 Good morning, everyone. Welcome everyone to the 7th meeting of 2019 of the Social Security Committee. Hope you will turn off mobile phones or other devices to silent mode so that we don't disrupt the meeting. I apologise this morning from our Deputy Chief Committee, Paul McNeill MSP, who cannot be with us. We are hoping to have the rest of our members here in short order. We now move to agenda item 1, which is the decision to take item The committee has asked to agree that item 4 consideration of the draft personal specification for members of the poverty and inequality commission is taken in private. Is the committee agreed to that? Thank you. We now move to agenda item 2, which is an evidence session on pension credit. The committee will take evidence on the forthcoming changes to pension credit, which we will discuss shortly. I welcome Rob Gowens policy of Citizens Advice Scotland and Adam Stacourer, Head of Policy and Communications, Age Scotland. You are both very welcome. Thank you for coming along this morning. There are no open statements this morning. We have plenty of opportunity to put your views on the records. I will move straight to questions on that basis. We know that there was an announcement in January that mixed age couples who are only one on receipt of pension credit for new claimants will cease to qualify for pension credit until next month, and we will have to make claims under universal credit. That will be from the 15th of May this year. I was looking at the policy rationale of the UK Government for this, which was actually back in 2011. The alarm bells started ringing when I realised that it was Chris Grayling who was the minister in charge of policy. I have no surprise that we are now panicking and deeply worried about what the impact will be on pensioners given his track record in Government. It has been reported that it will affect up to 115,000 pensioners or pensioner households up to £7,000 per year, but I did not see any kind of breakdown of those numbers or any projections in relation to what that means for Scotland, for local authorities in Scotland, for the regions of the rest of the UK in order to plan ahead in relation to what that will mean for pensioner poverty in Scotland. Any comments in relation to what your expectations are in terms of the impact on Scotland? As soon as the announcement was made back in January on the same day as one of the meaningful Brexit votes was snuck out through a written statement, the first thing that we looked at was how will this affect Scottish pensioners and the questions with colleagues from our sister charity Age UK to Department for Work and Pensions and ministers were asking that specific question, of which there were no answers. Even at the time of the announcement, there was no breakdown as to how many people do they anticipate it will impact in the first year, this coming financial year. It took a number of weeks for Department for Work and Pensions to announce that. The decision was made in the first instance without actually knowing the numbers of people who will affect, but there is still, as we can see, no breakdown in terms of how it will affect Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales or all the regions of England. Mr Gowns, do you get any idea what that could mean for numbers of households in Scotland? We do not have a great deal of concrete information either. We would be able to go on, would be the Racial DWP impact assessments, which, as H Scotland pointed out, does not go into a great detail in terms of the breakdown. Sometimes the estimates will vary quite a bit in practice, so the short answer is where. We do not have a lot of information on that. In terms of the impact on households, without knowing the number of households, if you aggregate the UK figure of savings to the UK Exchequer by the year 2024-25 that we do have numbers for, it is effectively almost £1.1 billion taken out of pension households during that time. What kind of impact is that likely to have? At a household level, the switch to universal credit could cost people around £140 per week, that is to £7,280 per year. There is mixed estimates of the average between 5,000 and 6,000 per year. In terms of the financial impact, pension poverty has been reducing in Scotland for the past 20 years. Currently, it has danced about 13 per cent. As one of the aims of pension credit is to lift pension out of poverty and to support families on a low income, it is difficult to see universal credit under those services having the same impact. A briefing paper on the preparation for this morning's meeting tells us that there is already a disappointing take-up rate in relation to pension credit. Do you have any concerns that, as those changes are becoming known, it might dissuad individuals or households from seeking to apply for a pension credit that might qualify even under the new rules? The short answer is that we do not know for sure that pension credit, as you say, is at a low take-up rate. One of the things that we are doing through our work, through the financial health check service and the work of COBs, is to try and encourage people to claim all the benefits that they are entitled to. That would include pension credit and universal credit if they apply. There may be some concern, certainly, in terms of where people have been previously entitled to pension credit and, through different circumstances, would have to claim universal credit. I intended to find that the clients would prefer to claim pension credit mainly because of the simplicity of it compared to the claiming and on-going management process of universal credit. Mr Stewart, do you want to add anything to that? Yes, convener. I will pick up on your earlier point. We have a devastating impact on the finances of the poorest pensioners in Scotland. There are various estimates, but you have said in your opening statement that it could be up to £7,000 a year for those who are already the poorest. The DWP figures that were recently released say that they will be across the UK in this next financial year—15,000 people in mixed-age couples. That will affect for new claimants. The following year, it will double to 30,000 and then 40,000 the year after. In our assessment, if you took the most rudimentary mathematics of around about 10 per cent population share, when you are looking at Scotland's slightly more aging population, you are looking at in year 1. The cost of this is supplementing only £11 million in the grand scheme of things, but it will have a devastating impact on the poorest people. Pension credit is essentially the threshold upon which the UK Government will say that that is the bare minimum that pensioners should be able to survive on, so it will have a massive impact on their finances. There are lots of passported benefits as well. Last year, we were batting down the hatches for the beasts from the east. When the temperature plummets below zero degrees for a week, people get an extra £25 a week to use their heating when it is that cold. Those are the most vulnerable people. We found last year that the highest increase in excess winter deaths in 20 years. I am sure that the two things are related. There is council tax reduction and housing benefit as well, which are all passported as part of this. There are health care costs such as glasses and dentistry. There are more knock-on impacts to this in itself. 