Thank you, convener. I am grateful for the opportunity to come back to the committee and provide this update. I would like to start with the issues that were raised around the statement that I made to the chamber last week, when I highlighted areas of disagreement in our negotiations with the United Kingdom Government.
The first of those concerns housing benefits for 18 to 21-year-olds. Since June 2016, at both official and ministerial level, we have been pursuing a means by which both Governments could meet their specific objectives. As members will recall, the UK Government’s objective is to remove eligibility to housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds, and ours is to retain that eligibility. Our solution is to use section 11(4) of the Welfare Reform Act 2012, which allows the Department for Work and Pensions to vary the calculation of the housing element of universal credit, rather than section 11(5), which allows the DWP to change eligibility and is the section that it intends to use and on which it has produced draft regulations. The reason for our position is that, under the Scotland Act 2016, the Scottish Ministers have no power to restore eligibility, but we do have powers under section 11(4) of the 2012 act. I am afraid that not only would the UK Government not consider our approach, but it has also refused so far to commit to our alternative solution, which is to add 18 to 21-year-olds living in Scotland to what is already a long list of exceptions that it has made to its own policy.
The second area of disagreement concerns the UK Government’s intention to apply its benefit cap to individuals who are considered to have income above the benefit cap level as a result of our abolition of the bedroom tax at source—members will recall that that abolition is a clear manifesto commitment for the Scottish Government. Our position is very clear and is well founded on the Smith commission, the fiscal framework and the enduring settlement, which all state explicitly, as at paragraph 89 of the fiscal framework,
“that any new benefits or discretionary payments introduced by the Scottish Government must provide additional income for a recipient and not result in an automatic offsetting reduction by the UK government in their entitlement elsewhere in the UK benefits system.”
Angela Constance and I have both raised those issues on a number of occasions, in addition to the work of our officials. We have raised them at ministerial level with Caroline Nokes, Damian Hinds and David Mundell, in the hope that agreement could be reached. We finally raised them at last week’s joint ministerial working group—the appropriate place and process—where we specifically challenged both David Mundell and Damian Hinds to explain to us why the DWP could not simply flag people in Scotland for whom the bedroom tax was abolished and disapply the UK Government’s benefit cap from their universal credit award. The answer remains no, although, as I said in the chamber last week, we still do not have a clear explanation as to why not.
The solution that is being offered to us is for the Scottish Government to provide any capped individuals with a discretionary housing payment equal to the amount of universal credit that they have lost.
I am very clear that we cannot agree to that. It would involve additional DHP expenditure by the Scottish Government and would, in effect, result in our paying twice to abolish the bedroom tax because we would, of course, also need to pay the DWP for the bedroom tax income that it had not received as a consequence of our abolishing the bedroom tax.
A cumbersome approach has been suggested. It relies on the individual self-identifying at a local authority office after the cap has been applied, and it does not support the person-centred social security system that we intend to see. What we have proposed instead is simple and straightforward, and would be a better use of public funds.
We will continue to pursue a satisfactory outcome as a matter of urgency and to press UK ministers to honour our shared stated intent to work together to ensure the smooth transfer of powers and to recognise that that involves engaging in genuine discussion and not simply listening to a case and saying no, as was intended before the case was presented in the first place.
Those issues matter a great deal, but I am pleased to say that we are making progress in other areas. We have reached the important milestone of an agreed timetable for the commencement of the remaining welfare sections of the Scotland Act 2016. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has written to Ms Constance to confirm that the UK Government’s regulations are being finalised to be laid at Westminster. I fully expect those regulations to be published in time for us to meet our commitment to introduce our bill to the Parliament before the end of June. I will ensure that the committee sees a copy of that letter and the response from the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities.
The letter from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions also confirms that the way in which the DWP has drafted its regulations will, as we hoped, allow for executive competence for most of the individual existing benefits to transfer to the Scottish Government as we commence our Scottish arrangements to deliver those benefits. In other words, they will transfer incrementally. That is important because it means that we will be able to take a sensible, carefully managed and staged approach to the delivery of the new benefits by switching them on at intervals over the next few years.
