Hansard

I thank all those who have contributed to and supported the development of the bill. I know that the past months have been hard on everyone, so I am particularly grateful to the organisations, groups and individuals who have worked hard to help us with the bill and to improve it.

I give grateful thanks to the members of the Scottish Government’s disability and carers benefits expert advisory group and members of our ill health and disability benefits stakeholder reference group, to colleagues in the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and to the chief medical officer, the chief nursing officer and staff in their offices. Their work has been invaluable in ensuring that the bill is as it is today. I thank the stakeholder groups that have contributed, including Citizens Advice Scotland, the Child Poverty Action Group, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Scottish Association for Mental Health, Inclusion Scotland and the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland.

I also extend my thanks to all the members of the Social Security Committee, past and present, and to the committee’s convener and the clerking team, who have supported a process of parliamentary scrutiny that was undertaken in difficult and unprecedented circumstances. Of course, I also very much thank my bill team and private office for their support throughout.

As that list of involved and interested parties makes clear, the bill covers a broad range of matters. It is an important package of changes to the framework of Scottish social security legislation, which is still very new. The changes that the bill will make are necessary and valuable, and, in the case of provisions that are required before the launch of the Government’s brand-new benefit, the Scottish child payment, they are urgent.

I will take a little time to talk through some of the improvements that were made to the bill during its earlier stages. In relation to appointees, I am pleased that the bill now includes safeguards to ensure that the process of appointment is not misused. The guidelines that govern how decisions on appointments should be made will now be on a statutory footing, and the list of safeguarding principles, which include principles drawn from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, was added at stage 2. Those provisions will ensure that, when an appointment is made, it will always be the best and most appropriate arrangement for the individual. In the event that those arrangements are not appropriate, the bill now provides the right to apply to the First-tier Tribunal for a review of the appointment decision.

A second improvement has been the extension of the existing duty in the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 to inform individuals of their potential eligibility for other forms of assistance. That was based on the Social Security Committee’s recommendation that the section 53 duties should be extended to cover benefits, such as the Scottish child payment, that are made using the top-up powers in section 79 of the 2018 act. I was more than happy to accept that recommendation. Promoting the take-up of Scotland’s social security benefits and removing the barriers to claim entitlements is the right thing to do. It encapsulates many of the principles of the 2018 act, including that social security is an investment in the people of Scotland, that social security is a human right, that the Scottish social security system is there to contribute to reducing poverty in Scotland and that delivery of social security is a public service.

The bill also makes some adjustments to provide for cases in which a diagnosis of terminal illness is made by a medical professional who is based outwith the United Kingdom, who will, of course, not be subject to our chief medical officer’s guidance. The new guidance does not specify how healthcare professionals should be trained. The issue was discussed in detail during stage 2, when I made it clear that I absolutely recognised that the improved terminal illness definition in Scotland introduces a change in the way that some of our health professionals will carry out their duties in relation to terminally ill patients. That is why the CMO’s guidance is very detailed; it is also why we have taken other steps to ensure that the right support is in place—for example, by developing additional support measures with the terminal illness national implementation group.

I am pleased that, in the end, we have agreed a sensible approach to ensuring that only appropriate health professionals provide a clinical judgment by including a number of requirements and criteria in a combination of regulations and guidance from the CMO.

During the bill process, a clear case was made for us to provide for suspension and non-payment of assistance in a very narrow and specific range of circumstances. To ensure that there will be no negative consequences of the use of those provisions, there are a number of safeguards to ensure that the rights of the individual are respected at all times. Our amendments to allow for the value of certain types of assistance to be set at zero will also be used only when it will be of benefit to the individual concerned—for example, by allowing payments of specific on-going benefits to be restarted more quickly when the individual’s stay in a care home or in hospital has come to an end. I am pleased that organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group, Citizens Advice Scotland, Inclusion Scotland and the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland have all responded positively to those changes and that they consider them to be improvements to the bill.

The final way in which I think that the bill has been improved is in the opportunity that it presented for the Scottish Government—prompted by Jeremy Balfour—to reaffirm our commitment to moving areas of competence and jurisdiction that the sheriff court currently holds to the First-tier Tribunal, in relation to the recovery of money that is owed to Social Security Scotland. We made changes at stage 2 that demonstrate that commitment but that also allow a consultative and considered approach to be taken that will ensure that the transfer is effected appropriately while guarding against unintended consequences.

I am pleased that the final additions to the bill that have been made today have had support from across the chamber. Those additions will bring forward the increase in the value of the Scottish child payment in line with inflation. I am pleased and proud that, in the teeth of a global pandemic, the Scottish child payment will open for applications in November, with the first payments to start from the end of February 2021. That is only two months later than we previously planned, despite the impact of Covid. The amendments that have just been agreed to will ensure that the payment will be uprated every year in line with inflation from April 2022 onwards.

In conclusion, I thank everyone who has helped to shape the bill.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees that the Social Security Administration and Tribunal Membership (Scotland) Bill be passed.