 I remind members of the Covid-related measures that are in place and that face coverings should be worn when moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood campus. The next item of business is a debate without motion on the subject of accessing Scottish social security benefits. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons. I call on Shona Robison to open the debate. I am pleased to open the debate on accessing Scottish social security benefits. Access to social security is a basic human right and a principle enshrined in our 2018 Social Security Act, as is the view that social security is an investment in people. Within that act is the important duty of ensuring that the Government promotes the take-up of Scottish benefits. That is why the Scottish Government is clear that we will ensure that anyone eligible for our range of benefits can access them simply and easily and that we actively work to promote the financial support available to people. This debate comes after the publication of our second benefit take-up strategy published at the end of October, as the nation focuses on recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. We are also seeing households face increased living costs and an imminent rise in national insurance, so it is more important than ever that people who are entitled to our benefits know about them, apply for them and get the financial support that they are eligible for. Willie Rennie? I thank the minister and for the publication of the new strategy that was sent to us this morning by the minister, which was helpful. Can the minister tell us what she has learned since 2016 about how long it takes to implement new social security benefits? We did expect it to happen much earlier than that because it was promised by the minister that it would happen almost instantly. Why has it taken five years even to get to this stage? A lot has been achieved in the three years since the Parliament agreed the powers to be able to establish Social Security Scotland and establish the benefits. 11 benefits, seven of which are brand new to Scotland, is a very good record for Social Security Scotland in the three years since it has been able to build its capacity and deliver those benefits. I hope that that is something that the member will take on board. If he has not already done so, I would encourage him to visit Social Security Scotland to find out for himself some of the complexity involved in setting up some of the benefits, particularly the new benefits. Pam Duncan-Glancy, thank you for taking the intervention cabinet secretary particularly so closely to answering a previous one. I did have the benefit of meeting Social Security Scotland earlier on in the week with the Social Security Committee, and I find it really helpful. One of the things that was clear, and I said a few times in the presentation, was that their role is on delivery of the benefits that they have, so they are focusing just now on, as you will know, the Scottish child payment and others, but that the Government's role is on policy and direction around that. Given the separation of those responsibilities in that sense, as separate as they can be, could the Government not be moving on policies around eligibility criteria and adequacy of payments quickly in tandem with Social Security Scotland who are clear that there is a separate duty in terms of delivery? Both are important and both have to work in tandem. That is why the First Minister on her visit to the agency headquarters in Dundee announced the massive expansion of Social Security Scotland because of the disability benefits that will be coming over the next year to 18 months. The build-up of capacity of that organisation is why that expansion is happening, so the two are in tandem. We will always look at what more we can do. We are already looking at the doubling of the Scottish child payment, as the member knows, and we will be setting out more plans for that as part of the budget process. I want to make a bit of progress if that is okay. Increasing Social Security and income maximisation are important components of our work to tackle poverty. Our tackling child poverty delivery plan sets out that increasing incomes through Social Security and benefits in kind is one of the key drivers of reducing child poverty. Taken together with action to increase incomes from work and earnings and to reduce household costs, that will help to lift families out of poverty and provide the financial security families need to thrive. Although we have seen the reduction in UK Government reserve benefits over the past decade take its toll on people and reduce their income, that is not the approach that this Government is taking. In the last three years, since we had the powers to do so, we have introduced a raft of benefits to support the people of Scotland. As I said earlier, our agency, Social Security Scotland, is now delivering 11 benefits, seven of them brand new and unique in the UK. We will also continue to deliver through our local authority partners, the Scottish welfare fund, discretionary housing payments, including mitigating in full the bedroom tax and council tax reduction. Despite the challenges over the past year and a half due to the pandemic and the obvious impact that this has had on our timetable for delivery of Scottish benefits, over the past year we introduced four new benefits despite those challenges. That is a pretty good record. In addition to the range of continuing support, we have introduced specific one-off payments to support people during these very difficult times. That includes paying around £90,000 unpaid carers and additional £230 carers allowance supplement last year and this year. We introduced bridging payments for families in receipt of free school meals so that they are receiving the equivalent of the Scottish child payment. £520 is being paid this year and next to support around 150,000 children and young people in advance of the Scottish child payment being rolled out to under-16s very briefly. Miles Briggs. The committee has heard concerns around young carers grant and people applying for that. Is that something that the Government has looked into as take-up hasn't been as expected? Cabinet Secretary. The Minister for Social Security promoted it last week as part of the two-year anniversary. There are always opportunities to promote them. That is why we are having this debate to get that message across, that people should apply and that they are entitled to those supports. We also delivered a low-income pandemic payment of £130 to everyone who received council tax reduction in April. Around 500,000 households benefited from that payment by the end of last month. Those payments demonstrate that we are using the powers available to us to put cash directly in the pockets of those who need it most. I want to thank our local authorities for the role that they play in supporting us in that. Delivery is vital in accessing benefits. I am very proud of the central role that Scotland's newest public service agency, Social Security Scotland, also plays in that. The agency is fundamental to ensuring that every person requiring access to that assistance is empowered and fully supported to do so. In the last financial year, Social Security Scotland invested around £430,000 marketing the 10 benefits available at that time. We know that that is making a difference. As an example, Facebook advertising alone helped to drive more than 50,000 applications last year. Inclusive communications is at the heart of Social Security Scotland's approach. We also ensure that information is available offline for all campaigns so that information is accessible to everyone in a way that suits them best. We know that, in the past, access to Social Security has not always been straightforward. Even now, for some UK benefits, we know that there are complexities and hurdles that make the benefits system challenging to navigate for many. Indeed, we know from previous committee sessions on the subject that the UK system is not backed by any plan or strategy to promote the take-up of Social Security, such as we have here in Scotland. In October last year, the then Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People joined with the Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts in writing to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to urge a more strategic approach to maximising the take-up of reserved benefits, but to date, unfortunately, no response has been received. Our 2021 benefit take-up strategy sets out the Scottish Government's approach to maximising the take-up of Scottish benefits, as well as providing our best estimates of the take-up of the benefits that are currently being delivered. Acknowledging that Social Security must be part of a more holistic approach to income maximisation in order to support recovery from Covid, the strategy is built around five key principles developed through extensive stakeholder engagement and experience panel research. First, we will prioritise person-centred approaches. We recognise that one size does not fit all and that we need to adapt and deliver tailored approaches. Secondly, we will communicate and engage effectively, sending out the right messages at the right time in the right place for the target audience. Thirdly, we will bring services to people, simply flying processes and ensuring that we bring advice and support services to people where they need it rather than expecting people to always come to us. Fourthly, we will encourage cross-system collaboration, making sure that other public sector and third sector organisations help to deliver that. Finally, we will continuously learn and improve building on the evidence that we know and taking that on board to do things differently if required. Each of those five principles, taken alone, are important in bringing them together into the 2021 strategy, which means that they will work in combination and yield far greater impact. Inclusivity is at the centre of the system of Social Security that we are building and is fundamental to our approach to promoting the take-up of benefits. We know that there are many barriers preventing that take-up and that those vary across different segments of the population. Our commitment to engaging with seldom-heard groups and those representing protected characteristics is driving new and bespoke approaches to supporting people to access assistance. In January, we will launch our Social Security Advocacy Service, which the Scottish Government has invested up to £20.4 million in, which will be delivered independently of the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland. That service will mean that anyone identifying as having a disability and requiring help to communicate will have free access to the support that they need to participate fully in social security processes and decisions that affect them. We are also investing £10 million over the current Parliament to increase access to advice and accessible settings to maximise incomes and tackle poverty. That includes expanding welfare advice and health partnerships through the funding of £2.9 million over three years to place welfare rights advisers in up to 150gp surgery across Scotland's most deprived areas. We will also look at opportunities to extend that model in education settings because it is good evidence that placing advice in those trusted settings is a powerful tool for getting information to people who need it in the right place at the right time. We know for many the need to access benefits can be overshadowed by a fear of being stigmatised. We want to change that by challenging that discourse, empowering people to recognise their rights and access the benefits that they are entitled to. To do that, we are working alongside stakeholders, engaging with those with lived experience, and this later this month we will be launching a marketing campaign focused on financial wellbeing, beginning with a focus on removing the stigma around benefits. Our primary audience will be those people who have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and are struggling financially as a result. The Scottish Government is committed to building a robust and accessible Scottish social security system, and we are investing in supporting access to social security. We are committing substantial resources to develop and implement our strategy. I look forward to hearing what others have to say in this debate this afternoon. Members may wish to be aware that we have time in hand this afternoon for interventions, and time will be given back wherever possible. If any member wishes to contribute this afternoon, could you please make sure that they have pressed their request-to-speak button? I apologise, but I very much welcome today's debate on accessing Scottish social security benefits and the on-going discussions across the Parliament on the priorities and reforms that are needed. I was pleased, as Pam Duncan Glancy has already said, to visit Social Security Scotland on Monday of this week alongside fellow members of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. I thank those who are working in the organisation for that very helpful visit and the work that they have been undertaking to date to help to establish the organisation. Despite the pandemic, as the cabinet secretary has said, it is clear that Social Security Scotland and the DWP are working in close partnership to help to build the systems in Scotland that can help to develop a new institutional knowledge and to help to deliver a successful benefit system that Scotland requires. I thank those organisations who have provided useful briefings ahead of today's debate. The 2016 Scotland Act introduced sweeping devolution of welfare powers. Scottish ministers now have full control over 11 benefits that were previously run by the UK Government. The Scottish Government is now also able to top up UK-wide reserve benefits as well as create its own suite of new benefits. Building a sustainable and responsive social security and benefits system is in all of our interests, and we on those benches want to make sure that the system that the next Scottish Government will hear it as well is fit for purpose and will deliver for the people of Scotland. One area that is extremely important for