40 per cent of people do not claim pension credit. Since this was announced in January and February, we have found a 142 per cent increase in phone calls to our free helpline asking about benefits and entitlement checks, which is a staggering increase. It is something that we try to promote all the time, which is free checks for people to make sure that they are getting everything that they are possibly entitled to. It has obviously caused a bit of a panic thus far, because people do not know where they sit. Our big mission is to make sure that as many people as possible sign up to pension credit before 15 May, so that they will not be affected. That is a very helpful comment to put out there publicly. It is worth pointing out, Mr Stewart, that I had a constituent coming to my surgery about a week ago. I was discussing this with members in private before this session. It is appropriate to put this anonymously on the record. The person who had not received any information and was about to become a pensioner or qualify for a state pension in a normal way in the next couple of months and did not really know what was going to happen. He had not been informed that he would now qualify for a state pension and there was just confusion out there. He had read reports in the media about pension credit issues and there was just absolute confusion, to be honest, with you. Is that perhaps what you are identifying with the additional calls to your helpline? I mean, one of the takeaways from it will be that people have called it because it has been in the news. There is a change in something to the pensions or some kind of benefit and a lot of people don't know what it is. As I said, it was 4 per cent of people who don't claim it to begin with. They don't know if they are entitled to it. I mean, I was speaking to a gentleman again on an honor basis last week at a meeting of older people in Glasgow and was telling me, okay, he's 70, his wife is 60 and working. The first person I spoke to about this in terms of their mixed-age couple on a very low-state pension didn't realise that he might be entitled to pension credit. The first thing that he was going to do was to call our helpline to go and see, but he realised that there was a 10-year gap, particularly if his wife will now, because of the rising state pension age, be six or seven years until they would be able to claim pension credit. If you consider that £7,000 a year impact for that number of years, that's a significant amount of financial support to people whom they will be missing out on. I don't know his exact circumstances. If he would be entitled to pension credit, he thought he might be, but our team would certainly be able to help him. However, it just shows that with the impact that could be many, many years of missing out on quite a lot of money for people who are out of the poorest, poorest in our society. Okay. Final question. I will open up to other members. Come to Mr Griffin next, just to give my heads up in relation to that. Are those who do currently qualify and who would apparently not be impacted by this, because they are in ahead of the May 15 cut-off date, if you like? Are they also at risk in terms of a change in circumstances? One of the propositions that was put to ourselves was that if someone who is of working age wants to take up a part-time job, for example, that would impact on paying, understandably, pension credit and title granted. There's more money coming into the house. That's a positive thing that someone who's below retirement age can be active within society, but that would then be a change of circumstances. When that person then sought to—maybe he didn't get that job but ran for six months, for example—when that household sought to reapply for pension credit, they would therefore be ruled out, is my understanding in relation to the proposals that they currently stand. Are those currently in receipt of pension credit in mixed-age households or if there's a change of circumstances, they will also lose out? Is that your understanding, Mr Goons? I think that your understanding is correct. I'd need to go away and double-check that, but I think that that sounds broadly correct. Slightly beyond that point in terms of change in circumstances, when it was first announced, there was a mass confusion about that if someone had to break in their claim, i.e., they moved council area, they would no longer be entitled to pension credit. That has since been clarified, I understand, by the Department for Work and Pensions, to revoke that break. However, there was still some confusion over—I'm sure that there would be not too many people, but if they were, for instance, out of the country for six weeks, then their claim would be broken. Those people might be in receipt from that, let's say, for instance, they went to go and visit their family in Australia. As an example, they paid for them to go over there and they came back. The break and claim would mean that they came back and they would no longer be entitled to the kind of what they were used to in pension credit. There was more confusion at the time, but some of it has been clarified and some of it hasn't. Okay. All sounds deeply worrying. Thank you for those comments. Thanks, convener. If I could just continue the convener's line of question before more on briefly. You mentioned that the impact this will have on passported benefits as well. This isn't just about what people would lose out in pension credit. You talked about council tax reduction, housing benefit and cold weather payments. Do you have an illustrative figure of what a household could potentially lose? I'm thinking about areas with the higher local housing allowance rates and higher council tax levels in our cities. Do you