 We are going to move on now to the next item of business, which is a statement by Shirley-Anne Somerville on delivery of devolved benefits. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement. I would encourage all members who wish to ask a question to press their request to speak buttons as soon as possible. I call on the cabinet secretary, Shirley-Anne Somerville. Last year was a momentous one for Scottish social security and we started to build a new public service for Scotland. The Social Security Scotland Act passed into law last June. Three months later, our country's new agency Social Security Scotland opened its doors. Since then, we have put over £35 million of additional funding into the pockets of people in Scotland, delivering the first two payments of the carers allowance supplement and the best start grant pregnancy and baby payment. This year we will introduce four new benefits to help young carers and low-income families. We are also consulting on our new job grant for young people moving into employment. We have made a strong start and today I will set out our plans beyond 2019. We have already taken responsibility for carers benefits, our carers allowance and carers allowance supplement. Together, we are an investment of £320 million in 2019-20 alone. On 1 April next year we will take full responsibility for the remaining devolved benefits, which means that benefits will start to be fully funded by the Scottish Government. From that point, Social Security Scotland will progressively take over administrating those benefits from the Department of Work and Pensions. For the first time, the Scottish Government will make regular social security payments week in, week out, direct to people's bank accounts, payments that Scottish families will budget into their weekly shop or monthly heating bill. The complicated nature and interdependencies of both social security and devolution means that this is no mean feat. Two Governments, two agencies will share clients. The payments that people get from the DWP in Social Security Scotland will affect and, in some cases, need to interact with one another. This is not a lift-and-shift approach where we take over the whole of social security and start changes from the inside out. That would have, of course, been my preference, and it would arguably have been a simpler process. However, what we are starting from scratch is effectively needing to untie one set of benefits from a labyrinth-line DWP system, build our own system to allow for the transfer and then make sure that the systems work together seamlessly. It is imperative that we get this right so that people not only get the right money at the right time but are still eligible for other assistance that they can be passported to as well. That is a formidable responsibility that I do not underestimate, and it is also a great opportunity to forge a social security system infused with dignity, fairness and respect. What is clear to me—what we have heard repeatedly from people with direct personal experience of the current system—is that we must ensure that people entitled to these benefits are protected during the transition. Yes, protected from aspects of the current DWP regime, but protected, too, from the errors that inevitably follow when politicians rush through big changes in social security. We do not huff to look far. The debacle of the DWP's migration of people from incapacity benefit to USA, the DLA to pit migration due to finishing 2015, then 2019, now delayed until 2021, and above all the universal credit programme, due for completion by 2017, now it is 2023, six years later than planned, and yet still fundamentally flawed. We all need to learn lessons of these failures, and it is clear to me that changes to social security need to be implemented with painstaking care. Always at paste, but never rushed or we run the risk that people fall through the gaps. Take the time to get this right is the message that I am hearing. Last month, we conducted anexperience panel survey about people's priority, as our agency takes over cases from the DWP. Of over 400 respondents, 57 per cent said that they wanted the Scottish Government to strike a balance between transferring cases quickly and making sure that there are no mistakes. A further 29 per cent would rather we took still more time to avoid errors. Presiding Officer, since my appointment, I have been listening. I am well aware how high the stakes are, and I will not take risks that endanger people's payments. We have seen that it is those who rely on the payments the most who then pay the price. Over the past eight months, I have been talking to people with lived experience and challenging my officials on what can be achieved, balancing pace and risk, with clear principles in mind. Protecting people under entitlement, acting quickly to reform aspects of the current system, which cause most stress, and ensuring that we put into place a dignified, respectful system that works for Scotland. After careful consideration, I have determined on a timetable taking over the remaining benefits that, based on current plans, I believe, whilst challenging, is realistic. As I have said from April 2020, we will become responsible for the remaining devolved benefits and I am delighted to say starting next summer that the first disability benefit to open to new claims will be disability assistance for children and young