Seòmar agus comataidhean

You are talking about organisations that have quite rightly lobbied—

Yes, sorry.

The member has talked about organisations that quite rightly call for the doubling of the child payment. Those same organisations are telling members on the Tory side that cutting universal credit by £20 is the wrong thing to do. Why are you listening to them only on one issue and not the other?

Thank you.

The system will be delivered better. It will be far more personal. At the moment, local teams are supporting families to apply for the child disability payment. It is very much a system that encourages and supports people to apply for the benefit.

Pam Duncan-Glancy will be well aware of the need for a safe and secure transfer of adult disability benefits, but we are also committed to a review a year down the line once the benefit is in place. As she will understand, there are potential complexities and knock-on effects for passported benefits. I am sure that we will discuss that in more detail when I appear in front of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, because it is a really important issue.

The adult disability payment will follow, replacing the DWP’s personal independence payment, with a pilot in the spring of 2022 and full roll-out by the summer.

We are aware of the impact that the pandemic has had on unpaid carers in Scotland and we are grateful for their vital contribution. We will make a further payment of the coronavirus carers allowance supplement in December, should the Carer’s Allowance Supplement (Scotland) Bill be passed. We will also introduce our new Scottish carers assistance in the current session. We are continuing to work with carers on ways in which support can be improved and we will consult on proposals this winter.

We will introduce our new low-income winter heating assistance to replace the current cold weather payment. That will provide around 400,000 low-income households with a stable annual £50 to help with their winter fuel bills. We will take responsibility for the annual winter fuel payment to those of pension age, which is currently provided to more than 1 million Scottish recipients each year. We will deliver it on the same basis in order to provide continuity for clients.

My portfolio covers many areas that change lives. One of those is human rights, and I am delighted that Scotland remains a global leader in that area. This year will see us consult on a human rights bill for Scotland to incorporate four United Nations human rights treaties into Scots law as far as is possible within devolved competence.

Over the next year, we will take forward two other consultations: one on an ambitious strategy to improve how we centre equality, inclusion and human rights in all Government policies, decisions and spending and support the wider public sector and others to do likewise, and the other on the operation of the public sector equality duty and potential regulatory changes to improve inclusive communications and data on ethnicity and disability pay gaps. [Interruption.]

I am sorry, but I will not take an intervention now as I must make some progress.

In the Government’s first 100 days, we allocated an additional £5 million to support front-line organisations that tackle domestic abuse and sexual violence. We will invest over £100 million to support front-line services and ensure dedicated resources to prevent violence against women and girls and advance gender equality. Our gender-based violence in schools working group will identify good practice and review and develop new resources. Following the conclusion of that work, alongside looking at harmful sexual behaviour, we will commission an independent review to establish positive practice and further areas for improvement during the current session of Parliament.

I turn to the important area of our national mission on child poverty. In 2020-21, we invested around £2.5 billion to support low-income households, including nearly £1 billion to directly support children, and we will see that level of support continue. Our actions in the programme for government are wide ranging, reflecting the fact that it contains a package of measures that can tackle poverty, not just one. Those actions include supporting more parents into work, expanding free early learning and childcare to one and two-year-olds and building a system of wraparound school-age childcare to increase households’ incomes and reduce their costs.

Education is the right of every child and we are taking action to reduce the costs of the school day and ensure that children can access the subjects and opportunities that they want, regardless of family income. We are also committed to a £1 billion investment to tackle the poverty-related attainment gap and support education recovery. From next August, we will deliver free school meals and milk for all primary pupils, having already introduced the Scottish milk and healthy snack scheme for children in pre-school. We met our commitment to increase the value of best start foods in our first 100 days and we will expand eligibility during the current session of Parliament, benefiting 60,000 more children.

We will publish our second tackling child poverty delivery plan next March, setting out ambitious actions to deliver at the pace and scale that are required to reach our child poverty targets. The plan will be backed by a further £50 million tackling child poverty fund.

There are not cost overruns. We have already introduced 11 benefits and, when fully operational, Social Security Scotland will administer 17 benefits in total. It is a growing organisation that is delivering more benefits, and, when that process is complete, the administration costs will be no higher than those of the Department for Work and Pensions. The member should recognise that Social Security Scotland is an important employer in my city of Dundee and in Glasgow, employing people who quite often are the furthest from labour market.

I am happy to respond to that. I recognise the very important work that Christina McKelvie has done in the area.

We have made good progress, particularly on the accommodation actions in the plan. The £20 million Gypsy Traveller accommodation fund, which was launched in June, will initially be focused on the development of demonstration projects to establish model sites. As part of that, we are working in partnership with members of the Gypsy Traveller community and local authorities to develop a design guide for modern, accessible sites. The fund builds on the £2 million short-term funding that was provided for public sites in 2020-21, as a sustained investment to support local authorities in relation to site provision.

Officials are organising the next community conversation, which is due to take place online later this month. In that conversation, we aim to get further feedback and insight from community members on our on-going work and issues that are important to them. We will also take the opportunity to share an update on where we are with the actions that are set out in the plan. I will be happy to update the committee on that and provide more detail, if that would be helpful.

