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You mentioned that you had picked up most of the points that were recommended by SCOSS. One of the areas on which you did not seem to be so keen was the recommendation to provide flexibility in the 12-month deadline to reinstate an award. The Scottish Government decided against doing so. Why did you come to that decision?

Good morning. I intend to speak only to amendment 54, in my name, which relates to the access to elected office fund. As most colleagues will be aware, the purpose of the fund is to support and encourage people with a disability to take part in elections in a way that is similar to the way in which people who do not have a disability can do. I am pleased to say that the idea of such a fund has been pioneered outwith Scotland and that, interestingly, it has now been picked up in other jurisdictions in the Commonwealth.

My reason for lodging amendment 54 is that, disappointingly, the Westminster Government got rid of the access to elected office fund for the Westminster election that took place earlier this year. I appreciate that the Scottish Government has committed to support the fund for the Scottish Parliament election that is coming up in 14 months’ time, but we do not know how future Governments will look at the matter. Putting the fund in statute will protect local council elections and Scottish Parliament elections and will allow people with a disability to be able to take part in such elections in a fair way.

I have never used the fund, but I have received evidence from Inclusion Scotland that at least six or seven people were elected at the most recent local council elections who would not have stood without it. I think that putting the fund in statute is a positive way forward, which will mean that we can use and maintain it on a cross-party basis in future.

I thank the minister and his team for their help with the wording of amendment 54, and I hope that the committee will agree to it.

Good morning, cabinet secretary, and to your team. Could you give us an update on the expected opening date of the safer drug consumption facility in Glasgow? It was due to open last month, so where are we with the timescales?

Thank you.

Will the member take an intervention on that point?

It is good to have you here, cabinet secretary. I have a couple of questions. Looking forward to next year, when the presumption is that Social Security Scotland will take on delivery of the pension-age winter heating payment, will it be able to do that? I seek assurance on that. Further, will that have to be delivered under a universal system only?

I appreciate that, cabinet secretary. I am just asking whether you tried to have that discussion, or did you simply think that there was no point in having it?

Can Mr Doris point to one occasion on which I have said that in this committee? I must ask him to clarify his comments, because I have never said that we do not need a social security system in Scotland; indeed, I was proud to be on the committee that brought forward our system. Can he point to one occasion on which I have said that?

I wish that we were not in this position, and I agree with a lot of what the cabinet secretary has said. The UK Government has made a bad, and very strange, decision, which will have a real effect on many of our constituents’ lives.

I understand why the regulations have been introduced. However, I am concerned with the bigger picture and how Social Security Scotland works and the systems that it has in place. From what we have heard this morning, it seems that, if the Scottish Government had wanted to look at different criteria for doing things in a different way, that would have been simply impossible, because the system is designed in a particular way. That gives me some concern, because it suggests that that system is fixed and has no flexibility in it.

What happens depends not only on the decisions that the UK Government has made in this year’s budget but on any decisions that it might make in future. It might change the criteria, and I am concerned about how quickly Social Security Scotland could respond to that.

I would welcome the cabinet secretary writing to the committee on how quickly Social Security Scotland could redesign and amend the system. How long would that take? Would it be weeks or months? We do not want to get into a position next year in which we have to go back to reach another agreement with the DWP, because that would have a financial cost to us all.

I am disappointed that we are having to make these decisions, which will affect real people, but there is also the bigger picture, as we move forward, regarding how Social Security Scotland works and whether it can deliver what we, as a Parliament, want it to deliver.

That is helpful. Thank you.

Did you consider applying different eligibility criteria for the benefit or was that simply ruled out immediately because the system would not let you make changes?