 The next item of business is a statement by Angela Constance on social security benefits. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I would ask members who wish to speak or to press their request to speak buttons and I call on Angela Constance. I will outline plans for the first social security benefits to be delivered by the Scottish Government. Those include the new best start grant, funeral expense assistance and the supplement to carers allowance. This is the next milestone in building Scotland's new social security system, and those are the first benefits that our new social security agency will deliver. This is the largest, most complex programme of change in the history of devolution, and we have made excellent progress since the last election. We are building on four years experience of delivering the Scottish welfare fund and using discretionary housing payments to mitigate the bedroom tax. We are also building on experience of the smooth devolution of DHPs at the beginning of April, and we have made progress with DWP to agree the implementation of universal credit flexibilities. We have already announced that we will create a new social security agency with an efficient central function and a strong local presence across Scotland. We held a wide range in consultation exercise last year, hearing from people about what they need from a social security system. People with lived experience will keep informing our decisions and our deeds at every step of our journey. That is why we invited people to join our experience panels, and I am delighted to say that around 2,300 people have volunteered. We have also appointed the Disability and Carers Benefits Expert advisory group. They will advise Scottish ministers on policy options on disability and carers benefits and actions that will change lives for the better. As the Minister for Social Security told Parliament in her recent statement about the social security agency, there will be no contracting with the private sector to undertake assessment for disability benefits. Building on this momentum, my announcement today sets the timescale for delivering the first devolved benefits. During this Parliament, 10 benefits will transfer to us. DHPs have already transferred successfully and are delivered by local authorities. Our top priority is that people receive the right payments at the right time. That is a big task. Once all the benefits are devolved, we will make more payments each week than the Scottish Government currently makes in a year. We need to get this right. It is one of the most important things that people have told us through the consultation and our other engagement. One of the lessons from previous social security changes by the UK Government is that arbitrary target dates without a clear plan to meet them will lead to failure, as we have seen with universal credit. We have always been clear that the devolution of social security powers is a phased approach, with many incremental steps to the safe and secure transition of powers as opposed to a one-off event. Let me start with our plans for the best start grant and funeral expense assistance. Those are early benefits and they will make an immediate difference to people and fulfil commitments that are set out in our manifesto. We will start delivering of Scotland's first new benefit to the new best start grant by summer 2019. The replacement to the Shure Start Maternity Grant is a substantial investment in the child's early years. As part of our wider work aimed at giving each child the best start in life, it will contribute to tackling child poverty, improving health and raising attainment. The current UK Government Shure Start grant is a single payment of £500 to families on low incomes. We will increase that to £600 for the first child, recognising that the UK rate has not increased in over a decade. We will also reintroduce payments of £300 for second and subsequent children, a cut made by the UK Government in 2011. We will make no judgment on the number of children people decide to have and we will place no limit on the number of children we help in any qualifying family. We will also provide two payments of £250 during a child's early years, around the time that they start nursery and before starting school. That means that qualified families will receive £1100 over the course of the early years of their first child's life, compared to just £500 at present, plus further support for additional children. For a two-child family, that means an additional £1400. We have started work on the application process for best start grant. From the earliest stage, we are working with parents who would be eligible. We have shared and tested a draft application form, making changes based on feedback from the people who will need it to be sure that it is clear, simple and easy to follow. We will reach more people by making the application process easier to follow and joining up support with the services that parents use day to day. That includes linking with healthy start food vouchers that provide nutritional support to pregnant women and young children. Take-up of the sure start maternity grant is low—it is around 50 per cent—so improving take-up and increasing the support provided will make an immediate impact on low-income families in Scotland. We will also deliver the new funeral expense assistance by summer 2019, providing critical support to people at a difficult time. We heard through our consultation about the stress caused by the complexity of the application process and time taken to make payments. We have already committed that we will aim to process applications within 10 working days of receipt of a completed application. As with best start grant, a key area of work is developing an application process that is easier to understand. We will listen to people with experience of the current system and seek expert opinions, including from the funeral payment reference group. Simplifying this process and increasing awareness will increase take-up from its current level of around 60 per cent. I now want to turn to carers allowance. We are all agreed on the vital contribution that carers make to Scotland. It is not right that people with caring