Seòmar agus comataidhean

That is always a concern because of the hybrid system. Any reduction in benefits spend by the UK Government will have a direct impact on what is available here in Scotland. That has always been the case and is one of the difficulties of the system. Emma Roddick will no doubt be aware of the green paper that has been produced.

There could well be divergence between policies north and south of the border on disability benefits. At the moment, we do not know what that would mean for the quantum that would be spent by the Department for Work and Pensions. If it were to increase, that would clearly be of benefit to the Scottish budget, but if it decreased there would be a reduction. That would be extremely difficult, given that we have already spent beyond the money in the block grant and have put additional Scottish Government money into social security. The block grant’s being reduced would clearly make our situation very difficult. That is one of the challenges with the current system; it is a big concern.

First, no money for homelessness services will be lost. The money that will support them is guaranteed, and however and whenever it is paid, it will certainly not be lost.

A general point on the local government settlement—Miles Briggs is obviously aware of the exchanges that we had with the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee—is that we have tried to ensure that local government gets a fair settlement within a very difficult fiscal and financial environment. We recognise that our partnership with local government is critical to delivering many of the services that relate to poverty. A lot of the money that I have talked about today will be routed through local government. I have mentioned a number of examples of that, including discretionary housing payments and the Scottish welfare fund, both of which support people who require support.

We have made additional moneys available for advice services and we expect them to be maintained. We recognise the role that local government has in ensuring that people have access to the information that they need. That is in addition to the work of our third sector partners and our work to make sure that people are aware of the support that is available, including the national campaigns that are run. We will continue to have those discussions with local government, but the advice services are an important aspect of that.

Any changes that increase funding for social security at Westminster have a positive benefit on our budget and, of course, as we talked about earlier, the reverse is also true. I would encourage a review of the 20m rule as part of the green paper. Having the DWP reviewing disability benefits from a positive point of view at the same time as we look to review the ADP and its criteria would be very helpful.

If we could reach a common understanding and agreement, that would allow people’s reserved benefits not to be put in jeopardy. If the UK Government’s direction of travel on disability benefits were more flexible and more generous, that would, of course, help the situation here in Scotland on the budgetary position and on the scope of change of criteria as well.

You make an important point and, as I alluded to earlier, looking at the budget and the child poverty delivery plan in March, it has to be across the Government; it cannot all be from my portfolio. That is why all cabinet secretaries were tasked with looking within their own budgets to see what more they can do to help us meet the interim targets.

I think that we have a good track record. In 2020-21, we invested £2.5 billion to support low-income households, which was an increase of £540 million on the year before, and £978 million was targeted directly at children in low-income families. That includes key investment and support targeted at children, such as winter hardship payments, attainment Scotland funding and pupil equity funding. There is the broader low-income support, such as the council tax reduction scheme, which amounts to about £351 million, discretionary housing payments, which I referred to earlier, and the Scottish welfare fund.

In the round, the 2022-23 budget continues significant investment along those lines to tackle poverty, with more than £3.9 billion towards benefit expenditure. We are committing £831 million towards the delivery of affordable housing; £80 million to discretionary housing payments; the first £50 million of the whole family wellbeing fund; £10 million for the tackling child poverty fund; £200 million for the Scottish attainment challenge; £70 million to continue to fund the expansion of free lunches for children in primary 4 and 5 and special schools; £22 million to provide meals during school holidays; and £65 million for employability support for those most impacted by Covid. Of course, within the local government settlement there is funding for things such as the Scottish welfare fund.

That is quite a comprehensive package in the round. There is always more that can be done and we are keen to hear what more people think we could be doing, but that has to be within the context of a fixed budget where decisions like this have to be made, and I think that we have prioritised support for low-income families.

The first thing to say is that, thankfully, council tax is lower in Scotland than elsewhere, which is helpful. Further, and importantly, the council tax reduction scheme is there to ensure that no one has to pay a council tax liability that they cannot be expected to afford. Presently, about 480,000 households—nearly one in five—benefit from a council tax reduction, and that is important. The local government budget includes £351 million to compensate councils for the reduction in council tax receipts that derives from the operation of the council tax reduction scheme.

Taken in the round, the basket of measures that support families—including discretionary housing payments, the Scottish welfare fund and the benefits and supports that are paid through Social Security Scotland—demonstrate that the Government has a good track record in this area. The Scottish child payment is critical, and we have committed to doubling it. Those measures are available in Scotland and nowhere else in these islands.

