Chamber and committees

This is always a dangerous thing for a convener to say, but I do not think that colleagues have any other questions. No one is catching my eye—mind you, I am not looking at anyone.

We will end the evidence session. I thank the cabinet secretary and the two officials who supported her; we appreciate your attendance. We will suspend briefly while we change panels.

That is helpful. Just to put it on the record, the cabinet secretary said in the previous evidence session that she would write to the committee to let us know what will be additionally spent on mitigating UK benefit changes. There is a gap between block grant adjustments and Barnett consequentials and overall social security spend, so I look forward to receiving that data. We need to ensure that we collect that data in an independent, consistent and user-friendly way every year to allow the committee to identify trends and, as you say, work out what is possible in relation to social security in the real world, but that is wandering on to Finance and Public Administration Committee territory.

As always with these lines of questions, Dr Witcher, there may be something that you wanted to say but have been unable to because we have taken you off on a tangent. I want to give you that opportunity. Unless colleagues have any further questions, I will give you the final word. Over to you, Dr Witcher.

I am not a referee but, if the cabinet secretary wants to respond to Katy Clark’s comment, I ask her to do so briefly as there was a substantive question before that.

I have a couple of questions—I said at the start that I would come back in if there was time. My question is about the relationship between devolved and reserved benefits. The expectations on the Scottish social security system can sometimes be more complex than we realise. There is an expectation that the system will mitigate the worst aspects of the UK system, so 455,000 households in Scotland get a council tax reduction that they would not get elsewhere in the UK and £83 million has been spent to ensure that households do not suffer the bedroom tax and to mitigate, where possible, the benefits cap. We are spending directly on reserved matters.

We are also proactively progressive. I am thinking about the £450 million—or whatever the figure is—that is spent on the Scottish child payment. Dr Witcher, you said something interesting about policy overspill. I apologise if “generous” is the wrong word but, if we are more generous and have different rules—for example for Scottish disability assistance—and more people qualify for a passported benefit, there are cost implications that could effectively become a bill that is chargeable back to the Scottish Government under the terms of the fiscal framework.

As a committee, and as a nation, we do not always understand the financial underpinnings of that. My concern is that it is difficult to see, in one place, what the Scottish Government spends on mitigating Westminster policies, what it spends on other areas that are new to Scotland and the cost implications of policy overspill and passporting.

Do you have any reflections on that? I have used a jumble of words that might sound quite complicated. How can we boil that down to a user-friendly and easy-to-understand analysis of the numbers and do that consistently every year so that this committee, SCOSS and others can look at that and make an informed decision about what to do next with the Scottish social security system? We are very ambitious, but we must have the money to pay for that.

I apologise to you, Dr Witcher, as I suspect that you would like to see more than one change. I also apologise for cutting across you.

We have identified on a cross-party basis that you have absolute expertise combined with lived experience and a fiercely independent voice, and it is difficult to find individuals with all three attributes rolled into one. The committee would appreciate keeping some form of relationship with you going. Thank you very much for your time, and we will keep in contact.

That ends the formal part of the meeting, and we move into private session.

That was short and sweet.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. We move to questions from Marie McNair.

Dr Witcher, that is very kind of you. I should reassure you that we are not looking for unpaid consultancy or expert advisory work.

I have one final financial question. It is not directly related to the bill but is about the financial exposure that is caused by demand-led budgeting within social security, which the new Scottish benefit will be subject to. You said that your officials are in contact with the IIAC and the DWP about long Covid in connection with current benefits. Does that include any modelling of the financial exposure for the Scottish Government over any agency agreements, if the DWP was to accept those? That is the first part of my question.

What horizon-scanning work is the Scottish Government doing? You can set that out in writing if you want to, cabinet secretary. Without pre-judging what any new eligibility might look like, what future financial exposure do you anticipate for the Scottish Government? I am mindful that, if Scotland does the right thing—as we absolutely should do—but the UK does not change anything, that will increase pressure on the Scottish budget. That is not directly connected to the financial memorandum to this bill, but there is definitely a correlation between the aspirations of this bill and the financial exposure of the Scottish budget and Scottish Government. Is there anything more that you can say about that?