Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 08 June 2021
That is duly noted. I look forward to working with the cabinet secretary and with Mr Macpherson in the coming months and years.
In the previous session of Parliament, we saw lack of urgency from the Government in delivering the social security powers that have been devolved to this Parliament. We could spend a lot of time talking about universal credit and about the powers that we do not have, but we need to spend more time talking about the powers that we do have and the delays that have taken place.
I know that we will probably be told during the summing up that the delays are all because of the pandemic and that all the powers would have been delivered had it not been for the pandemic. That is not the case. We have heard statement after statement from cabinet secretaries and ministers who have told us that the benefits would not be delivered on time and that there was always going to be a delay. That has held back what we could and should have been able to deliver.
There is a total lack of ambition within the Scottish Government. I hope that with the new cabinet secretary we can look at what will be delivered. Just before Parliament rose at the end of the previous session, a consultation was sent out about disability living allowance and personal independence payments for adults. It copied, almost comma for comma, the regulations and legislation from Westminster. We had discussions at committee and in the chamber about people who have conditions that do not easily fit in a box and who therefore miss out on PIP. The consultation was an opportunity to address that. It was also an opportunity to address whether the 20m rule is fair on people who have mobility problems. In all the hustings that I attended during the election campaign, people from all parties said that that must change, but we see that the Government has followed exactly the same rules in its consultation.
I hope that the cabinet secretary will look at what the amendments to the motion suggest and produce radical change in that regard, because otherwise I and—I hope—other MSPs will vote against the motion.
We have power: the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 gave us power to create new benefits. If we see gaps in the system, we should use the powers that we have, rather than talk about what we cannot do.
16:10