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This is a tale of two Governments. One Government is investing in giving carers additional support that is not available to carers elsewhere in the UK, and one Government—[Interruption.]—is cutting social security. [Interruption.] It is very clear—

Thank you, Presiding Officer.

The £20 per week uplift, which we know has made such a difference to people over the past year, has not even made up for all the cuts that I have described, which just goes to show the scale of what has gone before. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, even with the uplift in place, families who are unable to find work are getting £1,600 less per year than they would have done in 2011. Families with children are even worse off, receiving around £3,000 less than they would have done 10 years ago.

At the start of the pandemic, there was a recognition that circumstances outwith the control of households in receipt of universal credit were going to impact on them. Those of us who are living in the real world can see a similar storm coming now for people in low-income households. Analysis by the Resolution Foundation shows that four in 10 households on universal credit will see a 13 per cent rise in their energy bills, at the same time as their universal credit support is cut by £20 per week. Then, with the Brexit-induced heavy goods vehicle crisis thundering on, food prices are set to rise by 5 per cent in the run-up to Christmas. Inflation is rising at a record rate, slapping more costs on household budgets, which the UK Government wants to hit again with a national insurance tax rise. UK Government policies are hiking costs and cutting incomes.

How many more hours will the care worker, the delivery driver, the cleaner and the shop worker need to find to make up for the cut? Analysis from the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that a lone parent working 48 hours a week cannot reach a living income unless they are paid more than the real living wage. Those people are our key workers. The Tories were lauding them during the pandemic, but now they are hammering them with cuts to their incomes, forcing them into in-work poverty and to food banks.

What are those who are not even supposed to find work meant to do? Miles Briggs and the UK Government have refused to answer that question. Those who are already struggling with a long-term illness or disability have no means to increase their income through work. They will not benefit from the so-called UK jobs plan, and they have suffered the lion’s share of the £37 billion in cuts. People with a disability are already more likely to be in poverty. Now the UK Government will be forcing them deeper below the poverty line.

The Tory amendment does not even stand up to scrutiny from one of their own. The former DWP secretary of state Stephen Crabb gave a commendable speech in the House of Commons a couple of weeks ago. He admitted making a big mistake when he was secretary of state—one that the Scottish Tories want to repeat with their amendment. That mistake was to believe that cutting social security would increase engagement with the employment market. Instead, it increases in-work poverty, destitution and mental health problems, creating a vicious circle.

When it can choose not to, why is the UK Government choosing to put our fellow citizens through unbearable hardship? The cut will strip support from 10,500 of my Airdrie and Shotts constituents. It will impoverish 60,000 people in Scotland, including 20,000 children. It is immoral economic madness. The campaign to reinstate it—if it is not stopped next week—starts now.

I will come to that shortly. We did receive evidence in that regard. We received some submissions for the amount proposed for the cash payment in December 2021 to be higher, and some submissions also wanted the increase to be made permanent rather than a one-off. Arguments to support that view drew comparisons between the level of CAS and what it would cost to provide a similar level of paid care.

Some of the people who shared their views with us also expressed concern that the level of carer benefits was too low to lift carers out of poverty. We believe that it is vital that carers get the support that they need and we would appreciate the Scottish Government giving due consideration to the evidence that the committee received during its inquiry that argues for additional CAS payments to be made in future years, using the regulatory power contained in the bill. We recognise that allowing carers to know their incomes over the longer term would assist them in managing their finances.

We heard from the minister that the Scottish Government intends that the new Scottish carers assistance benefit will improve financial support for unpaid carers, and we were pleased to hear that there are plans for consultation on the new benefit. The committee looks forward to engaging with the Government on the options proposed. In our report, we call for the Scottish Government to publish a timetable for the delivery of the new benefit, including the date for its introduction. The minister has set out the reasons why the Government is working to a new delivery timetable for Scottish carers assistance. We hope that he will be able to confirm to the committee soon when the new benefit will be in place.

A second area of concern that was raised with the committee was that only a small minority of carers are eligible for carers allowance or the supplement. According to Carers UK, there were around 729,000 unpaid carers in Scotland before the Covid-19 outbreak, and that figure might have risen by around 400,000 at the height of the pandemic. Approximately 91,000 carers are expected to get CAS in December 2021—around 10 per cent of all carers in Scotland.

While eligibility for CAS is wholly dependent on eligibility for the UK carers allowance, we hope that the Scottish Government’s plans for its new benefit will consider issues such as expanding eligibility, increasing the level of benefit and recognising those unpaid carers who have more than one caring role. I appreciate the comments that the minister has already made in that regard.

The design and introduction of the new Scottish carers assistance will be crucial for supporting carers’ wellbeing and preventing carers from being trapped in poverty.

