Chamber and committees

Good morning to the minister and the panel. I have a couple of questions with regard to the principles with which the Government has approached taxation. Is it appropriate to alter the basis of taxation retrospectively, as the order that is before us will do?

Do you accept that that goes against the Government’s approach to date, which has looked at certainty and wider stakeholder engagement on taxation? Is the approach purely due to the circumstances of the pandemic or is it a direction of travel that ministers are considering?

Okay. Thank you.

Good morning. I have some questions on the take-up of low-income benefits. I know that the figures are estimates, but the strategy suggests that the take-up rate for the funeral support payment is 59 per cent. What work has been undertaken to evaluate why that is the case? When most people are arranging a funeral for a loved one, their discussions will be very sector specific, so why is the figure so low? What is being done to work with the sector and promote the benefit within the services that it delivers? It would seem that, at that time, there is an easy opportunity to have a conversation and raise the possibility of people accessing that benefit.

I am not sure whether you will have time to answer this before we suspend the meeting. With regard to strengthening portfolio working across Government, one of the key issues is where people can find the information. Foysol Choudhury mentioned the baby box. We know that 66 per cent of parents welcomed the fact that it included information about breastfeeding and postnatal depression. Is that approach being looked at to see whether that life event could include advertising for different benefits—the five family benefits that you mentioned—as Marie McNair touched on earlier?

Further to my question, the recent Scottish Commission on Social Security report on adult disability payments recommended a focus on active referrals, rather than just signposting, as the way forward. Will a key part of the strategy to develop pathways be to actively refer people and not just signpost them?

With that in mind, why has the Government decided not to include targets for uptake in the strategy, which could drive forward uptake of all the new benefits? What is the rationale behind that?

Part of the discussion that we had on last Monday’s visit to Social Security Scotland was about groups that might find it difficult to access or fill out forms, or that have technology challenges. On the people who are not applying, what work has been done on identifying whether those are the key reasons for people not wanting to fill out huge numbers of forms? Are there also language or reading barriers?

No. Both my questions have been answered, so I am happy to move on.

Good morning to the panel. My questions are about the workload for assessors and valuation committees. First, will you outline your thoughts on the potential implications for that workload and the system if we allow coronavirus-related MCC appeals? I ask Alastair Kirkwood to comment first, and then Charles Golding. If anyone else wants to comment, they should type the letter R in the chat box.