responsibilities receive less support than others. That is why the First Minister committed in October 2015 to increasing the level of carers allowance to that of jobseekers allowance. We have been working hard with DWP to investigate how to increase the support as quickly as we can. I thank them for their constructive and collaborative support in helping us to achieve that commitment as early as possible. I can announce to the chamber today that we will do so from next summer. As an interim arrangement to get this done as early as possible, people in Scotland will continue receiving carers allowance from DWP, but they will receive the increase from our social security agency and they will receive that support twice a year. While the first payments will be in the summer of 2018, they will cover from April 2018, so carers can be assured that they will get funding that covers all of the 2018-19 financial year. We will invest more than £30 million a year in increasing the support. I am delighted that the policy will now be delivered by the Scottish Government, and I look forward to seeing a future UK Government follow our lead. All of that, of course, is subject to the consideration of Parliament. When we introduce the social security bill next month, I hope that the support that we have had today within and outwith Parliament to its approach to social security will continue. Our plans for the first wave of benefits show the difference that we can make to the people of Scotland through our new social security powers. Best start grant, our first new benefit, will greatly improve the support that we provide and better aligns with our other work to support children and families. Funeral expense assistance will make important changes to the way that we support people with the cost of funerals, providing more certainty and clarity for people at a difficult time. We are working as quickly as possible to give carers in Scotland more money. It is right that the first new act of the agency will be to address the unfairness of the current system where carers receive less support than others. The benefits that we will deliver may be different in nature, but there is one common thread that binds, and that is an investment in the people of Scotland. The changes that we will make are changes that we know are needed because we are listening to people with the lived experience and responding to what they say, ensuring that they are treated with dignity and respect. Those are the principles that we set out for social security last year, and the timetable that I set out today shows our determination to bring those to life as quickly as possible. I encourage members who have not pressed their request-to-seat buttons to speak or ask a question to do so, and I will now press their request-to-seat buttons. I thank the cabinet secretary for early sight of first statement today. Since before last year's Scottish parliamentary election, we have been calling on the Scottish Government to get on with the job of delivering on the substantial array of social security powers devolved under David Cameron's Conservative Government, so it would be childish of me not to welcome this statement even if it comes some months later than it should have done. Even now, however, much of today's statement merely reheats things that we have known for a long time, like the fact that the Scottish ministers simply cannot deliver devolved social security without the on-going help and assistance of the UK's DWP, help and assistance that we on these benches warmly welcome. Yet even now, significant holes remain in the cabinet secretary's account. She talks with the new Scottish Social Security Agency but says nothing about where it is to be located, about how many DWP and other job losses there will be as the new agency takes on its responsibilities, or about how its eye-watering £150 million a year annual running cost has been calculated or, indeed, how that figure is to be paid for. Let me ask this. On best start, the value of the grant for the first child is to go up, the value of the grant for second and subsequent children is to go up, and, in addition, there are now to be two further payments to children in eligible families. Over the course of this Parliament, what will this cost, assuming that ministers are successful in increasing the grant's uptake as they wish to be? Presiding Officer, of course it is too much to expect the Tories to give a whole-hearted welcome of the progress that we have made, actually collectively, over the past year. Of course, I have to remind the member that the tranche 2 of the regulations only commenced last month, so here I am less than a month later on my feet in Parliament, keeping Parliament as I should, informed of every milestone and every step of the way. This is a journey that we will travel together, and this Government will be proactive in informing all members of the chamber and those who utilise the services, whether they are reserved services or devolved. We will ensure that their views inform our deeds and our actions. Of course, it is too much to expect the Tories to welcome the progress that we are making that is starting from next year. We will be putting money into the pockets of hard-pressed families that are bereaved and those people who are caring for a loved one. Those are the families and the people who are most impacted by Tory austerity. Those are the people who are paying the price for Tory cuts, paying the price for Tory cruelty and paying the price for Tory complexity in the current system. With regard to his specific questions around best start grud, that will be £20 million, Mr Tomkins. You may recall that, not that long ago, the Minister for Social Security came to the chamber and made a full statement on the operating model of the Social Security Agency, and in that statement said that there would be a further appraisals option to go through before we made a statement on the location of the agency this autumn. With regard to the costs of the agency, I would have thought that Mr Tomkins, the good professor, would have by now read the outline business case that was published on 27 April that he would have read it cover to cover and would now be standing in this