成人快手

Skip to main content
Loading…

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.  

Filter your results Hide all filters

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 16 August 2025
Select which types of business to include


Select level of detail in results

Displaying 1311 contributions

|

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 2 March 2023

Jeremy Balfour

My final question is to the whole panel. There will be a further review of charity law once the bill has been passed, but is there anything missing from the bill that you think should be in the bill? Is there anything that stands out that would make the life of your charity and your trustees easier?

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Social Security (Additional Payments) (No 2) Bill

Meeting date: 23 February 2023

Jeremy Balfour

I have no question, but I refer again to the interest that I noted under a previous item.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 23 February 2023

Jeremy Balfour

We might return to that this afternoon in another of my questions, but are we looking at before summer or after summer? Is there at least some kind of timescale for when we can look out for this information?

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 23 February 2023

Jeremy Balfour

I understand that there is a statutory duty under the 2018 act, but, as we roll out the benefits and as we look at it, is it helpful to have a statutory duty, or would you rather have greater discretion so that you can look at each one? As you say, for certain benefits, we have to uprate by statute. Would it be helpful, as you review and see how the scheme works, not to have a statutory duty but for the Government to have discretion on how different payments should go up? Alternatively, are you happy to keep it statutory?

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 23 February 2023

Jeremy Balfour

That is fine.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 23 February 2023

Jeremy Balfour

Before I ask my question, can I declare an interest? I am on the higher rate of the personal independence payment, so I have a financial benefit from one of the benefits we are talking about.

I go back to your comment about the winter heating payment being reviewed. Clearly, the sooner information sharing between the Scottish Government and the DWP can happen, the better. How quickly will the review take place and how will it be reported?

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 23 February 2023

Jeremy Balfour

That is all that I was looking for. I understand the legal point. I just wanted to know whether you are happy with that as it is.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 23 February 2023

Jeremy Balfour

You have covered some of this already, minister, so I hope that we can do it quickly.

Clearly, to an extent, the funding mechanism creates an incentive to follow DWP uprating policies. Looking forward, do you see potential for the Scottish Government to take a different view and have a higher or a lower figure? Also, do you envisage any variation between benefits? You have gone for 10.1 per cent across all benefits. Can you see a day when maybe one benefit is uprated more than others so that the approach is more targeted? How easy is it to do that with the powers that you have?

10:00  

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 23 February 2023

Jeremy Balfour

My concern, minister, is that that could take months and we would then be in June or July. If you came to the view that you wanted to make the payments in November or December, that would give the DWP very little time to pass that information to you. Have you at least highlighted to the DWP the possibility that you might want to make the payment in this calendar year, and have you asked it by what date it would need to know? Hypothetically, if we wanted to make the payments at the end of November or the beginning of December, when would the DWP need to know that in order to be able to provide the information in time? Rather than you deciding in July that you want to make the payment in November and the DWP then saying that it is just not possible to provide the data quickly enough, do you have anything from the DWP saying that, if you want to make the payment in November, it needs to know that by whatever date?

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Scottish Commission on Social Security

Meeting date: 9 February 2023

Jeremy Balfour

Thank you. My final question is about the process. The committee was keen to look at taking a human rights approach to decision making and how that works. Is that something that the commission is looking at? Is taking a human rights approach one of the principles by which you judge these things? Moreover, do you also see that happening in the Scottish Government鈥檚 decision making?