Chamber and committees

Okay. Thank you. Mr Scott is making eye contact with me. I think that he wants to come in.

There are hugely ambitious plans to expand free childcare in Scotland, which are to be welcomed, but there is a key challenge around how we expand the childcare workforce sufficiently to provide the increased supply of high-quality childcare. What are the challenges? More importantly, what is the Scottish Government’s strategy for dealing with them?

I have a brief supplementary question. This would be really helpful to us when we are doing our budget scrutiny. There will, of course, be Barnett consequentials, but the offer for three and four-year-olds in England is 570 hours of childcare, whereas it is 1,140 hours in Scotland. I suspect that a significant additional investment is already being made in Scotland, compared with England. It would be helpful if we could get some figures and pound signs on that so that, when we do our budget scrutiny, we can see the inputs for childcare provision in Scotland compared with those in the rest of the UK and make an informed decision during our budget process.

That is helpful.

I will come back to Shirley-Anne Somerville very briefly. I think that part of what you said in your answer was that there had been discussions with UK officials, at the DWP or elsewhere, about whether deploying that £15 million would have unintended consequences that caused parents to lose out. You have been very diplomatic in relation to how fruitful or otherwise those discussions were. I get that there is a respectful relationship at official level between the two Governments, but can you say any more about what the barriers were and what you tried to do to resolve them?

Thank you.

I am not sure which cabinet secretary this question is best directed to, because it probably crosses over portfolios. I am aware that the UK Government provides for childcare costs as part of universal credit, although that is a capped provision. I am interested in knowing the relationship between that provision and the parental transition fund, which is envisaged to be £15 million.

Just yesterday, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice replied to an inspired parliamentary question on the fund, saying that the interaction of limited devolved powers with the UK tax and benefits system means that the fund will still be delivered in some way, but not as originally envisaged. The committee would welcome more detail on what that means in practice and on what happens to that £15 million.

I have made these calls in the chamber, so the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice will be aware that I think that, if we are looking to increase the Scottish child payment, a summer supplement to it, paid near the start of the summer holidays in June, would be a focused benefit for a lot of families who struggle for the six-and-a-half weeks when their kids are at home and not at school. I am afraid that I cannot identify where the cash would come from, cabinet secretary, and I know that that is the type of battle that you are grappling with in the current budgetary environment, but I have asked previously if that could be considered.

I have a seven-year-old and two-year-old, so I know that kids grow pretty quickly. I am fortunate in that I can clothe my children, but the school clothing grant is very important for many people. The grant has been uplifted in recent years, but there is also the idea of providing a supplement to the clothing grant at a later time in the academic year.

I get that that is two calls for funding, but we have to ensure that the limited funds that we have are spent in a focused and effective way. Those are my two suggestions. Are they still under consideration?

It is reassuring to hear that you are taking an evidence-based approach to monitoring all of this—I am sure that you will do the same with regard to my calls, which I cannot fund myself, for a summer supplement Scottish child payment. I am not saying that it should happen; I just want to make sure that it is put into the matrix along with everything else to find out whether it would provide best value in delivering the outcomes that we want.

My question is about how we monitor need. What is your latest assessment of the impact of the cost of living crisis on struggling families? Of course, it will be a snapshot in time, but how would we monitor that more generally and on an on-going basis, given the cost of living crisis that we are currently experiencing?

I will not ask any follow-up questions because of the time, but I note that the point about sustainable rates is vitally important. Until the summer, I was a member of the Education, Children and Young People Committee, and I know that it is very much alive to that matter.

You have heard those suggestions already.