The next step between the DWP’s regulations and switching on our own benefits is, of course, our social security bill, which will set out more of our approach to not just the individual benefits, but the legislative machinery that will operate the benefits. My officials have provided members with a note that sets out our approach in more detail, so I will address only the cardinal points.
We expect the bill to have three main parts. In the first part, we will enshrine our core social security principles, including the principle that social security is a human right and is essential to the realisation of other human rights. I covered that in my statement last week.
In the second part of the bill, we will lay down key pillars that will hold good for devolved assistance which is provided under the social security system. Our assumption is that, at a high level, the legislative machinery will be more or less the same across the 11 benefits. The rules for determining an individual’s entitlement and calculating any payment will vary, but we expect the basic points of application, consideration and decision, for example, to be similar across the board.
In the third part of the bill, there will be sections that are specific to each of the areas of responsibility—disability benefits, industrial injuries, funeral payments and so on—that are being devolved. A schedule will also be attached to each area that will set out how the powers that are conferred by each section will be exercised.
Finally, we will publish illustrative drafts of regulations during stage 1 of the parliamentary scrutiny of the bill and look to involve people and representative groups in their further development to ensure that our regulations are fit for purpose and will operate in the best interests of those who will rely on our system for help and support, and so that people can see in detail how we plan to use our powers.
During my statement last week, in relation to the evidence that has been provided through the consultation, I said:
“What has emerged is a rich seam of evidence—a solid foundation on which we can continue to build as we take each step towards having this new public service”——[Official Report, 22 February 2017; c 17.]
I will set out some of the ways in which we will do that.
Last week, I talked about the experience panels that we will set up to design and develop better models for delivery. Recruitment for those panels will be through two routes. The first route—open recruitment—will be at our own hand, and I am pleased to tell the committee that, in partnership with our key partners, the Scottish Government will launch that exercise tomorrow. The second route, which will be launched on 14 March in partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions, will use randomly selected mailshots to send our recruitment packs to individuals in Scotland who are on one, or more than one, of the 11 benefits. The recruitment exercise will run for 10 weeks in total and we will ask MSPs and others to publicise it and to encourage involvement.
Last week, I also announced that Jim McCormick has agreed to chair our expert advisory group on disability and carers’ benefits. Since then, we have made some progress with regard to the membership of that group, and I advise members that Tressa Burke, chief executive of Glasgow Disability Alliance, Chris Creegan, chief executive of the Scottish Commission for Learning Disability, Lucinda Godfrey, chief executive officer of Dundee Carers Centre, and Professor Carol Tannahill, who is chief social policy adviser to the Scottish Government, have all agreed to serve on that committee. Other members are now being approached and, as soon as we have their confirmation, I will make sure that the Social Security Committee is made aware.
Members and others have shared our concern about increasing awareness of benefit entitlement and encouraging individuals to seek the financial support to which they are entitled. We have been working to understand the best way to do that and have devised an approach that targets individuals where they are and that works in phases. In the next 10 days, we will launch the first phase, which will promote a level of general awareness of benefit support and entitlement. It will be a trigger to get people around Scotland to ask questions and to seek advice about what they might be entitled to from the full range of UK benefits. Thereafter, we will run targeted campaigns, starting with the benefits for which current take-up levels are known to be low.
In addition, before this summer, we will make our decision on the shape of the social security agency. We will advise Parliament about that and about the first suite of benefits that we will deliver by 2019. We will continue our active discussions with health and social care professionals to ensure that we can simplify and speed up decision making for those who are entitled to disability benefits. We must ensure that we use quality evidence for making first decisions in order to significantly reduce the number of assessments that are required and to reduce the delay and anxiety that is experienced by too many people in the current system.
I hope that the update has been interesting and useful to members, and I am more than happy to take questions.