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I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests, which shows that I am in receipt of higher-rate personal independence payments.

I think that it was Harold Macmillan who said, “Events, dear boy, events.” Amendment 3 has been overtaken by events. A similar amendment was debated at stage 2 and was voted down on the basis of the convener’s casting vote.

Amendment 3 recognises the financial situation that the Scottish Government is in but, at the same time, recognises that the most vulnerable people in our society need extra help. This is perhaps not for today, but the Parliament needs to truly debate the issue of targeted benefits versus universal benefits. With the financial situation as it is, whoever is in Government over the next number of years will have limited resources. Surely the point of benefits is to target them at the most vulnerable in our society. We already do that by awarding a similar type of payment to children who are under 16 and are on higher rates.

This benefit would have given those who are on the higher rate of pension age disability allowance or attendance allowance that extra payment to meet their fuel payments in recognition of the fact that most of them stay at home all the time and thus have extra heating costs. However, as I said at the start, I recognise that things have moved on, so I will not move the amendment in my name today.

I move to amendments 21 and 22 in the name of Paul O’Kane, which clearly prompted the statement by the cabinet secretary last Thursday, in which she went some way towards rectifying the situation that the UK Government has left us all in. However, her suggested way forward, which would come into force in November next year, would not give the same help to every pensioner; some are given a lesser amount of money. That is a concern. Certainly, my colleagues and I have received a number of emails—as I am sure have members across the whole chamber—to the effect that, without that extra payment, whatever is discussed and decided today, there will be people this winter who will be cold in their homes and need that help. I am disappointed that the UK Labour Government took that away. We should not be debating that this afternoon. However, we are where we are.

I look forward to hearing what Paul O’Kane, who lodged the amendments, has to say. I would also be interested to hear from the cabinet secretary what would happen if we were to introduce the regulations that she suggested last Thursday and they came into law, and then Westminster, at any point, reinstated the benefit that was already there? Would we then be paying two lots of benefits to pensioners? How would they fit together? More to the point, how would they be administered?

I look forward to hearing the contributions from others but, at this moment, we are minded to support amendments 21 and 22.

I move amendment 3.

I thank the cabinet secretary for arranging a meeting with Social Security Scotland, and I thank Social Security Scotland for that meeting, which I had with it last week to discuss some of the issues. The meeting was productive, and I certainly got a better understanding of where Social Security Scotland thinks that it is going over the next few years. However, there is still an issue in relation to how we judge and evaluate Social Security Scotland, particularly whether it is providing the best possible service for claimants and working efficiently.

A number of years ago, Mr Doris and I had a wee trip down to Victoria Quay to see how Social Security Scotland was designing the new system. I confess that I came away from that trip feeling that the system was going to be all singing and all dancing and that it was going to be of great use. However, over the past few years, it has become clear that, for whatever reason—whether it is due to design faults or political decisions—the information that is used to make judgments is simply not being recorded, so it is very difficult to hold the Scottish Government and the agency accountable for what is going on.

I acknowledge that things have got better over the past few years, but there are still some fairly glaring issues and, if the agency was a private company or another part of the Government, there would be real questions. That is why I seek to introduce provisions to allow the Parliament and the Government to put in place key performance indicators over the next few years. The system would be flexible, because the indicators would be introduced through secondary legislation.

As I knew before my meeting with Social Security Scotland, it has lots of information, but it is difficult to judge whether that information is good or bad. For example, on an average day, the Dundee office is at 45 per cent occupancy. That is the figure that Social Security Scotland records. I must confess that that figure seems very low, given the amount of money that we are paying for the building, but, without some kind of benchmarking or KPI, it is very difficult to make such judgment calls.

We are told that people are waiting on the telephone for long periods. However, again, it is difficult to know whether the figures are acceptable or whether there needs to be improvement. My amendments will ensure that claimants get the best service. The same could be said for application and decision times. The figures are available, but the Parliament, collectively, has not made a decision on whether they are good or bad.