The third issue that was raised with us was about the take-up of benefits by those who are entitled to them. We heard about the need for the application process for benefits for carers to be as clear and as straightforward as possible, as carers were often deterred from claiming carers allowance, particularly when they had been in receipt of universal credit. The complexity of the system could be particularly off-putting for people when carers allowance interacted with their other benefits.

We asked the Scottish Government to set out how it will monitor and evaluate whether the steps taken to promote the December 2021 payment have been successful in ensuring high uptake by those carers who qualify for it. I am pleased that, in his response to our report, the minister has referred to working on estimates of take-up in the Scottish Government second benefit take-up strategy.

The final area that I wish to highlight is the bill’s proposal to use regulations under the affirmative procedure rather than primary legislation to increase the amount of CAS paid in the future. The committee received a variety of views on the level of parliamentary scrutiny that future increases to CAS should be subject to. Although some recommended that all social security regulations should be super-affirmative, others suggested that changing the amount of payment ought to require little scrutiny.

Ultimately, we believe that there is wide interest from stakeholders in the increased CAS payment being proposed by the Scottish Government. We therefore consider that it is important that the Scottish Government ensures that the regulation-making powers in the bill be subjected to a suitable procedure to allow robust scrutiny to take place, and also to ensure that the plight of carers continues to be highlighted and considered.

The committee feels that our work to ensure that the right support is provided to carers has only just begun and we look forward to working with the Scottish Government to ensure that its new benefit for carers delivers. The committee is pleased to support the general principles of the bill and recommends that the Parliament agrees to them.

I thank the minister for giving way; I will make the point that I would have made if Alexander Stewart had given way in the considerable time that he had. Will the minister expand on how Scottish carers assistance and, right now, the carers supplement provide considerable extra support to carers in Scotland compared with elsewhere in the UK? Will he also outline the challenges of building the new Scottish carers assistance based on the very low baseline level of policy and financial resource that is received by the Scottish Government from the UK system that it has inherited?

I understand that this is the first non-emergency stage 1 debate of the parliamentary session. It is also my first opportunity to speak in my capacity as convener of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. Before I share our specific findings on the general principles of the Carer’s Allowance Supplement (Scotland) Bill, I know that colleagues in the chamber will want to join me, as they did the minister, in agreeing that it is fitting that we pay testament today to the hard work of unpaid carers and acknowledge the impact of the pandemic on them.

Carers deserve recognition and support for the tireless work that they do to provide care for family members, friends and neighbours, which is why I am pleased to see support in Scotland going further than it is elsewhere and going some way to recognising the contribution that carers make.

The issue goes to the heart of one of the Parliament’s key principles—to ensure that all people are treated fairly. Although timing for our consideration of the bill has been tight, we as a committee have received powerful testimony from more than a hundred carers about their experiences. I take this opportunity to thank all those carers for finding the time to engage with us. The committee wants to ensure that it hears how the policies that it considers have a real-life impact.

Those carers’ testimonies are not an easy read, as they show in some cases the sometimes damaging impact that their caring responsibilities can have on their own health and wellbeing. We were told about the 24 hours a day, pressure-cooker nature of caring work. Carers shared with us that they were at breaking point after 16 months of caring during a pandemic, with no let up. The pandemic has placed significant demands on unpaid carers’ financial, physical and mental health and employment. It has resulted in a lack of opportunities for carers to take breaks from their responsibilities, with the reduced availability of respite services adding further stress and pressure to their roles.

I turn to the provisions of the bill. It will come as no surprise to the chamber that the committee welcomes the move to provide an increase in the December payment of carers allowance supplement, in recognition of the extra burden that the pandemic has placed on them.

Although we support the doubling of the December payment to £462.80, our stage 1 report highlights some specific issues that were raised during the evidence that we received regarding the specific remit of the bill and looking beyond. Although we acknowledge that significant work is being done by the Scottish Government to support carers, we must also give voice to the evidence that we heard and hope that ministers will consider their views.

The commitments that have been made are being forecast and budgeted ahead of time, so that is exactly the same point that has been made around the Scottish child payment. For that to happen properly, it needs to be done in a way that ensures that the budget’s safety is built in over time, which is why the two Opposition parties need to come forward with where they would make the cuts in order to deliver the commitments that they are making.