this Parliament, I believe, to scrutinise is around the costs of setting up Social Security Scotland. It is estimated that the costs now stand at around £651 million. The SNP previously had put a cost of around £307 million four years ago to create the new agency and the devolved powers being delivered. Social Security Scotland clearly is costing more, and it is something that this Parliament has an important responsibility to scrutinise. I appreciate the importance and significance of what Mr Briggs has raised and that he does so in good faith. However, I also pose the question to him to consider that, of course, Social Security Scotland is delivering more benefits that were envisaged in 2018 because of the seven new benefits that have been created and that we are at a key point in the conception of Social Security Scotland to build that strength not just for the years to come but for the decades thereafter and to make sure that it is a strong institution for the people of Scotland, as Mr Briggs rightly highlighted, he wishes it to be so. Miles Briggs. I accept the minister's point, but I think that it is important for this Parliament and for the committee especially to be scrutinising the costs around establishing the operation because we know and we were told on Monday, in fact, that currently operating costs, including agency agreements with the DWP, are set around 10 per cent of all current benefit expenditures that are going out in Scotland under the sweep of benefits that the minister has outlined. I welcome the assurances that we have been given and this is a prediction at the moment that this will come in line with the DWP, which currently stands around 6.3 per cent of benefit expenditure. However, I think that all of us in this chamber want to make sure that every single taxpayer per pound is being put to payments for claimants, not administration costs. The use of technology and new working can reduce those costs. I think that that is an important part of the argument that we really have not had about how we modernise our welfare system. I am sure that everyone across the chamber, like I have said, wants to make sure that we are seeing the money that we put into welfare in Scotland in this Parliament or coming from Westminster going to claimants. An important part of today's debate is looking to the future and the proposed reforms of how people will be able to access social security benefits under the new system and new models that are being outlined. Scottish Government has already signalled that it intends to replace PIP with ADP. What is not clear, though, at this moment in time, is around the new criteria and the assessment protocols in accessing this benefit. Sam H state in its useful briefing that around 39 per cent of people currently in receipt of PIP in Scotland have a mental health problem. That group of clients have faced some of the greatest challenges during the pandemic. We all know that. Sam H research has found that applicants often find accessing processes and frequent reassessments cause additional stress. I know that all members of the committee want to know what those reforms will actually look like and what processes will be put in place for those individuals to have awards made. Certainly, organisations such as I've outlined like Sam H and MS Society Scotland are looking for the details ahead of any potential reforms. It is important that Parliament has the opportunity to properly scrutinise those. If I have time, I will take both. For Mr Briggs awareness and that of Parliament, he will be aware that SCOSS has given its feedback and given its recommendations on the draft regulations for adult disability payment. The Government will respond soon to that. Of course, there will be the opportunity for the committee to scrutinise the regulations when they are brought forward to Parliament. I absolutely agree. What is not clear is how the changes will be put in place, what criteria will necessarily be brought forward and who will undertake some of the potential assessments that might also be needed. I am very much looking forward to where there may be policy and eligibility divergence from adult and child disability payment from what has come before with PIP. Would Miles Briggs reflect on some of the evidence that we have received in the Social Justice and Social Security Committee that the Scottish Fiscal Commission projects that by making it easier for people to apply for ADP, they predict that that additional cost to the Scottish Government will be £500 million, which needs to be found elsewhere in the Scottish budget. That highlights how easier to access ADP will be from PIP. Would you like to reflect on what that means about what PIP is, which is a big barrier for disabled people to access support? I agree with the member, but I think that what is important is that we are still early days and we do not necessarily know what uptake will look like and how payments will be necessarily easier. One of the discussions that I agree with the member on is that, at the Social Security Committee, around the new assessments that will be potentially needed, who will undertake those and whether or not that will, like the current system, put people off necessarily applying. It was interesting to hear about the work already being undertaken around supportive documentation on Monday, which we had heard, because I think there is need to look towards that potential reform. We know already the challenges that exist in building an integrated system with GPs, health boards and also local authorities. It is not clear, and certainly the conversations that we have had on this, whether or not that will be any easier under this new system. It is clear that these public organisations that I have outlined need to look towards how they become an integral part of the design and development of any new system as well. In the time that I have left, I wanted to touch upon the charter as well. Section 3 of the act, as the cabinet secretary has mentioned, places a duty on ministers to promote the take-up of benefits. The act specifically specifies that ministers must publish a strategy, which they intend to promote the take-up and that ministers consult on this with individuals and organisations. I know that the review has recently completed its work on that and that the thinking is currently being looked at in government. However, it is important for the many organisations and people with lived experience that they are an integral part of what comes out of that review as well. The Social Security Scotland charter sets out what people can expect from the Scottish social security system and how Social Security Scotland will uphold those principles. It is important that we also look towards a commitment that people's wellbeing will be assessed as part of that. I will be interested when, I do not know if the minister or the cabinet secretary is closing today's debate, what actual evaluation has taken place of the new system to date to embed the charter and the values, which I think that we all agree on. To conclude today's debate, it is a welcome opportunity to discuss the new social security Scotland systems, which will be in place. It gives all members an opportunity to contribute to what should be a cross-party effort to establish this organisation. I often feel that one of the things, or two of the things that I say most in the chamber, is that I welcome the Government's policy intentions but that I do not feel that their actions go far enough to make them a reality. You will be unsurprised to hear that today is no different in that respect. I give the Government a lot of credit for recognising the importance of addressing access to social security. The rhetoric, of course, is good. However, in my view, the solutions that have been set out to address access to social security will not go far enough to do what the Government wants to deliver. As many members will know, I do not think that the pace and scale of what the Government is doing on social security will quite deliver the policy intentions or the charter or reduce poverty in Scotland at the pace or scale that we need to. Low take-up of benefits is, of course, an age-old issue and one that requires new and revolutionary solutions. I thank Pam Duncan Glancy for giving way and all of us are impatient to move away from the broken Westminster social security system that let down so many people who are looking to seek support. Would she agree with me that the feeling that we got from Social Security Scotland on Monday from some very senior members of Social Security Scotland, including those who have previously worked for the DWP, felt that the move towards delivering new benefits was happening at an incredible pace to quote their words? I am not surprised that they have explained it or described it like that because the organisation that is new was in the middle of a pandemic and there were four benefits that were highlighted earlier on that were delivered in an unexpected way. I am not denying that what they have done as an organisation to deliver on those parts of the benefits has been quick. However, I am also frustrated and impatient for a change in policy direction because, as you know, PIP has already excluded, the change from DLA to PIP has already excluded a number of disabled people. You also know, and the committee will have heard, that tens of thousands of unpaid carers are unable to access the support that they need. We need to move faster on that, I will. I am grateful for the member. Is the member surprised that the regulations at the moment for the new Scottish PIP are almost identical to the PIP that we have at Westminster at the moment and that we are expecting something slightly more radical and different from the looking forward Government? To be honest, I was expecting more from both Governments and I definitely did expect it to be far more radical than I saw. I think that we need to move quickly on that, because the poverty that unpaid carers and disabled people are facing is urgent and we need to take action on it. The Scottish Government has recognised that people who are in poverty, disabled people, people who are shielding, children and young people, older people, minority ethnic communities and women have been the hardest hit by the pandemic, but it is unable yet to give a clear picture of who those people are, what they are currently claiming and how effectively the social security system is supporting them. In the strategy, it says that it is very difficult to identify some people, including carers. Finding a way to identify people is vital, because we have already seen the real-life impact of not having the data that we need. For example, 125,000 children who are entitled to the Scottish child payment are still missing out on the £10 a week because we do not have the data or the correct information to find them. We have suggested a solution to the Government to get around that, and I suggest that they do that. However, the chamber will also know that I do not believe that £10 a week is anywhere near enough, that those benches do not believe that and that we can guarantee, however, that having something is significantly better than having nothing. On page 55 of the benefit take-up strategy, the Government states that identifying the size of the eligible population for carers' benefits is challenging due to the complexity of eligibility. The document goes on to say that the situation is the same for young carers and disabled people. That does not need to be the case, though. I am sure that the Government will know that I have met carers as have the Social Security Committee and disabled people on a number of occasions. Those organisations can identify those groups of people, they can identify carers where they are and what they should be eligible for, and so I suggest that the Government can, too. The document makes a lot of the Government's engagement with carers, but my experience in recent months has not been that they have felt engaged. In fact, they have said that they have not felt listened to. However, carers need us to do more than listen. They need us and the Government to act, and I urge the Government to do that, to meet carers regularly, but not just so that they can learn from them about how to identify who carers are, but also so that they can talk about the way that they can reform carers' assistance in Scotland. I also think that, to use our Social Security system to its full potential, we have to prioritise good data on who is and who is not eligible for support. If we cannot do that, we do not know who needs it and who the system is prioritising. Not having that would limit our ability to see where change is needed, and I urge the Government to do more than it is at the minute to improve the quality of the data that it has. More substantially, the discussion is titled access to social security in Scotland. Unfortunately, in addition to issues with data, and of course the data that we have shows that nearly as many as a quarter of children who are entitled to Scottish child payment do not get it, large numbers of people are not accessing it at all at the level that they need or because of unfair eligibility criteria that we have hinted at could remain at least until 2025. Figures for the welfare fund, for example, last week, showed that repeat crisis applications are at their highest point since the fund began, with more than three in four of the applications coming from people who have repeated, who have already applied in the past. That suggests to me that people do not have access to the money that they need on a long-term and sustainable basis, and instead they are living in a state of crisis relying on piecemeal grants. We urgently need to provide access to social security for more people at a rate that means that they have enough money to live on, and that is why I continue to push the Government to go faster and harder on all of this. That would be consistent with the first principle set out in the uptake strategy around the principle of taking account of individual circumstances and tailoring support in ways that reach and resonate with the intended audience. Organisations such as the MS Society have made it really clear that the current eligibility for disabled people's benefits do not do that. They note