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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 8 August 2025
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Displaying 1428 contributions

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Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

Shona Robison

Not only the Scottish Government but numerous organisations have done various bits of analysis on the impact of welfare reform.

At the moment, there is a lot of attention on the removal of the £20 uplift in universal credit, which it is estimated will remove £460 million from Scottish beneficiaries. We are fast approaching D day on that and, as I said in the debate last week, I sincerely hope that there is a change of heart on the issue. Apart from anything else, we are in a bit of a perfect storm at the moment, with rising fuel and food costs. It would be the worst time to compound those financial pressures on households by removing the universal credit uplift. For some families that are just about keeping their heads above water, it will be a very challenging situation that will make this winter extremely difficult. That will have a huge impact.

Alongside that, we have raised concerns over the piece about measures such as the benefit cap and the two-child limit, which put pressure on families that are already struggling. It is also worth bearing in mind that many of the recipients of universal credit are already working. One of the UK Government’s responses has been that people should go out and get additional hours, but that fails to recognise that—as the committee knows well from the previous work that its predecessor did on how many people are in in-work poverty—many of the people who are on universal credit are already working but are working in insecure, low-paid jobs.

The removal of the universal credit uplift is huge and will add to a perfect storm that is brewing. It will also undermine the work that we are doing, not least around the Scottish child payment. We are trying to get that money into people’s hands, and our commitment to doubling that payment is shared around the table. Because of the removal of the universal credit uplift, we will be giving with one hand and taking away with the other. That will not help us to get towards our interim child poverty targets, which is a huge concern to me.

I hope that I have given you a flavour of the work that has been done. We can write to the committee with information on the further analysis that has been done—there is a lot of detail in that. Members will be aware of the headline figures, but we can furnish the committee with more detailed evidence on that, if that would be helpful.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

Shona Robison

Over the piece, there has been a lot of engagement. First, the Scottish Government made many requests to the UK Government for dialogue around testing out the theory of universal basic income. It would be generous to say that the response was lukewarm. There is no joint commitment or agreement to work towards that, so that is a bit of a problem. We have raised the minimum income guarantee with the UK Government and, although its response is not particularly less lukewarm, we will continue to discuss the opportunities.

Clearly, if we had an integrated tax and benefit system, it would be easier to make a lot of the more ambitious changes but, as Paul Tyrer said, the social renewal advisory board has given us a very ambitious series of recommendations, and it would be remiss of us not to try and do what we can, even within devolved powers, to make progress towards them. I will not put much store in getting any support or help from the UK Government—we need to just get on and do what we can ourselves.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

Shona Robison

Having half the tools in our box is never as good as having a full toolbox, so we will continue to argue that having full control over benefits here makes more sense. We talked earlier about the challenges of a hybrid system and the complexities of the interaction of those two systems. Without a doubt, that will continue to be a challenge, and that is before we get into the policy divergence issues, which are also a challenge. There is a growing political consensus that having employment powers here makes sense; a lot of the trade unions are in favour of that and it would give us the opportunity to make changes around, for example, the statutory basis for the living wage and the issues around terms and conditions. If those powers are devolved here, this Parliament can make the policy choices that it wants to make, and I am optimistic that that will eventually happen.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

Shona Robison

As you would expect, individual local authorities and COSLA have raised those issues with us. It is about supporting local authorities that have concerns. Making the changes is the right thing to do, but we understand that some local authorities will have more concerns than others. We need to work with them to overcome those challenges.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

Shona Robison

I thank Jeremy Balfour for recognising my rather large remit, although I should say that it creates opportunities for me to join the dots across the portfolio.

A charities bill will be introduced in this parliamentary session, and there will be an opportunity to look at some of the issues that charities have raised and to which OSCR is keen for changes to be made in the light of experience. Again, I am happy to write to the committee with a bit more detail, if that would be helpful.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

Shona Robison

Thank you.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

Shona Robison

I have heard the sector’s concerns about the advisory council and understand where it is coming from in that respect. I have had a number of meetings with third sector organisations and social enterprises at which we have talked a lot about their role—not least their economic role—in the Covid recovery phase.

Social enterprises, in particular, are keen to play an increasing role, and the new plan for social enterprises recognises that they have a particular role to play. Some are keen to do more in areas in which they might not traditionally have been involved. For example, in a conference call that I had with representatives of the social enterprise sector, they were keen to look at whether they could get involved with social housing supply as part of the approach to affordable housing, which is not traditionally an area in which they have been involved. Such a development could be quite exciting, and we have agreed to do more work on it.

It is important that we continue to grasp the can-do mentality that we had during the pandemic. The third sector really stepped up to the plate by helping to keep people safe and to build community resilience, and we want that sort of thing to grow and the sector to be an equal partner. I know that we have a bit of work to do to make that a reality, but as far as my portfolio is concerned, I want to ensure that the third sector—and social enterprise as part of that—is at the heart of what we are doing.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

Shona Robison

I am sorry, I did not quite catch—

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

Shona Robison

My apologies, convener. Yes, work has been done on the additional costs, by not just the Scottish Government but many external agencies. I am happy to write to the committee with more information on that, if that would be helpful.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 23 September 2021

Shona Robison

I remember the committee getting into this issue in quite a lot of detail when I sat on it, and to say that it is complex is an understatement.

The issue, as you have laid out clearly, relates to concerns about the fiscal framework and any knock-on effects. The previous cabinet secretary for social security wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in February last year to agree that an increase in take-up of reserved benefits to which an individual was already entitled fell outside the scope of the spillover provisions—which, as you will know, are also complex—and that the DWP would not seek to raise a spillover claim in that scenario. Where one of the qualifying criteria for a Scottish benefit is that entitlement is conditional on the receipt of a reserved benefit—in the main, income-related benefits—Social Security Scotland signposts clients to those reserved benefits. Indeed, that is particularly important in relation to take-up of the Scottish child payment.

Although Social Security Scotland does not directly promote reserved benefits as a matter of course, as we would regard that as the role of the UK Government, we fund advice services that give advice on all benefits, whether they be devolved or reserved, to try to maximise take-up and people’s incomes. There are on-going issues around the fiscal framework—indeed, the view that changes need to be made to the fiscal framework on this issue has been expressed a number of times—but that is as much of an update as I can give you.