have an illustrative figure of what a household could potentially lose out on in one of those high-cost areas? It would vary by area, I suspect, by household circumstances as well, when we've seen people who are transferring from or moving from legacy benefits to universal credit. Sometimes they can be better off, often they're worse off. Some of the passported benefits that you mentioned would also be someone who received universal credit, would also qualify for instance cold weather payments and council tax reduction. It would vary by circumstances. I haven't seen any detailed modelling of it. It would depend on circumstances. In our haste for preparing for this committee, we might not have that illustration just now, but it's a fascinating question, which I'm happy to discuss with colleagues back at age. Scotland perhaps will work up a hypothetical example of some of the things that we might know and send us back to the committee. The other area of question that I wanted to pursue is to see whether any of your organisations or sister organisations at a UK level considered legal challenges at all to this policy. We know that there are a number of other policy decisions under the welfare reform act, which have been subject to legal challenge. It seems fairly discriminatory to say to one person that you qualify for pension credit because your partner is a pension agent and you don't because you happen to be married to someone who is a different age. That seems to be fairly discriminatory. Just my last question, I'll squeeze in. Are you worried that this could potentially drive behaviour change in people choosing whether or not to be in a formal partnership? Just on the legal challenge part—I'm not entirely sure—I'll try to seek clarity, but it's certainly something that might have been considered on the first instance, because the nature of the legislation—our first thought when discussing this with colleagues at Age UK—was that it would probably require primary legislation in the House of Commons to change that. That would probably be the best way, if the UK Government realised that this was a retrograde move. I'll certainly find out for you and see what that is, but I know that it's obviously a huge—it could be a very complex issue, but we might not have the answer right now. On the behaviour change part, if you look at the examples of the amount of money that someone will have if they are single compared to being living in a mixed-age couple, they would be far better off—relatively speaking, it's still not very much money living alone. That's a hugely disappointing position to be in when you would be better off as one of the poorest people in society living apart from your partner. I think that's scandalous if that was a position that people had to be in. We're not currently considering a legal challenge in terms of behaviour change from universal credit. We have seen situations where people would be better off living separately and claiming individually than they would be as a couple. That might extend to cases where people would have previously been in receipt of pension credit. We need to sort of wait and see on the cases coming through, but I wouldn't be surprised if we do see some cases where that occurs. Alasdrail, followed by Michelle Ballantyne. That's a quick question, really. Given all the issues that you've raised, it was just to establish what you thought the impacts might be on devolved areas of policy, areas that were under the Scottish Government's responsibility. In the first instance, if people have a lower income, they're more susceptible to poor health conditions. As we found out, the excess winter deaths at the highest level in 20 years, just from the last year, for lots of different reasons, not least the terrible weather. However, if they can't afford to heat their home, they're more likely to be in poor health, although they are in more health conditions, so there will be more stress on the NHS. Beyond that, if people can't afford to live in their own home or can't afford to live healthily, there might be more stress on social care, except that it's already under particular stress, whether it's recruitment, retention of staff or whatever else. There are lots of knock-on impacts to devolved areas. Not least, there may be more applications to the Scottish welfare fund for crisis payments. There might be more use in food banks. There are lots of things that could impact that either unintentionally or otherwise. Without putting any words on your mouth, it would be fair to say that the Scottish Government may end up picking up the pieces. I think that you'll find that the Scottish Government very well could be picking up the pieces and the Scottish councils too. Only that lack of those points is that there will be increased pressures on the Scottish welfare fund on crisis services and on wider services such as health. Is that your finish, Mr Allen? Michelle Ballantyne. This was legislated for in 2012. Do you know what kind of information was given at the time, what kind of witnesses were taken and what kind of submissions did your organisations make at the time and what response did they receive? That's the first half. The second half is around—obviously, what we're talking about here is where there is a mixed-stage couple. One individual is still technically part of the potential workforce. What have you looked at in terms of the consideration? If the younger partner is working, 100 per cent of pension credit is eliminated by their earnings. Obviously, you have the taper rate in universal credit, so potentially you get to keep some of it because you've got that 63 per cent taper rate. Have you looked at those impacts and what would be—given that it is a reserved matter and it's legislated at UK level and you've said there about the Scottish Government having potentially to pick it up and you said earlier that you felt that it wasn't a huge amount of money across the board—have you looked at whether or not we in Scotland should do something specific around it? If so, what? How would you phase it in saying that someone who is off pension age but has an MSP for a partner who is younger? Do you think that we should be paying larger amounts to that individual where their partner is earning what I think we would all agree is a fairly decent salary? Just looking at it in the round, what consideration have you given to those sort of things? Yes, to taking those points in turn, in terms of the welfare reform act, I wasn't at citizens of high Scotland at that time but had a look back through our submissions. The