Hansard

I am pleased to contribute to the stage 1 debate on the Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill. As Deputy Convener of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, I echo the thanks to all of those who supported us to gather evidence for our stage 1 report and to support the general principles of the legislation that is before us this afternoon. I echo the comments of our committee’s convener, Collette Stevenson.

The Scottish Parliament unanimously passed the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, and the SNP Government has always sought to base social security in Scotland on dignity, fairness and respect—an endeavour that the whole Parliament can be proud of. That is absolutely true of one aspect of the bill, which sets up a legal framework to allow new benefits for care-experienced people and families with children. In particular, it will pave the way for the proposed care leaver payment.

However, I want to highlight the power in the bill to change the legislative footing of the Scottish child payment. The Scottish child payment is currently designed as a top-up for families with children who are on a qualifying UK benefit. For instance, it addresses the lack of adequate financial support for struggling families who are on universal credit from the UK Government. It does so without a two-child limit or a rape clause. We should be proud that this Scotland-only benefit is keeping 100,000 children out of poverty.

Paul O’Kane spoke about some of what I am about to speak about. We need to get better data on a lot of this. The Government should embrace that, because it will show a lot of good news for the Scottish Government. Our committee heard that there are lots of children who might not make it over the poverty line but whose families have been in deep and persistent poverty for generations and who can still see their lives transformed. That is the point that I was trying to make earlier to the cabinet secretary. It would be great to get some of that data.

The evidence base in support of the Scottish child payment is so strong that we should be evangelical about it to the rest of the UK. It is why academics such as Danny Dorling were keen to see a comparative study on approaches to child poverty in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. As the representative for Maryhill and Springburn, I want to see how the life experiences of young people in Maryhill compare with those of young people in Merseyside because of the existence of the Scottish child payment. That could make a compelling evidence base to persuade any incoming UK Government that it should do likewise.

Because of the direct link with UK benefits, there is a potential issue with the Scottish child payment. If a person who moved off universal credit had been claiming the Scottish child payment beforehand, they would lose all their entitlement to the latter. That represents what we might call a cliff-edge drop in income, which is why the stand-alone nature that the bill would create for the Scottish child payment is so important. If—and I stress the word “if”—resources were to allow it, we could introduce a benefits taper or run-on to support families in Scotland who move off UK benefits. That would require direct partnership working with the UK Government, but it could get many families into well-paid, meaningful employment in the longer term. The current legislative framework does not allow for that, so I welcome the changes contained in the bill.

If I have time, I will say a little about the bill’s provisions on changes to redeterminations and appeals. They include allowing requests for those procedures to be submitted after a year, in exceptional circumstances. Another example would allow individuals to withdraw their redetermination requests. The reason that I am putting only two changes on the record is that some of the most interesting evidence that the committee heard was about what is not in the bill. The examples that I have just read out might sound relatively technical, but we heard suggestions that included having a cooling-off period for the withdrawal of a redetermination or an appeal, which would be beneficial to the people I represent.

There was also an interesting discussion among various witnesses from third sector and voluntary organisations about whether we should remove the redetermination mechanism altogether and move straight to an appeals process. Some of them thought that the mechanism could be swifter and could avoid having a two-stage process, which might deter some people. However, others said that the appeals process put some of their clients off, so the redetermination process was incredibly important. The Scottish Government reflected that it could overburden the tribunal service.

I will finish on this point. The committee’s convener said that the Scottish Government is seeking to lodge amendments to offer clients choice within the redetermination process. However, our approach should be not so much about processes as about making those support people who are entitled to claim benefits in order to meet their needs. We have to get that right, and I believe that the bill does that very well.