chamber reciting it backwards in Latin. Colleen McNeill, to be followed by Sandra White. Scottish Labour welcomes the announcement of the first social security benefits, and we particularly welcome the plans for best start grant, introduced in summer 2019 replacing the sure start maternity grant, an important measure in tackling child poverty. I want to begin by asking the cabinet secretary in relation to the best start grant, an important measure for low-income families. If she is able to say now or write to me about how many families will be helped by this, I am interested in that information, as I am sure that she will agree that the high levels of in-work poverty I think require measures that include those low-income families who are in work. Furthermore, does the cabinet secretary agree that, given the uptake of this benefit, it is only at 50 per cent that it needs to be a very high priority in improving this situation? A radical approach is required, I would suggest, including a commitment to an advertising campaign or a promotional campaign encouraging people to apply for those benefits. Will the cabinet secretary also consider that, in relation to that benefit, working with local authorities on automating benefits, given that many of them are linked to eligibility in the benefit system? I agree that a more radical approach is needed. If we do not do that, it is important that the transfer of the social security budget from the UK Government to the Scottish Government will determine the budget for the future. It is important to begin that work now. I thank Ms McNeill for the tone and tenor of her question. She is right to point out the impact of the new best start grant on the additional income that it can get to low-income families throughout the course of a child's early years. I know that later on in the week we will be debating the child poverty bill, but it is important to stress that the new best start grant can make a very positive contribution to things such as material deprivation, as well as improving the general life, health and educational attainment of children. On the expected claimant or the head count, we expect 62,000 claimants to be benefiting from the best start grant. She is right to say that we have work to do to improve take-up. We are looking at the issue of automation. Of course, the point that she makes linking the benefit take-up campaign with the budget and the resource that will be transferred from Westminster is important. Although, like me, she will be aware that Westminster has this habit of changing the goalposts before resources are transferred. I am sure that we will all be ever vigilant to that. I thank the cabinet secretary for her statement. In particular, the announcement that carers allowance will be increased for Scottish carers, which brings in much-needed additional support to carers who do, I think that we all agree, so much to support families and friends. Can the cabinet secretary tell me and Parliament how many people will benefit from the increase when it is introduced? I am delighted to say that the increase will benefit almost 70,000 carers in Scotland, and the increase will cover the whole of the next financial year in 2018. It has been a long standing policy of our party and government to make this increase, and I am delighted that we are making this announcement and that it is our Scottish Government that is proceeding with this. As I said earlier, I hope that the next UK Government will follow our suit. It should be remembered by Opposition members in particular that our progress is dependent on the Scottish parliamentary timetable, which is not in the hands of the Government but, rightly, in the hands of the members of this Parliament. UK regulations that transfer competence for carers allows to the Scottish Parliament came into force this month. The next stage is, of course, legislation, which is a vital part of our democratic process. I am confident that we will work together as the social security bill goes through its legislative stages so that we are in a position to deliver the benefit from next year. Gordon Lindhurst, to be followed by Ruth McWire. The cabinet secretary has said in her statement that the Scottish Government has invited people with lived recent experience of benefits to join experience panels to help inform decisions as it moves forward with its development of the Scottish social security system. I welcome that, because my understanding is that the stated intention is to ensure that the system works. My question for the cabinet secretary is the following. What is the Scottish Government doing to bring into consideration, in a similar fashion, the experience of individuals who work to deliver the services in question from the other side of the equation, as it were? If I could make clear, I am talking about the individuals rather than their representatives, whether trade unions or otherwise, whom the Government, no doubt, will have consulted with or spoken to. I thank Mr Lindhurst for his question and for his endorsement of the importance of the experience panels. It is a great success that around 2,300 people are volunteering their time and their expertise to ensure that, as we progress in this journey together, that we get every stage, that we get every milestone and every detail absolutely right. He raises an important point about the experience of those who currently work within DWP. Indeed, we have former employees of the DWP now working within the Scottish Government. He is right that we do indeed laze with employee representatives through PCS and will continue to do so. We are open to different forms of communication about how we laze with those who are currently working in the coalface under quite difficult circumstances in terms of the austerity agenda and the massive challenges that the UK Government is currently facing in terms of roll-out of universal credit. That coalface experience of DWP staff is indeed important to listen to, but it is also the experience of voluntary sector staff who work in their advice services and who are also seeing first-hand the impact of some of the most cruelest cuts and uncaring aspects of the current reserved service. Ruth Begwar to be followed by Richard