changes to the mixed age rules weren't something that we particularly focused on, although the welfare reform bill brought a large amount of changes, notably the introduction of universal credit and personal independence payments that require a number of other issues that we were focused on at that time. In terms of the taper rate, that's entirely correct. Earlier, I mentioned that when people are moving from legacy benefits to universal credit, sometimes they can be better off, sometimes they can be worse off. It would vary in terms of people's circumstances, if their other partner was in work. In terms of mitigation, it's like other things that would be theoretically possible. The most simple solution would be not to apply the rules at UK level. Mitigations get slightly complicated. If there were particular proposals for doing so in Scotland, we would consider those and see what might be the fairest approach, but it would likely be a more complicated solution than not applying the rules. On the question, it's not a huge amount of money in the round, but it's a huge amount of money to the individual or the couple. Part of that is to go back to the principle of—looking back to 2012, I'll be in town a bit of a dig around. Obviously, it's a reserved policy, and our sister chart, Age UK, will likely have made more submissions than we had. I've only been at Age Scotland for a year, but if you want that, I'll happily seek some clarity on that. We know that the Scottish Government had funded some project work from Age Scotland in 2013 to talk about and publicise changes to that. It had happened, but one thing to remember is that the welfare reform act and the work there were 182 pages of which the mixed-age couples part was buried somewhere in the middle, or where do you look for the tree in the wood part, so it would be difficult to pick that out in the hole because of the wide-ranging welfare reform stuff. I will seek some clarity on that, but it was buried away. When we look at the people who are calling our helpline to inquire about pension credit, the chances of being from a household of considerable wealth, which might be your hypothetical example, if it was an MSP and someone else is very slim than the people that we are speaking to. Our analysis of that would be that we do not encounter that as such on a wide scale. It's those people who are contacted because they are desperately poor. My point was, would you see it as a universal benefit regardless, or would you want it to be targeted if we were going to do something in Scotland? Professor, I have a lot more time to think about it, but looking at the round of it, it's probably simpler to keep it as a universal benefit in that sense. Remember, universal credit wasn't designed for people of pensionable age, whereas pension credit wasn't designed for people of working age. That's why we're looking at the converse to that, so it's definitely not designed for them. The impact of that, and hypothetical examples, were definitely fleshing out, and we'll find more. Sadly, there will be more examples of how that is really impacting people after May 15. It's a really quite frankly position that we don't really want to have to be in, but we'll probably have better examples then. Okay. Anything else, Michelle? No, not at the moment. All right, okay. Is there the option to come back if there is, is that the question? Well, we should hopefully have time, yes, of course, Alice and George. Yeah, I was just sort of following up on that point. Age Scotland, you do say in your submission that, while the UK Government says that pension credit wasn't designed for working age claimants, that universal credit was certainly not designed for pensioners, do you find it quite strange that this is the route that the UK Government has gone down? That's a certainly disappointing route, and whether it's an unintended consequence or just a consequence, it's certainly disappointing, and I said it'll have a devastating impact. I think that when it was snuck out and trying to, we are really disappointed about this and some of the language from our use in that sense might seem a bit cheeky, but I think it was snuck out on the meaningful vote day to think it would be under the cover of darkness that no one will know that it's happened, but we picked up on it immediately and we're angry about it actually. So you have to think about the justification of the UK Government, why did they put it out then, hoping that no one will notice, too late? As we've been working back through the kind of legislative approach to reversing this, if there was the will, it would require primary legislation. We should take a heck of a long time to do, and there's probably not the will right now in the House of Commons, while Brexit is dominating everything. It's a really disappointing approach from the UK Government, and they could change it if they wanted to. From a citizen's advice point of view, Mr Gowans, do you think that this is going to increase your workloads? Do you expect to have people coming in? It's certainly got the potential to. As you mentioned, universal credit is a benefit that's randomly designed around work and getting people into work and searching for work. There's probably a couple of aspects to reaching people of pension age onto universal credit that we can consider out. One is around how conditionality will be applied to the other partner. We do know that people who have retired wouldn't be expected to search for work, but we don't quite know how work coaches will react to someone who are a couple claiming universal credit, one person is of working age and what their work search requirements will be. We know that the majority of people who claim pension credit have an illness or disability. It may well be that there's quite a number of carers amongst their partners, and we don't know about their own partner's health. The other aspect that we'd be concerned about is around digital exclusion, ready with the interaction of universal credit, which, as the committee will likely be aware, is claimed to be made and managed online. We've received a large number of people who aren't able to cope with that and require support. From surveys that we've done with CAB clients previously, which has highlighted the need for digital support and the large number of people who wouldn't be able to, with making and managing a benefit claim online, amongst older people, there's a far larger proportion who would struggle to do so. For instance, from our research, whilst over two thirds of those aged 18 to 24-year-olds