Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 26 May 2022
We will hold the minister to account on that because it is important. Not only I, but all the children and people with disabilities will hold him to account to ensure that that is fulfilled. I hope that he is right.
There also needs to be a focus on costs. Miles Briggs was right about that. The cost of the benefits is an additional £760 million according to Audit Scotland. The implementation costs have doubled since 2017. The criteria have changed and the scope is different, but, nevertheless, it is quite an increase from what was originally planned.
I understand the purpose of having, and the need for, an agile system that has a focus on the needs of the user. However, it comes with costs to the system. We must recognise that money is not unlimited and ensure that the system is in balance. Perhaps the minister could tell us in his closing speech how he will keep control of those costs.
We have heard more today from the minister, but we need the full details of the replanning of several benefits that need to be rescheduled: the pension age disability payment, various carers payments and employment injury assistance. All of that needs to be set out in detail, because people are dependent on those benefits.
The cost of living crisis must be at the centre of everything that we think about in the Parliament. It will plunge huge numbers of people into poverty. We have met many people who are experiencing that already and it will only get worse. The package that the chancellor announced today will help with that to some degree but we must be ready to do more and the Parliament must do more.
The Child Poverty Action Group is calling for a number of steps to be taken, including the doubling of the bridging payments for the Scottish child payment. I hope that the minister will address that, too, and ensure that there is a commitment to it because children are desperate for that money right now. There are thousands of carers who get nowhere near any carers support and that needs to be addressed before long. Thousands and thousands of people who care for loved ones get no recognition for it.
Back in 2015, I asked our representatives on the Smith commission—Tavish Scott and Michael Moore—to make the case for the transfer of significant welfare powers, because I believed that the non-universal credit items should largely be devolved. I wanted greater synergy with the work of this Parliament. I thought that it was a substantial transfer of powers, but also that it was reasonable. It created a big, multibillion-pound budget. It was not everything that the SNP wanted, but it was significant.
A few months earlier—casting our minds back—the SNP was claiming that it would deliver independence within 16 months. Seven years later, we are not even near the end of the transfer of the benefits—
Ben Macpherson rose—