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Yes, I am always happy to write to the committee. As I said, I was aware of the wide scope of the evidence session today, and I was ready to do that.

The DWP’s child maintenance system is, of course, reserved to the UK Government. The Scottish Government does not hold the full powers over social security, so our ability to make changes is somewhat hindered, but we welcome the UK Government’s plans to carry out a complete review of universal credit. It is a common view that universal credit has been failing the people who need it the most, so we hope that the review will address the issues that the Scottish Government has raised in the past. As I said, we are always ready to work with the UK Government in order to achieve that goal.

I have mentioned that the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice met Sir Stephen Timms, the Minister for Social Security and Disability, to discuss the UK Government’s planned review, and she highlighted some of our key concerns. The cabinet secretary will be writing to Sir Stephen Timms, but it is also within the scope of the committee to write directly to the UK and Scottish Government ministers, because the issues are in that reserved and devolved space.

Absolutely—you have raised a good point and you are right to reach out to the relevant minister on that.

I cannot add much more, because so much of that process is about the ethos of engagement. As I have said before, that involves taking a consistent approach and ensuring that training cuts across the range of people who come into contact with survivors. The approach must be consistent, because the women involved are in a traumatised state and their situations are often complex. Being able to navigate across all the systems is important. I reiterate that the Government is absolutely committed to enabling such an approach. I have outlined the various training initiatives that are available, which we are ensuring are consistent for any service that a woman might come across.

The committee will be aware that the equally safe in practice framework was published by Scottish Women’s Aid during the 16 days of activism in 2024. The Scottish Government, Scottish Women’s Aid and other partners continue to promote and develop that approach. Those in Scottish Women’s Aid are the experts in that area. We are not doing this in isolation; we are working with the correct partners that have the relevant expertise and ensuring that all our practice is informed by them.

That is a good question. As a teacher, I have taken an interest in the cost of the school day for a number of years. About 10 or 11 years ago, the school in which I was teaching took part in the pilot to assess the cost of the school day, and we saw that the effects that that cost can have on children and families, and on their experience in general, were quite remarkable. There were compounding factors for those with protected characteristics and those in households where they were experiencing domestic violence.

I take that issue really seriously, and I absolutely recognise the pressure that is placed on families, which is not helped by the cost of living crisis. We took action to create an emergency fund to address school meal debt, and that fund was increased from £1.5 million to £2.8 million in response to the demand from local authorities. A total of 30 local authorities applied for support through the fund, and we have taken steps to issue payments totalling £2.8 million, as I just referred to.

The member will be aware that local authorities are responsible for the management of school meal debt, and we expect them to use their powers to support families appropriately. COSLA has published good practice guidance; our expectation is that councils will follow that guidance, and 30 out of 32 have done that. I would be very interested to see what barriers prevented the council that the member mentioned from applying to the fund. We will continue to support dialogue with all local authorities, including West Dunbartonshire Council.

The Scottish Government received a letter from the DWP on 3 July last year, noting the receipt of the policy design specification and reiterating the complexity of the ask. The letter listed some of the challenges of delivering the policy, including the potential barriers, the cost of carrying out the impact assessment of the policy and the challenges in delivering it in the near future. The Scottish Government has acknowledged that letter.

The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice met Sir Stephen Timms to discuss the review of universal credit. She highlighted the importance of the split payment policy and the need for the universal credit review to include a gendered analysis of it.

We remain committed to working with the DWP towards the delivery of split payments of universal credit.

I am happy to pass that question to the relevant people.

I can have a go. Where there is a lack of information and/or evidence explained in the financial eligibility form 2, SLAB can use its discretion to disregard income or capital where it considers it reasonable to do so in the circumstances or to provisionally assess financial eligibility based on the information that is available. Solicitors must explain those situations when making an application to ensure that SLAB is aware of why information might be missing and to avoid the application being rejected or abandoned. As a result of being in an abusive relationship, someone might have accumulated several debts. When calculating someone’s eligibility, SLAB will consider disposable income and debts such as loans, credit cards and store cards and it will make an allowance for the monthly payment towards those debts, but that is not unique to domestic abuse cases—

Absolutely. You are right to raise that issue.

That is a good question. There are two main strands to the work to increase accountability for human rights under the bill. The first involves establishing an approach that shares human rights leadership and responsibility among several bodies. We therefore propose expanding the powers and remits of a number of bodies, including the Scottish Human Rights Commission, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and other oversight bodies. Our hope is that that will strengthen their ability to provide accountability and support for human rights in Scotland.

The second strand of the work involves developing measures that will enable courts and tribunals to deliver effective and appropriate remedies when it is found that a duty bearer has failed in its duty under the bill regarding protected rights. Before the summer, we will publish a discussion paper that will set out in greater detail our approach to policy in the bill.