Chamber and committees

You have covered some of this already, minister, so I hope that we can do it quickly.

Clearly, to an extent, the funding mechanism creates an incentive to follow DWP uprating policies. Looking forward, do you see potential for the Scottish Government to take a different view and have a higher or a lower figure? Also, do you envisage any variation between benefits? You have gone for 10.1 per cent across all benefits. Can you see a day when maybe one benefit is uprated more than others so that the approach is more targeted? How easy is it to do that with the powers that you have?

I understand that there is a statutory duty under the 2018 act, but, as we roll out the benefits and as we look at it, is it helpful to have a statutory duty, or would you rather have greater discretion so that you can look at each one? As you say, for certain benefits, we have to uprate by statute. Would it be helpful, as you review and see how the scheme works, not to have a statutory duty but for the Government to have discretion on how different payments should go up? Alternatively, are you happy to keep it statutory?

We might return to that this afternoon in another of my questions, but are we looking at before summer or after summer? Is there at least some kind of timescale for when we can look out for this information?

I have no question, but I refer again to the interest that I noted under a previous item.

Good morning and welcome. I hope that you are settling in and enjoying your new role. The committee and I look forward to working with you.

Following on from the convener’s question, have you previously or recently looked at passporting benefits and at how they interrelate with the DWP and the new Social Security Scotland? If not, is it something that you might want to look at in the future when you have time?

I have a question about the transparency, quality and timeliness of the information that you got from the Scottish Government. With previous reports, there had been an issue with getting all that information at the right time and in the right format. Was that an issue or were you happy with how information was provided to you?

Thank you. My final question is about the process. The committee was keen to look at taking a human rights approach to decision making and how that works. Is that something that the commission is looking at? Is taking a human rights approach one of the principles by which you judge these things? Moreover, do you also see that happening in the Scottish Government’s decision making?

I am grateful.

Following on from that answer, what factors influence the Scottish ministers in reaching a view on whether a power in a UK bill for UK ministers to legislate in devolved areas should be subject to a statutory requirement for Scottish ministers’ consent? Is there different thinking around that or is it the same thinking?

Again, following through on that, where powers for UK ministers in devolved areas fall outwith the scope of statutory instrument protocol 2, how will the Scottish Government facilitate scrutiny of the exercise of the powers in advance of those powers being exercised?