All Governments have to look at the cost-of-living issue—for example, we have been calling on the UK Government to be far more proactive in tackling rising food and energy costs. The cost-of-living pressures are being felt across the whole of household income and expenditure. Of course, the Scottish Government has a responsibility to support families as best we can. I outlined in my previous answer some of the ways in which we are doing that, including through the welfare fund, discretionary housing payments and the Scottish child payment.

We announced a winter package of £41 million to support families with food and fuel costs and other household income pressures. Our Government has a good track record on supporting families, but we need to look at what more we can do. I am always open to discussions about how we can support families. The next few months will be really challenging, particularly in relation to energy costs, and it cannot be just the Scottish Government that responds to that. We need more from the UK Government to support families and household incomes.

To reiterate what Kate Forbes said, a huge amount in the budget is aimed at Covid recovery, supporting household budgets and tackling poverty. That has meant that difficult decisions have been made because we cannot fund everything.

The budget provides for a continuation of child bridging payments in advance of the doubling of the Scottish child payment by the end of the year. Other measures help low-income families, such as the scrapping of core curriculum charges and music tuition fees, the expansion of the school clothing grant and the extra £64 million of revenue funding and £30 million of capital funding to support the expansion of free school meals.

As I said in my opening remarks, more than £80 million is being allocated to discretionary housing payments for housing support. That is to fully mitigate the UK Government’s bedroom tax. If we did not have to use that money to mitigate the bedroom tax—if the bedroom tax was scrapped at source, which we have urged the UK Government to do—we could divert it to other anti-poverty measures but, meanwhile, we have to maintain that funding.

We are making a further £10 million available for our ending homelessness strategy. The housing budget is an anti-poverty measure in itself. Affordable good-quality housing is a key anti-poverty driver and being able to increase funding by £174 million against the backdrop of a really tough budget has been extremely important. That budget is also an important economic lever, as it ensures that we can support local economies through the house building programme.

In the round, the budget tries to focus on supporting household incomes and families on low incomes at a very difficult time.

I will start, then hand over to Kate. We obviously want to avoid strike action and hope that the unions, local government and COSLA will continue to discuss pay so that strike action will be avoided.

Mark Griffin mentioned local authority pay. Although it was difficult to do so, I was able to find in my budget a one-off payment of £30 million to support COSLA in its pay negotiations for this financial year. That is not baselined into next year.

I appreciate what Mark Griffin has said. I hope that we can avoid strike action, and that pay discussions will continue and come to an amicable resolution.

I thank the committee for inviting me to today. I, too, will be brief.

To reiterate what Kate Forbes has said, I say that developing the 2022-23 budget has been challenging and has involved making difficult decisions and choices, but the ones that we have made should help to lift children out of poverty, provide investment in social care and help to tackle the climate emergency.

Our budget for next year will increase funding for affordable housing by £174 million, so we can continue with the important work that was started back in 2007 to ensure that everyone in Scotland has a warm, safe and affordable place in which to live. We are allocating £831 million to delivery of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, of which at least 70 per cent will be available for social rent, and 10 per cent will be in our remote, rural and island communities. More than £80 million will be allocated to discretionary housing payments for housing support and to mitigate fully the UK Government’s bedroom tax. We are making a further £10 million available for our ending homelessness together fund, as part of our investment of £100 million in transformation funding between 2018-19 and 2025-26.

The 2022-23 budget provides our local authorities with a fair but affordable settlement of more than £12.5 billion under the most challenging of circumstances. That will provide £554 million extra for health and social care, £145 million for additional teachers and support staff and £94 million to support the expansion of free school meals. It gives local authorities a number of fiscal flexibilities, including full autonomy on council tax rate setting, as they requested, and a commitment to collaborate on a fiscal framework for local government.

I look forward to your questions.

My first response to Meghan Gallacher is to say that the Scottish Government’s budget comes, by and large, from the block grant that we receive from the UK Government. We have had years of austerity, and difficult decisions have followed the settlement.

If we compare the funding situations north and south of the border, it is clear that the challenges that Scottish local authorities face are in a different ballpark from the challenges and cuts to local government funding that local authorities south of the border have faced.

Meghan Gallacher talked about funding above the core settlement. We have many key joint priorities with local government, including tackling child poverty and ensuring that we support education and social care. The money going into social care has increased considerably. I hope that those priorities are shared across the Parliament.

Difficult decisions have to be made. As part of the budget discussions, it is open to parties to come forward with amendments to the budget, but a party wanting more money to be spent in an area of government requires that the party say where the money should come from. I am sure that we will get into such detailed discussions over the next few weeks.