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I thank the member for taking a further intervention. She is right to point out that those benefits have been more generous in some ways, but unpaid carers in their homes are not comparing themselves with people elsewhere in the UK. They are comparing themselves with people who are considerably better off because they do not have to provide unpaid care. Unpaid carers who are not getting carers allowance because the eligibility has not been extended are also comparing themselves with carers who are getting the allowance. Those are the comparisons that unpaid carers in the constituencies and communities that we represent are making. They are not looking at whether someone is better off elsewhere.

Thank you, convener—that is noted. Will the member explain why she thinks that that is an ad hoc approach?

Absolutely.

An additional 392,000 people have become carers overnight due to the pandemic. Not all of those people will be able to access some of the funding, but a significant number of them can, and we need to show them that we recognise the work that they have done this year.

In the past year, I have spoken to carers who have told me that they are undervalued and feel invisible, exhausted and broken. Before I go any further on the reasons why I would like the committee to support amendment 6, I thank all the unpaid carers in Scotland for the work that they have done, regardless of whether it has been recognised with a financial uplift. I also thank paid carers, without whom I would not be sitting here today.

Unpaid carers have worked 24/7 with no break for a year and they are absolutely exhausted. It is important to remember that, before the pandemic, carers in Scotland were poorer than the average due to a combination of factors including access to secure, adequately paid, flexible employment and additional disability-related costs such as higher energy and transport costs.

Family Fund notes that, in 2019 alone, a third of the families that it supported saw an income reduction in their household. A third of carers are struggling to pay utility bills, 47 per cent have been in debt, and half are struggling to make ends meet and are cutting back on food and heating as a result. All of us round the table can agree that that is unacceptable.

Carers were then hit even harder by the effects of lockdown. Family Fund says that 78 per cent reported that their overall financial situation had got worse. Half of the families that were surveyed had seen their income fall as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, furlough and increased caring responsibilities. At the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee the other day, we heard that many women have had to give up paid work in order to undertake unpaid caring, which has cost them in excess of £15 million a day.

Uplifting benefits for carers by doubling the carers allowance supplement during the pandemic was absolutely the right thing to do, but the pandemic is nowhere near over. This week, some Opposition parties and the Government agreed with that principle when they made the same argument about the need to retain the uplift in universal credit.

The Scottish Government has promised to introduce Scottish carers assistance, which will be a new benefit that replaces carers allowance. However, we know that it will be a considerable time before the issues to do with the rate of and eligibility for carers assistance are addressed. That means that unpaid carers in Scotland are having to wait too long for the promised reforms and to have more money in their pockets. Today, we have a chance to keep the uplift permanently until carers assistance is introduced, and carers agree with that approach.

Carers Scotland estimates that, every day of the Covid-19 pandemic, unpaid carers have saved the Scottish Government £43 million. A contributor to the report, who is an unpaid carer, says that the supplement should be doubled permanently. They said:

“If the government had to pay for outside agencies to do the work of carers it would cost a lot more. Carers are completely undervalued and forgotten about.”

I fundamentally believe that we have an opportunity to ensure that we retain the uplift while the teeth of the pandemic are still biting. Doubling the supplement this year was the right thing to do, and it is right to give carers certainty for the future until we have reviewed carers assistance. I urge the committee to vote for amendment 6 and ensure that we do not make the payment only once a year, as is proposed in amendment 1. Unpaid carers are not just for Christmas but are much more valuable, and the payment should be made twice a year.

I urge the committee to support carers, thank them for their work and value them. Please support my amendment and give them extra money in their pockets.

I thank all the witnesses for their submissions, which are characteristically excellent and really helpful in informing our work.

My question is around human rights budgeting and the idea of a minimum core, which we heard a bit about this morning. Notwithstanding the data gaps that Jatin Haria mentioned and that others have noted, it appears that, for a number of groups in society, the minimum cores are not being met. Those groups include women, disabled people, unpaid carers and, in particular, children, given the level of child poverty.

