Meeting of the Parliament 11 January 2023
I agree with what the member has said. The irony is that, as the committee was taking evidence regarding the regulations, the snow was falling outside and the temperature had plummeted. People in England and Wales were getting money in their pockets, yet, four days later, people in Scotland had received zero.
This benefit will particularly affect people with disability, as not all disabled people will get it. People who need the money because they stay in their houses longer than other people and therefore need to heat them for longer will miss out. We are calling on the Scottish Government to come up with a new scheme for next year that is designed to help vulnerable people in Scotland.
We heard evidence from Social Security Scotland and the minister about the lack of ministerial involvement in the design of the scheme. They seem to have been quite happy to leave it to their officials to do all the work and to simply not engage with the difficult issues. Perhaps most damning is the fact that, when giving evidence, neither the minister nor Social Security Scotland could guarantee that people would get their money in February—and why is that?