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When we look at budgets year on year and even when we try to compare with 2013-14, when police and fire services were taken out of the budgets, it would be helpful for us to know that we are comparing apples with apples, rather than comparing apples with pears, as we seem to do every year. That would give us a real understanding. It would be helpful if the committee and Parliament were able to provide assistance in cutting through what is sometimes a disparity in the projection of figures between local and national Government. It would be good to get anything that you can provide on that.

My second question is on a particular area of pressure in local government. The Local Government Information Unit’s survey said that the biggest short-term and long-term pressure for budgets is adult social care. What is the driver of that pressure? Is it purely population growth among our elderly residents, or is there a different reason? What should government do with this year’s budget settlement to address that pressure?

The policy memorandum refers to a “proportionate approach”. What will be the Government’s attitude towards the varying levels of size of house builders? Small and medium-sized enterprises are being treated very differently in the scheme down south. What will the Government’s approach on that be in Scotland?

It would be helpful if you could let the committee know as soon as you have any detail on that. That would be worth while.

Thank you.

Why has that been left to regulations? Why is there no more detail up front to make developers aware of what is coming down the track?

The bill gives Scottish ministers the power to establish a responsible developers scheme. Are you able to set out how the scheme will speed up the remediation of potentially unsafe buildings?

Finally, I want to ask about the power to introduce a levy. Has there been any difficulty in developing the bill or the programme while we wait for the devolution of the power that would enable the introduction of a levy?

Do you have a timeline for the expected devolution of power to introduce the levy?

Thank you, convener. I appreciate your welcome and the committee’s five weeks of evidence taking on the bill. I appreciate the in-depth look that you are giving it.

I will go into the motivation that lies behind the bill and give the committee a flavour of why I am here in the first place. I started thinking about the bill back when we were in the middle of the pandemic. I was thinking particularly about key workers who caught Covid in the course of their work, some of whom developed long Covid and have not been able to go back to work at all. The motivation was really about how we could get long Covid on to the list of prescribed diseases in order to support those key workers, who did not have the luxury of being able to self-isolate, and how we could support them through the new employment injury assistance, which is about to be delivered by the Scottish Government now that the benefit has been devolved.

However, when I looked deeper into the current scheme, which is industrial injuries disablement benefit, the failings in that system became apparent to me, and it was clear that it is more than just people with long Covid who are in desperate need of support. You have heard evidence about the range of people who are being missed out and left behind by the current system, and about the gendered nature of the entitlement as it stands, in that only 7 per cent of applicants through the prescribed route are women. It is a social security entitlement that essentially fails half of the population.

The current system is also outdated in terms of the types of employment that it covers. It does not reflect modern workplaces in the 21st century. Essentially, it supports the male-dominated heavy industry that existed in the 1960s and 1970s. You have heard compelling evidence from trade unions and workers’ representatives about the types of people who are being missed out, including firefighters, shift workers, care workers and footballers with head injuries. As I said, women are completely ignored by the current system. That is why, taking a step back from the long Covid aspect, I felt that a whole-systems approach was more appropriate and important, and that is how I have come to this point today.

The timing of the introduction of the bill and of the proposed council is important, because the Government and the Parliament will need concrete evidence on what the new benefit should look like, so the council will need to be in place to advise on modernising the benefit before it is fully devolved and delivered. The Scottish Government’s agency agreement with the Department for Work and Pensions says that it must have a business case and a plan in place for how it will deliver the new benefit by the end of March 2025. That is not very far away: it is less than a year and a half away. The Parliament and the Government really need to get on with the job of delivering what the new entitlement will look like.

In the evidence session last week, the cabinet secretary welcomed the wealth of work that we have collated. A lot of work has gone into the bill and the consultation before it. There is no need to reinvent the wheel; there is a ready-made proposal that the Government could adopt. There is a real risk that, running up to the March 2025 deadline, the Government could end up duplicating a lot of that work and having to do so in a hurry, which would probably cost it a lot more money.

The cabinet secretary and I have an outstanding meeting that we need to put in the diary. When we meet, I will say to her that there is a line in the bill that relates specifically to commencement. I am more than happy to discuss and negotiate with the Government what it thinks the best date for commencement is, and whether it would prefer to commence the bill by regulations and leave it entirely within its gift to choose the date. I am absolutely open to the Government on timing. However, as I said, we are fast running out of time.

The cabinet secretary also said that she thought that an advisory council is perhaps one piece of the jigsaw of employment injury assistance. I fundamentally disagree with that. I do not think that the council would be one piece of the jigsaw. It would be the body of expertise and lived experience that would design the jigsaw. It would advise the Government on designing it and putting it together; it would not just be a single piece of the jigsaw.

Members will see from the bill that the council would have the capacity to commission its own independent research. The membership criteria are clear. The council would draw on medical expertise, workers and their representatives and, crucially, those with lived experience of employment injuries and illnesses. There would be a balance of employers and employees on the council.

Finally, the crucial point is that the bill would deliver the Government’s aspiration to be a fair work nation. The Fair Work Convention supports the proposal, because one of the key planks of the ambition to be a fair work nation is giving workers effective voice. It is about giving workers—those with lived experience and real, in-depth knowledge of injuries and illnesses at work—their seat at the table and a voice in designing the new benefit and ensuring that it is what it could and should look like: fit for modern Scotland, 21st century workplaces, and the illnesses and injuries that workers get today and will get into the future.

I look forward to questions. Thank you for the time, convener.

That would require primary legislation like the bill, so it would take a lot longer and would push a lot closer up to the deadline that the Government has for taking over responsibility for the benefit. We would need to mirror the provisions in the bill on membership, the balance of employers and employees, and ensuring that the body included lived experience, so I guess that we would still need primary legislation to implement that. I am not sure how much financial saving there would be from creating a sub-group of SCOSS with essentially the same purpose and function, and it would probably take longer to get to the same point as we would reach by passing the bill.