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No. Whether the UK Government changes its processes is clearly a matter for the UK Government itself, as is whether it recognises Scottish gender recognition certificates. That does not affect our ability to make changes to the law here.

No, I do not agree with that. The bill has been the subject of a lot of consultation: there have been two Scottish consultations and one UK consultation, all of which received high numbers of responses. In those consultations, there was generally more support than opposition, although I take the point about the responses to the committee.

In addition to that, there have been various polls, such as the BBC poll that found that 60 per cent of the public support reform, with young people and women more likely to support it. More recently, a report from More in Common found that people are perhaps less divided on trans issues than social media would indicate. With more than 30,000 responses in total, the two formal consultations are among the largest that the Scottish Government has ever undertaken. Work has been going on over a number of years to get us to that point.

I have met representatives from organisations that are for and against the bill. During those wide-ranging conversations, suggestions for changes were made from both sides of the debate, and I have considered all of those. Before that, my predecessor, Shirley-Anne Somerville, also met a range of organisations. The subject has been debated, scrutinised and consulted on, and now this committee is looking at the detail. I do not think that it would be appropriate to pause now. It is time for this committee to do its work and for Parliament to make a judgment about the detail of the bill and whether it supports it.

We have been a long time getting to this point and any further delay will not necessarily enhance the public discourse around the issues. It has come to the point where, as legislators and parliamentarians, we need to make a decision about the matter. Given all the delays that we have already had, I think that any further delay would not be helpful.

People who are deeply affected by this—I reiterate that it is a tiny number of people for whom it is really important—would have a further delay in being able to bring their legal status and documentation into line with how they live their lives. I do not think that that would be the right thing to do.

As I said, the connecting Scotland programme is looking at identifying priority groups to support during the next four years, and it is likely to focus on the six child poverty family types. That chimes with the child poverty delivery plan. The research undertaken by the connecting Scotland programme is on what will help the most, whether it is about devices and being able to use them or whether it is about connectivity issues. That research will be important in ensuring that the next phase of work through connecting Scotland helps those who need it most. I am happy to ensure that the connecting Scotland team keeps the committee appraised of that work.

I do not know whether that has been done. We can follow up on that and check whether that discussion has taken place in respect of debt advice.

Perhaps we could pick the matter up with COSLA and discuss whether there are ways that we could work together to promote information. I know that that is a bit different from writing to individuals, but there might be complexities around doing that that would generate numerous letters weekly. That might be difficult for people, rather than helpful. However, I take the point about making sure that we provide clear information to people in case they are slipping through the net. As Robin Haynes said, it is not in any local authority’s interest not to ensure that people are aware of the council tax reduction scheme.

If there is more that we can do to promote information and clarity, I am happy to pick that up and discuss it with COSLA.

I do not have that information to hand but we could certainly furnish the committee with it as a follow-up, if that would be okay.

The first point to make it that a welfare system would never be designed to be delivered by two different Governments in two different ways, as that will never be the best system; it makes action and interface difficult. The complexity around case transfer includes the need to reconcile systems, and that is before you get into the end-user experience of trying to navigate all that complexity and the fact that there are underlying entitlements; for example, universal is a trigger benefit for the Scottish child payment. If we were designing a system in Scotland for Scotland, we would do it differently and build a more coherent system. We would build on the dignity and fairness principles that are at the heart of Social Security Scotland.

That said, we are doing what we can on the package of five family benefits. It is worth reiterating that that is worth more than £10,000 by the time a family’s first child turns six. Nothing like that is available anywhere else in the UK. We are trying to use the system that we have to put money into people’s pockets.

The almost £3 billion is a range of supports that will contribute to mitigating the impact of the increased cost of living on households. It includes work to tackle child poverty, reduce inequalities and support financial wellbeing, alongside social security payments that are not available anywhere else in the UK. We can certainly furnish the committee with the list of supports that it covers, but it will not surprise you to hear that it covers the doubling of the Scottish child payment and then its extension to £25, our five family benefits, the uprating by 6 per cent of our eight Scottish social security payments, the fuel insecurity fund, the carers allowance supplement, discretionary housing payments and support for free school meals. The list would probably take me too long to go through, but suffice it to say that all those things are areas that are really important at the moment to support low-income households. We believe that it provides a rounded package that is a considerable investment in supporting the cost of living.

As you know, we increased support for carers throughout the pandemic. As to whether we can go further than that, we have said that if further resource becomes available during this financial year carers will be a priority.

Since its launch in 2018, until the end of 2021, we invested £188 million in the carers allowance supplement, which has supported more than 126,000 carers. A carers allowance supplement payment worth £245.70 was paid on 10 June, and in addition, we are supporting young carers. However, as Pam Duncan-Glancy knows, we have said that should additional resources become available in this tight fiscal environment, carers are a priority.