I am certainly interested. Our concern is how social security powers, wherever they lie, can be used to prevent child poverty and the wider inequalities that underpin that poverty. The way in which any devolution package is delivered, as well as how those powers might be used, can have a huge impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of financial support to individuals and families. In our mind, there is no question but that the draft clauses interpret the Smith commission’s recommendations pretty narrowly. With some of the opportunities that we thought would flow from the Smith recommendations, such as the possibility of creating new benefits in Scotland and of topping up benefits, the draft clauses do not give effect to the recommendations in the way that we, and people more widely, understood would be the case.
Another key point is that the bulk of social security powers will still lie at UK level, which is important for us in relation to how we influence social security policy. Having said that, there are real opportunities in the powers that are proposed for devolution and in the draft clauses, even as they stand. For example, there are opportunities to improve the delivery of universal credit and, potentially, levels of housing support, given the devolution of the housing element of universal credit. There is the potential to provide support with maternity costs and to improve the adequacy of and access to disability and carers benefits.
Those are real opportunities, but the important point, which I think is what the committee is looking to draw out today, is about how the clauses are given effect and how that can be done in such a way that it minimises the impact of creating new administrative interfaces and ensures that claimants do not fall between the interfaces. We need to ensure that we have a system that allows for the delivery of minimum standards for social security payments in Scotland and that there is adequate accountability and adequate oversight, with opportunities for claimants to appeal. We need to ensure that there is no loss of passporting arrangements. When replacement benefits are created under devolution, we need to ensure that claimants in Scotland can continue to be passported and can access the reserved benefits to which they would currently be passported.
The final key issue for us is to ensure that, through the process, we protect the role of cash benefits as a social security entitlement, particularly in meeting the extra costs of disability.
There are real opportunities, but there are also real risks. We need to ensure that we get the process right and that we get the package right in a way that means that we improve the potential of our social security system to tackle poverty and do not create any unnecessary new holes that claimants can fall through.