people. We will also deliver on our manifesto commitment to extend eligibility for this benefit from age 16 to 18. That will allow continuity for families during those crucial transition years when a child becomes an adult. Also from next year, children who receive the highest care component of disability assistance will be entitled to winter heating assistance too, meaning 16,000 children and their families will get a £200 lump sum to help towards their heating costs. Keeping up the pace early in 2021, I am pleased to say that we will introduce an additional payment for the estimated 1,800 Scottish carers who look after more than one disabled child, recognising the higher costs they face. By the end of 2021, we will also start paying winter heating assistance in its current form to eligible older people in Scotland who receive another type of payment from our agency. We will also make the first cold spell heating assistance payments too. Turning to new claims for disability assistance for older people, those over state pension age who need someone to help them because of a disability. I can announce that that will be introduced by the end of next year. Building on this progress in early 2021, we will introduce the largest, the most complex form of disability assistance, the new claims service for working-age people replacing DWP's PIP. I remain committed to co-designing those benefits with the people of Scotland. A person-centred approach will be at the heart of Scotland's three forms of disability assistance. Through major reforms of the assessment process, we will significantly reduce face-to-face assessments. Where assessments are needed, we will deliver them through our own agency, not through the private sector, and people will be invited to attend assessments at a time and place that suits them, with the assessor coming to them if required. By the end of 2021, we will also deliver new claims for Scottish carers allowance, folding together that benefit, carers allowance supplement and additional money for carers of more than one disabled child in a way that meets carers needs. Presiding Officer, I have carefully considered whether Scottish carers allowance could be delivered more quickly, and I know that carers are rightly keen for us to take it over as soon as possible. I have concluded that carers allowance above all is a benefit that we have to take the time to get right. It interacts in a particularly intricate way with functions that remain reserved. It affects income tax, for example, meaning that we will need new data sharing arrangements with HMRC to administer it effectively. It is also a gateway to other benefits that are in the gift of the UK Government, such as the carer premium, worth around £36 a week on top of someone's means-tested benefit. The last thing that I want to do is to jeopardise the additional payments by rushing delivery of carers allowance before the necessary agreements with the UK Government are in place, nor do I want to encourage the growth of a two-tier system between new and existing claims. By introducing new claims in 2021, we can ensure that we protect payments for carers who rely on them. It will also allow us to focus on getting all three forms of disability assistance right to support the people cared for by our carers. That is particularly important given the scale of change that we are proposing to the application process, the despise decision making and face-to-face assessments. I am therefore pleased to say that by the end of 2021, we will be delivering new claims for all disability and carers assistance and supporting families with their winter fuel bills. I now turn to the task of moving people's existing claims from the DWP to Social Security Scotland. I mentioned before the importance of ensuring that we protect people's benefits as they transfer. That is as true for existing benefits as it is for new claims. We must move people to our agency in a way that causes them minimal anxiety while safeguarding the payments that they are currently getting. Feedback from our experience panels shows how we can achieve both. I mentioned earlier a survey that we conducted last month with people experienced in the current system to ask what is most important to them as we take on their cases. Their top two priorities were that people should continue to receive the correct payments at the right time and that no one should be subject to a DWP face-to-face reassessment for disability benefits. We will use that research as the basis for a set of client-centred transfer principles agreed with user and stakeholder input. Let me be clear today that we will protect people's payments during transfer. From early 2021, when we launch new claims for our PIP replacement, I can guarantee that no one in Scotland will undergo a DWP face-to-face assessment for disability benefits. Before someone reaches the end of their DWP award period, we will take over their case so that this cannot happen. I can also guarantee that, unlike for universal credit, we will not require people to make a new claim to move on to the Scottish benefits. Instead, we will work with the DWP to arrange the transfer to happen automatically. We will keep people informed of what will happen and when, before and during the process. We will start the work of transferring people from the DWP to our agency next year. That involves moving more than half a million cases—10 per