Chamber and committees

From memory, I think that the creation of a new benefit would have required further engagement with the DWP and considerations with regard to working with the UK Government, but, as the member will appreciate, I was not the minister when the Scottish child payment was created. I will bring in Merlin Kemp in a moment to see whether he has anything to add, but it is important to recognise that we were seeking to provide support as quickly as possible during the pandemic and to provide additional support to help families with additional needs and to tackle poverty. There were considerations of expedience and ensuring that the most appropriate power was used to deliver a strategic solution to help people.

Do you want to add anything, Merlin?

Will the member elaborate on that slightly?

There are no plans at present to bring EMA within—[Inaudible.]—Scotland. It is not a social security benefit but, as there is on a number of different areas, there is significant engagement between local authorities, Social Security Scotland and different aspects of the public sector delivery landscape. One of the important tasks of recent years has been raising awareness of what Social Security Scotland does with partners and ensuring that we work as collaboratively as possible. EMA is a good example in which, in order to get people the support that we want them to have, a degree of engagement is required between different aspects of the public sector.

I hope that my answer reassures you that proactive engagement is already happening to ensure that people are aware of EMA and how to apply for it and to encourage them to do so. We will continue to consider that issue.

Yes, that analysis has been done. The Scottish Government estimates that reversing key UK Government welfare reforms made since 2015 would increase the incomes of the poorest households in Scotland by over 10 per cent in 2023-24, bringing around 70,000 people, including 30,000 children, out of poverty in Scotland. Such actions would include the reintroduction of the £20 per week uplift to universal credit, the removal of which represented the biggest overnight cut in benefits since the creation of the British welfare state. Overall, reinstating that uplift would move the most people out of poverty, although reversing historical reforms would have larger impacts on child poverty. The total cost to the UK Government of reversing the cut to universal credit and other reforms including getting rid of the two-child limit, removing the family element and the benefit freeze and changing universal credit work allowances and the taper rate would be around £780 million, but reversing those reforms would increase disposable income for households with children with the lowest 10 per cent of income by around 11 per cent and for households with children in poverty by 10 per cent.

A huge amount of difference could therefore be made. I could say more about the issues with universal credit, but the key message is that the UK Government could and should be doing more in this space. Even with the limited resources and powers that we have as the devolved Government in Scotland, we are doing all that we can to make a difference, not only to mitigate where we can—and, of course, a lot of mitigation has happened—but to be innovative and proactive by, for example, introducing, increasing and extending the Scottish child payment as well as a number of other devolved benefits that are making an impact on families in Scotland.

Of course, more could always be done, and we constantly look at ourselves and ask what more we can do with our limited resources and powers. However, we are proactive in the spaces where we can make a difference, and the regulations that are before us today show that very clearly.

Those are, of course, important matters, and that is why the constructive dialogue that we have with the UK Government at official level and that I have had a ministerial level in my tenure as minister is important. There are constant considerations between, on the one hand, the reserved benefits, their future and any changes that might be made to them and, on the other hand, what we deliver in Scotland with our devolved powers.

The UK Government must constantly consider the balance relating to universal credit, incentives to work and supporting people—there is a balance between the universal credit requirements and the number of working hours that an individual undertakes. With regard to the cliff edge, we will consider and keep in mind the impact on second earners, for example. The evidence that we have to date from our interim evaluation is that the Scottish child payment might reduce barriers to education and to entering the labour market for recipients. That is, of course, positive. The money could be used to pay for travel to interviews, a new job or college, for example.

We recognise the potential for the design of the Scottish child payment to influence people’s engagement with work, but there is no evidence of significant effects in that regard to date. However, we will always keep the issue under review as we make decisions about uprating and consider the Scottish child payment more widely.

As we set out in our gender pay gap action plan, we are acutely aware of gender disparities in the labour market. We recognise the barriers that women, especially women with children, face in obtaining and progressing in work. We need to keep such issues at the forefront of our mind when considering our five family payments. Scottish Government analysts will continue to monitor the available data to assess the wider impacts of the Scottish child payment in relation to gender and the labour market.

Collectively, we need to consider the interactions with universal credit and UK Government policy and, more widely, access to the labour market through the Scottish child payment.

Thank you, convener. I am sorry that I cannot, due to coronavirus, be with you all in person this morning. Thank you for your understanding, and for the opportunity to discuss the draft regulations with you.

