Chamber and committees

In that case, I press my amendment.

Thank you—that is helpful. The question is, that amendment 5 be agreed to. Are we agreed?

Members: No.

I welcome the cabinet secretary’s commitment to lodge an amendment at stage 3. I look forward to seeing it and I hope that it will be as she has set out.

If I may, I will make one quick remark. Rightly, Mr Stewart and the cabinet secretary have talked about the cost—and there is a cost. However, we must also think of it as an investment in some of our most vulnerable people. I would find it very hard to imagine any Government not wanting to invest in the most vulnerable in our society by uprating assistance for inflation.

No.

I think that there is a moral duty on a Government to do that. I acknowledge that the cabinet secretary and her predecessors have done so, but I am seeking to ensure that that practice continues into the future—and I think that the Scottish Government is seeking to do that, too.

I welcome the Scottish Government’s move and I look forward to seeing the amendment that it will lodge. On that basis, I will not press amendment 6.

Amendment 6, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 7 not moved.

Just for the avoidance of doubt, I remind members that I am in receipt of a higher rate of personal independence payment. I am also a former member of the tribunals service.

I accept the cabinet secretary’s point. However, we are at stage 2. If the amendment were to be agreed to today, I am sure that she could pick up a telephone or send an email to the new cabinet secretary down south to find out how they would react and, at stage 3, we could have the debate again.

Mr Doris and the cabinet secretary have picked up on the challenges of doing this through primary legislation rather than by regulations. As the deputy convener will know, however, the trouble with regulations is that you cannot vote against just one bit of them—you have to either accept them all or reject them all. Regulations might come forward from the Government in which 99 per cent is right, but 1 per cent is the key financial thing. I would not want to vote against somebody getting something except by amendment, which is why primary legislation is a better way of doing this.

I accept the cabinet secretary’s comments about budget, but that is about political choices. She often makes the point to me in the chamber that we have political choices. The money that the Scottish Government has would be much better spent on supporting carers than on some of the other projects that the Government seems to be pushing forward. For that reason, I will be moving amendment 3.

As for amendment 4, I accept what the cabinet secretary has said, and I will go away and reflect on it. For that reason, I will not be moving that amendment, but I reserve the right to see what happens at stage 3.

As I spent the summer considering possible amendments to the bill, this amendment was one that came forward as I was drafting. It happened before the announcement by the UK Government, and the announcement by the Scottish Government, in regard to winter heating payments.

The decision that the UK Government has made is very disappointing, and it affects many individuals. I understand why the Scottish Government made its decision, but that was also a disappointing announcement.

Amendment 5 does not seek to give all older people a kind of winter heating payment; it seeks to give such a payment to a specific vulnerable group in our society.

We all know that many older people spend a lot more time at home than other people do. We understand that older people often live in houses that do not have the best heating or insulation but are unable to move, for many different reasons. Amendment 5 says that those who are on attendance allowance—or on the new Scottish benefit that is equivalent to that—and so are over 65, and are on the high rate, should receive the winter heating payment. We already do that for children under 16 who are on a high rate of care, because the Parliament and the Government recognise that those children are often at home and so their heating costs are higher.

The amendment seems to me to offer a reasonable mitigation of where we are at the moment. It will give those who are at home the most the protection of some financial help in meeting their winter heating payments.

We all understand that next month heating prices are likely to go up across the UK. We recognise that many people in Scotland live in colder conditions than other people in the United Kingdom.

It is a political choice to say that we want to look after and protect the most vulnerable people in our society. To me, that seems to be the right way forward. We were right to pass legislation that allowed the Government and, ultimately, the Parliament to create new benefits. This new benefit would help people who are at home, who are often cold. It is not often that I agree with Richard Leonard, but, at last week’s meeting of the cross-party group on older people, age and ageing, he pointed out that he was concerned that we might go back to the conditions of the 1970s and 1980s, and that we will see people dying in their homes because they are cold. We need to mitigate that risk as much as we can. The people who are most likely to be affected are those with disabilities, who cannot move around as much as others.

My proposal is not part of a wish list or just something that we could do. We need to do it if we are to protect the most vulnerable people in our society.

I move amendment 5.

Section 2 introduces a new benefit called care experience assistance. Beyond that, we have no idea what we will be voting for. There is no substantial detail on how the benefit will work. What is it? Who will benefit from it? What timescales are involved? What process will take place? It seems slightly strange that we will be voting for a new benefit without having any of that detail.

We all want care experience assistance to be introduced. Yesterday afternoon, some of us attended an event at which we heard about the negative experiences that some people have when they are in care. However, I find it difficult to leave the timescale open-ended and let the Government go away and do whatever it wants. Regulations will come along at some point, but—I say this with due respect to the cabinet secretary—under the present Government, timescales seem to slip from time to time. I am seeking to make sure that care experience assistance comes about in a timely manner.

My amendment 2 seeks to provide that the regulations in question must be laid within 24 months of the bill receiving royal assent. That would give the Government plenty of time to engage with stakeholders, and it would give the committee and the Parliament as a whole plenty of time to scrutinise those regulations and to make sure that they were appropriate. It would also mean that the people who expect to receive such assistance would not be left not knowing when or if the new benefit will be introduced. None of us knows what will happen at the election in 14 or 15 months’ time. A different Government with completely different priorities could be elected, and care experience assistance could simply disappear off the map and never be introduced.

We all have the same policy intent as the cabinet secretary. Amendment 2 simply seeks to make the Government move slightly more quickly than it has done in the past and to give stakeholders and the committee reassurance that care experience assistance will be introduced.

I move amendment 1.

I welcome the cabinet secretary’s comments, and I look forward to that consultation taking place. I am grateful that she will include all stakeholders in it. I absolutely acknowledge that my amendment leaves out other potential groups who might be affected by the issue, but it was important to have the debate here so that Poppyscotland and other organisations are assured that the process will happen in a timely manner. I look forward to the new guidance reflecting where we are today and, I hope, protecting those who have served our country and others who have had compensation given to them.

On that basis, I seek to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 8, by agreement, withdrawn.

Section 3—Repeal of section 52B of the 2018 Act

Amendment 105 not moved.

Section 3 agreed to.

After section 3

Amendment 28 moved—[Shirley-Anne Somerville]—and agreed to.

Sections 4 to 6 agreed to.

Section 7—New determination of entitlement after error

Yes, I will. I just have two quick points to make in summing up.

I am very happy to work together with all parties to move the issue forward, but my concern is that, if we keep talking about it for too long, nothing will happen. This is an opportunity for us as a Parliament to make a decision, and I hope that we can revert to it at stage 3.

Mr Stewart, the cabinet secretary and Mr Doris have talked about money. It is true that we get the money that is given to us by Westminster; however, we then get to choose how we spend that money. Perhaps if we stopped getting our shipbuilding contracts so badly wrong, we would have more money to spend. Perhaps if we did not put people and open embassies in other parts of the world, we would have more money to spend. Those are political choices that Governments make. I think that people would prefer that we gave money to the most vulnerable in society, rather than giving it to projects that the Government simply cannot run.

On that basis, I will—