cent—of people in Scotland. Such transfers have in the past caused huge problems when the DWP has migrated within its own benefits system. What has not been done before is transferring people from one Government's agency to another's. We must do that effectively, securely and in conjunction with the DWP. With their co-operation, I expect the majority of people to be transferred by 2023, with all cases fully transferred by 2024. What I had not anticipated during that work was the further delay to the DWP's daily to pip migration, which means that people of working age will still be on two benefits at the point when we expect to transfer them to a single form of Scottish assistance. My officials are in close contact with DWP officials on this matter, and I have also requested a meeting with DWP ministers to discuss the implications. I will, of course, report back to Parliament once discussions are more advanced. We will work with the DWP to develop agency agreements to partially administer the devolving benefits until Social Security Scotland is delivering them in full. Those will ensure that people receive the regular payments that have already been awarded with minimal disruption and distress. That is an administrative function, but it does not affect when we commence powers or start funding benefits. As I have said from April 2020, benefits will be fully funded by the Scottish Government. Delivering the devolved benefits is very much a joint enterprise with the DWP, and we rely on it to match our ambition and pace. The timescales that I have set out remain very challenging, and there are many unknowns, both within our work on social security devolution and beyond. We will therefore keep our plans under careful review, and I will keep Parliament updated on our progress. We should not forget that we are at the first Government to begin the partial separation of a highly integrated welfare system between two countries. That cannot be done without taking difficult decisions on timing, but every day as we break new ground, we gain more experience of how to accomplish the most complicated feat of devolution attempted since this Parliament was reconvened. A great deal of activity is already well under way to make our current plans a reality. Today, I will publish 11 policy papers setting out the extensive work that has gone into designing how those benefits will operate. Next week, I will also publish a consultation on disability assistance to seek the views of the public on our proposed reforms, including introducing rolling rewards with up to 10 years between reviews for people whose conditioners are unlikely to change and how we will ensure that people who undertake our assessments for disability assistance are suitably qualified. In parallel, we will pursue our ambitious timetable for 2019. By the end of this year, just 18 months from Scotland's Social Security Act, we will have delivered three of the 11 devolved benefits and four brand new payments. Two years hence Social Security Scotland will have made over £210 million in benefit payments, agency staff will have supported 200,000 people and we will have brought a new culture of dignity, fairness and respect to Scottish Social Security. Certainly, we have our work cut out as we deliver devolved benefits to the people of Scotland, but the prize is great. Thank you very much. The minister will now take questions and start with Michelle Ballantyne to be followed by Mark Griffin. I would like to thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement, and I absolutely agree that the transition must be handled properly. This is about making sure that the people get the support that they need. They are the priority in all of this, but the cabinet secretary must see the utter hypocrisy that this statement exposes. For two years, you have slammed the DWP, you have used highly charged language on the UK Government's administration of benefits, you have raised expectations and promised the earth to some of Scotland's most vulnerable people. After repeated promises that the new system would be up and running by the end of this Parliament, we now learned that it will be 2024 before PIP's successor is in place. This is from the party that said that it could set up an independent country in 18 months. It will have taken nine years to introduce the devolution of 11 Social Security benefits. Can the minister not see that this is deeply embarrassing? Next April, she takes over executive competence. My question to you is, will you now apologise to the hard-working Scottish DWP staff that she has repeatedly denigrated and whom she is now asking to keep running benefits for another five years on her behalf? I will make no apologies for criticising the DWP for the way that it tackled universal credit and other aspects of this. It is never the staff who are responsible for the policies of their political masters and it is the staff who have to bear the brunt, unfortunately, in the front line of the policies of the Tory Government. The successor to PIP will be in place in 2021. It is very important to recognise that this is the area where most people have a criticism of the DWP system as it is at present. That is why we are making substantial changes to the assessment process, to the application process and to the desk-based process. If you can think that that is not a good thing to do, if you think that we should just lift the DWP