Leonard. The cabinet secretary said that the take-up for sure start and funeral assistance is low, and therefore people have not been getting the financial support that they are eligible for. Can the cabinet secretary clarify that, when the Scottish Government has successfully increased take-up, what additional resources the UK Government could provide to further encourage people to take up benefits that they are eligible for and entitled to, but who are not currently making claims? It is a good point, because under the fiscal framework, the UK Government will not provide the Scottish Government with additional resources if benefit take-up rates in Scotland are higher than the rest of the UK. Nonetheless, that will not stop us and our duty to increase some of the abysmal rates of take-up of benefits that people are eligible for. The UK Government today has done, in my view, very little to encourage benefit take-up, or indeed to help people with the application process by simplifying the process. I think that it is ridiculous that it is quite a dammin indictment of the current system that we talk about people having to navigate their way through the benefits system. Get the financial support that you are entitled to can make a huge difference to people's lives, and I see that as a key role of Government. Unfortunately, the Tories do not see that as a key responsibility of Government. Richard Leonard is followed by George Adam. Can I welcome the cabinet secretary's commitment to make the application process for funeral expense assistance more straightforward and to provide a timious response to applicants for that assistance? Those are two of the key recommendations of the February 2016 Citizens Advice Scotland report. Will she recognise that the other key recommendation in that section of the report was that the payment should be set at a level to allow for the full payment of a basic funeral in any part of Scotland? Can she confirm if she has come to a conclusion on that? I thank Mr Leonard for his thoughtful question. I know that he and his colleague Mark Griffin have done a lot of work around the issue of funeral payments and the broader issue of funeral poverty. I hope that it will be some assurance to Mr Leonard and his colleagues that the work that we are taking forward around funeral expense assistance is at an advanced stage, but it must not be out of tandem with the broader work that we are doing to address funeral poverty. We have other commitments whereby we are working with the funeral industry, working with local authorities and working with those advice services. During the summer, I hope to make a further announcement around our commitments around a funeral cost plan. Although we are still to finalise the exact eligibility criteria, there are a number of issues about process, about payments and about what we could agree to in principle. There is a recognition that there is quite an uncertainty in complex details that we need to remove from the system. We are looking at that all in detail. That work is at an advanced stage. Take the member's views on board. We know that there is a real issue with funeral poverty in this country. We will do or damned us to address it, but cut through the complexity and give more certainty to applicants as well as the broader issues of addressing the rising cost of funerals, which, over the past 10 years on average, has risen by 92 per cent. George Adam will be followed by Alison Johnstone. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me that, with the Tory's determined to treat children as unequal and no longer supporting the third or subsequent child of low-income families through the capping of child tax credits, that larger low-income families will be significantly worse off no matter what the outcome of next week's election? Can the cabinet secretary explain the difference that the new best start grant can make to low-income families with three or more children? As perhaps by way of example, I can reiterate that our best start grant will provide the first child and a family with three payments totaling £1100 over their early years. Every subsequent children will receive payments totaling £800. For a family with three children, that means a financial investment of £2,700 during their early years. For a family with four children, that is an investment of £3,500. That, of course, compares with just £500 per family for the UK Government's current sure start maternity grant. As we see income being taken away from poorer families by the Tories through major changes to universal credit and other benefits, we know that many families—large women in particular—will be struggling to manage. Although it might feel like we are fighting poverty with one hand tied behind our back in the face of austerity, we are nonetheless determined to provide a better future for low-income families through a number of measures, including our new best start grant. I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of the statement and welcome the announcement that carers allowance will increase to the GSA level in 2018. However, there is evidence to suggest that the allowance is used to meet the costs of caring, as well as to replace lost income through not working. That would not be covered by the increased proposed. I ask the cabinet secretary what assessment of the costs of caring she is undertaking in determining the increase and whether the cabinet secretary is considering a premium for carers who care for more than one person incurring extra costs. The member will be aware that we are certainly considering and have a manifesto commitment to provide carers allowance for people who are caring for more than one disabled child. That, in addition to the matters that she raises, will be for the consideration of the carer benefit advisory group, who will give us expert advice. She will know from her engagement with the Minister for Social Security that we work very closely with health colleagues so that we are looking at the needs of carers and the support that they need in the most holistic response. It is also important, once again, to express the importance of the experience panel, those 2,300 volunteers who will walk the journey with us