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As part of every budget, we lay out the expenditure of the Scottish Government, part of which is on social security, and the income that we will receive. Decisions about tax are taken at every budget, although the First Minister has made it clear—to give people some certainty—that certain changes will not be made in the coming financial year.

The issue comes back to the choices that the Government makes. If tax is not increased, the Government must decide how to fund all its planned expenditure, of which social security is a part. We are in the foothills of the budget discussions but, if other parties wish to come forward with proposals on how to change the level of expenditure on social security or, indeed, with proposals for tax changes, I am sure that they will do that in due course.

I am sure that that figure is in my pack somewhere, convener. In essence, it is the money that UC is reduced by. I will get the exact figure to you.

I take your point. This is not just about eligibility, but that is the important aspect that makes the biggest difference when it comes to whether the benefit bill increases. I absolutely take your point that there are other ways to lift people out of poverty of a more systemic nature.

The work that is being done by Professor Bauld is exceptionally important because, now that we have had what is still a relatively small number of years of devolved social security, we are continuing to build on the impact of that system on child poverty or on the support for disabled people and their carers. Those aspects are looked at.

One of the other areas that we are keen to look at touches on the point that the convener made at the start about the impact on poverty levels of policy A compared to policy B. There is that which gets children and the family out of poverty immediately compared to a policy that will help that family to get out of poverty in the longer term, such as in five or 10 years. Things are never black and white, and it is not an easy comparison to make, but that is the type of work that we are doing to look at how many children are lifted out of poverty not just by social security policy but by changes to childcare and employability. There is also the additional layer of complexity of not working in silos, because a change to childcare might not make a difference unless we also ensure that there are supportive employability measures to go alongside it.

We are therefore taking a multilayered approach to that work as we develop the next delivery plan for tackling child poverty at the same time as we are going through our budget and spending review processes. Those two processes, for finance and tackling child poverty, need to be interlinked right across the Government as we do that forecasting. That is difficult, particularly when we look at longer-term impacts, but it is necessary when we are looking at policy choices.

We are still undertaking work with the DWP to get an understanding of what sits behind that £36 million—that is, what proportion of that £36 million is for disability benefits, what is for carers and what is for industrial injuries—because those will have different recovery proportions. We cannot do that piece of work alone; we need to do it with the DWP in order to get that information. Ian Davidson can provide some information—as much as we can provide, because two Governments are working on it. I do not want to put either of them in a difficult position.

That requires us to get information from the DWP. We will endeavour to do what we can to provide you with that information, but we need information from the DWP to assist us in understanding what benefit it is from. I also caution against an assumption that it has an impact on next year’s budget. It does not have an impact on one year’s budget. The work that we do to recover overpayments is done over time—it is not only about one year. With those two caveats, I would be happy to provide information if we can at all.

My apologies if I was not clear enough to the convener earlier. It ties in to the work that I just spoke to Ross Greer about—the work that is going on as we draft the next child poverty delivery plan and as we go through our budget and spending review processes. As part of that, we are looking across Government—social security being quite a small part of that—to see the differences that policies could make.

That is the type of work that is being undertaken as we deliver the tackling child poverty delivery plan, which will be published next year. Of course, we need to take account of the decisions on that as we move forward with the budget. That is the type of work that is being undertaken on those measures to compare one policy to another.

If we look at the aspects around free school meals, it is clear that the Scottish Government remains committed to universal free school meals in primary schools. We are working on the pilots for those children in secondary 1 to 3 who are in receipt of the Scottish child payment. We are not moving forward with universality for primary 6 and 7 pupils at this time; we are targeting provision to those in receipt of the Scottish child payment, because, given the financial context, we have taken the decision not to have universal free school meals but to target it to those who are in poverty. I suggest that that demonstrates that the Scottish Government has taken a very difficult decision not to move as fast as it would like on universal free school meals, because it has targeted the level of expenditure for P6 and 7 and for the pilots to those who are in poverty.

We are still committed to universal free school meals for primary-age pupils. What has changed is the timescale for delivery. The levels that we have in social security are targeted. You point to the 2018 act, which is targeted at those on low incomes, those who are disabled and those who are carers. There are parts of Government policy in other portfolios that are universal because the Government has taken that decision. I am sure that there is a debate to be had among our stakeholders and others about universalism, but the Government has tried to give people the important reassurance that we would not take entitlement away from people.

The matter has another important aspect, which came through very clearly at the round-table discussion that I had with DPOs and other stakeholders: the number of people who are coming forward for disability benefits because of mental health or other conditions that they previously had not been supported to apply for, or because stigma in society had prevented them from coming forward. I heard very compelling evidence from contributors at that round table that many people are now coming forward for mental health reasons who would not have come forward in the past. Although they were eligible for benefits in the past, they did not come forward.

There is then a question of whether that is a good or a bad thing. I think that it is a good thing if stigma around poor mental health is reduced, so that people can have open discussions and get a benefit to which they have always been entitled but never felt they were able to achieve. There are changes in our societal discussions around some disabilities and conditions that have seen a particular increase in certain case loads. I would add that aspect to the discussion.

Another aspect, which I alluded to earlier, is the fact that the spend on, in particular, adult disability payment and child disability payment, is preventative. If we were to reduce the amount of support that we are giving to people, would we then see an increase in demand on our health services or on our social care services, for example? There is a need for us to consider the implications of reducing a benefit on, for example, the health service.

Another area attached to that is that, if you reduced the eligibility for disabled people, you would also, by default, reduce the eligibility for carers benefits, and many unpaid carers in our constituencies would then not receive the financial support that they currently receive. Although I do not have the figures to hand, we can provide to the committee the discussion—which the committee will be well aware of—about the contribution that unpaid carers make and the impact that it would have on our health and social care if they did not do what they do. So, it is about the important aspects of what would happen within health and to those unpaid carers if we reduced expenditure on social security. We can provide further information on the issue after the meeting.