specifically that the 20-metre rule and the 50 per cent rule for disabled people do not take account of individual circumstances. Since the 20-metre rule came into place, one in three people with MS moving to PIP have had their support downgraded, so they say that if it is included in the ADP legislation and there is no prospect of its removal until 2025, after the Government's review in 2023 and the time required to implement changes, thousands of people with MS and other conditions will be unable to get the support that they need. Instead, the rule that we currently have fails to take account of variable conditions, continues to exist and is a barrier to social security. Leaving eligibility decisions and decisions on new criteria until after-filled, safe and secure roll-out is far from person centred. If you could begin to wind up now please. My colleagues on these benches have urged the Government to move quickly. We believe that a system that is automated at every point it can be understands and holds the knowledge of who is eligible for social security in Scotland and tells them where and when they can access it is necessary. Let us pick up the pace, do what we can to get on the progress, to make progress on a minimum income guarantee so that no one falls below that and get on with the job of delivering the powers that we have here in Scotland. The pandemic has further exposed the need for social security to provide a firm anchor for those in work and out of work. It has shown the need for increased support for those who are disabled and for carers. It is vital that we ensure that everyone who should be in receipt of the new payments gets them. The minister's communication, the new strategy seems about right with information partnership, access to person centred approach and all that. I think that we can support that. The paper sets out the principles, but my fear is always the actual delivery, which often proves to be a little bit more difficult. We proposed the expansion of welfare powers, social security powers for Scotland back in the Smith commission talks in advance of the 2015 elections. We wanted a £2.5 billion social security fund, we wanted more powers, the ability to create new benefits to top up and to make sure that we had a system that was fitting in with Scottish principles and approaches as to how we would prefer to see the system. We have approached that in a very responsible way. We have worked with the Government, we believe in the fairness, dignity and respect approach and we have worked constructively throughout that period. However, I have a number of issues that I would like to raise with the minister today. The first is the issue of reassessment. In the aspirations that Willie Rennie and the Liberal Democrats had for a social security system in Scotland, would he have preferred a system where all powers over social security were devolved or the more difficult situation that we currently face with a hybrid system where we are having to plug in and plug out of the DWP and the barriers that are often put in place by UK ministers? Willie Rennie. That was an active debate through the Smith commission as to whether you transferred the non-universal credit items, because the universal credit items were considered to be the automatic economic stabilisers. They were considered to be more appropriate at the single market level at the UK level, which is why the benefits that were transferred were the non-universal credit items, apart from the ability to flex and to change on some of the universal credit items at a Scottish level. However, that was considered actively at the time, which is why we have ended up with the model that we have. I thought that it was the appropriate way to proceed, and it has taken the Government some time to get those limited number of benefits set up, so probably it was the right decision to take at that time. However, the first issue that I would like the minister to address is the one of reassessment. We have already heard that 39 per cent of people who are in receipt of PIP have a mental health issue, which often is quite a stressful process to go through reassessment. Sam H has highlighted that that often adds to the problems that individuals have and, in fact, makes their mental health problems even worse than they started off with. I recognise the change that has been proposed for the new system to have a more lighter touch five-yearly process, but I still cannot quite understand that if somebody has been judged as having a long-term condition that is unlikely to improve, why do they have to go through any kind of reassessment process at all? Perhaps the minister could explain that in the summing up. I am also really disappointed that the Scottish Government, as it currently stands, has decided to adopt broadly the same rules and eligibility criteria as PIP for the new adult disability payment. That means that they have failed to change the 20-metre route. If you can walk one step over 20 metres, you will not receive the higher rate of mobility component. Under PIP, the 20-metre rule has failed people living with MS. As a result, many people have lost out vital financial support and their independence. That fails to take into account the fluctuating conditions such as MS and the impact that invisible symptoms such as fatigue can have on the person's mobility. Yes, certainly. A question for Willie Rennie in terms of the risk. At the moment, there is no agreement with the DWP that if we change those rules, which would be difficult to do in the time frame, that people would not lose all their past voting benefits. Does Willie Rennie think that we should just take that risk or does he agree that an agreement has to be reached first before that happens? Willie Rennie should be an agreement and there should be an attempt to make sure that we have the easy transfer of the benefits. After hearing what ministers have said—in fact, what MPs on the SNP benches have said for years—the impression is that they are not trying hard enough to get that agreement and to make that change. It is important that we get the change because many people are losing out. I want to hear from the minister what detailed attempts there have been made to make that change. Five years ago, SNP MPs led a debate in Westminster during which they condemned the 20-metre rule, describing it as Tory ideology and that it was an assault on the disadvantaged. However, as we currently stand, they are going to implement that very same rule in Scotland. The excuses that I am afraid are just not good enough. We have a Scottish Government that railed against the UK Government but is adopting exactly the same rules for the Scottish system. They are content to carry on with the Tory ideology and assault on the disadvantaged. People with multiple sclerosis and other debilitating conditions will have to wait for another two years before it will be looked at again. The reality is that it will not be 2025 before the solution is actually delivered if it is agreed to be changed. Another four years leaving people hanging on for years, I do not think that that is fairness, dignity or respect. I would expect the ministers to be bursting a gut to get that change to make sure that we can have this rule changed and the rule changed effectively. In the interim, we should have at least the 50-metre rule should be re-imposed before that measure is implemented. Finally, on the carers benefit, the underlying entitlement issues are a significant issue. They need to be addressed because there is a massive gap between the number of unpaid carers in Scotland and the tiny number who are entitled to receive the carers allowance. Currently it is one in 10. Those of pensionable age are losing out and there are many other groups, too. I would expect the Government to do so much more to get the reality to match up with the rhetoric. I welcome the positioning of today's debate on the benefit-take-up strategy as it represents more progress in Scotland in cementing a societal shift in the way we think about social security and returning to its founding principles that it is a safety net for those in need and an investment in our constituents. I was lucky enough to be convener of the Social Security Committee during its consideration of the bill and the development of the new system. The act of court sets out the legal framework for the new social security system in Scotland. The focus at that time was to listen to the views of people with lived experience of navigating the UK Government system and the DWP. That marked a much-needed departure from the governance policy and the rhetoric in social society that we had come to be accustomed with from the UK framework. The new system began the process of unpicking hostility and suspicion that people entitled to social security had come to expect under the Conservative Government. For the first time, we have a system designed at the outset to protect and promote human rights, placing the Scottish social security principles of dignity, fairness and respect on the face of the bill. The Scottish Social Security Charter, our charter, sets out what people can expect. It goes further, including a commitment to support people's wellbeing when engaging with the Scottish social security system. I want to reflect, because this has marked contrast to the othering of people and benefits that emanated from Westminster. It was needed because the UK benefit system is punitive and degrading, just look at the rate pros. I am lucky enough to take part in the Presiding Officer's coalition for racial equality and rights interim programme. One year, my career intern had to leave this place early, miss her time in the Parliament because she had been told that she would be sanctioned if she did not get back to Glasgow for an appointment. Despite taking part in a programme that was designed to build confidence and engage our new Scots in her political life, it was simply unacceptable. Unlike Tory MPs who break the rules with impunity, there was no option for my intern. Last night, we saw the very worst of conservative contempt for our citizens because our citizens, when they thought that they could get away with throwing out the rulebook to the benefit of their own. What an insult to my constituents and to their constituents who have been sanctioned for attending family funerals, caring responsibilities or for simply being ill. On the on-Patterson scandal, Chris Bryant quoted the Conservative colleague last night, justice should always be tempered by mercy. Where is the mercy in the operation of the UK social security system, not for bereaved constituents, not for those whose loved ones have lost people over losing disability benefit status, not for women who have had to declare rape to access the benefits that they are entitled to, and not for those constrained by draconian rules that dominate their lives? If the Conservatives can u-turn on their shameless partisanship displayed this week, they can u-turn on the rape clause and the universal benefit uplift cut. Presiding Officer, today is about the benefit take-up strategy, and we have work to do in Scotland, albeit without all the levers that are at our disposal. The new benefit take-up strategy sets out five principles around which to organise activity to promote take-up. It prioritises person-centred approaches, communicates and engages effectively and brings services to people, encouraging cross-system collaboration and continuously learning and improving the service that is delivered to our constituents. I also note that the Scottish Government will explore the introduction of automated payments for certain devolved benefits, and I would encourage keen consideration of that measure and to any proposal that seeks to remove barriers to access to benefits. Streamlining applications and assessment procedures and important measures to reduce the burden associated with benefits access. We know the stress and strain that benefits applications and particularly continuous reassessments can have from engagement with our constituents. Making applications less onerous may go some way to overcoming the stigma that still exists around social security. For me, the establishment of the social security system stands as one of the great achievements of this Parliament. As policy makers, we must resolve to build upon that work. I am confident that, one day soon, we will have social security powers for a system-wide reform of social security. When that comes, we must embed the same principles of dignity, fairness, respect and compassion into our reforms. Our common humanity and our collective interests can be a driver for this change, and I am confident that this new strategy is another step on the road to a fairer, better Scotland. For any social security system to succeed, it is an essential requirement that the system delivers. Delivering in the literal way of delivering benefits, delivering in terms of service, and delivering in terms of value for money. It is an interesting exercise to see if Social Security Scotland meets those tests. Please bear with me. Looking at the delivery of benefits by Social Security Scotland, it is clear that things are not going to plan. Yes, some benefits have been delivered, and praise deserves to go to the Social Security Scotland staff on the ground who have made that happen, but, in reality, what we are seeing is a far cry from what we were promised. A painfully slow roll-out of the Scottish child payment, one benefit handed entirely back to the UK Government, and a four-year delay in the transfer of existing cases from the DWP. I want to make ending child poverty a driving mission for the next Parliament, said the First Minister. It is a down payment of what will be possible when we have full powers over tax and social security, but, in March 2021, just 1 per cent of applications for the Scottish child payment were processed within 10 days. Most applicants waited 55 days for a decision. That is not quite the down payment that the First Minister promised, and certainly not the one working families across Scotland were hoping for. Moving on to my second test, does Social Security Scotland deliver in terms of service? Looking at the figures for client satisfaction, it is clear that Social Security Scotland has worked to do. Although the Scottish Government's