Seòmar agus comataidhean

The joys of the start of the winter season.

On 9 June 2025, just three days after the regulations were laid, the UK Government announced its intention to expand the winter fuel payment in England and Wales to those with an income of £35,000 or less. Although that belated U-turn from the Prime Minister was welcome, it was disappointing that, yet again, Scottish ministers received no prior consultation on the UK Government’s decision.

As a result of the UK Government’s change in policy, the Scottish Fiscal Commission predicted that the associated block grant adjustment funding for the Scottish Government is expected to increase by £120 million. We considered carefully the importance of prioritising that additional funding for those who needed it most, and we decided to mirror the revised UK Government approach for our pension-age winter heating payment. Our approach will ensure that a higher level of support will be provided to those who are in most need, with more than 880,000 Scottish pensioners estimated to benefit from it.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission estimates that that will be a total investment of £187 million in 2025-26, providing a payment to around 1 million pensioners. It also estimates that around 16 per cent of the eligible pension-age population in Scotland will then have their payments recovered in 2025-26. That equates to around £30 million being recovered from 169,000 pensioners.

We recognise that households across the country feel acutely the twin pressures of rising energy costs and the cuts to social security budgets that have been made over many years by successive UK Governments. The regulations will provide important support to households, but it is not the only support that is available. There is also our winter heating payment and the child winter heating payment. Those benefits are available only in Scotland and provide reliable support to people who have an identified need for additional heat over the winter months, including low-income households and families with disabled children and young people. We continue to prioritise support with energy costs for the most vulnerable households through access to long-term and sustainable measures in our energy efficiency programmes.

I am immensely grateful to the members of the Scottish Commission on Social Security who have given their time to engage constructively with officials on the initial draft regulations that we shared with them in April and for agreeing to scrutinise the regulations before they were laid and after they were laid in draft. Wherever possible, we aim to give SCOSS sufficient time for scrutiny ahead of laying regulations but, in these circumstances, that has not been possible. SCOSS has now responded to our referral of the new pension-age winter heating payment amendment regulations, stating that it has no further comments.

Mr Balfour raises an important point. Regarding the design of the benefit, it is important to consider the cost of the benefit not just in terms of what goes to individuals but in administrating it—and, indeed, the complexity of doing so. As we looked to design the benefit, we were mindful of the costs of administration.

We anticipate that the number of opt-outs will be relatively small. That means that the administrative cost of enabling people to opt out, if they choose to do so, and to opt back in again within the same year will be minimal in comparison with the overall value of the benefit. In essence, the system has been designed so that the opt-out and opt-in process is streamlined and is capable of being delivered within the existing structures. On that basis, the administration costs of the provisions are deemed to be proportionate, and the flexibility ensures that no eligible person is excluded from support should they later decide that they need it.

Mr Balfour raises an important test, and I am satisfied that we considered the cost of administration and the overall complexity of the benefit as the process was designed.

I have nothing to add, convener.

Thank you, convener. I welcome the opportunity to assist the committee in its consideration of the regulations. A key principle in the cross-border regulations is to ensure that, when case transfer is complete, individuals who move from the rest of the UK to Scotland, while in receipt of an equivalent reserved benefit, are able to do so without a gap in their entitlement.

Our intention had been for the cross-border process to mirror case transfer, so that awards could be transferred automatically from the DWP to Social Security Scotland, without the need for the client to submit a new application. Despite our best efforts, that has not proved to be possible, because the DWP was unable to commit to the required data-sharing arrangements. That means that individuals who move to Scotland will be required to submit a new application for Scottish benefits. That will ensure that we have the most up-to-date information when deciding on an award and minimise the need for the client to undergo an unscheduled review soon after the decision. It also future proofs our approach if there is further divergence between our benefits and the UK equivalents.

Our focus has been on making that application journey as easy as possible for the estimated 300 people per month that we expect to apply across all benefits. The DWP will continue to pay clients for 13 weeks after they move to Scotland, and those clients can apply for the equivalent Scottish benefit while they are still in receipt of their DWP benefit.

The regulations make specific amendments to support carer support payment by allowing entitlement to start on a future date if the client is not eligible on the date that they apply on—something that is not currently possible. For adults receiving disability living allowance, we have developed a process to enable them to request an award of Scottish adult DLA, which, otherwise, is a closed benefit with no new applications possible. Crucially, the regulations provide for backdating of an award of Scottish benefits to the date on which the DWP award ends, as long as the client applies in the defined timeframe. We can also apply that backdating to any awards that were missed in the case transfer process or to awards made retrospectively. That design greatly reduces the possibility of gaps in entitlement and minimises the likelihood of individuals losing out on support that they are entitled to.

For carer support payment, the regulations also extend provision for temporary stop in entitlement where the payment has ended because the qualifying benefit of the person who is being cared for stopped as a result of that person moving to Scotland from the rest of the UK. That ensures that carer support payment can be reinstated more quickly and without the need for an application.

Alongside these regulations, we have designed processes to ensure that cross-border applications are identified quickly and can be prioritised. The regulations also include amendments to child disability payment, adult disability payment, pension age disability payment, Scottish adult DLA and Scottish child payment, to ensure that, when a person has continually disengaged with requests for information relating to an on-going award and is found to be no longer entitled to assistance following a period of suspension, the award can be ended from the date on which the award was suspended.

We have also taken this opportunity to make some minor, technical changes to residence and presence conditions, including for the best start grant and best start foods regulations; to update and add references to international agreements; and to remove now-redundant provisions relating to the initial period of applications for disability benefits within the regulations.

Subject to parliamentary approval, the changes will commence from 6 November 2025; for PADP and Scottish adult DLA, they will commence from 23 February 2026.

