Chamber and committees

How are discussions regarding that going with the UK Government? I know that we try to rise above party politics when dealing with those issues, but I am wondering what discussions you have had with the new UK Government and how those are going.

I will push you slightly, minister. Are those likely to come to this committee or to go to other committees?

Can you say anything about the Scottish Government’s in-principle position on extending statutory instrument protocol 2 to non-former EU areas?

I will be brief, as always, convener.

I thank the cabinet secretary for her remarks, but I still do not agree that the information is coming forward quickly enough. There is frustration that we do not know some of the timescales that are involved in the process. I welcome the meeting that has been arranged, which the cabinet secretary mentioned a moment ago.

A number of committee members have previously been critical of the DWP’s processes. To be fair to the DWP, at least its processes were there to be scrutinised. I still do not think that Social Security Scotland is being properly scrutinised, because we simply do not have the information. KPIs are a way forward that can be flexible because they are in secondary legislation. On that basis, I will press amendment 12.

I will be pressing the amendment, convener.

The cabinet secretary and I do not disagree on this—I totally accept that online or telephone hearings are the way forward for some people, and amendment 14 in no way takes that away. I do not accept that it will have unforeseen consequences.

We have to look at the evidence of what is happening on the ground, and we have to consider that sentence in the “Scottish Tribunals Annual Report 2022-2023” about the chamber president having this particular power. I believe that, as many third-party organisations have said to me, many people want to go along to a tribunal hearing. From my purely practical experience of sitting on the tribunal, I can tell you that, when the claimant walked in, you could see them face to face, you immediately understood why they were making the claim and the decision was far more likely to go their way than if the hearing had been on a telephone.

I welcome the Government amendments. When the minister closes on amendment 97, I wonder whether she will confirm that no body similar to SCOSS has to provide public accounts that have been audited, and that such a duty would take SCOSS beyond other bodies.

I will be honest. When we were putting through the original 2018 act, I was a bit of a sceptic about SCOSS. It felt to me as though it was going to be just another talking shop or another body that was not going to play a particularly positive role in the Scottish landscape. However, I am a sinner who has confessed and now have turned 180 degrees on that. I welcome the work of SCOSS. It is an important tool in the landscape. It picks up some of the gaps that we as a committee do not have time for, and it brings expertise to the process that we as a committee sometimes do not have. I would seek to give it greater power in regard to the work that it does. That would be for it to decide, however, not for us or the Scottish Government to instruct.

I was struck by what the cabinet secretary said about SCOSS being able to report to ministers and Parliament when it is requested to do so, either by the Scottish Government or possibly by the committee. I would like SCOSS to decide what it should look at.

Amendment 11 would also give SCOSS greater power to look at acts that have been passed and to do post-legislative scrutiny. There is a general view across the Parliament that we are not very good at doing that. I accept that that might come with extra resources required, but we need to make sure that the primary and secondary legislation that we are passing is the best that it can be and I believe that SCOSS plays an important role in that. To give it greater powers by future proofing the bill for future years and generations is an opportunity that we should not pass by, so I ask the committee to look favourably on amendment 11 and support it.

You took the words right out of my mouth, cabinet secretary—here is my persuasive argument. Can you imagine the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Bank of Scotland or any of the other big banks being audited in such a way? The banks are audited on an annual basis, and rightly so, but can you imagine them coming to account holders and saying, “We want to audit how you are managing your account as an individual. If you don’t give us that information, we will close down your bank account”? That is what we are doing here. We are saying that we will go beyond auditing the organisation and look at the people who benefit from social security. That does not seem to me to be what auditing is.

There should be a power for Social Security Scotland to go to a claimant and say, “Will you share that information with us?” However, if the claimant, for whatever reason, does not want to do that, I do not think that they should be penalised.

I will develop that further. Section 52 of the 2018 act allows for unscheduled review of entitlement. Therefore, Social Security Scotland can already review anybody—it has that power. What it does not have is the power to take away an award without doing a review. That is a very significant difference.

In its submission to the committee, the Law Society of Scotland says that the provisions “conflate audit and fraud”. It also says:

“It is not clear why individuals should need to be involved in auditing the system in this way, or indeed, why Ministers could not obtain the information they need through other channels.”

For once, I agree with the Law Society of Scotland—it is absolutely right. We are trying to use audit as a way of bringing about fraud claims. With due respect to the Government, I think that we have stepped over the line of treating a claimant with dignity, fairness and respect.

Beyond that—and it does not matter what terminology you use—we are now introducing sanctions to deal with people. We have been having debates about sanctions for a long time now. Marie McNair has said that benefit sanctions are

“a vehicle for penalising those who are in need of benefits”,

while Ben Macpherson, the previous social security minister, said:

“we have shown ... that people respond much better to support and encouragement than they do to threat and fear.”—[Official Report, 31 March 2022; c 32, 46.]

However, if we support the bill as it stands, we as a committee will be voting for sanctions. We will be voting to say to somebody, “If you do not give Social Security Scotland some kind of response, we will take away or hold back your benefit.” They might get it back later, but that does not help them in the immediate period.

It does not seem to me that we would be treating those people with dignity, fairness and respect, because those individuals have done nothing wrong. Their circumstances have not changed; the claim that they were entitled to is still the same; all that they are saying is, “We do not want to be involved in this audit process.” Therefore, what is proposed seems unfair to me.

I was interested to see that, in the Scottish Government’s response to our stage 1 report, we seem to move from talking about audit to talking about “fraudulent”. As the cabinet secretary said in that response,

“If there is no such power to suspend,”—

in other words, no power to sanction—

“there is no incentive for anyone who is claiming assistance fraudulently ... to participate in the process.”

That is true, but my point is that the Scottish Government already has the power to do that under section 52 of the 2018 act. However, what it wants is the power to sanction someone without reviewing their claim, and I believe that that goes too far. I am not arguing against an audit of Social Security Scotland—that is where I probably disagree with Maggie Chapman—but I am totally against auditing vulnerable individuals with regard to decisions that they have no power over.

On the presumption that I might not be successful in the next few minutes, I will support the Scottish Government’s amendment 57, which I think at least gives organisations and individuals a further bite at the cherry. However, I genuinely urge members to think about what they are voting for and whether they are going too far with regard to getting information from vulnerable individuals who have—I repeat—done nothing wrong. Their circumstances have not changed; all they have been unwilling to do is to respond to what is, in fact, an audit of an organisation, not an individual.

I have sympathy with what the cabinet secretary says, but I still have concerns about the sanctions on an individual if they do not respond. I know that you are trying to address that through amendment 57, but I want to seek a consensus. Is there any possibility, to pick up Mr Doris’s point, that, before stage 3, we could have a fuller list in the bill itself of who would not be sanctioned if they did not respond? Is there an opportunity for the Government to outline at least some categories of individuals? You might want to add to that after the consultation, but could the bill itself say that, if someone is in category X, Y or Z, they will not be sanctioned if they do not respond?

Does Social Security Scotland not already have that power under section 52 of the 2018 act? Why do we need an additional power?

In the light of the cabinet secretary’s contribution, I will reflect further and will not move amendment 11.

Amendment 11 not moved.

Sections 19 and 20 agreed to.

Section 21—Duty on Commission to publish annual report

Amendment 97 moved—[Shirley-Anne Somerville]—and agreed to.

Section 21, as amended, agreed to.

After section 21