benefit-take-up strategy claims that Social Security Scotland will be more effective at marketing its services than the DWP, 81 per cent of suggestions from clients this year wanted improvements to the information available from the new agency. Even more telling is that complaints far outweighed complements, accounting for 77 per cent of feedback received compared to a mere 18 per cent for complements. Looking at benefits like best start foods, there were 270 complaints about the quality of service and a further 50 regarding accessing the benefit. By far and away, the highest figures for any benefit delivered in Scotland. Moving on to child disability payments, it is clear that there is communication issues here too. During the pilot programme in Dundee, nearly half of the applications were denied, suggesting that work needs to be done explaining the application process and making it understandable to applicants. It is not just at a national level that the service needs improving. Social Security Scotland boasts that they have a presence in every local authority, but that is news to most. In fact, when I called up my local council trying to find details of their local Social Security Scotland team, no. They had never heard of a local delivery office, had never heard of the team and could not sign post to anyone who could help with devolved benefits. I think no means no. Neither does any web page suggest that such a team exists other than a single LinkedIn profile I found. If the local benefits team cannot sign post an MSP to the devolved benefits office, how do claimants stand a chance? In comparison, the DWP has two offices in Aire and regularly hosts job fairs at prominent locations around the town. The local visibility of Social Security Scotland simply has to be improved. It cannot continue to be a back room operation, only known to those in the know. On to my third test, that Social Security systems need to be cost effective. That idea is enshrined in Social Security Scotland's charter as its final principle. The Scottish Social Security system is to be efficient and deliver value for money. Where do we begin? The cost of the new system has doubled, staff requirements have doubled and there is a huge increase in temporary contracts. The Cabinet Secretary has admitted that Social Security Scotland will be no more cost efficient than the DWP. All that before the Scottish Government have even agreed to double the Scottish child payment. Lurking in the horizon is universal basic income, but really should the Scottish Government be looking to introduce such a payment particularly when it will cost £58 billion a year. Social Security Scotland were unable to handle 347 million of benefits without doubling their workforce or their budget, so how on earth does the cabinet secretary think that she will be able to process £58 billion with ease? That is even before she sources the funding, which amounts to more than three times of current health spending. Surely it is in the interests of ordinary Scots, as well as public finance, to focus on improving the services that we have, or maybe even the ones that were handed back to the DWP, rather than launching into a reckless vanity project that fails to target the most vulnerable and hands money to families regardless of their financial status. We have the opportunity to build a new system, one tailored to Scotland and that meets the needs of Scotland's people. Let's do that and build the system that Scotland really needs. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate and the benefit take-up strategies set out by the cabinet secretary. No one knows whether there is just one life experience away from needing support and assistance that will help to see them through or ease the burden of financial hardship. A compassionate Scotland has it's heart, a social security system, that is there for people when they need it, one that puts dignity, fairness and respect at its heart. That goes without saying, in my opinion, that it is a principle that has a wide support in this Parliament and has been implemented by the Scottish Government. That approach recognises that ensuring that people have access to their social security entitlements is incredibly important. They are there for a purpose. They are there because we believe that they are the backbone to a just and fair society and a vital investment in the lives of our constituents. If anyone was in two minds about this, the importance of the social security system during the worst of the pandemic and lockdown must surely have ended those doubts. The take-up strategy is a significant contribution to meeting the rights-based approach that we are platforming our social security system on. It is a comprehensive approach to ensuring that people have access to the sport that they are due. It is a strategy that has been shaped and informed by experience of those who have, through no fault of their own, struggled to navigate the system. It is a strong emphasis on continued consultation to really seek out barriers to take up. We know from this approach that there are three key barriers. One, the lack of information. That includes information about the benefits that are available in the application process. It is obviously important that we address any knowledge defect relating to new benefits and that is recognised already in the approach that is set out. Two, the costlier complex access. It is important that we support people to navigate the system and fund advice and support in three, the social barriers including perceived stigma. We must go all out not just the social security system but politicians to tackle stigma and bring an end to misconceptions. We must also invest in services that support people and ensure that it is accessible in places and in ways that are best suited to people's needs. I therefore welcome the £10 million allocated over this Parliament to help fund this approach. I also say that many councils provide excellent welfare rights services that are in the heart of our communities. I also take this opportunity to praise all welfare rights advice services in Clydebankamoguy. Local government must be adequately funded to maintain these services and they must have equalative access to any additional funding. In our dignity, fairness and respect approach is an important increasing take-up too. We should not underestimate how much getting decisions right first time and treating people with compassion will have increasing competence in our social security system. The shameful UK war on welfare for some cheap headlines has created a stigma and cruelty that has been hard to bear. We are right to kick out the private sector assessments that lined the pockets of the rich while inflicting misery on many disabled people who were denied the support of their due. We are right to take a more compassionate approach to terrible illness claims and we are right to condemn the sanctions regime. We know that it is not an approach to social security that will promote take-up. I would be there for people when they need it. Policy is important and that is why when I questioned the Scottish Fiscal Commission, our social justice and social security committee, they accepted our changes in policy, meaning that anticipated higher take-up in relation to our adult disability payment compared to the UK equivalent. It is no wonder that Scope, the disability equality charity in England and Wales, has launched a campaign called Disability Benefits Without Fight. They call for a fairer disability assessment process and want to be assessed by those health professionals who actually know about their condition. This does not sound like rocket science does it? Why is the benefit system treated people like this for so long? No thanks. As Scope said, it should not be a fight. Disabled people should get the right benefit, right time, first time round. Scope also points out that between 2017 and 2019, the UK Government spent £120 million on fighting appeals to benefit decisions £120 million. In Scotland, we must promote the right to appeal and adapt our approach if barriers to taking up the right to challenge decision are identified. Setting policy to meet our agenda of dignity, fairness and respect will help to increase take-up. In this approach, coupled by a take-up strategy that is resourced, people's persons entered reject stigma and get the message out effectively will make the difference. Let's unite behind this approach and we will be travelling to a compassionate fair and supportive system of social security, one that improves take-up to those who need it and invest in the people of Scotland. Today's debate is welcome and allows me to expand on the evidence that I gave to the Social Justice and Social Security Committee on my proposed Scottish Employment Injury's advisory council bill this morning. I am thankful that the committee accepted the statement of reasons, but I am even more grateful that they listened to the workers and trade unionists, members across UNITE, ASDO, the GMB community, UNISON, CWU, the FBU and ASLEV who wrote to demand a voice and a role in the new employment injuries assistance benefit. They vote in because they are colleagues who caught Covid-19 in the workplace and are now no longer fit for work or simply as women who are apparently the wrong gender for this entitlement, but clearly still get ill or injured through their work, but either do not have access to industrial injuries' disability benefit or their entitlement is extremely limited, because the industrial injuries' disability benefit is stuck very much in the last century. Any proposed bill itself will not give women and those with long Covid access to the new employment injuries assistance directly. Government and Parliament need expertry of space, tenure and independence to research the illnesses and diseases and make their recommendations based on that. However, it is inconceivable that those issues would not be considered by a body with the authority and power to consider those issues to make the first steps on a road to make this entitlement fit for the 21st century. The trade unionists and workers who are getting ill at work today must have a mandated seat at the table of a permanent statutory and independent employment advisory council. Their expertise, their lived experience of actual 21st century workplaces, is vital to making proposals that reform the benefit from the very start. Presiding Officer, I put it to the committee this morning that it would this Parliament when it considers regulations for a new devolved benefit except an equalities impact assessment that said that just 6 per cent of applications would come from women. Clearly, the answer is no, we absolutely would not, but that would be the case if a lift and shift approach is taken, because to do so risks embedding a system that promotes inequalities and fails to reflect modern Scotland. I am thankful to the GMB women's campaign unit in gender, close the gap and Professor Andrew Waterson for their substantial insight on the issue of women's health and safety at work, because right now women have so little access to the Westminster benefit because they have barely any entitlement to it. It is a benefit for the injuries and diseases that men got in workplaces that they predominantly worked in during the last century. Cleaners with respiratory and skin disease are not recognised by the current scheme. Breast cancer caused by shift work, the top occupational cancer in women, is not recognised. Even asbestos-related avarian cancer, the most common gynaecological cancer in the UK, women are missing from that scheme. Care workers, as well, wrote to the committee to say that they risk injury at work daily. They have must-go skeletal disorders in the neck and upper limbs, have injuries ignored by employers and the outdated UK benefit system. Of course, changes would not happen overnight, but you need a system to do the work and consider that change, and we do not have that in Scotland right now. New data and analysis, broad expertise and testimony will be needed to make the case for change. I am grateful to the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, the Royal Society of the Prevention of Accidents and the British Occupational Health Society, who offered their support and insight. The committee also heard from people who have long Covid or who have colleagues with long Covid and who likely caught it through the course of their work. The impetus for my bill proposal was in response to their experience. Shouldn't people who are contracting Covid at work have access to a newly devolved benefit? Workers in health, social care, retail and public transport spoke of how they were becoming so severely ill that long Covid was impacting their ability to continue to do their work, the jobs that they loved and something that should be done to support them. In March this year, the UK advisory council refused to recognise Covid and that explodes the risk in our social security system in deferring to a UK council over which the Scottish ministers have no power to request advice from. There is less progress on Scottish benefits and those key workers, who we depended on and rightly applauded throughout the pandemic, offered no access to the industrial injuries benefit. A Scottish council with powers to commission the research and make recommendations on how to support people who caught Covid at work who would offer hope that the new benefit will give people access to social security so desperately lacking in the UK entitlement. In the coming weeks, I will be lodging my final proposal for our statutory Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council that can research, date and scrutinise the new benefit, but also one that makes sure that workers and trade unionists injured in the course of their employment, especially women and those with long Covid, are at the heart of that council. When it comes to accessing Scottish social security benefits, I hope to work closely with the cabinet secretary, the minister, the social justice and social security committee and members across the chamber to ensure that full access and equal access to the new employment injuries assistance fit for the 21st century. Before we move to the next speaker, members may wish to be aware that we have ample