system and transfer it over, then what a missed opportunity for the Scottish system in here. It is absolutely not the case that this can be compared to what can come up with independence, because, as I said during my statement, this is a partial attempt to prize out 15 per cent of benefits from the system, rather than a lift and shift of it. The fact that this is around partial devolution is indeed part of the intricacies of the programme. I am sure that Michelle Ballantyne would have been more aware of some of the difficulty of that had she been able to attend the programme development opportunity that she had within Victoria Key to talk through exactly some of the challenges that we have when we are developing the system and she could come to it with that process. It is very disappointing that, rather than seeing the opportunities that we have, as we deliver a substantially improved service within Social Security Scotland, that Michelle Ballantyne somehow still thinks that the DWP is doing a good job under the Conservative Government. That is exactly why we will have a very different policy up here and a very different experience for everyone who is experiencing social security within our agency. Thank you. I encourage everyone to keep their remarks respectful and through the chair. Do not use the term you. Mark Griffin. I am disappointed, disgusted even at some of the details that have been brought to the chamber. Labour has long called for details of the timeline for delivery of social security systems built on dignity and respect, and now we know why we have been told so little. Yet again, the sick, disabled, older people and carers will have to wait to see a fairer social security system. This morning, the cabinet secretary said that it was a choice—a choice to use a choice to use agency agreements to see carers being forced to cut their working hours. Today, the cabinet secretary wants to force those same choices on Scotland's disabled communities. No doubt paying millions to the DWP for the privilege. It also makes a mockery of the SNP promises in 2014 that a separate Scottish state could be set up in 18 months when vulnerable people will have been waiting a decade for the full devolution of social security powers. I am not asking the cabinet secretary to apologise to the DWP staff. I want the cabinet secretary today to apologise to every single disabled person who is leaving at the hands of the Tories for another five years. As I set out in my statement, we have published today 11 policy position papers that absolutely determine the work that is going on to get to the decisions that I have taken today. I would say to Mark Griffin, who also did not tend the information session with Social Security director at staff either. Had he been through that, he would have seen some of the decision-making alternatives that we have been looking at, and genuinely, as a genuine offer to the Labour party as we go through this process. If you have alternatives—if you absolutely have alternatives—then I am all ears. Today, I will be sending out an invitation to all the spokespeople from all the political parties to go through in further detail than we can ever do so in the chamber today to discuss this in much more detail. If you have alternatives, then bring them forward, but make it realistic. Do not pretend to people that you have an alternative, because at this point the Labour party has never demonstrated that it can deliver a safe and secure transition and deliver what people want, which is to ensure that they get their right payments at the right time. That is what the timetable is doing that I have announced today. If the Labour party has a credible, realistic alternative, then I am all ears to be able to look through it, but I fear that, just like the budget, they will be all talk and no delivery, because that is exactly like the Labour party act in opposition. Thank you. Quite lengthy opening exchanges. Can we keep the rest of the questions and answers quite succinct? Ruth Maguire to be followed by Alison Johnson. Given the UN special rapporteur on poverty and human rights, describe the UK Government's approach to welfare as punitive, mean-spirited and often callous. Does the cabinet secretary think that it is important to reassure people by reiterating our ambition to do things differently here in Scotland and build a social security system based on dignity and respect that works for people and not against them? It is imperative that people are able to put trust back in a system as we build our new social security system, and it works for people rather than against them. We will do that by ensuring that we get decisions right the first time. Our redesigned application process will be accessible and clear, and because we recognise that it can be difficult for clients to gather relevant evidence, Social Security Scotland will help with that. We will use the supporting evidence to make more award decisions without the need for face-to-face assessments. Where they are required, we have outlined our commitments, as I set out in my statement, that it will be undertaken by assessors that are suitably qualified and at a time and location that suits clients. All awards will be rolling with no set endpoints and reviews will be set at dates that take account of clients' conditions. We will ensure that people with fluctuating health conditions do not face additional reassessments