From my meeting with Social Security Scotland and other meetings, I know that it is open to having such a system. Ultimately, it is for the Parliament to set appropriate KPIs so that we can be assured that taxpayers’ money is being used appropriately and that claimants are getting the service that they deserve.

For that reason, I move amendment 23.

I begin by thanking all those who have worked hard to get us to this point. The clerks, staff, third sector partners and others who have contributed to the bill deserve a lot of credit.

The bill includes a number of measures that will meaningfully improve social security in Scotland, and it has been great to be able to work on a cross-party basis to get them over the line.

However, although the bill represents a step forward, it is worth reflecting on how far we still have to go. It is fair to say that the devolution of social security has not necessarily played out in the way that anyone expected or, perhaps, hoped. It turns out that setting up and discharging the duties of a new agency is not an easy task, and over the past nine years we have seen a number of problems develop that have been felt by the most vulnerable people in our country. A constant stream of complaints have piled in, working out at almost three per day since 2019. We cannot continue to accept that level of failure.

That should all be viewed in the wider context of the spiralling cost of benefits in Scotland. The bill for social security has risen to over £5 billion, and we will find ourselves with a £1.6 billion deficit by 2026. That is obviously unacceptable. As a country and as a Parliament, we need to have a conversation about how we do benefits in Scotland. For too long, we have buried our heads in the sand and not dealt with the core issues in our system.

As I said when speaking to one of my amendments, we have, for too long, not examined the issue of universal benefits. The Scottish Government often talks about wanting to live in a country in which those who have the most contribute the most, yet there is a general posture of making policies and payments available to everyone, regardless of their economic situation.

There needs to be a review of our fundamental posture on those things—not only in social justice and social security, but across the whole of government in Scotland. Targeted measures would give us the ability to provide better support for those who need it most, while those who are already well off would not receive help that they do not need.

Until we begin to engage with those issues, we are doomed to continue our pattern of ever-increasing costs, while not supporting those who need it most to the extent to which they need it. That is why I moved some of my amendments and am disappointed that they were not accepted.

I also want to draw attention to the fact that the Government has used the bill to introduce sanctions by the back door. Although we on the Conservative benches welcome the commitment to consult the third sector on those changes, we want to make sure that that happens, rather than hearing yet more warm words from the Scottish Government, and we will be interested to see what comes out at the end. I find it interesting that, over the past eight years, the Scottish National Party Government has spoken at length about its opposition to sanctions, but now, having again run head first into the reality of execution, it has abandoned those convictions and seen the light.

I welcome the bill and we on the Conservative benches will support it at decision time. However, I say again that words are not enough. We need to see action, by the Government and Social Security Scotland, to make sure that those who really need that action get it in an appropriate way.

I am grateful to the Child Poverty Action Group, Citizens Advice Scotland and other organisations that have helped with the drafting of my amendments.

I am sure that the cabinet secretary and members will be pleased to know that we are now debating policy instead of money. This is an important policy debate to have.

My amendments in the group aim to remove the unnecessary step of having a formal redetermination before an appeal. An appeal could be scheduled more promptly, if that was required, but the redetermination could take place behind the scenes and the award could be changed, if that was needed. The redetermination could also mean that, if the award was made, the appeal could lapse, which would mean that a further intervening period would not be required.

On social security, we have tried, as a Parliament, to put the claimant—the disabled person—at the heart of the process. We have said that we want to treat them with dignity and respect, and I believe that amendment 5 goes a wee bit further in providing that dignity and respect, because it would help the individual to get an award if the process could happen more quickly than is the case at the moment.

I do not want to pre-empt the cabinet secretary’s comments, but I suspect that she will say that people do not like going to tribunals. That will be true for some people, but perhaps this is a chance for us, collectively here in Scotland, to reset the image of tribunals. As a former member of a tribunal that heard such cases, I believe that most, if not all, tribunal members seek to do their best. I appreciate that the process can be stressful and awkward for some, but that does not mean that we should not allow a redetermination to happen in the background, which might allow a decision to be made more quickly.