How could a human rights-based approach to budgeting start to address that? What needs to go in the budget lines? I ask that you comment in particular on some of the bigger spend around social security. Hearing your comments on the national care service might also be quite interesting. I know that all your submissions pointed in particular to the national care service as something that might make an impact on women and disabled people’s equality.

Women have also ended up having to pick up unpaid care. For example, throughout the pandemic, a lot of people lost the social care that they relied on, and it was assumed that somebody would step in and do it. We have heard in other committees, in Parliament and, I am sure, in our engagement that carers in the past year have been working their fingers to the bone without a break, and a lot of them are women. Is there anything that we can do or suggest through the committee’s work on the budget that could begin to address that?

The figure of £15 million a day is staggering. I assume that that includes having to do unpaid care as well as childcare; if not, the figure will be higher. I am interested in whether you can think of any ways that we can begin to redress that balance and, in particular, stop the regression of women’s rights that we have heard about today.

I thank the witnesses for their submissions and for their contribution to this morning’s discussion, which has been really helpful, as my colleagues have said.

I want to dig a little more into what the minimum core means for specific groups of people. Notwithstanding the significant gaps in data that you have all highlighted and that we really need to address—I hope that we can do that—it is clear from the data that exists that there are problems with the minimum core, particularly in relation to disabled people. For example, the SHRC produced a paper in the summer on the impact of Covid restrictions and the social care system on disabled people’s rights, with some people living entire days, weeks and months in one chair. The Fraser of Allander Institute has recently done very good research on the minimum core of rights of people with a learning disability. In addition, of course, there is the significant work that is being done on the fact that so many children live in poverty and do not have an adequate standard of living.

Will you say a little more about the details of the minimum core? What data have you used to tell that story and show how important it is? What does the minimum core mean for addressing some of the gaps, particularly in relation to how we use public spend on social security and how we see the care service working, particularly for women or disabled people?

Thank you for the opportunity, convener. Cabinet secretary, you are right to highlight the perfect storm that people are facing; I am genuinely terrified for families and what they will be able to do about fuel poverty, particularly with the cut to universal credit. It is a shame, given that we could have had a publicly owned energy firm that could have addressed some of that issue.

I will focus on two of the groups that you identified—children and disabled people—in relation to poverty. First, with regard to the Scottish child payment, we heard evidence last week that social security will have to do the “heavy lifting” if we are to meet the targets on tackling child poverty. I understand that the £20 cut to universal credit is catastrophic and should not go ahead; however, the targets were set without caveat by the Parliament, which means that we need to look across everything that we do here to find ways of meeting them. Will you commit to doing all that you can to meet the child poverty targets, regardless of what is happening elsewhere? Our view is that the Scottish child payment needs to be doubled and doubled again next year. Can you set out how you intend to meet the targets?

Secondly, have you made an assessment of the extra costs of living as a disabled person, so that we can begin to address some of the poverty that disabled people face?

I have a follow-up question. I appreciate that it will take substantial staffing resources to deliver the payments as they stand, but they would be delivered with exactly the same eligibility and in exactly the same amounts as the reserved benefits. For example, in response to the ADP consultation, the Government said that it favours largely replicating the eligibility criteria as they exist in PIP, for reasons of staffing resource. How many extra staff would you need in order to start moving on eligibility and adequacy for adult disability payment? Do you believe that the current criteria that are used for PIP are fair, and what is your view on the 20m rule?

The cabinet secretary will be aware that, for some time, thousands of disabled people across Scotland have been unable to access homes and have been considered to be, in effect, homeless. In the Glasgow region, the council is building accessible houses on a very small scale—only about 8 per cent are accessible. The current Government target is 10 per cent, but that is not in legislation. Given the huge variability across the country in relation to those builds, and the significant need for accessible housing for disabled people, will the Government consider making that a statutory target?