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I welcome the cabinet secretary’s comments, and I look forward to that consultation taking place. I am grateful that she will include all stakeholders in it. I absolutely acknowledge that my amendment leaves out other potential groups who might be affected by the issue, but it was important to have the debate here so that Poppyscotland and other organisations are assured that the process will happen in a timely manner. I look forward to the new guidance reflecting where we are today and, I hope, protecting those who have served our country and others who have had compensation given to them.

On that basis, I seek to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 8, by agreement, withdrawn.

Section 3—Repeal of section 52B of the 2018 Act

Amendment 105 not moved.

Section 3 agreed to.

After section 3

Amendment 28 moved—[Shirley-Anne Somerville]—and agreed to.

Sections 4 to 6 agreed to.

Section 7—New determination of entitlement after error

Yes, I will. I just have two quick points to make in summing up.

I am very happy to work together with all parties to move the issue forward, but my concern is that, if we keep talking about it for too long, nothing will happen. This is an opportunity for us as a Parliament to make a decision, and I hope that we can revert to it at stage 3.

Mr Stewart, the cabinet secretary and Mr Doris have talked about money. It is true that we get the money that is given to us by Westminster; however, we then get to choose how we spend that money. Perhaps if we stopped getting our shipbuilding contracts so badly wrong, we would have more money to spend. Perhaps if we did not put people and open embassies in other parts of the world, we would have more money to spend. Those are political choices that Governments make. I think that people would prefer that we gave money to the most vulnerable in society, rather than giving it to projects that the Government simply cannot run.

On that basis, I will—

All three of the amendments in the group are important. It is a really helpful debate and it shows what the bill can do—reviewing what we did initially, how it has worked in practice and how it can be improved. On balance, on this occasion, the Scottish Government’s amendments are probably more correct than Mr O’Kane’s, although they seek to do almost exactly the same thing. For the reasons that the cabinet secretary has given, we will support amendments 24 and 28 and, with reluctance, we will not support amendment 105.

The previous few groups of amendments have been fairly politicised, but I think that this group will be less so. I am grateful to Poppyscotland, which reached out to suggest an appropriate amendment on the effect of compensation on discretionary housing payments. I look forward to hearing what the cabinet secretary will say about amendment 8. There is a principle that, if a person is involved in a civil claim and receives money from that, those funds will not be included in discretionary housing payment decisions. However, if someone has received military compensation, that would be included. To me, that seems unfair on those who have served our country. I look forward to seeing how the cabinet secretary will deal with the amendment, which I feel is appropriate.

I move amendment 8.

I did not move the amendment.

I will respond briefly to what Mr Stewart has said. He talked about new benefits, but he has not talked about existing benefits. Existing benefits at the moment in regard to criteria and eligibility—

Can I finish this one point?

The criteria and eligibility for adult disability payment exactly mirror those of PIP. There is no difference.

Apologies, but can we not move those amendments en bloc? I do not want to move amendment 109, but I want to move the others.

Good morning, cabinet secretary and colleagues. I confirm that we will support all the amendments in the name of the cabinet secretary in this group.

I thank the cabinet secretary for her engagement on my amendment 7 and for her helpful letter of 16 September. She has said that we all wish to make sure that the money follows the child and that those who are responsible for the child get the money. I welcome the information in the letter, but that information might not be broadly understood by the wider third sector. It would be helpful if the Government and Social Security Scotland could make that information better known so that parents and third sector organisations that advise parents are aware of it. The feedback that I have had from organisations is that they are not aware of it.

My understanding is that this is guidance rather than regulation, so perhaps the cabinet secretary could also deal with that point when closing the debate on this group. My only concern is that guidance can be changed by Social Security Scotland or the Scottish Government without the Parliament knowing that that is happening. We are trying to proof the bill not just for now but for future years and generations, so I wonder whether the committee and the Parliament could be kept up to date on any changes in that regard.

In the light of what the cabinet secretary has said, I will not move amendment 7.

This is a fairly technical group of amendments, and I am grateful to CPAG and Citizens Advice Scotland for the discussions about the issues. Currently, Social Security Scotland does not have the power to make a new determination while waiting for an appeal to be heard. For example, if a client is waiting for a Scottish child payment appeal but the Social Security Scotland appeals officer has conceded that the decision is incorrect and should have been changed at redetermination, Social Security Scotland does not have the power to make a new determination and stop the appeal. Instead, it can only invite the tribunal to award the Scottish child payment.

That causes unnecessary stress relating to the appeal for the individual and unnecessary administration for Social Security Scotland and the tribunals service. That happens more frequently than we might expect. As I said in my declaration of interests, I previously sat on tribunals. Fairly frequently, a representative of the DWP would come along and say, “I’ve looked at the papers afresh and disagree with the original decision,” and would then ask the tribunal to make the decision that the claimant had wanted in the first place. Obviously, that wastes time, energy and money, and, most important, causes stress for the claimant.

Section 7 introduces a duty for Social Security Scotland to make a new determination but only under three categories: where the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland has not yet decided the appeal; where it has been identified that the original determination is less generous than it should have been due to an error; and where the individual has consented to a new determination being made. I welcome those provisions, as they will allow individuals to access their full entitlement without having to wait for an appeal and will reduce unnecessary stress and administration. However, the bill would benefit from some modification, and my amendments seek to do that.

Proposed new section 49A(1)(b) of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 specifies that there has to have been an “error” in the original determination. The requirement for an error to be identified requires the decision maker to look for something that is legally wrong with the previous determination, whereas there could simply be a different view of the same facts. There are already examples of that in case law. For example, in NB v Social Security Scotland, the same points were awarded at the determination and redetermination stages, and those points were insufficient to award adult disability payment. Even though there did not appear to be any new evidence available to Social Security Scotland, its written submission to the tribunal departed from the previous two decisions, recommending that additional points be awarded that were sufficient for ADP to be awarded at the enhanced rate. That submission did not identify an error in law with the previous decision; it simply identified a different interpretation of the evidence that had been presented.

The policy intent is to allow decision makers to make a more favourable determination. I suggest that the requirement to identify an error inserts an unnecessary and additional test that could be applied in quite a restrictive way, despite the intention that the definition of “error” is quite broad. To remove that would be helpful.

I move amendment 106.