I thought that we had a settled, albeit inadequate, position on the bedroom tax from the First Minister at First Minister’s questions last week, but we now have what I think must be about the 10th position on tax credits from the SNP in 10 days. Today’s debate should not be dominated by that, because we know that that debate will continue for many months to come.
In general, I welcome the fact that more than £2.5 billion of social security responsibility will come to Scotland. While I may personally have wanted a bit more to come to Scotland, I think that everybody will recognise that the Smith recommendations on social security, and indeed on other matters, have now been substantially delivered.
We have to give credit to the United Kingdom Government for the changes that it made on Monday, the main ones being the introduction of new devolved benefits and the ability to top up reserved benefits. There were other changes, too—I will not list them all, but they include the removal of the restrictive definition in relation to carers allowance. I think that all that has been welcomed by most members of the SNP in other contexts.
Of course, there was also some disappointment. Consideration by the House of Lords is still to come, so we can look to Baroness Goldie if we want further changes. There was disappointment that the restrictive definition in relation to disability benefits was not changed, so there is still scope there. There was also disappointment that there was no amendment to the employment programme provisions, which means that, although the administration of programmes is being devolved, problems remain to do with access and the interrelationship with the sanctions regime.
As the convener of the Welfare Reform Committee, Hugh Henry, said, the committee heard from a range of organisations. I was pleased to read some of their submissions, although I could not read them all, because such a large number of organisations are interested in the subject.
Hugh Henry summarised some of the key principles that emerged from the submissions: we need a system that is based on personal and human rights; there should be passporting rather than a multiplicity of claims; the system should be simple; and, crucially, there should be a person-centred system with dignity and respect at its heart.
In that regard, I was interested to see the Poverty Alliance’s comment that dignity and choice are closely related. As a criticism of something that the Scottish Government has done already, it said:
“We have seen this in the delivery of the Scottish Welfare Fund with people feeling that they have been stigmatised by the lack of choice in how grants are awarded”.
That of course is a reference to vouchers being given out, rather than cash.
Shelter was also enthusiastic about the principles. I do not have time to quote what Shelter said, but it felt that there were great opportunities to embed the principles of dignity, respect and so on in Scotland’s housing system. I hope that that approach will be reflected in the abolition of the bedroom tax very soon after the powers are acquired.
There were lots of positive suggestions from different organisations—even from those that wanted more powers. For example, the Scottish Association for Mental Health wanted the access to work programme to be devolved as part of the employment programmes. SAMH also made the interesting point that more individuals with mental health problems should be referred to the work choice programme, which will be devolved, pointing out that that would allow
“a greater number of people with disabilities to access the specialist support they require”.
The issue of disability featured prominently in the submissions, given that substantial powers over disability benefits are being devolved. One Parent Families Scotland made the interesting point that control over disability benefits should be at the national level, rather than at the local level. It was concerned about the “erosion of entitlement”, among other matters. That is one interesting issue that we will have to debate. Sometimes it is better if things are local, but One Parent Families is arguing for the national administration of disability benefits.
As ever, Inclusion Scotland made interesting comments. Some of its demands involve extra money, and that is one thing that we will have to consider, but many of its suggestions do not need more money. For example, it said that
“staff administering the new disability benefits system in Scotland”
should have customer-focused
“Disability Equality Training.”
It added that face-to-face assessments should become less common, and suggests that the benefit should be renamed “Social Participation Benefit”. I found all those suggestions interesting, and I am sure that we will reflect on them.
Similarly, the Child Poverty Action Group made many suggestions about the transition to PIP. For example, it said that we should
“Dramatically reduce the use of face-to-face assessment”
and
“Ensure that all assessments are performed by an appropriately qualified specialist.”
There are a lot of really useful suggestions that do not have financial implications, as well as suggestions that do.
I will move on, although I will stick with the Child Poverty Action Group. We forget that lots of smaller benefits, such as maternity grants, will be devolved. CPAG proposes that we should
“Link their delivery with health services”,
and suggests that
“The delivery of maternity grants should be automated as far as possible”.
As we would expect, Marie Curie Cancer Care emphasises that all devolved benefits
“must include a system of fast tracking for those ... with a terminal illness, and their carers”.
There are lots of suggestions for us to reflect on.
I will end with some final concerns. One Parent Families Scotland was concerned that any additional carers benefit, such as that announced by the Scottish Government, might be taken into account in calculating entitlement to means-tested benefits. That relates to the more general point that John Swinney made in his letter to the Secretary of State for Scotland. We still need some clarity about that issue, because we do not want the result of any extra spending from the Scottish Government’s budget to be deductions made in other ways from the income of the individuals who receive that money. That is a very important point.
As Kevin Stewart pointed out, we have to set all this in the context of the size of the budget. There two issues here. This is not just about the amount of money that is transferred in 2017, which I think will be relatively simple to calculate. For example, I presume that, whatever percentage of the DLA/PIP budget we have in 2017, that money will be transferred, with an equivalent reduction made to our grant.
However, what happens subsequently is crucial. What will the mechanism be for adjusting the budget? I presume that that will be discussed as part of the fiscal framework. We have a more-or-less agreed decision on taxation and on indexing for income tax—there is still some controversy about that, but there is general agreement about the way forward. There is no such agreement on the way forward for adjusting the welfare budget. David Bell made an interesting point in his submission when he said that
“if the indexation mechanism takes account of Scotland’s growing share of the elderly population, then the risk that claims in Scotland could only be funded by diverting funds from other priorities would be avoided.”
That is one argument that the Scottish Government should perhaps be making.
That serves as a reminder that Scotland’s growing share of the elderly population featured prominently in debates during the independence referendum. I do not want to spoil the tone of the debate but we should remind ourselves that, when Kevin Stewart assumes that full devolution—I presume that he means full devolution—of the social security system and, beyond that, independence would suddenly solve all those problems and be a panacea, that is where we fundamentally disagree.