because of regular changes they experience as a result of their condition. In her response to Ruth Maguire, the cabinet secretary has highlighted the fact that no face-to-face assessments for disability assistance will be carried out for children, young people and older people, and for other applicants all efforts will be made to use existing evidence. That comes from a green amendment to the social security bill supported by all parties in this chamber that I am really proud of. I ask the extent of the cabinet secretary's ambition in this regard. Is she aiming, for example, that the great majority of working age applicants will not have to go through a face-to-face assessment? That is our determination to get the level of face-to-face assessments down to the minimum possible level. The chamber will see when the disability consultation is launched next week that we have asked the expert advisory group for a great deal of advice on that particular issue to see how we can get the application stage right, how we can get the death-based decisions correct so that the face-to-face assessments are not required. I went back and asked for more advice and guidance on that issue, because I want to make sure that we do everything at the initial stages that we can possibly do to ensure that the face-to-face assessments are not required. We see that that is only being required if there has been no other way for the agency to gather the evidence that it requires. Of course, that is the responsibility of the agency to gather that evidence and not on the individual. As I said in my response to Mark Griffin, the letters will go out to all the spokespeople from all the political parties. I am absolutely determined to ensure that we can do whatever we can to minimise face-to-face assessments and more than happy to consider that in much further detail with Alison Johnstone when she sees the full consultation next week. Alex Cole-Hamilton has often shared common ground in our opposition to what was called the DLA takeaway, in which DLA payments to children and their families were removed after protracted hospital stays of 87 days or more. Given that the cabinet secretary has announced that the new system of benefits to children with disabilities will open for claimants in 2020, can she confirm that there will be no such impediment to Scottish children who have to go into Scotland into hospital for protracted periods of time? Well, this is one of the areas in which the consultation will be launched next week and will look at and determine. What we need to ensure is that, when we are looking at all the three disability payments that are coming forward, we look carefully at the priorities that people are looking for us to change. That might mean that we cannot do everything that everybody wants at the first time of asking, because that might have implications for how long it will take to deliver and build the system. However, what I am looking for during the process is a genuine and open frank discussion about what are people's priorities and what are the implications for the programme, if any, if we implement those priorities as well. I know that this is an area in which Alex Cole-Hamilton has a keen interest, and those are the type of discussions that we can get into over the consultation process about what are people's priorities and what are the implications if we are looking at that for our programme as we move ahead. Clare Adamson, to be followed by Jeremy Balfour. In yesterday's debate, there was much discussion on the welcome increase in financial support to carers. Can the cabinet secretary outline how the decisions taken so far support carers and show what can be achieved when a dignity and respect approach is taken to social security? We have prioritised support for carers in our new social security system. Indeed, our first change following the social security act coming into force was to increase the financial support to carers. Through carers allowance supplement, we have improved the incomes of over 77,000 Scottish carers by £442, bringing it into line with jobseekers allowance. This is an increase of 13 per cent and an investment in carers of over £33 million this financial year. As we have committed to, we will increase the supplement annually in line with inflation, and in 2019 carers will receive an extra £452.40 compared with counterparts in the rest of the UK. With our full funding of carers allowance and the supplement in 2019-20, investment in carers is at £320 million. We will also introduce an additional payment for carers who will look after more than one disabled child, which will benefit around 1,800 Scottish carers from early 2021. I have to save a message that we got on Tuesday. London time was very different than we are hearing today. I am sure that she will be speaking to her colleagues, Alice Darlan, Keith Brown and Shona Robison, for not being at that such vital important meeting. Can I take the cabinet secretary on to a really important issue and remind the chamber that I am in receipt of PIP? For those of us who have already received PIP, when we transfer across in 2021 or some other time after that, will it be done under the present DWP regulations, or will it be done under the new Scottish regulations? If it is done under the new Scottish regulations, will that not require a first filling out of forms to assess whether the benefit is of the right