However, the investment that the Scottish Government has budgeted for in this session, in order to make improvements to our social infrastructure, will make a real difference to the lives of the people in Airdrie and Shotts and across Scotland. Those improvements include: expanding our childcare offer to one and two-year-olds; investing £1 billion to tackle the poverty-related educational attainment gap—I declare an interest, as my wife is a primary school teacher and will soon take up a role as a local authority equity development officer—expanding wraparound childcare; doubling the Scottish top-up to carers allowance, so that carers in Scotland will receive better support than anywhere else in these isles; doubling the Scottish child payment and providing bridging payments as the roll-out to 16-year-olds continues; providing new adult and child disability payments; building 100,000 new affordable homes, including 70 per cent for social rent; expanding free school meals; and increasing school uniform grants. I could go on, because this Government is investing in social security, social housing and education, in order to tackle poverty, give our children the best start in life, support families and develop the progressive and compassionate society that will deliver for the people we are here to represent.

However, I spoke earlier about Scotland having a partly devolved, hybrid social security system and, sadly, we are seeing a tale of two Governments. UK inflation is at its highest level in a decade, having had its sharpest rise since records began, and it is predicted to keep rising into the Christmas period, meaning that the cost of essential items is rising and family budgets are being squeezed, but the UK Government is embarking on a perfect storm of tax rises and social security cuts that will devastate those on the lowest incomes. A regressive 10 per cent rise to national insurance is coming, which will disproportionately hit younger workers and the lowest paid. The disgraceful cut to universal credit, which is the biggest single cut to social security since the second world war, will force 60,000 people in Scotland, including 20,000 children, into poverty. That cut will completely undermine the benefit of the Scottish child payment and serves to highlight the real limitations of having a shared or hybrid social security system. In Airdrie and Shotts alone, 10,500 people—and their families—who receive universal credit or working tax credits will see their annual income cut by £1,000.

From the cabinet secretary, we have already heard the quote from the Financial Times last week:

“The internal modelling of ending the UC uplift is catastrophic.”

We have regressive tax rises and cuts to social security—while inflation soars—from the UK Government, versus investment in social security, social housing and education from the Scottish Government. The Tories have got a real brass neck coming here and trying to lecture us about poverty.

I support the motion and the Government’s programme and I look forward to its transformational policies being delivered at pace.

Yes; obviously, we are in a tale of two Governments, in which one Government is investing in social security and one is cutting it.

However, as I was going to say to Miles Briggs, neither Labour nor the Tories included in their manifestos the commitments to the Scottish child payment that they make in their amendments today. Therefore, I look forward to seeing their costed budget submissions coming up, because it would lack credibility for either party to make those demands, which go beyond their just four-month-old manifestos, without explaining how they should be paid for. We have to operate within a fixed budget in Holyrood and new spending commitments have to be met from existing resources, because we do not have the necessary borrowing powers that a normal Parliament has when it delivers social security.

I merely point out to Jeremy Balfour that we have a Government that is investing in social security, but the Government that he supports is cutting it. Did the member hear Stephen Crabb, the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, say yesterday that it was a mistake for him to assume that cutting social security would get people into work? Mr Crabb backed the policy that this Government supports to see the universal credit uplift retained.

A fellow Orcadian knows how this one likes to talk. Thank you, Presiding Officer.

I am pleased to be speaking in favour of the motion today, as it highlights the ambition that the Scottish Government has for the session ahead. I note from the proposed amendments to the motion, particularly the Labour amendment, that there is quite considerable consensus, even if it is tacit, across the chamber on the measures that are being brought forward by the Scottish Government. It was, therefore, perhaps a wee bit contrary for Anas Sarwar and many of his Labour colleagues, since the programme for government was announced, to say that it somehow lacked ambition, when the areas that are mentioned in the motion match or go further than Labour’s manifesto commitments and so little is sought in the amendment.

Indeed, the one area of real deviation—[Interruption.] I will answer that later. The one area of deviation between what is set out in the programme for government and today’s Opposition amendments is on the Scottish child payment.

All parties went into the election promising to double the Scottish Government’s anti-poverty, game-changing Scottish child payment. As someone who is an anti-poverty campaigner and believes that building consensus drives and sustains progress, I found that incredibly heartening. The question mark, of course, is about timing. We all want to see that increase happening as quickly as possible, but it highlights the limitations of a hybrid tax and social security system.

The Scottish child payment is demand led. That means that the budget commitments will change year on year, depending on eligibility, which of course will be higher at times of higher unemployment or poor economic performance that suppresses wages; that is also the time when consequential tax receipts are also lower. When we need to fund more social security, our revenue is reduced and that is why demand-led social security requires borrowing to work. The Scottish Parliament does not have adequate borrowing powers, which means that it takes longer to safely deliver and sustain social security benefits than it would do if they were being delivered with full powers.

I do not doubt the sincerity with which Michael Marra makes his case, or that of Pam Duncan-Glancy or any of his colleagues, because I share that sincerity about the need to drive down poverty. Why was that commitment to £40 not in the manifesto that the Labour Party stood on four months ago?