reported being able to use a computer very well, only 12 per cent of those aged 65 to 79 were able to do so. Conversely, only 3 per cent of respondents aged 18 to 24 reported not being able to use a computer. That rose to 38 per cent of those aged 65 to 79, so it's quite likely that the increased issues around people who will struggle to make and manage a claim online. That's a significant barrier and one that might take up even lower amongst people who really need access to that additional income. The Age Scotland submission also says that the changes to pension credit are also likely to have a greater impact on women. We know that already, pensioner poverty is more significant for women. Could you expand on what you think the potential impacts are? As we've seen with the Waspie women, the state pension age is getting further and further away from them, so it is taking longer and longer to get there. For a lot of women who might have had career breaks or not worked for large chunks of their lives, looking at the generational part, their state pension will be a lot lower than the basic or the kind of top level. Pension credit will be vitally important to bring them up to that level. Those are generational factors perhaps to begin with, which have massively impacted women. As state pension age increases further, it will become every year that goes on, and it will be one step further away from being receded and the financial support that it needs. Do you like to comment on that issue, Mr Ghermans? I don't. It's not anything particularly further to add to what Age Scotland has said. I was trying to give you a signal, Mr Balfour, but I'll take you in after, Mr Brown. Not as subtle as it should have been, perhaps. First of all, given the way that the conversation has gone, I should declare an interest in, as far as my partners and minister for older people—although neither was a pension age yet, although people will be able to tell that I'm much closer to it than she is—but when I had made the suggestion that the committee should look at this area, I didn't know some of the things that have come out. It's a sense of unfolding horror to hear things like you said, Mr Stewart, a direct devastating impact on the poorest pensioners, and what you said about people now might find it more of an incentive to live apart, even with their partners. I think that it's horrifying. Going back to the earlier point that you made about the lack of, if I'm getting this right, any impact assessment before this was done, I'd just like to get a sense of what conversations did happen, and whether, in your experience—I know that you said that you've only recently joined Age Scotland, but since the advice might have a view as well—is this the norm, the lack of any kind of impact assessment? How do you perceive the idea that we're now told that austerity is over in 2019, and yet, in 2012 and 2011, when it was thought about, we were at the height, if you like, of austerity? I know that they don't seem to have moved with amazing alacrity to bring this in, but why, if austerity was over, do you think that this is coming in now? Do you have any sense of that at all? In the first instance, the rational why it was kind of snuck out is kind of lost on us, but the initial conversations that might have had the UK Government, and especially colleagues at age, UK will have had Drew Blanks in terms of that impact assessment it did beg the question. One of the big flags for us at the time was, well, if they're announcing this now, they must know how many people affects. It would be good to know how many people, as we've put out, it affects in Scotland in terms of our interests, what the financial costs will be. It was colleagues at age UK that had come up with us, the £7,000 a year impact on the costs so that it didn't come from the Government. As I said, in our written submission, I've been an example of a parliamentary question that was asked to one of the Pensions Minister, the Secretary of State for Pensions, which did outline back in 21 February that they still didn't have any kind of regional breakdown, hence in our written submission at the end, we've done the rudimentary maths on what that could mean. It could be higher, it could be lower, we don't really know, but then you think about every year after that, if it was 10 per cent, it's going up. It does beggars' belief that such a devastating impact on older people's lives is done so publicly without any proper rationale. That was what we found really disappointing. In terms of previous examples of that, I can't really speak to that, not really in my wheelhouse. In terms of the welfare reform, it seemed to get quite limited coverage at the time. I suspect that that was because of the large amount of changes that were being made. In terms of the impact assessments, a number of welfare changes have had impact assessments that, of a similar nature, particularly thinking of the lowering of the benefit cap, where there was quite a ballpark figure given for the UK and some of the other impacts didn't seem to be taken into account. In terms of why it's been commenced now, I'm not entirely certain that it was passed by the UK Parliament seven years ago. It's not entirely clear why it's commenced now, rather than at another date. It's certainly been something that we've been aware of in the legislation, particularly in conversations with Age Scotland previously about when it might be commenced. My suspicion had been that it wouldn't be commenced for a long time, if at all. Not for the first time, my predictive skills were slightly out, but it's not entirely clear why it's being commenced now. In terms of the case for the policy, it's not a clear picture. You're probably right to say that, when that came through the Westminster Parliament, there was so much that was going on, and a Government really intent on the various austerity measures. Perhaps that wasn't the one that attracted the most attention, which makes all the more puzzling that, seven or eight years on, they've come back with real teeth, which I think is an attack on the poorest pensioners, but on the point that you made earlier on about the passported benefits, that would have an impact on, presumably, the mitigation on bedroom tax that we have in Scotland and, as you mentioned, council tax reduction. In effect, that could be a real triple whammy. In addition to the £7,000, you mentioned the fact that pensioner poverty had been reducing in Scotland, but that, in itself, and it's not on consequences, could be a major setback in that attempt to try and