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There has been a change to the work that Ms Robison is taking forward because it would be premature to deliver a review of Scottish finances before the UK Government’s spending review on 11 June. All that Mr O’Kane has done is highlight once again how utterly dependent we are on—

Thank you, convener. I appreciate the opportunity to give evidence on the Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2025, which bring forward a number of minor but necessary updates to legislation.

The amendments make three separate sets of changes to the legislation. The first set of provisions are required to remove references to tax credits from certain devolved benefit legislation. That follows the UK Government’s decision to close tax credits from 5 April this year and ensures that the policy intent of the legislation matches the reality in relation to which qualifying reserved benefits are available to determine eligibility for devolved benefits.

Tax credits formed a route for establishing eligibility and responsibility for a child in relation to best start foods, best start grants and the Scottish child payment. They also formed a route for eligibility to the funeral support payment, the winter heating payment and the pension-age winter heating payment. Tax credits closed for new applications in April 2019, and the DWP and HM Revenue and Customs undertook a planned transition to universal credit, known as the “move to UC”, to move eligible tax credit recipients on to universal credit before tax credits closed in April.

The amendments have been reviewed by the Scottish Commission on Social Security, which asked about the Scottish Government’s role in the promotion of universal credit. Scottish Government officials worked closely with Social Security Scotland to deliver a synchronised letter campaign that identified those who are in receipt of devolved social security payments with tax credits as a qualifying benefit. Social Security Scotland wrote letters and made phone calls to those clients, informing them of the upcoming changes and the effect that those could have on eligibility for their devolved benefits. There is no evidence that the move to UC has affected the numbers or eligibility of those applying for the named benefits, with applications and awards remaining relatively stable for each Scottish Government benefit.

A further amendment is required to the Social Security Information-sharing (Scotland) Regulations 2021 to replace an outdated reference to discretionary housing payments being made under the Discretionary Financial Assistance Regulations 2001.

The final set of amendments is required to ensure that appeals are dealt with consistently across all benefits. Those amendments update the Scottish Child Payment Regulations 2020 and the Carer’s Allowance Supplement and Young Carer Grants (Residence Requirements and Procedural Provisions) (EU Exit) (Scotland) Regulations 2020. The changes relate to appeals for the Scottish child payment and carers allowance supplement, where individuals are seeking to receive that support from outside the UK. Those amendments align with the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, as amended by the Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2025.

I extend my thanks to SCOSS for its formal scrutiny of the draft amendments. I welcome the opportunity to assist the committee in the consideration of the regulations today.

We are determined to drive down the poverty rates for the priority groups—and to drive down all the statistics that are set out in our child poverty delivery plans. We will ensure that we do everything that we can to support the six priority family groups. However, there is a challenge, which I have to come back to: if policies elsewhere are pushing some of those priority groups into poverty, it makes the situation more challenging. I recognise the importance of parental employability schemes in addressing that, but that is exactly why they are there—to provide wraparound support for lone parents in that area.

With all these areas, there is a policy consideration about whether to have universal or targeted support. That has been discussed in the past, particularly in relation to school meals. I go back to the point about why universalism is an important policy for certain aspects such as free school meals. That speaks to the stigma when children and their families speak about not being the “free school meals kid” and not being seen to be separate or different from other children. Although it is exceptionally important to take into account the cost of a policy and the fact that it might benefit people who could otherwise afford it, it is also important to bear in mind the evidence and lived experience of children who talk about how important it is that everyone is treated the same and for there not to be a stigma. That is another important consideration.

You are absolutely right that it is one of those areas where people have differing views, but the universalism of free school meals is based on attempting to help with the stigma that children often feel.

It is important that we look at the evidence to demonstrate impact, which is why the modelling that was published in March estimates that Scottish Government policies will keep 70,000 children out of relative poverty in 2025-26, with poverty rates that are 7 percentage points lower than they otherwise would have been. In particular, you mentioned the Scottish child payment. It is estimated that it alone will keep 40,000 children out of relative poverty this year. It is important that we consider the difference that that can make to families.

Clearly, it is more challenging to demonstrate the impact of some smaller policies on child poverty rates, but we can look at the impact that they can have on, for example, how much money a family can save. We have estimates for how much families can save because of free school meals and other policies that, in total, we would call the social contract, or our cost of living guarantee, as well as through the provision of funding for early learning and childcare. As well as looking at the evidence on how many children can be kept out of poverty, we look at the money that families can save through particular policies. We would be happy to provide more of that information in writing, should it be useful to the committee.

In building on the answers to your questions, I will point to some aspects that might assist the committee. First, the cumulative impact assessments that the Government develops will include a wider range of policies. The policy package that is modelled in the cumulative impact assessments includes free school meals and the school clothing grant—you mentioned that—as well as the best start grant and best start foods.

Social Security Scotland also does other work. It gets feedback directly from clients through client surveys, and we can provide the committee with the links and directions to those reports. Some of the most recent evidence on the five family payments demonstrated the exact type of thing that you mentioned.

An important part of the work goes on outwith Government. The Poverty and Inequality Commission has lived experience panels that speak to the direct experience of the impacts that can be made.

It is important that we do wide-scale modelling and cumulative impact assessments, but it is also exceptionally important that we look at the impact that the policies have on families, because that allows us to have direct knowledge of the impact that the work can have on different family make-ups and those from different parts of the country, for example.

The work of the PIC helps us, as does the work of other organisations. I recently sat with a panel of parents at a meeting in Dundee—I think that it was organised by Save the Children—which was remarkably informative because of what Save the Children spoke about and because I heard directly from the families.

