Chamber and committees

It was a good plug for the committee’s previous work on the matter, which I read with interest, and it is certainly something that we are conscious of, particularly as we move forward with developing the next child poverty delivery plan.

I will say a little bit, convener, but perhaps my colleague the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health can write to the committee with further details, because, as Mr O’Kane said, the matter does not fall within my remit. Certainly, the regulations to approve alkaline hydrolysis for use in Scotland are being developed, but as I said, they sit with another minister.

I know that the issue has been touched on and discussed by the cross-party group on funerals and bereavement, so there is clearly an interest in it, and I wish to see movement on it. However, if you will permit me, convener, I will ask my colleague to write to the committee on the matter.

I will finish this point first, if I may.

I have that scepticism, because literally two weeks or so before the announcement on the winter fuel payments was made, I was told that we would work together and that there would be no surprises—yet here we are. Therefore, people will forgive me for being slightly sceptical about whether an announcement will result in an increase in funding.

As for yesterday’s budget, I would say yes, we should absolutely look at that. Again, though, I ask that we be careful, because I know from experience that, whatever positive consequentials might come, the asks on the Scottish Government to use them will be much, much more than the consequentials that we are given.

I respect the fact that Mr O’Kane and Katy Clark have been very consistent on this issue, but we will have calls from other MSPs to use consequentials in different ways. We can spend the money—if indeed it comes at all—only once, so we need to be very cautious about taking some overall approach to using it. [Interruption.] I presume that it is up to the convener whether I take an intervention, but I am happy to do so.

In many ways, the response was made clear during the budget yesterday. The two-child cap was not lifted and the bedroom tax was not scrapped, and we will therefore have to continue to mitigate the effects of those policies. We already spend around £134 million to mitigate the worst excesses of some of the UK welfare policies.

Clearly, some types of support are available in England. In Scotland, we provide support that is not available in England. For example, we have the Scottish welfare fund—

I would certainly be happy to provide further information in writing to the committee about how quickly changes to social security systems can be made. That is clearly an issue that all such systems have, so I will refer to it in writing if that is convenient, deputy convener.

No. To be absolutely clear, had we been able to go forward with a universal benefit, Social Security Scotland was ready to do so. There were no issues at our end with taking that forward.

Our taking on delivery next year will give us more time to adapt the system, and I am confident that the system will be changed in enough time to allow the agency to deliver it next year.

An important part of the consultation was enabling people to respond on different types of payment, now and in the future. There were differing views on that.

The options that were then available to the Scottish Government when we got the information through were much narrower. We had built a system based on universality, which was the system that we would have been able to deliver. However, if we were unable to deliver it, it would have to be something that the DWP could do under an agency agreement. At that point, we had available to us a much narrower field of practical options.

The agency agreement works in one way and in one way only, and it is for the DWP to carry it out as it does for the rest of the UK. That has been the case all the way through. If there had been a great deal more time for us to get into nuanced discussions with the DWP, there might have been a way to do something different, but that would have been at a cost to the Scottish Government, and the DWP would have had to allow us to do it. That has never happened. There has never been an option to do that, and it certainly could not in any way, shape or form be negotiated at speed.

Yes, very much so. The consultation that we carried out clearly indicated that the vast majority of people wished for the payment to be a universal benefit, and that was the Scottish Government’s intention. We believe in the universality of benefits for a number of reasons, but that sometimes comes up against a harsh reality, and that is the situation that we are in. Therefore, it is with deep disappointment that I ask the committee to recommend that the regulations be approved.