reduce pensioner poverty when taken together with those other passported benefits. I would be right in thinking that. I think that, since you were looking at pensioner poverty, there's various—I was looking at last year's report from the Scottish Government that put out about 17 per cent, I think, it was for pensioner poverty, but about 170,000 old people are in that level. We know from our own research, for instance, on the single measure, that those single pensioner households, six and 10, can't afford or, for the difficulty, paying their energy bills, for example, and for those couples, it's 40 per cent. We know from our own research for money matters project that 38 per cent of people of the age of 50 are financially squeezed in Scotland, and there's about three and a half per cent that we're struggling, really struggling. So that's again this kind of—about 40 per cent seems to have captured lots of things with regard to this just now. So it will have big problems, and actually the point you make about the bedroom tax and the mitigation that the Scottish Government have implemented with regard to that through discretion housing payments and what not will—this actually—yeah, you're right, this will potentially have an impact there too. It shows that the Scottish Government obviously have committed to, in the general terms, mitigating against welfare reforms for those of working age. I think that part of one of the things we've said in our written submission is that consideration should certainly be given to mitigation for those who are not of working age. Two, it's not the best position to have to be in the Scottish Government, but if the commitments have been made elsewhere, then it would probably be reasonable to do so elsewhere. Primarily, this is a mess made by the Westminster UK Government. Okay, just before we move on, Mr Gowings. Do you want to add anything before we move on to the next? I think that it's got the potential to have an impact on discretionary housing payments and mitigation of the bedroom tax, given that that would apply in universal credit, but not pension credit, but it would be unclear at this stage how great that might be, so I don't know how many people would be affected by that. Okay, thank you. Jeremy Balfour. Thank you for that. Good morning, gentlemen. Just two or three questions. I think that if you look back at 2011, there were actually four debates on this and amendments were put down to reverse it. I suppose that one of my opening questions is that we've known about this could happen for the last eight or nine years. How much have your colleagues been working with the UK Government to either change this or for some kind of amendment to be put down by another minister? I understand that it's a very serious issue. Oh boy, it's just suddenly been announced. Well, we've known about it. It's going to happen at some point in eight years, so I'm just wondering what work have you and your colleagues been doing in Westminster if this is so difficult to have reversed? The second question is going back just a wee bit to explore a bit more the issue that it should be a universal benefit. I totally accept your point that the people phoning your helpline are not the people who are in the situation where one of their partners may have a reasonably high salary, but I suppose that just looking forward, if this was to be reversed, is it your view that it should be universal? My third issue, and Mr Cowan said that it's theoretical, well, it's slightly beyond theoretical, this Parliament under the legislation that we passed under the Social Security has power to create new benefits. That's a power that we have and can use anytime we want. I suppose the question for me is, would you please be to the Scottish Government that this is going to have such a devastating effect on older people in Scotland that they should be introducing new legislation to reverse this here in Scotland? That's not a theoretical issue, it's a very practical issue, it's a political decision that can be made. If you're telling us, as a committee, if you're saying to the Scottish Government that this is going to have such a devastating effect on older people in Scotland, then we should be seriously looking at should it be new legislation that we introduce? My question is, is it that serious that we should be looking at putting through legislation through this Parliament to reverse this change? Is it that serious? I would have let you back in for follow-up questions, but you seem to have rolled them all together there, so we can maybe chew your way through the various questions that have been asked, Mr Cowan. I'll take you first. I've got my pen with me. In terms of the work that might have been undertaken, especially at the time and since then, with regard to the UK Government or what's been going on Westminster, I'd have to consult with colleagues at our sister charity, Age UK, as they would lead on those kind of things. But what I have said before, since then, we've aged Scotland and have been heavily promoting to older people themselves the need to make sure that they are getting all the benefits and entitlements that they are due, and the Scottish Government had helped fund some of this work back in 2013 to make people aware of that. I'll try and seek some clarity, but what I will also say is that sometimes older people's issues aren't top of the agenda with all the political white noise that's going on. You'll find that Age Scotland and others, such as advice and other charities, will be fighting battles on multiple fronts every single day. Just last week, or two weeks ago, we'd be looking at hospital reports. Those five different media interviews were doing five different issues at the same point, not saying that it's always that busy, but there are lots of things to sell. I'll certainly consult with people there, but our mission is to get as many old people as we can to make sure that they're getting everything that they're entitled to, as opposed to benefits too. On the universality, I think that the point that I sort of made earlier on on this is that the current system maybe isn't working for everyone just now, those poorest pensioners, because there is 40 per cent of them that aren't getting it. At the same point, why don't we just keep it where it is just now and try to get more people onto it? There is a mess behind this with all the passported benefits. It's not just—I don't think it's just as simple as—just as having, for instance, a brand new benefit in one, because there are lots of—as Mr Griffin and others have