value or not? The area around the transfer, particularly of people who have moved from DLA to PIP, is something that I am sure that Jellied Barlford would recognise. I have given a lot of consideration too because they have had some very difficult and distressing experiences in the past. What we have ensured and committed to again today is that if you transfer, when you transfer over to the Scottish agency, you will not have to reapply and you will not have to be reassessed. That is a very important assurance that we are not putting additional barriers in front of people as we move forward to the transfer of their cases. If an individual requests a reassessment because their change is a fluctuating condition or their condition has deteriorated, that would be looked at very differently. However, if it is a simple case of someone who is having to require to transfer over to the agency, there will be no requirement to fill in new forms and no requirement to be reassessed during that process. I hope that that provides some reassurance to Jeremy Balfour on that issue. I will general route to be followed by Pauline McNeill. I see the horrendous problems caused by universal credit and the transfer to PIP in my casework every day. Is there anything that the Scottish Government can do to support people in receipt of benefits from any further upheaval? I have outlined in part to Jeremy Balfour that we will do things very differently from recent DWP migration. Our case transfers will be based on the needs of people with lived experience of the current system. We have sought their initial thoughts on that. Once we have launched our consultation, members will be able to see that we will develop a transfer principles that underpin our transfer requirements. However, as I have guaranteed again today, when people's cases transfer, their payments will be protected, they will get the right money at the right time, and that is very important reassurance for people to have, as well as the fact that they will not be subject to a face-to-face assessment. The other aspect about not forcing people to reapply is very important, as we are learning the lessons of what has been proposed within universal credit, which many stakeholders say will cause people to fall through the gaps during that migration process. Our transfer process will be very different to that. Pauline McNeill will be followed by Stuart McMillan. This morning, cabinet secretary said that it was a choice that carers could be at risk of going over the carers allowance cliff edge if they earn more than the threshold. However, this afternoon, the cabinet secretary is telling the chamber that she will maintain that choice for years to come. Can the cabinet secretary tell me what to say to Scotland's 80,000 unpaid carers as to what they should say to their bosses when they have to ask for fewer hours or completely lose their entitlement to this supplement? How will she make up for the lost income because of the choice to extend the full transfer of powers for social security by three years to 2023? What happened this morning was that the Labour Party voted against an increase to carers allowance. That is absolutely what happened in the committee this morning, and that is a deep disappointment that they did so. We discussed in committee the fact that there is an agency agreement to allow the Scottish Government to very quickly deliver the carers allowance supplement. I said this morning to committee members, and I will say again that if we did not do that agency agreement, we would not have been delivering the carers allowance supplement. Just as the Scottish Government has made choices, to be a responsible opposition, the opposition parties need to look at, if they did not want the agency agreement, to be frank to people that they would not have had their carers allowance supplement, because that is the reality of what they are saying. If they are looking to change agency agreements, they should be frank to people about the implications of doing that. That is why I have made it very clear in my response to Mark Griffin that if he has realistic proposals that want to come forward, my door is always open, but I doubt that that will happen. How can the cabinet secretary guarantee that the Scottish social security system will treat people with disabilities differently and challenge the stigma around benefits associated with the UK Government's system? I think that it is absolutely important that we challenge the stigma around benefits that people unfortunately face at the moment. That came out very loud and clear as we developed the charter. That is why I am determined to ensure that the disabled people in Scotland get access to the benefits that they are entitled to in a way that supports their needs and treats them with the dignity and respect that they deserve. We will ensure that we have a person-centred service with dignity and respect embedded in that framework of disability assessments. I am supposed to concentrate on a concrete example on that, as well as what I have already outlined in relation to assessments. I have very serious concerns, for example, about the 50-metre rule in relation to disability assessments and the negative impact that has had. I want to find a better way to understand people's mobility needs and ensure that people get the best benefits that they are entitled to. We want to get that right and we will be