I am grateful for the committee’s continued focus on child poverty and for the opportunity to give evidence. As stakeholders have related to the committee, Scottish Government action is having a real impact on families across Scotland who are living on low incomes. During this session of Parliament, we have delivered considerable action to drive progress on our national mission, in spite of the challenging fiscal environment that we have faced. That has included expanding funded childcare, more than doubling the value of our Scottish child payment and supporting thousands of parents with devolved employability services.

Our action is making a real difference to families. On average, households with children that are among the poorest 10 per cent of households are estimated to be £2,600 a year better off in 2025-26 as a result of Scottish Government policies. We have also committed to going further. Our programme for government outlined our delivery plan for the next year, which includes investment in breakfast clubs, affordable homes and developing systems to mitigate the impact of the two-child limit in universal credit.

As members know, statistics covering the year of the interim targets were published in March. It is deeply disappointing that the interim targets were not met, but the statistics show that, despite strong headwinds—including the Covid pandemic, the cost of living crisis and the impact of continuing United Kingdom Government austerity—we have delivered progress. There is, of course, much more to do.

The?proportion of children who are living in relative poverty reduced in the latest year on record. The rate was lower in 2023-24 than it has been since 2014-15, while the proportion in absolute poverty has also fallen—the annual figure is the lowest in 30 years. Rates of both relative and absolute child poverty were also 9 percentage points lower than the UK average in 2023-24—the rates were 22 per cent and 17 per cent in Scotland, compared with 31 per cent and 26 per cent in the UK.

Although the Joseph Rowntree Foundation predicts that child poverty rates will rise in other parts of the UK by 2029, it highlights that policies such as our Scottish child payment and our commitment to mitigate the two-child limit

“are behind Scotland bucking the trend”.

The Scottish Government will publish its annual progress report on child poverty by the end of June, including a full update on the implementation of actions across the past year and further analysis in respect of the interim targets.

We are clear that decisions taken by the UK Government are holding us back. It is welcome that the UK Government has now made tackling child poverty a priority, for the first time in many years, but its actions to date do not reflect that prioritisation. According to analysis by the End Child Poverty coalition, the decision not to abolish the two-child cap has meant that about 35,000 children are believed to have been pushed into poverty since the UK Government took office last year, and the Department for Work and Pensions estimates that changes to disability benefits announced in the spring statement will drive an additional 250,000 people across the UK, including 50,000 children, into poverty by 2029-30. Through cuts and inaction, the UK Government continues to threaten the progress that has been made here in Scotland, and I have urged UK ministers to deliver the change that is needed through its forthcoming, but concerningly delayed, child poverty strategy.

Irrespective of what the UK Government chooses to do, we remain unequivocally supportive of our commitment to meet the 2030 targets. The next tackling child poverty delivery plan is due to be published in March 2026, shortly before the Scottish election. The circumstances will be materially different from those under which the Scottish Government’s two previous plans were published, but I hope that it will present a new opportunity to build consensus across the Parliament and, more broadly, across Scotland.

Development of the next delivery plan has already begun. An external reference group has been established to guide our approach, while our call for evidence was issued in February. I have also written to all parliamentary committees to seek their views, and I look forward to receiving their considered advice.

One further upcoming issue to highlight is that, as was set out in the annual progress report for 2022-23, the Scottish Government is aware that a technical amendment will be needed ahead of June 2031 to enable the final reporting requirements under the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 to be met in full. That is due to the lag in survey data on which targets are based, which will not be available until March 2032. I must be clear that that is a minor technical fix and that the amendments that are needed will not require changes to the targets. If we are returned to form the next Scottish Government after the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections, we intend to introduce primary legislation to address the technical issue regarding the timing of reporting.

The actions that we have taken have made a difference to families, and we are committed to building on those firm foundations. We want to engage meaningfully and widely with stakeholders and partners to build consensus around key areas of action for the next plan, and I look forward to engaging with members as we work to meet the 2030 targets, which were unanimously agreed by the Parliament.

Flexibility is exceptionally important, and I am happy to provide the committee with further details on the work that has been undertaken in that regard. I recognise exactly what you are saying, particularly if we take into account the time to travel to work—the issue is not just the times when childcare is available but how long it takes people to get to their place of work. That is not just an issue in rural areas, but there is an additional challenge in those areas. That is why it is important that the schemes involving early adopter communities can work in different ways in different areas.

Flexibility is key, and we must ensure that what is provided can assist people at different times so that they are able to take on shift work and work at weekends. When we think about childcare, we can often, initially, have in our minds a very traditional view of a childcare setting, such as a nursery, but childcare can be and is being provided in a number of different ways.

Flexibility will have to be built into the system. That is coming through some of the work on out-of-school childcare provision, which I appreciate is different from early learning and childcare provision. I am happy to provide further information about the work that is being done on flexibility to help Mr Balfour with that query.

The Government has laid out reassurances that we will not be making further changes to tax rates during this parliamentary session in order to provide clarity and reassurance to people. I caution against the phrase “black hole”. There is a gap between what it is forecast that the Scottish Government will receive and what the Scottish Government will pay out in social security.

No, it is a gap that will be filled by the Scottish Government’s budget in its totality. We recognise that the money will need to be found. I point to the fact that what we have chosen to invest in social security, which I make no apologies for, over and above the funding that we receive from the UK Government is projected to be less than 3.5 per cent of the total Scottish Government resource budget by 2029-30. I do not underestimate the challenge, but it will be looked at to ensure that the budgets are balanced, as they need to be.

There is a gap between what we will receive from the UK Government and what we will spend, but we will fill the gap by using the money that we have in the Scottish Government’s budget. Does it make it more challenging in some areas? Yes. Will people suggest that we should take money away from different pots and different policies? Yes. The Government has made it clear that we will not address the challenge by taking away services or support from people who already receive them.