mentioned, talking about the passported benefits, there is quite a complex web of elements and support for older people out there, but the means to benefit pension credit is the gateway to them. I think that it would be really tricky when I'm probably being on my brief right now in this committee after a best part of a week to prepare for it, along with 55 other battles to fight, to have an answer to that and, certainly, some of them that we might consider in the future. What we would say is that it would be great if the Scottish Government and this Parliament and this committee considered what it could do to mitigate on the simplest measures, maybe one step shy of full benefits, but there are still a range of benefits that are due to come in and being worked through, and although some of them have been delayed, there are a number that will be impacting older people, too. How will that fit in that schedule? We're working now, the constitution is now open on the equivalent of attendance allowance, as well, so there will be a range of things that the Parliament will have to consider. It will be particularly difficult on that basis. Through those questions, Mr Griffin, before I take you in, the question is about mitigation. If you add up the loss of benefit and settlement projected over the next five years at a UK level, that's £1.1 billion using the rough prorata that the sector has been doing in relation to that. That's over £100 million additional moneys that would have to be sourced in Scotland in the next five years, which may, of course, come from other projects that might be seeking to tackle pension or poverty and support older people such as adaptions in their homes or whatever. So, those things are never cost-free options, but Mr Gowns, I really appreciate you trying to work your way through Mr Balfour's questions. In turn, it's not something that we've certainly not done in the last two or three years. We've particularly done a huge amount of engagement with the UK Parliament on this issue, and our focus has been on the introduction of universal credit, the roll-out of personal independence payments, some of the changes in the welfare reform and work acts of 2016, in terms of our work with MPs there. In terms of the universality of pension credit, there's potentially, in the sense that with pension credit, like with other benefits, there's potentially tweaks that could be made to it. It's certainly the case that the person who would qualify would be of a low income, typically, because they didn't have very much of a private pension or no private pension at all. In terms of mitigation options, like on a number of other issues, we would, on issues that we would be concerned about, be equally delighted if the UK Government or the Scottish Government were to take action. I would say that mitigating issues is generally more complex than we promised at source. To get from both of you is absolutely to the community's point that this would come with a cost. What I'm trying to work out is, is this such an important change that that is a cost that the Scottish Parliament Government needs to think about? I appreciate people who are going to be losers here. What I can't work out is this so important that we need to mitigate on it? Or is it taking your list of 20 somewhere in the middle? That's what I'm trying to get a sense from here. From the people that you're working with representing, is this the number one issue that you're concerned about, or is it somewhere in the middle—that's what I'm trying to look for—so that we can have a feel of how serious this is? That's a really good question. I'm slightly going to pivot around that. I think that there are about 20 hugely important issues to older people and different older people. It will be the most important issue to them. I generally do think that this will have a devastating impact on older people. Our charity stands by that, and yes, every effort should be made to find a way to mitigate against this. It will be very difficult. What I'm not saying is that it's the first priority of the Government, but it's certainly come upon members of the Scottish Parliament to recognise how important this is and to look at ways upon which it can be fixed. Obviously, there will be challenges for the Scottish Government in this sense, with lots of other things going on. There will be challenges for local authorities in this sense, with challenges for the committee and the members in this Parliament on that. However, that will have a devastating impact and a kind of, as a question, yes, serious action should be taken to fix that. I go back to the point that there are huge issues affecting older people every single day. For different people, whether it's dementia or anything, there will be the most important issues, too. However, for, let's say, it's 1,500 people next year in Scotland, that will be one of the most important issues to them, because they won't have to choose between whether they use their heating, they pay different energy bills, they can live in the same place, they can travel anywhere, they can engage in society. However, health is good. For them, it will be a substantial issue for us. We're taking this deadly seriously. I said that this is just something that's, you know, snuck out in January. Yes, point taken that it was being in the works for a number of years, but no indication of when it hit, so you kind of fight the battles in front of you at the time. Now it's one that we've got in front of us, and we'll definitely possibly can, to make sure older people sign up in advance on 15 May, and I'm sure there'll be a cross UK approach with the UK Government on changing this in the first instance, but if not, it's really upon the Scottish Government to answer this Parliament to look at how it will fix the problem. Okay, Mr Gowns, do you want to add anything on that? I've waited one supplementary from Alice Rallan that we're moving to showing the Robison. I'll say to members that we'll run this on maybe by another 20 minutes or so, if there's additional questions that people want to ask, so we'll take both on brief supplementaries, please. Alice Rallan and Michelle Ballantyne. Mr Gowns, do you want to add something before we bring members in? Yes, I think that in terms of the, if we were to pick a list of issues that would be, as are, our sort of top priorities to be addressed, I think it'd be fair to say that the big stage rules wouldn't be at the top of the list, but the list would include a sort of large number of issues that we're concerned about, so I think it's probably