We will also reconvene the ministerial working group on Gypsy Travellers before the end of this year to oversee progress on the action plan. I am also happy to keep the committee updated on that.

The work of third sector organisations in supporting people who have no recourse to public funds is vital. The UK Government has strict rules on those who have no recourse to public funds, so we have to proceed with caution because, ultimately, at the extreme end of things, we could jeopardise someone’s status as having leave to remain if they were to receive funds that the UK Government deemed they should not receive. We have to be extremely careful in that area, which is why funding third sector organisations is the best way of supporting individuals and families who need support.

Many of the people who have come to Scotland through the refugee or asylum process are hugely skilled and valued members of our communities. The sooner they are able to use those skills and work, the better it will be for our communities and our society at large.

Unfortunately, some of the issues remain reserved to the UK Government. Therefore, we continue to have dialogue in order to work through some of the remaining barriers for some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

The second new Scots refugee integration strategy runs until December next year, and partners have begun discussions on the arrangements to develop the third strategy with the aim of publishing that in 2023. We want the strategy to be shaped by refugees and people with experience of asylum as well as those with expertise in supporting them. During the past few weeks, I have met people who have settled here and have heard their voices directly on some of the issues that remain—some of which are reserved and some of which are devolved—which we need to work through.

The member also made reference to the work with COSLA on the “Ending Destitution Together” strategy, which was published in March. That looks at improving and strengthening the support and provision for people who have no recourse to public funds. The strategy has been informed by powerful testimony from people with lived experience of suffering destitution. It sets out the initial actions to deliver essential needs, to enable access to specialist advice and advocacy and to make sure that people can pursue their ambitions and be active members of our communities. That is very pertinent to the work that we are doing to make sure that Scotland plays its part in supporting those who have come from Afghanistan in terrible circumstances, who are very vulnerable indeed.

Afghan families are already being welcomed into Scottish communities through the Afghan locally employed staff relocation scheme and, so far, 22 local authorities have expressed a keenness to support the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. We have been pushing the UK Government for more information on that. Last week, Angus Robertson and I had a meeting with UK ministers to consider the details, including funding, to ensure that local authorities have the information that they need. There are some practical issues relating to access to interpreters and ensuring that people who first go to hotels are resettled as quickly as possible.

We have a long history of welcoming people of all nationalities and faiths, including those who are seeking asylum and refuge from war and terror elsewhere. It is important that we continue to play our part.

It goes without saying that Scotland is a diverse and multicultural society, that that diversity strengthens us as a nation and that we are better for it. There is absolutely no excuse or justification for hatred, bigotry or prejudice, and we absolutely condemn anti-Catholic prejudice and anti-Irish racism.

Fulton MacGregor has made a good point about tackling sectarianism in our schools. Third sector organisations in particular are doing a lot of good work in our schools to try to tackle those issues. They are not easy to tackle—some of them are deep rooted and generational—but we need to do absolutely everything that we can to tackle them, and the Government is determined to do so.

Pam Duncan-Glancy has asked a number of questions. I will try to cover all of them.

Pam Duncan-Glancy referred to the disability summit last year. That summit, which was very well attended—there were more than 100 participants—was an opportunity for ministers to hear from disabled people’s organisations and disabled people in particular in responding to issues that were highlighted. We have a wealth of information from that summit that will help to guide the development of the next disability equality plan.

Pam Duncan-Glancy specifically mentioned employment. “A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: employment action plan”, which is now three years old, sets out the actions to deliver the ambition, working with partners, to at least halve the disability employment gap by 2038.

The second annual progress report, which was published in March this year, highlights the work that has been undertaken to date in supporting the delivery of that ambition. It shows that the disability employment gap in 2019 was the lowest recorded in recent years. However, that gap widened in 2020, unfortunately. That was particularly in relation to Covid, I suspect. It moved from 32.6 per cent to 33.4 per cent, so we have work to do, and we need to ensure that we take further action to address that.

Pam Duncan-Glancy mentioned social care, and that issue has been raised by stakeholders, as you would imagine. We have ambitious plans for the national care service, which she is more than aware of, and those will be important in restructuring our care services. However, we need to ensure that people are supported. There are undoubtedly lessons to be learned from the pandemic on people’s vulnerability and on the situation that they have found themselves in.

Finally, on learning disability, we are taking forward a learning disability, autism and neurodiversity bill to make improvements in that area. There is a commitment to having a commissioner, as we recognise that there is a particular vulnerability and a need for an office to support the rights of those who are most vulnerable.

On accessible homes, the member will be aware that “Housing to 2040” contains a lot about accessibility and ensuring that homes are barrier free as we develop and deliver the affordable housing supply. It is really important that homes stand the test of time and are barrier free, no matter what challenges people have.

We expect to move forward with the gender recognition bill next spring, so we will be giving you more information about that. The human rights bill will be introduced later in the session. Good work is being done on the bill, which is very complex. Again, we will be able to give you more defined timescales on that as we move forward. It is a far-reaching piece of legislation. Christina McKelvie recently convened the advisory board that is progressing a lot of the detailed work on the legislation. Good progress is being made.