Committee
Social Security Committee 28 February 2019
28 Feb 2019 · S5 · Social Security Committee
Item of business
Subordinate Legislation
Carer’s Allowance Up-rating (Scotland) Regulations 2019 (SSI 2019/21)
Thank you, convener, and good morning. I welcome the opportunity to provide evidence on the draft Carer’s Allowance Up-rating (Scotland) Order 2019 and the Carer’s Allowance Up-rating (Scotland) Regulations 2019. This is the first time that the committee will hear evidence on social security uprating legislation. Hearing such evidence is to become an annual event. As members know, through the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, we committed to uprating carers assistance, disability assistance, employment injury assistance and funeral expense assistance annually, and to reviewing all types of social security assistance annually. Members may recall that I wrote to the committee on 12 December last year setting out our approach to the uprating of the carers allowance and the carers allowance supplement, which will be uprated in line with the consumer prices index, or CPI. I highlight that the instruments that we are discussing today are about the uprating of those benefits and how that is measured, and not about the level of the benefits. The place for that discussion was during the Scottish budget deliberations—a process that the Parliament completed a matter of weeks ago. The draft order and the regulations are about how we ensure that the benefit levels that we agree on as members of the Scottish Parliament retain their value. The committee will be aware that we introduced the carers allowance supplement last summer to address the fact that the carers allowance is the lowest working-age benefit. The supplement has brought the carers allowance up to the level of the jobseekers allowance, and it can rightly be hailed as a success. It has put an extra £442 into over 77,000 carers’ pockets in 2018-19, which represents an increase of 13 per cent and an investment in Scotland’s carers of over £33 million. As I have previously explained to the committee, getting that extra money into carers’ pockets as early as last summer was possible only because of the use of an agency agreement with the Department for Work and Pensions. Without that, additional payments would have been delayed while the policy was decided and a system was built to implement it. The agency agreement was drafted as it was to enable us to uprate the carers allowance using the CPI. As well as being the right mechanism to use in itself, it allows a consistent approach to be taken across the carers allowance and the supplement. That approach will continue until we have our own regulations in place for the Scottish form of the carers allowance. We are committed to ensuring that benefits in Scotland keep pace with the cost of living. I turn to the detail of how we will achieve that. We will uprate the carers allowance through powers in United Kingdom legislation. The draft order proposes that we uprate it according to the September 2018 consumer prices index rate, which was 2.4 per cent. That is also the rate at which the Department for Work and Pensions will uprate the carers allowance in England and Wales. The order will increase the weekly rate of the carers allowance from £64.60 to £66.15. The order and the regulations will also make some adjustments to additional payments that are made to a few long-term recipients of the carers allowance: the adult dependency increase and the child dependency increase. For many years, both payments have been abolished for new claims, but they remain in place for a small number of carers. The regulations will increase the carers allowance earnings threshold—the amount that a carer can earn in a given week and still be eligible for the benefit—from £120 to £123. There will also be changes to the earnings thresholds that relate to the historical payments that I have mentioned. The changes are set out in detail in the regulations, and they will mean that, for that small number of cases, the payments will increase by a few pounds. I will now speak about the annual uprate of the carers allowance supplement. As agreed in the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, no new regulations are required to bring the uprate into effect. However, it is worth highlighting the uprate, because it demonstrates the commitment that the Government has made, through the 2018 act, that the carers allowance will match the rate at which the jobseekers allowance would be paid if it had been uprated. Our approach to uprating means that the supplement will increase from the equivalent of £8.50 a week to £8.70 a week. That means that, in Scotland, we will provide carers with an extra £452.40 a year compared with what is being provided by our counterparts south of the border. That represents an additional investment in carers of about £37 million in the next financial year from the Scottish Government. Taking into account social security in 2019-20 and what we are providing through the carers allowance and the supplement, we are investing a total of £320 million in carers. I am sure that the committee will agree that that investment is just and right for Scotland’s carers. I am happy to take questions from the committee.
In the same item of business
The Convener
SNP
We move on to agenda item 2. The committee will take evidence on the draft Carer’s Allowance Up-rating (Scotland) Order 2019, which is subject to the affirma...
The Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People (Shirley-Anne Somerville)
SNP
Thank you, convener, and good morning. I welcome the opportunity to provide evidence on the draft Carer’s Allowance Up-rating (Scotland) Order 2019 and the C...
The Convener
SNP
Thank you, cabinet secretary. I am sure that there will be a few questions. Before I bring in fellow committee members, I would like to ask about the proces...
Shirley-Anne Somerville
SNP
You raise an important point about how the process will progress over the years, as Social Security Scotland begins to deliver more benefits. The benefits wi...
The Convener
SNP
I have one more question. I will reserve additional comments for our debate under the next agenda item and will be more concise than I was in my previous que...
Shirley-Anne Somerville
SNP
Yes, we will have statutory obligations as we pass each piece of legislation, whether that is on carers assistance or any of the other payments that will be ...
The Convener
SNP
Okay. The reason for asking that question is that it allows the committee to return to that in a structured, process-driven and evidence-based way at a later...
Mark Griffin (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Lab
I have questions on each instrument. I will start on the earnings threshold. The paper that the Government has provided to the committee says: “As the incre...
Shirley-Anne Somerville
SNP
Yes, I do. I appreciate that I have a difference of opinion with the Labour Party on how we should measure the uprating—that was demonstrated yesterday—but I...
Mark Griffin
Lab
My question is not really about our difference of opinion; it is about the factual situation. This year, a carer on the national living wage is able to work ...
Shirley-Anne Somerville
SNP
I absolutely appreciate the cliff edge that exists for carers assistance, and I appreciate the difficult conversations that carers might need to have. It com...
Mark Griffin
Lab
Do you not regret the fact that carers will have to ask for a reduction in their working hours as a result of the changes to the threshold combined with chan...
Shirley-Anne Somerville
SNP
When the act was passed, we had a choice to either sign an agency agreement with the DWP that put £442 into the pockets of carers on the lowest incomes or ta...
Mark Griffin
Lab
Have you been in touch with the UK Government to inquire about any flexibility in the earnings threshold that would allow carers in Scotland to maintain thei...
Shirley-Anne Somerville
SNP
We have signed an agency agreement with the DWP that ensures that we will move forward with the carers allowance as it is currently delivered. If we want to ...
Mark Griffin
Lab
Convener, I have questions on the other instrument, but do you want to give other members the opportunity to ask some questions?
The Convener
SNP
It is probably better if you just finish off your line of questioning, and then I will let other members in.
Mark Griffin
Lab
I have a quote here, which states that the consumer prices index “does not adequately reflect the cost of living and ... moreover, the Treasury must already...
Shirley-Anne Somerville
SNP
In looking at how to measure inflation, we have taken into account the work of, for example, the Office for National Statistics, the Bank of England and the ...
Mark Griffin
Lab
The quote that I gave is from Jamie Hepburn, who is one of your ministerial colleagues. It reflects quite clearly the Government’s position that, when it com...
Shirley-Anne Somerville
SNP
If the committee was not content with that paragraph, I would have been more than happy to respond to another letter asking for more detail at that time. I a...
Mark Griffin
Lab
On the issue of the uprating mechanism, your policy note mentions that you relied on the consultation on the Social Security (Scotland) Bill. Again, I ask th...
Shirley-Anne Somerville
SNP
There is no statutory requirement to consult on this instrument, but uprating was part of the consultation on the Social Security (Scotland) Bill. That consu...
The Convener
SNP
I know that that was an extensive line of questioning, but it is important that we have that level of scrutiny. I remind members that, if they have wider co...
Alison Johnstone (Lothian) (Green)
Green
I appreciate that the Scottish Government is currently committed by the agency agreement with the United Kingdom Government to uprate carers allowance in lin...
Shirley-Anne Somerville
SNP
Certainly. I am in contact with stakeholders when we move forward with social security, and carers organisations are no different from other stakeholders. I ...
Pauline McNeill (Glasgow) (Lab)
Lab
I want to get something clear in my own mind before the debate. No legislation is required to effect the uprate, but it is open to the Scottish Government in...
Shirley-Anne Somerville
SNP
No legislation is required in the case of the carers allowance supplement. However, as I said during the debate yesterday, I know that there are differing vi...
Pauline McNeill
Lab
But it is a choice.
Shirley-Anne Somerville
SNP
Yes—for the carers allowance supplement.