I hope that members will look at these amendments favourably. They put the claimant where we want them to be, which is at the heart of the system. They would speed up the whole process of the system, and it is to be hoped that we will not end up with many more tribunals.

I move amendment 5.

I welcome the cabinet secretary’s willingness to continue the conversation.

The reason for setting out the KPIs in regulations would be to give a bit more flexibility. We would not be pinning them down. As we all know, regulations are easier to change than primary legislation.

I will quickly respond to two points. As well as a responsibility to look after the claimant, we have a responsibility to look after taxpayers’ money. Although it is probably not in the top five issues, that is why we need to know the occupancy rate.

I come back to the point that until the Parliament knows what the acceptable figures are for decision times, telephone lines and all those things, it will be difficult to decide whether Social Security Scotland is doing what it does well.

That is why I press amendment 23.

For a moment, I thought I had persuaded somebody. [Laughter.]

I make that clarification: redetermination does not go away; it is simply done behind the scenes.

I press amendment 5.

These amendments would ensure that process decisions are able to be appealed past the First-tier Tribunal and be heard at the Upper Tribunal for Scotland, in contrast to section 61 of the 2018 act, which states that backdated claims are process decisions. My amendments would allow such claims to be escalated if required.

I am grateful, again, to CPAG and Citizens Advice Scotland, which ask us to support these amendments. I will, if I can, steal the example from the briefing that CPAG has sent to all members, because it explains the situation better than I can. It states:

“Astrid’s Scottish child payment stopped in error when she moved from tax credits to universal credit. Astrid didn’t see the letter notifying her that the Scottish child payment stopped because she was looking after her terminally ill mum. She submits a late redetermination request and receives a process decision refusing her request because it was more than a year since the determination is made.”

If these amendments are not agreed to, that would be the end of the situation for Astrid, the claimant. I am seeking to introduce the right to appeal to the Upper Tribunal in process appeals, which would allow case law to develop around that type of situation and in other areas.

Case law is important. Over the past 20 or 30 years, we have seen, first with the DWP and now in Scotland, how case law has been interpreted and has given claimants greater rights. Case law develops precedents about how legislation should be interpreted and applied.

I believe that it is important that we allow the judiciary a role in developing the process of appeals, and that it can look to continuously improve the social security system. One of the principles that is set out in the 2018 act is about continuous improvement and getting it right for every person. That is not currently the situation. Amendments 17 and 18 would rectify that, and give claimants better rights of appeal. For that reason, I ask members to consider supporting the amendments in my name.

I move amendment 17.

Just to provide clarification, I can say that we will be supporting the Government amendments in this group, and we welcome the tidying up that they involve.

I have probably had enough goes at the two members concerned at stages 2 and 3, so I will not labour the point, but I again point out that a redetermination can still take place. Once a decision is made by Social Security Scotland that the claimant does not like, they lodge their appeal, which normally takes four to six weeks. During that time, the redetermination takes place within Social Security Scotland. If, at that point, Social Security Scotland wants to make a decision that is different from the original decision, that can be intimated to the claimant. If the claimant accepts that, they do not have to go forward to the appeal. The redetermination—

The Scottish Government and Scottish Labour could perhaps have approached the three amendments in the group with a wee bit more humility on both sides. We are where we are because of what happened at Westminster, and it is slightly unfortunate that Mr O’Kane, in his remarks, did not at least acknowledge that and apologise to Scottish pensioners. With regard to the Scottish Government, we have to recognise that the majority of pensioners will receive no extra benefit this winter.

Concern has been expressed at stages 2 and 3 about the way that Social Security Scotland works and the system that it has in place. In a letter that we received from the cabinet secretary, she seemed to indicate that, even if Parliament wanted to make the proposed changes, Social Security Scotland could not have delivered them this year. That means that we have a system that is not flexible and will not allow us to adapt. We need to come back to that, either in the chamber or at committee, and examine what can be done about it.

We are where we are, and for that reason we will support Labour’s amendments in the group. I seek to withdraw my amendment 3.

Amendment 3, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 21 moved—[Paul O’Kane].

I have nothing to add, but I will press amendment 17.