time in hand currently for interventions, for example. I call Emma Roddick to be followed by Maggie Chapman. I am acutely aware of the need to address issues in social security access and take-up. As a member of the social justice and social security committee, I hear a lot about the difficulty that people and particularly people with mental illness face in applying for and then dealing with the gatekeepers of social security-like PIP. I am very hopeful that, given the principles that it was created on, Social Security Scotland will not follow that same route. It is very telling to me that Sam H is already pointing out the advantages of the approach of Social Security Scotland despite the criteria for ADP being the same as PIP. How we treat those who ask for help is such a massive part of building a system that respects and ensures the dignity of those that it supports. Thank you. I share your congratulating of the Government on the changes to some of the processes around it. I share that approach. Would you also agree that the 50 per cent rule around the amount of time that something has to be present is particularly difficult for people with mental health health? That part of the eligibility criteria for personal independence payment is something that really needs to be addressed and that we need to do that soon rather than wait until 2025. I thank the member for her intervention. I know that she has a lot of great ideas and that we probably have quite a lot of shared experiences of going through social security so far. I look forward to having those debates when the criteria for ADP is what we are discussing. Isn't it a real shame though that a mental health charity telling us that PIP actually drags people into mental health crises is not surprising in this country? Isn't it just devastating to think that before changing the amount paid for or the eligibility for benefit, just speaking to the recipient like a person is a massive change? I have been through the gruelling process of applying for and then trying to hold on to universal credit twice in my life, so I am no stranger to the often dehumanising process of trying to interact with the DWP as a disabled person. My committee colleague Miles Briggs was right to point out in his speech that mentally ill people who access PIP often experience stress, but it is important to recognise that often it is not just stress, it is trauma and severe harm that those people are experiencing. In my first PIP assessment, which was many years ago now, I was grilled about my mental illness. My doctor had written a letter supporting my application and, amongst other things, noted that I had suffered from suicidal ideation. The assessor asked me if that were true what had prevented me from acting on the suicidal thoughts. Basically, why are you alive then? I think that it was clear that they believed that I was either a failure or a liar. Like most people in this room, I have also helped constituent supply for benefits and provided emotional support to them as they went for assessment. I have also done that with friends. Getting the help that you need in order to survive should not be such a traumatic experience. The very first principle of the new benefit take-up strategy is to prioritise person-centred approaches. It is a very Government phrase but also very reassuring because it demonstrates the Scottish Government's intention to put the recipients of social security first. I am proud to be a member of the party who is seeking to take Scotland in a different direction. The agency in charge of administering benefits is of course not the only thing affecting take-up, although, through speaking to constituents, I know that stigma is still very much playing a part in damaging the willingness of people who need help and are eligible to receive it to apply. I do not think that anyone is going to learn anything today from me saying that people often look down on those who rely on social security, but decent social security is not a thing to avoid, judge or disparage. It is a sign of a fair, caring society. During October recess, I visited a number of organisations in Inverness who focus on food poverty and included in that was a community cupboard and a community fridge. There are not a new concept in the Highlands and Islands but their numbers increased drastically over the pandemic as people became more aware of those who were struggling to feed themselves and their families. Others who would otherwise never have experienced poverty were suddenly plunged into it through loss of work, illness or other pandemic-driven life events. It is right that I recognise the role that HTSI, Highland 3rd sector interface, played in supporting those who dreamt big ideas of helping their community to put it into action and hosting a food provision map on their website, which signposts people to their nearest provider, whether that is a food bank in Inverness or an oyster delivery service in Kinloch Burby or one of dozens of community fridges, cupboards and gardens that now exist across the Highlands. What I really love about those community fridges is that they are not just there for people who are on low incomes, that stigma that I mentioned earlier does not apply. They not only exist to give food to people who do not have any, but they stop food waste from supermarkets making it to landfill. That means that when you are walking into those places and leaving with your dinner, it does not mean that you are poor, but it means that you are saving the planet. Of course, I much rather that we get to the point where living in poverty is not something that you hide, it is just something that happens to you that you are then helped out of. Presiding Officer, I am not ashamed to have relied on social security and food parcels. That experience is a part of who I am and I consider it incredibly valuable when I am speaking in this place in undertaking scrutiny work and committee. Food parcels brought in my culinary horizons, my expected beans pasta and other familiar items in my parcel, but I was also introduced to Tin Crab for the first time in my life through one particularly memorable package. I am telling you that because I believe very much in two things. First, that input from those with lived experience is critical to making good policy decisions. Second, that an MSP talking about being on social security will normalise it and maybe help reduce the stigma. I trust that those are beliefs shared by the Scottish Government, evidenced by their history consulting with often unheard groups and their commitment to continue that work. I am grateful for their determination to change the experience of disabled people and others who need social security in Scotland for the better. I thank those who work to support the distribution of social security to so many people across Scotland. I also thank those who support recipients in voluntary sector organisations, in local authorities and elsewhere. We see you and we value you. It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the personal testimonies that we have heard in this chamber this afternoon. It makes a difference, as my colleague Emma Roddick has just said, for people out there to see us standing here with lived experience. Scotland is reinvesting in our vital social security system after more than a decade of cuts. The child payment, which Greens will fight to at least double as soon as possible, could invest over £320 million in our children by the end of the Parliament. The young carer grant, which is championed by us in Parliament, is providing thousands of young carers with yearly grants to help them enjoy some time away from their caring roles. However, those and other extra support will be of no use to people who are not aware of their entitlements. They will be of no use to people who need a bit of help to apply, and they will be of no use to people who are too embarrassed to apply because of years of shameful attacks on them by Governments and others. The child payment could not come soon enough, but the Scottish Fiscal Commission estimates that 25 per cent of children, 86,000, will not receive the support that they are entitled to. That is not including those children who miss out because their families do not claim the qualifying UK payments. Those are just the payments that we know about. Scotland will soon deliver disability and carer payments to hundreds of thousands of Scots with no official estimates of how many people might be eligible. I urge the Cabinet Secretary to explore how such estimates could be produced. Fighting poverty with social security payments that do not get to everyone they target is like fighting it with one hand tied behind our backs. However, it does not have to be this way. Child benefit take-up is regularly above 90 per cent, reaching 97 per cent in some years recently, and around 96 per cent of new families apply for their baby box. So, what can we do? First, we must tackle head-on the stigma created by 40 years of lies about benefit claimants from the success of Westminster Governments and the media. Second, we need to expand high-quality income maximisation advice. Some evaluations show as much as £20 return for every pound invested. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde's healthier, wealthier children project, championed by us in Parliament, has, over 10 years, gotten an estimated £36 million into the pockets of new parents by supporting midwives and health visitors to signpost to money advice services. That is why I am so pleased that the shared Scottish Government, Scottish Greens policy programme commits an additional £10 million for such services, and I look forward to seeing how that will be spent as soon as possible. Third, we need to be proactive in getting money to people. When they approach Social Security Scotland or local government for support, we should be actively checking what other payments may be on offer that they can claim. With the right information and the right IT, we can make automatic payments to people without them even having to apply in the first place. Glasgow City Council has proved that this is possible with school clothing grants, and I am very pleased that the shared policy programme commits to expanding that approach, too. We must also make progress on making disability payments more accessible. Regular, face-to-face assessments—not necessary—in 20 years of disability living allowance were introduced by the UK Government to make disability payments harder to access, demonising and stigmatising the people who tried. Applicants have been forced to travel many miles, sometimes to inaccessible buildings, to attend assessments conducted by assessors entirely ignorant of their condition. In some cases, applicants' health conditions have been significantly worsened, entirely the opposite intention of the disability benefit system. Our new Scottish adult disability payment could be transformative. Some decisions may be reached using the application form and accompanying information without the need for further assessment—a green win from 2018 and something that I am proud of. However, where a conversation with the applicant is needed, the new client consultation system promises to be less intrusive and more respectful. We need to make sure that people who have those conversations have the information that they need about the people that they are talking to. I hope that I urge the minister and cabinet secretary to address the concerns with a 20-metre rule. When the payment launches next year, disabled people, their organisations and greens will be watching developments carefully to ensure that those promises are upheld. For too long, Governments have been deliberately putting up barriers to people in accessing social security. It does not have to be that way. We, all of us, but particularly the Scottish Government, should be tearing those barriers down. I am very pleased to see the Greens play a vital role in that. I now call on Stuart McMillan, who is joining us remotely, who will be followed by Alexander Stewart. Mr McMillan, around six minutes please. Thank you very much. First of all, I am pleased to be speaking in this debate. I would have much preferred to have been in the chamber today, but, as you can tell by my voice, I am still struggling a wee bit with some illness. I highlight this because the continuation of the virtual sessions has allowed me, today, another MSPs to still work and contribute from home instead of not being able to participate in the chamber. Today's debate is important and I welcome both the 2019 strategy and now the 2021 benefit take-up strategy. As the cabinet secretary said in her earlier remarks, the new strategy is based upon five key principles. First of all, prioritise person-centred approaches, secondly, communicate and engage effectively, thirdly, bring services to people, fourthly, encourage cross-system collaboration and the fifth point is continuous to learn and improve. I do not think that there are any of those principles that any MSP can disagree with. The process is crucial and, quite rightly, it should be scrutinised, but most importantly for me are the outcomes. The outcomes for our fellow citizens who need to engage with Social Security Scotland to obtain the benefits that they are entitled to. Every one of us will have heard the claim of people milking the system and also quoted the benefit scroungers. If the UK welfare system is overly complicated and people obtain resources because of it, I do not blame the people, I blame the system and how it was established. In the same vein, that same complicated UK welfare system has allowed many people to miss out on benefits that have desperately needed them over the years. I highlight those two examples, for a specific reason. I accept that establishing any new system will not be without challenges and some unforeseen issues will be found along the way. There clearly are questions about the formulation process of any system, however, the challenge for any Government is how they fix them. As we have seen with universal credit and the desperate state, many of our constituents have been in because of it and then the failed amendments to it. I hope that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament never make those two mistakes. That is why I found the new strategy