working with stakeholders and clients in the consultation to find a different and better descriptor on that issue. Graham Simpson, by Bob Doris. The cabinet secretary says that she expects the majority of people to be transferred by 2023 and expects all cases to be fully transferred by 2024, which is not a guarantee of anything. Having said that all those benefits would be originally transferred before May 2021, that has now been kicked down the road. Can she tell us what the extra cost of that horrendous delay will be? We will take full responsibility of all the developed benefits from April 2020, just exactly as we promised. I say that it expects around transfer because this is a joint programme with the DWP. I cannot deliver the timetable with this without doing it jointly with the DWP, so I expect to be able to deliver that majority within the end of 2023. I expect to be able to do all the chances by 2024. It is not in my gift to do that. If the member would like to take that up with the Secretary of State and the UK Government to encourage them to deliver on our pace and change, then I would appreciate his support in doing that. I appreciate the time that Government officials took this week with me and Jeremy Balfour to talk us through the complexities of the social security programme. I was struck by the scale of the programme and the new systems that were required in the IT being built. It was very impressive indeed. Have you learned lessons, cabinet secretary, from other large-scale public sector projects or Audit Scotland, which is regularly reviewing the programme? After all, getting this right first time is the best way to deliver for claimants. Bob Doris is quite right to point to the fact that we need to get this right first time for everyone involved, because those are people who are relying on us to ensure that their payments come through. That is why, as we have said right from the start of the project, under previous cabinet secretaries, safe and secure transition is our absolute priority. We are undertaking the largest and most complex programme of change since devolution. We are building a robust and future-proof digital system that delivers a high-volume payment and is a very complex task. We have learned from other major initiatives in recent times with our focus on reuse before by before build. It is an innovation in the public sector, reducing risk in data duplication and providing value for money. It is in line with Audit Scotland's principles for a digital future. Regularly reviewing our programme structures and processes and adapting as we grow to change is also the right thing to do in good practice for any programme, as highlighted by Audit Scotland in its report last year, as is the incremental approach to the development of social security. The Government's child poverty delivery plan to 2022 specifically says, within the first delivery plan that we are absolutely committed to introducing a new income supplement for low-income families. After today's statement with social security barely being devolved by that date, does the cabinet secretary honestly believe that the public and the estimated 300,000 children who will be living in poverty by then can trust that a single penny of the supplement will be in their pockets by that date when the Government has broken their promise to fully devolve benefits by the end of this session? I say once again that 15 per cent of benefit payments will be fully devolved in April of next year. The reason why the income supplement is not mentioned within the statement is that the statement today only refers to the benefits that are devolved under the Scotland Act. At the stage in which we are able to give a timeline, we have an undergone planning and delivery consideration. Members will obviously know that there is an option ofraisals going forward to examine the potential policy and delivery options for the income supplement based on our two key principles of reaching the greatest number of children in poverty and ensuring a robust and viable delivery route. The commitment contained within the delivery plan is that we will work towards the introduction of the income supplement over the lifetime of the plan, and that is exactly what we intend to do. John Mason, the cabinet secretary in her statement mentioned a new culture of dignity, fairness and respect. I wonder if she can say anything about how that will come into place so that we do not see examples, as we saw in the film I Daniel Blake, where an ordinary member of the staff tried to help somebody claiming benefits and was jumped on by somebody from senior management. John Mason again raises the very important point that it is not the DWP staff that are to blame for the system but the UK Government that have the policies that they need to implement. We are determined to do things differently up in Scotland and that is very much based on the social security charter and what that enshrined. It is a very powerful document because it has been developed not by Government but by those with lived experience of the social security system. It ensures that the Scottish Social Security Act principles that legally define our approach to social security, based on dignity and respect in human rights, is upheld in every single interaction that any individual has with our system. Thank you very much. That concludes our statement on the delivery of devolved benefits.