The draft regulations will make changes to the best start foods regulations, the best start grant regulations and the Scottish child payment regulations. They will also correct an administrative oversight that has been identified in the Ukraine regulations that is required to ensure, on arrival in Scotland or in the rest of the United Kingdom, parity of access to benefits, specifically for people who hold Irish citizenship.

As colleagues will know, the Scottish child payment, best start foods and the three best start grant payments—the pregnancy and baby payment, the early learning payment and the school-age payment—are known collectively as the five family payments. They are delivered by Social Security Scotland and are five different payments that aim to provide support to low-income families with the costs of raising a child. All five payments are intended to help to tackle inequality, to improve outcomes and to make a positive impact on all the priority groups that are identified in “Best Start, Bright Futures—Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022-2026”.

The regulations that are before us support the focus that the Scottish Government and the Parliament more widely have placed on tackling and reducing child poverty. The first main change that we are making is to extend eligibility for the Scottish child payment to low-income families with children aged six to 15.

Secondly, the regulations will increase the value of the Scottish child payment to £25 per child per week and will allow Social Security Scotland to automatically pay the best start grant early years payment and the best start grant school-age payment to eligible people who are in receipt of the Scottish child payment.

The regulations will also widen the definition of kinship care across the best start grant, best start foods and the Scottish child payment to ensure that the regulations include all kinship carers with a relevant legal order or agreement with the local authority. That will ensure that kinship carers are included who are not related to the child but are known to them and have a pre-existing relationship with them.

That change will also help to ensure better consistency across the payments, which I know the Scottish Commission on Social Security welcomes. Draft regulations were referred to the commission in March. We received its scrutiny report in June, and the Scottish Government’s response to its recommendations was laid in Parliament on 20 September. As always, I am extremely grateful to the Scottish Commission on Social Security for its scrutiny and recommendations.

I remind members that, yesterday, we laid regulations to introduce further ancillary provisions to ensure that the regulations that we are discussing today will deliver the policy intentions effectively.

I welcome the opportunity to speak to you all, as colleagues and as a committee, as part of your consideration of the regulations. I look forward to any questions that you might have.

Again, I will shortly bring in Janet Richardson from the agency for a response about what is happening on the ground, but I can tell you that there will be a processing period after application. However, I want to emphasise that the straight-through processing and the increased workforce that Janet has just highlighted will mean that applications will be processed as quickly as possible. Indeed, many applications will go through the automatic processes, which will have a very positive impact on the client experience and waiting times.

The level of demand is still somewhat unknown, because we are not clear about how many people will apply in the first week from 14 November. Of course, we have projections on what we think the position will be. We want as many people as possible to apply—indeed, that is the overarching message from the Government, the Parliament and more widely—so we are prepared to process applications as quickly as possible.

I will pass over to Janet Richardson, who can give you a further indication of the timescales involved.

That is an important question. As I said, the Scottish child payment is part of a number of payments from Social Security Scotland that are providing a significant additional quantum of support for families. Taken together, the Scottish child payment; the best start grant pregnancy and baby payment, early learning payment and school-age payment; and best start foods could be worth over £10,000 by the time a family’s first child reaches six and £9,700 for subsequent children by the end of 2022. That is a significant additional quantum of support.

That compares with less than £1,800 for an eligible family’s first child and under £1,300 for subsequent children in England and Wales. That difference of more than £8,200 between what people in Scotland and people elsewhere in the UK receive highlights the Scottish Government’s major support for early years with regard to low-income families and our determination to provide assistance.

As far as I recall—I will bring in Ian Storrie in a moment—the last formal engagement between parties on the future of the council tax took place when I was public finance minister back in the spring of 2020. Those discussions, with the agreement of all the parties that were involved—the Conservative Party excluded itself from those discussions—were then postponed. Following the election, the Bute house agreement included a commitment to considerations around public engagement on the future of the council tax and a citizens assembly, but that would be a question for the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth to answer in any further detail.

To build on what the cabinet secretary has said, I will add that within the pay negotiations and the fiscal framework discussions and considerations around the new deal, discussions are on-going, between officials and at elected level, on ring fencing and the future settlement for local government in the next financial year. I am sure that the committee may have questions about the fiscal framework and the new deal, but all that has been considered within the pay negotiations in recent months.