to be refreshing, person-centred, continual learning and improvement and encouraging cross-system collaboration. The latter will clearly be the toughest challenge, of course. Through stakeholder engagement, the Scottish Government has identified the following as the main barriers to preventing the take-up of benefits. First of all, the lack of information, unawareness or misperceptions about the benefit, entitlement or application procedures. Also, the cost layer complex access, that was inhibiting complexity of the application procedure or the lack of resources, including time, limited competencies to find somebody's way through the system and travel to the welfare or employment office—a couple of things that we have already heard from others today. The third point is the social barriers that perceived stigma, subjective lack of need or pride or lack of trust in institutions. Sadly, the stigma about claiming benefits is real for many people. I have had constituents who did not want to apply for benefits because of their pride. They did not feel that they needed to and wanted the money to go to others, even though some people would have benefited their life greatly. We have already heard from colleagues, including the excellent speech from Edmmer Roddick today, about the issue of stigma. I agree with colleagues about the issue of stigma. We have to do something better about that. In Scotland, I want to see the stigma of obtaining benefits removed. There were some MSPs, including Edmmer Roddick, who have never needed to access benefits, but there are others who have, including Edmmer Roddick and myself. Of those of us who have, it was a sobering experience, but there was also one that stays with you. That is why I absolutely endorse the three key principles of the benefits controlled by this Parliament—dignity, fairness and respect. The new strategy is going to deliver a few aspects that I believe will help many of my Greenock and Emberclyde constituents, as well as across the nation. Firstly, actions from the strategy, which will build on learning from the 2019 strategy, include working with partners to improve targeting of information and advice, challenging the myths and stigma around claiming benefits and also continuing to remove barriers to accessing social security in Scotland. The other point is that the roll-out of social security Scotland's local delivery network, with 400 staff and 32 local authorities, by the time the service is fully operational, will be crucial. That will also enhance the many public sector and third sector organisations, including financial fitness and Christians against poverty, who both operate in my constituency. In addition to that, I believe that establishing a stakeholder take-up forum and identifying examples of best practice, as well as setting in which they might be replicated, will be hugely beneficial in addition to working with stakeholders to co-design interactive and helpful resources to support the mainstreaming of existing good practices around benefit take-up. There is also the multi-channel financial wellbeing marketing campaign, covering free debt advice, affordable credit and beginning with a focus on benefit take-up. That will be vital, in particular the important work that credit unions undertake in our constituencies can play an even greater part in this activity. With that, I was delighted to meet with the tale of the Bank Credit Union and my GNWC constituency only recently, and I know how important they are to their clients and also the opportunities that they can deliver for many more people. Finally, working with a range of specific seldom-heared groups to better understand and address non-take-up among particular populations is vital. Scotland is a country with a rich tapestry of backgrounds, and I warmly welcome that. Therefore, understanding some of the cultural challenges is vital to ensure that all new Scots are equal partners in our nation. We all know that, as part of the national mission, acropoverty, the Scottish Government is determined that everybody should be able to access the payments that they are due. I believe that the new strategy, but more importantly, the outcomes from it will help to achieve that mission. Ensuring help is given to those who need it most is the most important function of every social security system. Those benches believe in implementing and ensuring that a distinctly Scottish approach for social security is targeted towards the need of the people of Scotland and backed by the broad financial shoulders of the United Kingdom. The key to achieving that function is ensuring that everyone who is entitled to receive help is not only able to access but is encouraged to do so. Thus far, however, the Government's record on delivering social security benefits is something that needs to be questioned, because there is still much more further attention to detail that is required. It has often been reported that the SNP will not finish tackling all its devolved benefit powers until 2025. That is nearly a decade after the SNP first received those powers. We also know that the social security staffing costs have nearly doubled, and we must be aware of those spiralling costs. Nevertheless, moving forward, there is still the opportunity for the Scottish Government to put things right and to ensure that the Social Security Scotland begins to deliver more benefits. However, when it comes to the forthcoming adult disability payment, for example, it seems that the Scottish Government still has work to do to ensure that all claimants receive the appropriate level of award. The previous Social Security Secretary stated earlier in the year that DWP-style assessments would play no part in the application process for the benefits. The recently published benefit take-up strategy confirms that face-to-face assessments will only take place when absolutely necessary and are now to be renamed as client consultations. However, that will depend on clients applying and dealing with the application form, and accompanying medical evidence raises concerns because they may not be able to provide sufficient evidence without undergoing the type of assessment that is currently used toward PIP. While some potential claimants will be able to retrieve the required medical reports from general practitioners, there will be many clients and claimants who will not have visited to their general practitioner enough to be able to do that, and that could put them at a disadvantage. As such concerns have been talked about with the DWP, it is talked about the scrapping of the face-to-face assessment. Many claimants will be unable to provide enough evidence to receive the level of award that they may be entitled to, and that has to be a look-at-act, Presiding Officer. I am happy to take it into the minister. I thank Mr Stewart for taking the intervention. It is important to recognise that when it comes to adult disability payment and in the system that we are building, that only one piece of information from a formal source will be required to support the general care and mobility needs in a client's application. That will be a marked departure from the current system that requires formal supporting information to evidence each and every difficulty that the client reports experiencing. That is one of several examples of how the way we deliver disability benefits will be significantly different in terms of the experience of the client when applying. I am happy to reimburse your time now. I thank the minister for the intervention. He acknowledges that there is to be differences and changes, and so do we. We want to see that tailored approach, so it is very important, but we also have to recognise that there will be some difficulties, and if people are not able to access all that they have, they will slip through the net. We want to ensure that you have the time, the process and the funds to ensure that that takes place, and we want to ensure that that does take place. It is important to make sure that anyone who is applying for any type of benefit is given the support of the mechanisms that they need. Indeed, the whole idea of improving the potential for payments from the Scottish Government and the risks that could be dealt with have to be looked at. Whether there are similar pressures claimants receiving the highest rate of PIP, that is important. None of us want to see that the approach that is taken to ensure that clients and claimants have that in consideration, so there will have to be looked at considerations about the potential PIP falls that are required. However, turning to other aspects, the social security system is there and has welcomed the benefit take-up strategy that has been talked about today in the chamber, and I acknowledge the importance of tailoring support under certain demographics. It would also be the idea to look at older people, and many older people face barriers to accessing their benefits and to not take up their benefits because of the access issues that they have. One such barrier is demonstrated from our citizens advice Scotland when they talked about one in 10 people aged between 65 and 79 are not able to use a computer effectively to ensure that they can assess and to make the applications, and that becomes much more difficult for someone in that age group. As I say, the charity has looked at that and assessed that. It should also be stressed that changes to their benefits can both be confusing and stressful to older people who depend on them, and therefore we should be looking at communication. Communication is vitally important. I know that the Scottish Government has looked at some of that, but there are areas that are still required to be addressed because it needs to be done well and it needs to be done timelessly. In conclusion, it is important that the Government continue to engage with the older people, stakeholders and charities. Organisations such as Age Scotland have also talked about what requires to be done, but another area that has been talked about today is those who are in the caring issue and those who are caring for others. I welcome the Government's take-up strategy acknowledging the simplicity of the carers allowance application process, and that needs to be looked at because it will be replaced by the Scottish carers assistance. Given the increasing importance of carers over the past 18 months, it is vital now that we look at that group and ensure that they are given the support that they require. As I stated at the outset, it is clear that the devolved benefit that Power Scotland has received is something that I use properly and can be very effective and can be a tool to support and ensure that society gets the support that it needs. It is therefore disappointing that we have not gone as far down the road to deliver those as we had hoped. However, the Scottish Government is able to listen and I am sure that we will take on board some of the comments that are being held here today about some of the concerns that many people have in the chamber. I hope that we can arrive at a social security system that other countries can aspire to, but at the moment, as we see it so far, it is still looking as a missed opportunity. I am disappointed that we are looking at a missed opportunity. Mr Stewart, before calling the final speaker in the open debate, I remind members who have participated in the debate that need to be here for closing speeches. I call Fausal Choudhury for around six minutes. It gives me a great pleasure to speak in today's debate. The devolution of welfare powers gives us the chance to shape what kind of society we want to be. The chance to restore dignity and respect to the heart of the social security system. Yet now we know that the delay on the SNP has only halted the progress and effects that potentially benefit take up for Scotland. There can be no doubt that Covid-19 has hit low-income families and the most vulnerable disproportionately hard, deepening poverty and dragging more families into financial insecurity. Today, half of the families in poverty have a member who is a disabled person, and even before the pandemic, child poverty rates were high and projected to raise further. Over the next decade, Scotland must be bold, must be willing to use the full levers of power to transform. If we are to meet our target on child poverty and live up to our ambitions of being a nation that respects, protects and fulfills human rights, and where we can all achieve our potentials, we can start of course with the Scottish child payment, something that has continued to be on the minds of the chamber. Thanks to the effort from my friend and colleague Pam Duncan Glancy. Just over a quarter of Scottish children live in poverty in Scotland, 260,000 children right now in 2021. That's something we should be ashamed of, shame us all. We talk a lot, but this parliament need to be seriously get ambitious for Scotland children. Less is the Scottish child payments to £40 a week. Less ensure that every kid in Scotland have a good quality of life without the people they love them having to worry about where the money is coming from. Even with the full rollout, the Scottish government is likely to miss their interim child poverty target by 6%, living in extra 50,000 children in poverty. The cruel cut to universal credit thanks to the Tories and the Scottish government delays to rolling out and increasing its Scottish family incomes when they are already having to deal with the economic shock dealt by the pandemic. We can and must do better. President and officer, for those with lifelong conditions, they look at this chamber and ask how are we going to defend them. For example, those with MS are looking for who. The MS Society, Labour and many other organisations are all calling for the removal of 20 metres rule from the proposed adult disability payment. The Scottish government are replacing PIP with ADP and as part of this new benefit, the government has largely replaced the PIP eligibility criteria, including retaining the 20 metre rules as part of the assessment criteria for ADP. A citizen advice Scotland survey in 2021 found that a majority of BIRU advisers working to help people with disabilities navigate that social security system agree that the 20 metre rule should be extended to 50 metres. Fatigue, both physical