Meeting of the Parliament 18 April 2024
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. As a member of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, I have, over the past number of months, spent a great deal of time carefully considering the bill. I genuinely commend Mark Griffin for the time and effort that he has put into the process; I know from personal experience that it requires no small level of effort and dedication to get a member’s bill to this point.
I should also mention Mark Griffin’s parliamentary staff, who have, I know, done a lot of work to support the member in getting us to where we are today. In addition, I thank the committee clerks for the work that they have put into helping us to produce the report.
Unfortunately, despite that, I will not be able to support the general principles of the bill, as we see it today. Although I agree with a number of the underlying assumptions that Mr Griffin sets out, Conservative members do not believe that the establishment at this time of a Scottish employment advisory council is the best way forward.
One of the more unfortunate aspects of the context surrounding the bill is that it has been introduced too early. As is clear from its title, the body that the bill seeks to establish would be closely linked to the employment injury assistance benefit. Unfortunately, however, the Scottish Government is still waiting for EIA to be devolved, eight years on from the passing of the Scotland Act 2016. It seems that we are still nowhere near the Scottish Government taking over administration of EIA. We are therefore far from needing an advisory board to oversee it. Even if, for a moment, we were to accept the premise that such a board is strictly necessary for implementation of the benefit, if we were to establish it now there would be a pause for goodness knows how long before it actually had any work to undertake. That would be neither financially nor practically sensible.