all and who will indeed be advising us of the issues that Ms Johnson has raised today and, indeed, on other occasions. Alex Cole-Hamilton will be filled by Ben Macpherson. I thank the cabinet secretary for her early statement. I echo much of the praise that has been given to her in its regard. I want to particularly focus on the welcome that I have for the funeral expense assistance. How we help those in grief as a measure of a civilised society. I was recently contacted by a constituent, who is very sadly widowed in her 30s. She is part of an organisation called Widowed and Young. She brought my attention to the fact that, following changes to the widowed parents allowance, newly bereaved spouses could miss out on as much as 17 years' worth of financial support. Can the cabinet secretary tell me what representations the Scottish Government has made to Westminster on that regard? Has it looked into options to use new powers coming to this place to ensure that vulnerable families do not miss out on support that they should be entitled to following such a time of loss? I assure Mr Cole-Hamilton that the Minister for Social Security quickly wrote to the UK Government when it became apparent that they were withdrawn significantly by financial support to bereaved parents and, indeed, their children. They went against the grain of what they had said previously. Previously, they said that they would be looking at reform, but the reform would not involve a cuts. Of course, we have heard all that before. The point that he makes about how we support people in their time of need and their time of bereavement when they are working through grief is very well made. We are making representations to the UK Government. We have received representations from concerned citizens in Scotland. The broader point that he makes in and around mitigation is that we can and do mitigate. We will continue to have that very lively debate. However, our ability to mitigate is not an excuse for a callous Tory Government just to proceed and do whatever it likes. We have to recognise that we will have 15 per cent of welfare spending due course. That gives us enormous opportunities, but it will not necessarily address all the inherent and fairness in the remaining 85 per cent. Of course, we are alive to all the debates in this matter. I also welcome the progress and measures that are outlined in the statement, but I am concerned whether the cabinet secretary anticipates any UK Government cuts to funding for the benefits that she mentioned before the point of transfer, especially given that, if the Conservatives get back into power at Westminster, we may face cuts to the winter fuel allowance. What would be the impact of such a cut? As we have seen with the winter fuel payment that Mr McPherson mentioned, no benefit is safe in the hands of the Tories. Any cut in benefits that are due to be devolved that is carried out in advance of the funding being transferred will automatically mean a cut in resources transferred to Scotland. Of course, the Tories have a track record in that regard when they cut by 87 per cent employability funding before the employability programmes were transferred to Scotland. We, of course, see social security as an investment in our people. The most recent and uncosted announcement by the Tory Government in terms of their manifesto is nothing short of an assault on pensioners at a time when pensioner poverty is rising. It just demonstrates that the nasty party is back in town. Funeral poverty is a huge issue. Has the Scottish Government assessed the cost of the new funeral expense assistance? Given that there is such a wide variation in fees charged by councils and funeral directors across Scotland, willy assistants cover all the costs wherever they are incurred, with the cost of a basic burial varying from £701 in the Western Isles to £2,253 in Edinburgh, and cremations ranging from £552 in Inverclyde to £849 in Highlands, has work been done to ensure that those in the most expensive areas do not lose out? Of course, Mr Simpson raised his very important matters. There are issues for our colleagues in local government. He is perhaps not aware, obviously, by the tone of his question, that at the end of last year I held a funeral poverty conference, and prior to that, chaired three roundtables—one with local government, the other with advice services and other experts—and the third round table was indeed with the funeral industry, because there is a huge variation in costs across the country. We will continue to have that dialogue with COSLA as we move forward. I want to be making progress over the summer months with our commitment to announce a funeral costs plan. It is important that the worker and funeral expense assistance is not seen in isolation from that broader work, and that work needs to be connected and will be done in tandem. There has been discussion around the timetable of all that introduction. I wonder how she feels that compares to previous major changes such as when Labour brought in the child tax credits, Tories brought in universal credit and can she commit to keeping to the timetable that she has laid out? I remain very confident that we will deliver on our timetable, because what we have not done as the current Tory UK Government has done is that we have not been pushed into making arbitrary or unreachable promises on dates. That is particularly important when we have to work closely with the DWP to ensure the smooth delivery of benefits for the people of Scotland. As John Mason rightly states, other benefits that we have seen implemented by the UK Government—whether for good or ill—have taken much longer, and that is with an existing infrastructure in place. We are building Scotland's social security system from scratch, and that infrastructure is very necessary alongside the other essential component that we need, which is the legislation that I spoke about earlier. We are confident that we can deliver on the timetable that we announced today. That concludes our statement on social security benefits. We are now moving on to a statement from Minister Shirley-Anne Somerville on widening access to education. We will just take a few moments for members to change seats.