and mental, is one of the most debilitating symptoms of MS and other neurological conditions. The rule does not consider the severity of fatigue many will experience after working 20 metres, so I would be grateful if the government can respond to concern raised by those who have MS. Is the government prepared to change the eligibility criteria because those claiming disability payment deserve dignity and respect? Presiding officer, the social security system we shape in this parliament must ensure no one is held back by poverty and inequality. Scottish Labour would use the power we have here in Scotland to make sure that people have the support they need to participate fully in society. The social security system Labour would build to secure the well-being and human rights of everyone and seek to guarantee a minimum income standard that no one would fall below. Having a strong advocate and automated SSS will lead to a higher level of take up. Scottish Labour will build a social security system based on the principle of advocacy, respect and simplicity. Those are the principles that will guide me as we come together to shape our social security system for Scotland to ensure that it works for all. Thank you very much indeed. We now move to closing speeches and I call Paul O'Kane for around six minutes. I want to begin my remarks by thanking all the organisations who provided briefing material ahead of today's debate. We have heard about the child poverty action group in Scotland and the MS Society, in particular, for their work in this area. The creation of social security in Scotland is testament to the power of devolution. We want to use the powers to ensure that they make a real impact on people's lives. I think that that is the degree of consensus that we heard in the chamber today. Indeed, the cabinet secretary began by talking about that human rights approach that we would want to see. I think that we have heard across the chamber that there is a cross-party effort required in being able to get this right. I hope that we will have further opportunities to discuss the matter in the chamber. Indeed, today we will end our debate without a vote on a motion or amendments. It is important that we come back to this in order to allow Opposition parties to continue their scrutiny of the process to try to get the best outcomes possible in allowing people to access new benefits. Indeed, today's publication of the strategy by the Scottish Government has shown that there are gaps in the knowledge of who is using our social security system and how we can encourage them to uptake the benefits that they are entitled to. I will start by reflecting on what my colleague Faisal Chowdhury has just covered in terms of the Scottish child payment. Indeed, Pam Duncan-Glancy spoke to that in her remarks as well. The data published shows that only 77 per cent of eligible households are getting access to that payment. It means that, even with further investment, we are not reaching almost a quarter of the families who indeed are entitled to it. We know from organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group exactly what we can and must do to get to that extra 23 per cent and to ensure that we are investing in areas where applications are analysed so as to better identify the families who are eligible. Data is key here. With data in hand, the Scottish Government should be able to reach out to more families and put that money into their pockets. We know how crucial that is in lifting more of Scotland's young people out of poverty. Again, I think that colleagues have referred to that in the debate this afternoon. We see a need to further invest in the system, and I think that we all agree on that. There is a degree of consensus around ensuring that we have a system that works, that knows where people are and seeks to meet them. With that in mind, I think that it is clear that the strategy that was published has quite a degree of detail in what has come before, but I am concerned that there is a lack of detail, perhaps, on the strategic approach to increasing benefit uptake under the new system. I think that what Alexander Burnett said about targeting priority groups is key here. We also heard that echoed by Miles Briggs in his contribution around the support for different groups of individuals, such as people who suffer from poor mental health and who have been supported by Sam H. We need to see more done in reaching those groups and finding out what the barriers are and working with them to ensure that they get access to their benefits. We heard very powerfully from a number of members this afternoon about stigma. We know that that continues to be a real barrier for people, and I hope that the minister will say something on that in terms of his summing up. We heard this afternoon about the importance of automation in the benefit system. Maggie Chapman made reference to that, as did other colleagues. Automation has really been a central priority for the Scottish Labour Party. We believe that automation would effectively overcome many of the significant barriers to take-up, which can often be a lack of knowledge of entitlements. Indeed, if an individual could make one claim that would automatically trigger their entitlements for other supports, that would have a hugely positive upward impact on take-up rates and would most importantly help to reduce and prevent poverty and support people's wellbeing. Another key area that we have heard from speakers across the chamber today has been one that has been raised by the MS Society around the issues surrounding the adult disability payment and the end of the 20-metre rule. It was referenced by Willie Rennie, Faisal Chowdry, Pandun, Glancy and others. The 20-metre rule is one that is incompatible with a system that is based on dignity, respect and fairness. I believe that it is an archaic rule that stipulates the degree in which you can walk, then justifying the enhanced rate that you receive or not. It harms people who have disabilities. It takes money out of people's pockets and therefore they lose independence. We know that, across the debate today, what we have heard is that if you limit someone's independence and their ability to socialise and to go to work and to lead a more normal life, that has huge ramifications and impacts. We have a lot more work to do in writing the wrongs of past systems and ensuring better uptake. We have heard this afternoon from colleagues speaking about the importance of advocacy and advice. Mary McNair referred to the importance of local government in that, in terms of funding welfare rights and advice. We would all want to see that at the heart of the system as well. My colleague Mark Griffin spoke very passionately about his bill, which I hope the cabinet secretary will accept Mark's offer of wanting to work in a spirit of partnership around that agenda. I think that further dialogue must be had there. There is often a temptation to make this debate about UK Government vs Scottish Government, Westminster vs Hollywood. Some people have strayed into that temptation a little this afternoon, but I think that what I have seen and what Emma Roddick spelled out for us almost pivotly is about the importance of lived experience and people's lives and ensuring that we all work together collectively and that we drive co-operation between Governments in order to support our constituents who need support of social security the most. I remind members that I am in receipt of a higher rate of PIP. I believe that the best way for the vulnerable in our society to be aided is for a devolved level. It is pretty self-evident that those who are closer to the communities we seek to help can more effectively identify needs and provide tailored solutions. For this reason, I find the principle of social security Scotland exciting and seen it having great potential. I, too, like others, visited it on Monday. We have an opportunity to build a uniquely Scottish system that is tailor-made to deal with people and circumstances here in Scotland, or while having a robust and reliable underwriting of the DWP. That underwriting is the benefit of Scotland being served by two Governments. We can have different localised policies with the same financial backing. For example, something that I think we could look at doing extremely differently would be to rethink how we treat those with MS, epilepsy and other such disabilities. Others have already picked that up this afternoon. Having a tapered system that made their support directly proportionate to the regularity of their epitodes could potentially be a great way to ensure that the vulnerable in Scotland are served efficiently and effectively. I am slightly confused this afternoon. The cabinet secretary said that we cannot do this change because there is no agreement between DWP. Last week, the committee said that we want to transfer everybody safely across and then look at it. Even if there was an agreement in place, the insinuation from the minister last week was that we would not make the changes, and perhaps he could clarify that in his closing remarks. There are two key points here. One is that if you open up a different system, you will then be running two systems concurrently, which would be really complex and difficult because people would want to go on to the better system. That is the first risk that Scots have identified would be a serious risk. The second is that without that agreement with the DWP, then that risks passporting benefits. Although a lot of dialogue is taken place, that agreement is not there. There are two fundamental risks there, which I am sure Jeremy Balfour will appreciate and understand. I understand those risks, but if there could be an agreement reached with DWP, I agree with Mr Rennie that that should happen sooner than 2025, which would be the earliest possible date. That is one of the many ways that the Scottish welfare system could be implemented. The devolution of these benefits presents an amazing opportunity to seek welfare in ways that Scotland wants. Of course, that is what the Scottish National Party wants, an opportunity for them to radically change the system from Westminster to get rid of this unfair heartless system that we can keep going on about. But what has happened? The draft regulations that have come out, the conversations that will happen today all point to the fact that they are going to keep the same regulations that we have at the moment. No change in regard to the 50 per cent rule, no change in regard to those who have MS, no change to recovery mobility, simply the old system copied and pasted into Scottish legislation. That is a missed opportunity. As my colleague Miles Briggs pointed out, only four years ago, the Government estimated that setting up Social Security Scotland would cost £307 million. However, the reality is that the cost has risen to an eye-watering £650 million. I do not know about you, Deputy Presiding Officer, but I struggled to think of many private sector organisations that would categorise a project coming in more than 100 per cent over budget as anything rather than an unmitigated disaster. Again, we are led to believe that the agency would require 1,900 staff to run, but, again, the SNP illusions exist, and we have now doubled to 3,500. My colleague Sharon Daly has already pointed out how desperately slow the Government's roll-out of a Scottish child payment has been. As she described, only 1 per cent of applications will process within 10 days in March 2021, with most applicants waiting 55 days for a decision, and that is an easy benefit to implement. It means more time for families worrying about their finances and stability. Although we are on that subject, the Scottish child payment, the SNP Green Government are yet to commit to doubling the payment from the next financial year during vital funds from which and those we need it most. Every part in the chamber agrees that it should be doubled, and yet the SNP refused for reasons that are frankly beyond me. All those points to an SNP Green Government that is failing Scotland on Social Security. We have taken initiative that had so much potential and injected with their painted nationalism and just simply failed to deliver for the average person in Scotland. It has been pointed out time and time again, and echoed again this afternoon by my colleague Alexander Stewart, that this is the same Scottish Government that claims that it could set up a fully independent Scotland in 18 months. On this basis, of the 10-year wait that this country will have to wait from taking control of the role of Social Security, why should we believe their pipe dream about anything else that we promise to deliver? I am a scary thing, it comes to independence. The SNP will not be able to go back to UK Government for help when we come up against the harsh realities of governance. Finally, I would like the minister in his rounding up to thank DWP again for all the amazing work that we have done in Scotland, for supporting the Scottish Government, for building the right time and time out again if it hadn't been for DWP, the most vulnerable in our society would have been let down by this Government. We have failed to deliver, we have failed on our promises and we will scrutinise them again and again until we get it right. Thank you very much. The strategy that we are considering today, as well as the associated issues around it, is of course about how we in the Scottish Government, but also asking how we as a society work together to improve how we get all of those across our society who are entitled to Social Security to get what they are due. It is about working with partners to improve the targeting of information and advice. It is about challenging myths and stigma around claiming benefits. It is about continuing to remove barriers to accessing Social Security in Scotland and more widely. It is about encouragement, engagement and empowerment information and support. Yes, it is about changing social attitudes about how as a society we approach the concepts of Social Security and welfare. As the cabinet secretary rightly emphasised in her opening remarks, Social Security is a collective investment in ourselves and each other. It is a human right. For too much and for too long in the United Kingdom, the critics of Social Security