change in the law in the previous session. Conducting face-to-face assessments is now prohibited if the necessary information already exists. The onus is on the Scottish Government to collect that information, and there is hope that where that is not possible, the new client consultations will be a less intrusive and more supportive way of assessing entitlement.

That will improve the experience of the new system, but it will also have a bearing on the amount of support that is paid out. The Scottish Fiscal Commission estimates that, by the end of this parliamentary session, £529 million more will have been paid out in adult disability payments than on PIP, with an additional £40 million knock-on impact for carers. The SFC attributes that to the changes that ADP has introduced, including changes to how it is assessed. We are now two months into the new system, and we should be seeing the early impacts of the changes. It would be helpful if the minister could update us, in closing, on what impacts he has seen so far.

However, it is simply not enough to change the way the payment is assessed. PIP did long-standing damage to the rights of disabled people by removing the lower-rate care component and changing the mobility rule to 20m. In its report on the 20m rule, the MS Society reports that moving to PIP negatively impacted the mobility of 65 per cent of multiple sclerosis sufferers and the financial security of almost 80 per cent of them. That is what makes the Scottish Government’s review of disability benefits so important. Quite rightly, the mobility element of ADP must be prioritised as part of that.

The review will be independent, but it must also have the broadest possible terms of reference, and it must be that no positive changes to the criteria will be off the table. In its paper on the review, the Scottish Government says that getting ADP up and running

“isn’t the limit of our aspirations for improving disability assistance in Scotland.”

That is good to hear, so I hope that the Government works with disabled people to make those aspirations a reality.

Rolling out the new system will not be complete until everyone who is entitled to claim is able to do so. The UK Government passed on to the Scottish Government some payments that were being claimed by less than half of those who were eligible. Some, such as personal independence payments, did not even have published take-up statistics.

When it is increased to £25, the extra £1,200 per child that families will receive through the Scottish child payment will be key to achieving the child poverty reduction targets that this Parliament has set itself, but current projections are that too many families will miss out—as many as 23 per cent of eligible families, according to the Scottish Fiscal Commission.

The cost of living crisis makes it even more crucial that every penny is going where it should, but that is not an easy task. For years, successive UK Governments have taken every possible opportunity to stigmatise those who need the help of the social security system. The Scottish Government’s direction on this is encouraging—reframing of social security as an investment in society, not a drain on resources, is absolutely right.

The £10 million of investment in income maximisation services over this session of Parliament is also welcome, but I encourage the Scottish Government to see what more funding might be available, given that the return for every £1 that is invested in money advice can be as much as £20. It is good to see that progress is being made on benefits automation, with the best start school and nursery grants being paid automatically to Scottish child payment recipients from later this year.

I was proud to work with the Scottish Government to ensure that more support is available to those who have been hit by the UK Government’s cruel benefit cap. That work will start later this year; I would appreciate an update from the minister on what is being done to make people aware of the extra support and how we can get it to them.

Our social security system is the sign and signal of our care for one another. It should be, and is, based on welcome fundamental principles of social security being a human right and a collective investment. Are we there yet in fully realising those principles? No. Do we need to keep looking at options for increasing benefit eligibility? Yes. With an additional £760 million of expenditure over this session, an end to heartless face-to-face assessments and progress on automating benefits, we are definitely moving towards a more compassionate social security system, of which we should all be proud.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the social impact of economic development in the north-east. (S6O-01147)

Trickle-down economics and other economic development models from the previous century do not deliver wellbeing for communities across my region. There is a clear need to better understand the interconnections across different sectors and move away from siloed strategy and policy development.

Can the minister outline how the just transition fund for the north-east and Moray will capitalise, build and sustain community engagement and deliver meaningful social and economic benefits? Can she also outline what more we can do to improve cross-sectoral working—by connecting transport, tourism, planning, culture and so on—to ensure that no community is left behind?

Good morning to the panel, and thank you for joining us. I want to explore in a bit more detail some of the issues around community and social development, how they are linked to economic development and how the economic development activities that you are all engaged in can support that.

I will start with Derek Shaw. How are you developing support for commercial enterprises that specifically have a for-good mission as their cornerstone?

It was about commercial enterprises that have a for-good mission at their heart. How are you focusing support, if you are doing so, to enable them to develop and be commercially successful and to provide the social and community benefits that they seek to deliver?

Douglas, I know that there is a lot in this, but I come to you for your comments on community wealth building, for-good missions, circularity and resilience—the whole lot.

That is very helpful and a very good example. Craig Iles spoke about landlords working with developers. Is one of the missing pieces direct engagement with communities themselves, who either want to be or are already in town centres, to ensure that there is better understanding of things like the town centre first principle, so that there can be—the policy points that have already been made notwithstanding—delivery on that?

Steve Rogers, in one of your earlier answers you talked about the focus of the local development plan having a town centre regeneration development principle at its heart. How can we make sure that that is sustained in decision making, planning and in the visioning that we have talked about?

Will that support the resilience that we want, not only in our local town centre economies but more generally, and the circularity that we are able to deliver in the Scottish economy?

What are the barriers, if any, to that close working with social enterprises?