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I have some questions on monitoring and targets. I have heard this morning and seen in the strategy that the Government is not necessarily able to identify all the eligible people. I heard your response earlier about disabled people and carers benefits.

However, in order to monitor whether the take-up strategy has been successful, it is important that we understand who should be taking the benefits up and what success is. Without targets or an understanding of who should be taking up the benefits, how will we deliver on the statutory responsibility to monitor the strategy?

Good morning to the minister and his team. My question is almost a supplementary to my colleague Jeremy Balfour’s question about disability and carers benefits. In the take-up strategy, you highlight that it is difficult to identify individual disabled people and carers. What engagement have you had with organisations that represent disabled people and carers in order to help you to do that? What research have you undertaken to help to identify who is eligible for disability and carers benefits since our predecessor committee recommended that that research be done?

Take-up of the Scottish welfare fund appears to be dependent on postcode; there is significant variability in the success rates of applications across the country. In addition, we see more and more repeated applications for the Scottish welfare fund, which suggests that people are living in crisis. What is the Government doing to review the Scottish welfare fund and address the variability across locations and postcodes in Scotland, and what is it doing to ensure that people can access benefits on a more permanent basis to ensure that they have the money that they need to live on rather than consistently going back to what is in essence a crisis fund?

I will continue the theme of equalities and ask about disabled people who present as homeless. In the interests of time, I will put these questions to Lorraine and Gordon in particular. Will you briefly explain the experience of disabled people who apply through the homelessness route? Are enough accessible homes being built to put people into?

Thank you.

Good morning, panel, and thank you for your testimony so far. I have some questions on temporary accommodation and evictions, which have been touched on already. We know that there are a large number of children in temporary accommodation. What can we do to move them rapidly—I think that that is the word that was used—into more settled accommodation? Would it be possible to do that before Christmas? I would like to think so, but I am keen to hear how we could do it.

It was rightly pointed out that the change to the ban on evictions has had a serious impact on the numbers. Do you have any concerns about the lifting of the ban and its impact on homelessness?

I promised that I would remember to do that, convener. I ask Dr Watts and Maggie Brünjes to comment.

Thank you for setting out the position, Mark.

As the convener has said, we have received a number of emails that call for Covid-19 to be made an industrial disease under the new benefit; others have said that women make up just a fraction of the applicants and that the benefit must start to recognise women’s injury and disease in the workplace. Your bill does not propose to do that, so could you tell the committee how it will contribute to dealing with those issues?

You are right that it is incredibly important that we listen to people with lived experience. As a number of the previous consultation responses highlighted, legislation is key, but it is not the only part of the issue. It is therefore important that we keep talking to people and asking them what will make this a reality for them.

I want the legislation to be passed as soon as possible. Because of the decades of failure that young disabled people have faced, I do not believe that any delay would be fair or just. I hope that I can reassure the committee that I want the best possible bill, so that, after the Parliament passes it, as I hope it will, generations of young disabled people can benefit from strong legislation that gives them a fighting chance and underpins their rights to an education and employment opportunities after school.

In that vein, since lodging the intention and the statement of reasons, during the summer, I have spoken again with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and with various lawyers about different parts of the bill to see whether it needs strengthening, and if so where. I have also spoken with a number of organisations, including cross-party groups, and other members of the Scottish Parliament to seek their views, because it is incredibly important that we get this absolutely right.

Before I answer that question, I just want to thank my colleague Fulton MacGregor for showing those cards; it is much appreciated. I am happy to work with him to seek the views of the people in his constituency at any convenient time.

On the question about organisations, one of the things that strikes me most about the problems with transitions is how chaotic they can be, because people are working with so many different organisations. I honestly cannot explain adequately how that role of project manager of one’s life becomes almost overwhelming in that moment. Sometimes, the only people who know what any one organisation does at any time are the disabled person and their family, which is really hard work when they should be focusing on what the young person wants to do in the future and on ensuring that that support is in place.

I hope that, as is the case for most legislation when we seek to implement it, the Government will engage with all those different agencies and that those agencies will engage with the Government, as well as with young disabled people and their families. To name a few important organisations in this regard, it is important that education authorities, local authorities, health and social care partnerships as well as housing authorities can work together, as all those areas have an impact on a young disabled person’s transition.

I believe that the introduction of the bill is a unique opportunity to take the confusion and complication out of some of the process, by saying: “These are the organisations at play; these are the different responsibilities that they each have; and this is how we can work together in one single co-ordinating point, in the plan for the young disabled person.” It will be transformative.