This is a disappointing part of the regulations that I am presenting today. The priority for the Scottish Government was to make the journey for a client as smooth as possible. From our discussions with constituents, we all know that it is a complex system and that people might be unaware that, for example, they might have to move to a different benefit when they move from England to Scotland or vice versa. We had hoped to make the process easy for clients, as we did during case transfer. Unfortunately, the DWP has chosen not to take that route. If we cannot get the data from the DWP, we cannot have that kind of process. That is disappointing, because it makes the journey more difficult for the client. As I said in my opening remarks, we have endeavoured to put processes in place, which we would like to introduce if the regulations are passed, to support clients through the process as best we can and ensure that cases are prioritised within the agency. The situation is far from ideal, but, given that that is our starting point, we have done what we can to make the process smoother.

Again, this is a more complicated situation than we would have hoped for, but, nonetheless, it is about looking at how can we support people during that process. Although new applications are not available for Scottish adult DLA, it is important that there is an avenue for people in the rest of the UK, should they move up to Scotland. With regard to when we need further information, the Scottish adult DLA cross-border form has been developed. That will be available to people with an on-going DLA award who have moved to Scotland. In essence, that will be similar to the part 2 form that is used for other disability benefits, so that clients can provide the further information that is required about their conditions and how they affect them.

Under the arrangements, individuals who have moved to Scotland while receiving a DWP benefit will be signposted by the DWP to contact Social Security Scotland, and to ensure that people understand the process of accessing Scottish adult DLA, clear information will be provided through the usual channels. Again, the process is not ideal, but we have endeavoured to make it as simple as we can for the individuals concerned.

Despite best efforts, we have not been able to agree a cross-border process on terminal illness cases, which is, I think, particularly disappointing. We note that the commission welcomed the Scottish Government’s on-going attempts to agree a data-sharing option with the DWP for terminally ill clients. We would all hope that it is recognised that those clients are in some of the most vulnerable situations, and it would be far from ideal if we put an additional barrier, stress or process in place for those individuals and families. We will absolutely continue our efforts to reduce the burden that we are placing on those families wherever we possibly can.

The DWP has agreed to confirm with Social Security Scotland when a client is registered with it as eligible for special rules for terminal illness, and that will allow Social Security Scotland to confirm that status without needing to seek confirmation from the client. However, the process can be triggered only when a client applies for the special rules for terminal illness, and we have confirmed that it is a cross-border application.

Again, it is not an ideal position that we have been placed in, but we are continuing to work through the data-sharing options with the DWP, particularly for those vulnerable clients.

Let us consider winter payments in the round. In my introductory remarks, I mentioned in passing some of the differences that we have made. For example, the child winter heating payment does not exist in the rest of the UK. Also, our winter heating payment for low-income people is a guaranteed income, which is very different from what happens in the DWP system.

We have used the devolution of winter heating payments in the round to make different choices in those aspects. It is challenging if, while we attempt to move ahead with our policies, there is a handbrake turn from the UK Government on its policies, particularly if there are repercussions—as has been the case with some of the winter heating payments—for the Scottish Government’s in-year budget and not just for the future. That makes things challenging, and we have to bear that in mind as we make our decisions.

I hope that that gives a demonstration of the difference that we can make with devolved social security when it comes to the winter payments. It is still important to use those powers responsibly within our fixed budget and to make choices that we think will deliver support to pensioners, who are most likely to be struggling.

That is subject to what we get from the DWP—being given that information is what will allow us to function. With the caveat that we are reliant on that data and its quality, we expect to begin the payments by the end of November, as we have planned to do.

The ambition is to have paid the majority of clients by the end of December this year. That reflects the DWP’s payments process, which is similar. We are ready to begin the process for those payments at the end of November, and the agency stands ready to receive the data from the DWP to allow data matching to continue. However, it is dependent on the quality of that data.

It is important to recognise that, although this is the first time that we have had the transfer of this data from the DWP to Social Security Scotland, there have been other data transfers in the past. Lessons learned exercises have been undertaken following those processes, because, sometimes, there has been a challenge in relation to the quality of data from the DWP, leading to further work and further manual intervention being required by Social Security Scotland. I hope that the committee is reassured that, following the experience of previous years, those lessons learned exercises have put in place an even better and more robust process for the DWP to be able to hand over high-quality data to the agency this year, to allow it to get on with its work.

I am happy to provide further information on that, if we can, although it might not just be from the Scottish Government. It goes back to why Scotland has the CDP or ADP, or why there is the personal independence payment down south. They exist to recognise the additional costs of being disabled whether someone is in employment or not. That is an important principle.

The changes to the PIP that the UK Government proposed rather turned that on its head, because they were about taking support away from people. It became evident from the concerns that were expressed by disabled people’s organisations, for example, that people were less likely to get into employment or to be able to stay in employment that they were already in, because many people used their ADP, or PIP down south, to deal with some of the additional costs, and that supported them into employment. More work needs to be done to follow on from the work that DPOs have done with their own members—which I appreciate; I think that their case is exceptionally credible and I would support it. However, there are still discussions in the rest of the UK about those types of policy changes.

That is still important to me because of the discussions that we had near the start of this parliamentary session about how a policy change there has massive impacts on our block grant for social security. I recently attended a round table with DPOs to discuss their continuing concerns about what was happening under the welfare changes that are still in place in relation to UC. They were also concerned about the fact that, at a UK Government level, there seems to have been a move away from acceptance that CDP and ADP were there to support people with the additional costs of being disabled. If that principle is in question, but we still agree on it, there is a degree of work that we all have to do to show its importance. Part of that is about how those things support people into employment or support them so that, even if they will not be able to get into employment, they are not socially isolated.