have been able to be too loud and have set too much of the tone. As Stuart McMake benefits crowners have been phrases that have echoed far too much throughout our media and commentary emphasised, that is a responsibility that is shared between politicians and those in the media who have amplified those negative and unhelpful positions. It is almost baffling to think about how much criticism there has been of the concept of Social Security throughout recent decades. That is a system that is about helping people, and yet in many different quarters it has been a source of negative criticism. Thank you for taking the intervention. I recognise the way that you have described the toxicity in the debate on Social Security in recent years, but as you rightly pointed out in the past few decades. On that basis, I ask again if you will move to take the 20-metre rule out of adult disability payment and commit to doing that. We can discuss when you will do it, but all the conversation and the chat that we are hearing about the human rights approach to Social Security is not going to fundamentally change how much money people get in their pockets or who gets it, unless we do that. I ask you again to commit to doing that. Mr Duncan Glancy, if I could ask you to direct your comments through the chair, that would be helpful. Thank you to Pam Duncan Glancy and others who have raised that important point, and I will come on to it in due course in my closing remarks. To go back to the conceptual points that I was making, I thought that it was interesting when I was thinking about this debate. I looked at some of the history around the time of the conception of this Parliament. I found this quote from Tony Blair in 1999, which was the year that this Parliament was created. That is not a criticism of Blairism or the Labour Party, it is just an interesting quote for context. He said that in future welfare will be a hand-up and not a hand-out. That appeasement of the critics of Social Security at that time and that appeasement lasted for several years into the early part of this century was a mistake as well as the criticism. We are all collectively, as a society, responsible for that. Many of us challenged that, but we obviously did not challenge enough, because we need to be open and move forward in a position that there is nothing wrong with either hand-outs or hand-ups, because we want to do what we need to do to help those to contribute and realise their potential as much as possible. It is about busting the myths, because not everyone can work and not all work, as we know, pays enough to live well. That is where we need Social Security and to value Social Security. Emma Roddick made several important points, but one of the things that stuck out for me was that she said that this is about how we create a fairer and caring society. That is where the emphasis and focus need to be. I remember when the 2018 Social Security Act was passed and Jeane Freeman was sitting there and I was sitting there. It was a defining moment and a shift for this Parliament, but also the start of how we together shift consciousness across the wider country. That is what this benefit-take-up strategy is about for us as a Government in terms of what the act stipulates us to do, but also to give us focus to work with partners and to create that sense of collaboration more widely within society to make the difference and to help the people that we all want to achieve. To come on to some of the points that were raised in the debate in that spirit of collective engagement, I note the points that Miles Briggs made around the Uncare Grant, and I would like to engage with him on that. On the recent activity, he talked about evaluation of the charter. Just for his awareness, the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland take monitoring of our commitments under the charter extremely seriously. We have already published two editions of the charter measurement framework, which reports on the progress that we are making. Indeed, the 2020-21 report was released yesterday, so I look forward to engaging with Mr Briggs on that. I thought that Alexander Stewart also made some very constructive points, which I welcome, and I look forward to continuing to work with him. Unfortunately, I wanted to be really consensual at the end of this debate, Presiding Officer, but I found both Sharon Dowey and Jeremy Balfour's comments unnecessarily negative. I think that their Prime Minister would call them doomsters and gloomsters, because they just really did not get into the spirit of what today's debate is about and about what the benefit take-up strategy is focused on. There were some significant inaccuracies as well, or mischaracterisations. For example, the annual report that Social Security Scotland issued this week reported a 90 per cent plus satisfaction rate with engagement with the agency. The local development teams have been operating in the pilot areas, so they are not fully stood up in all the different local authorities. Both Sharon Dowey and Jeremy Balfour made critical points around the Scottish child payment, which, of course, is an innovative creation of the Scottish Government, but has also helped 108,000 children. That is a positive to celebrate and engage on. We should have come to this debate in the spirit of that recognition and determination to do more together. Moving back to the benefits take-up policy of where our focus is, it is important to just re-emphasise some of what the cabinet secretary said about the fact that we will launch a £20.4 million independent advocacy service that will invest £10 million over the current Parliament to increase access to welfare advice and accessible settings to maximise incomes and tackle poverty. I think of the people that I have met in different parts of the country who have talked about how they have heard about Social Security Scotland benefits when they were in the school setting or at an organisation such as a care support network. Those are really important investments that will increase take-up. Also, the full roll-out of Social Security's local delivery network will be significant and there will be 400 staff in 32 local authorities by the time the service is fully operational. We will continue to work with third sector organisations and charities proactively and in an engaged way and recognise all the contributions that such organisations have submitted ahead of today's debate. Importantly, it is the work of engaging with seldom heard groups to better understand and address non-take-up among particular populations. I think that Paul O'Kane emphasised that point quite rightly and we are very focused on that and the strategy will be going forward. Of course, it is important that we have rightly made our engagement as inclusive as we can with materials that are proactively produced in an easy-read format, the use of different languages in what we are producing, of course, and British Sign Language and more than 100 languages available on request, including Braille. I really focussed agenda on inclusivity and engagement. That takes me on to some points. I just want to address more broadly that have been raised in the debate and that is around the delivery. I appreciate that the focus has been on the benefit take-up strategy, but I just want to touch on some of the delivery questions that have been raised. First of all, the point about build is so important. We are building a new institution here in Scotland that we want to be strong in the here and now, to deliver on the period ahead and then also to be robust, agile and effective for decades to come. That is why the importance of what has been done in the years that we have lived through since 2018 and the period ahead is so important, because we want to create that strength, that agility and also the IT infrastructure to be able to do things, for example, in a more automated way, as Paul O'Kane and Maggie Chapman rightly emphasised. I thank the minister for taking his intervention, because I think that one of the concerns is still around who is going to be delivering some of this potential work, and especially with regard to assessments. We know the delays that currently exist with GPs, for example, providing that. I just wondered in terms of that work, the workforce that is expected to undertake assessments or to provide evidential documentation around people's conditions, where the Government were with that work programme. Miles Briggs raises an important point. I would state to him that our engagement with the medical profession and health boards on that aspect of the delivery programme had an update on that this week, and we are encouraged about how positive it is progressing. I would be happy to keep in touch with Miles Briggs and Parliament more widely on the importance of those points. I want to get to some of the points that Willie Rennie raised. First of all, he talked about the position around lifetime awards. I want to make it very clear to him that this is something that is important to us and the Government, and that work is under way to establish the parameters for provision of indefinite awards for clients whose needs are unlikely to change. We are committed to building a person-centred social security system based on the principles of fairness, dignity and respect, and reducing the number of unnecessary reviews, which are a source of stress and anxiety for some clients in the current system. We are committed to it, and I am happy to keep them updated. I welcome that comment by the minister, but my reading of the regulations is at the moment. Even if I can be personal, someone like my condition, we still have to come back every 10 years to be assessed. Why are we still asking people who have lifelong conditions to keep coming back? We are not getting rid of that. We are just making it a slightly longer period. Minister, if you could bring your remarks towards a conclusion that way. I refer Mr Balfour to my last answer. It is something that we are currently working on in terms of the parameters for provision of indefinite awards, and I am happy to keep Parliament updated. On the 20-metre rule that was raised, it is important to emphasise that we are making changes to the delivery of disability assistance, which will significantly improve the experience of disabled people and what they have when they are accessing payments. We are confident that those changes, such as replacing assessments with person-centred consultations, will address concerns around how their criteria are applied and how decisions on mobility are made. I refer members to the answer to a PQ that I gave to Pam Duncan Glancy at S6W-02508. I would be happy to take correspondence from any members on that, and the cabinet secretary has stated his position. All of that orientates around the fact that we are simultaneously with the new agency building. We are creating the new benefits and the replacement benefits, and we are also transferring. Of course, that transfer initiated last month, and it is one of the biggest transfers in the history of the UK state. It is important to remember the sheer size of what we are doing here. We have made changes to terminal illness, to the support for carers and the seven new benefits that I mentioned. I am happy to record our thanks to DWP for the engagement and collaboration that we have had with its officials. I am glad that our officials are working well. On questions around the eligibility criteria and passporting, the cabinet secretary and I had a meeting with UK ministers this week on that very point and seek to have as constructive engagement as possible with the UK Government. In conclusion, it is important to refer back to the benefit take-up strategy and the wider question of how we collectively do as much as possible to make sure that Social Security Scotland is making a bigger difference as possible throughout our society. That is about looking forward, not back, not blaming others, but working as Team Scotland. Despite some of the negative comments that have been made today, my appeal is that all of us commit and recommit to getting behind the project of Social Security Scotland, to being positive about what it is doing, to be realistic about what it can achieve and to be ambitious about where we want it to go. We are committed to that. The benefit take-up strategy sets out how we can engage citizens in that work and collectively. All MSPs can play a part in that. Although we are not voting, we are committed to doing all that we can to helping those in the communities all across Scotland to access the support that they are entitled to, that they deserve and that we want them to have. Minister, that concludes the debate on accessing Scottish Social Security benefits. It is now time to move on to the next item of business. The next item of business is consideration of a business motion 1986, in the name of George Adam, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, setting out changes to next week's business. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press the request-to-speak button now. I call on the Minister for Parliamentary Business to move the motion. I ask you, Minister, if you would attempt to move the motion again, if I could ask Gillian Mackay to move the motion. I will not do as good a job as the Minister of Parliamentary Business, but moved, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much indeed, and you managed to do it with much less of a stern stare, I have to say. No member, thankfully, has asked to speak against the motion. Therefore, the question is that motion 1986 is agreed. Are we all agreed? Excellent. The next item of business is consideration of parliamentary motion 1987 on approval of an SSI, and I ask George Adam, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, to move the motion. Welcome back, Minister. The question on this motion will now be put at decision time, to which we now seamlessly move, thanks to the valiant efforts of the Minister in the last debate. There is only one question to be put as a result of today's business. The question is that motion 1987, in the name of George Adam, on approval of an SSI, be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. Excellent. The motion is therefore agreed, and that concludes decision time, and I close this meeting.