Chamber and committees

Yes, thank you, convener. There are some quite stark financial realities here, cabinet secretary. Some modest but very welcome changes to the new Scottish system have already led to a forecasted additional cost of £87 million beyond the money that is provided from Westminster. I think that you have put on the record that introducing the mobility component would cost £700 million and that the cost would rise each year. That is eye watering. Across the parties, that is just a non-starter, if I am honest about it.

However, there are lots of frail older people with mobility issues. Some will qualify for pension age disability payment; others will not. I know that money will not become available tomorrow. The Government and we, as a country, are in a really difficult financial situation. If money became available, would it be sensible to bring in any element of mobility component for older people, or are there other ways that we could use any new moneys to help a lot of older people who are struggling with mobility to get out and about and live active lives? Are there ways to invest other than through the mobility component?

We will give it a couple of weeks, cabinet secretary. Thank you—I have no more questions.

I, too, want to explore short-term assistance. I listened carefully to the cabinet secretary’s exchange with Paul O’Kane. The committee would welcome a note of all the areas for which short-term assistance is a passporting benefit in relation to UK reserved benefits. In that way we might understand the extent of what we might call the exposure from the DWP taking a different view of STA as a passporting benefit, as opposed to claiming back retrospectively once a benefit has been reinstated.

One example is the suite of carers benefits that exists as a passporting benefit. My understanding is that, by autumn this year, that will be wholly delivered by Social Security Scotland. In a Scotland-specific system of passporting benefits, if someone got short-term assistance in relation to pension age disability payment, would their carers payments be passported at Scottish level, or would they have to apply to Social Security Scotland to have them backdated to the point where that would otherwise have been available? Passporting is increasingly happening not just at a UK level but at a Scotland level, too.

I was not suggesting that, if £700 million became available, that is how we would spend it. That will simply not happen. I was making the point that, if a small amount of money was to become available, there are lots of ways in which the Government could use it to support frail older people to get mobile and live an active life. There are other demands on the money that could meet the needs that the mobility component is supposed to be trying to meet. Will the cabinet secretary think in an innovative way about how we could do some of that?

That would be really helpful. The committee cannot start to call for things if we do not realise the granular detail of what it means in practice. At some point in the future, we might believe that the status of short-term assistance should change to being a stand-alone passporting benefit for a short period—I do not know. However, unless we can map out what that looks like, the committee cannot make an informed decision. I think that such a note would be welcome.

My only other question is on the lessons learned from the roll-out of other benefits, which you have touched on. Do you want to add anything on that—in particular, on the capacity to process applications or to respond to clients within a reasonable time? I know that you have mentioned that, but this is an opportunity to put more detail on the record and give the committee reassurance.

That is very helpful. The member is quite right that Glasgow has to do significantly better in relation to recycling. Would he acknowledge that in the past year or so there was significant investment from the Scottish Government to overhaul a lot of the infrastructure in Glasgow and that pilots are on-going? Time will tell whether that dramatically improves the rates, which we need to see happen. However, it is only fair, when Glasgow is rightly being criticised for not having done enough, that we acknowledge that we are going through a rapid transition at the moment and investing in infrastructure.

Will the member give way?

I have been listening intently to what Mr Lumsden said. He said that the intent of the amendment is to comply with the devolution settlement. It is worth noting that the internal market act was not part of the devolution settlement—it is reasonable to put that on the record. Given that we are talking about being in a reflective mood, and that Mr Simpson has been reflective in real time in committee today, I wonder whether Mr Lumsden might reflect that amendment 87 is not actually required.

Yes, and I will be very brief, convener.

As Mr Ruskell has said, common frameworks exist, and they work to a greater or lesser extent, depending, sometimes, on the political context. However, it is reasonable to say that, with good will on both sides—that is, the Scottish and UK Governments—and with common sense, we could get there, even though I would rather that there was no internal market act. I am not sure that either amendment lends itself to promoting the better use of the common frameworks, or, indeed, to good will or common sense, and quite frankly, they might not be required. That is my view.

I also point out that, in evidence, the third sector told us that—and I will go back and check whether the quote is accurate—the internal market act could have a chilling effect on environmental endeavours towards net zero and climate action. Indeed, some in the sector have called for a more general exemption in relation to those environmental endeavours.

My final comment is relevant to the comments that we have heard so far from members in this debate and to the amendments at hand. The committee heard that there had been no engagement in relation to the common frameworks, but we were of the view—a majority view, anyway—that, because this was a framework bill, it would be at the point of co-production and putting together the details of what would come later that the common frameworks would kick in and that such engagement was not really appropriate at the earlier stage. I think that that was lost a little bit in the earlier exchange.

I appreciate the offer to work constructively ahead of stage 3. Reading my amendment, I see that it imposes a direct requirement on Government—it says “must”, not “may”. However, the point is that perhaps there needs to be a bit of future-proofing of this legislation, because we cannot predict what the outcome of that pan-UK agreement will be. I am keen to monitor the impact on companies in Scotland that are operating at the EU level when that EU directive goes live, so I am keen to meet to talk a little more about that ahead of stage 3.