that wouldn't be seen to to kind of sort of underplay the sort of the impact of sort of of this change. I guess part of the part of the difficulty that races that with so many so many changes is where where you would mitigate whether there's changes at sort of UK level. I guess probably some of the things to sort of none its head is to I guess probably paraphrase the sort of the social security act that social security is an investment in people. And there are, of any of these changes, there are knock-on impacts elsewhere leading to the Scottish Government's budget, but also to the sort of the UK Government's budget and and local authorities, so that sort of spending some money on areas such as such as sort of protecting pension credit would save money elsewhere. Really interesting line of questions. I said a couple of bits for supplementaries. I would certainly be concerned that that's a bit of a false choice that was being discussed there, because I wouldn't want to run up the white flag in surrender every time a UK Government had an attack on poverty levels and pensioner poverty in Scotland or right across the UK in work on the basis that we just seek to mitigate what is a deeply unfair and unethical policy that's been propagated from London. So I think maybe a bit of, from my point of view, not a question, but there's a false choice being offered there, but we do have a couple of supplementaries in relation to that, Alasdair Allan. I suspect I'm going to say the same as you convener and it's probably more of an observation than something I'll draw you too deeply into unless you want to comment on it, but I think it just has to be recorded that Mr Balford won't be too surprised at me raising this, that what he's talking about here is that in instances where his Government, the UK Government cuts something in their area of responsibility in Scotland and that the Scottish Government should be expected continually from its own resources for health and education to find a replacement to pay for that cut. I just want to observe that, if we were to do that every single time that the UK Government cuts something within its own areas of responsibilities in Scotland, we wouldn't have to trim devolved services, we would have to end some devolved services. The amount of money coming out of the benefit system—I have seen the figure quoted many times now—is equivalent to what we spend on Police Scotland, so I don't expect to comment on it, but I think that the question from Mr Balford, while understandable from his point of view, was a rather loaded one and avoids the issue that I've just mentioned, which is that taking his advice on that would involve us shutting down whole areas of services within devolved responsibility. I have to say that I don't expect to respond to that and we're all together on Michelle Ballantyne's question, I would say, and I'm on the defence of a Conservative member of this committee. It's an absolute far line of question whether we agree with it or otherwise. You get absolutely the space on this committee to explore that, but other members have clearly got a significant variance of views. I suppose that I'm going to respond to that slightly. My understanding of committee is that it's not about us debating our own views, it's about exploring what is going on, taking evidence on it and trying to get a deeper understanding of what we're looking at and how it impacts and what kind of decisions we should make as a Scottish Parliament going forward and as part of that to advise the Scottish Government on what this committee has found and thinks around it. I guess that line of questioning was trying to understand how deep a problem this is and how much weight, as you so eloquently put it, in the mass of things that we're all looking at and we're looking at all the time. When it comes to social security in Scotland, part of what devolution is doing is giving us, as a Parliament, the opportunity to create a social security system within Scotland. Some of that is not about just saying, we don't like what they're doing and the rest of the UK, so we're going to mitigate it. That would be a false premise for a social security Scotland system. It's about devising and building a social security system that is based on what we want to deliver. The reason that I asked you the question about should it be universal is because part of that is saying how, for me anyway, is about how do we target the people who need help and ensure that the money that we have, which is limited and I don't think that any of us would disagree on that, but how do we ensure that that money is targeted to the people who need support, albeit either for a short time or permanently throughout their lives, to ensure that we get maximum impact where it's needed? Therefore, when we're looking at something like this, all we're really trying to do is assess what is the level of impact. Is it split, so yes, it'll impact on X number of people, but how many of those people does it put into poverty? Does it seriously impact their ability to live a reasonable life when we would all expect, as at least a minimum standard, but I guess when you get to a pensionable age, you don't want to reduce people to a minimum? Therefore, my question is, how much work do you expect your organisations to be doing on this in terms of independent work that we, as a Parliament, can be looking at? I think that that is quite important, because for me it's just not about mitigation, it's about what are we trying to build here and who are we trying to help and how are we trying to help them? I had asked for, and I include myself in this, brief supplementaries. Sorry, that wasn't very brief. It seems like an age since we've heard from the witnesses and there's quite a lot of views wrapped up within that, rather than scrutiny questions. I should also point out, and I'm doing this to take up your time as well, I should point out for your full understanding, this committee is able to scrutinise any aspect of social security irrespective of whether it is local authority, Scottish Government, UK Government and to make recommendations right across the boards. We're not limited and I think that's important in terms of the responsibilities of this committee. On the first question, there's a point around pension credit generally and universality. We haven't done a great deal of work on what potential changes might be to pension credit. We have done on the range of other benefits, particularly the ones that are being devolved to help to inform the committee and the Scottish Government, so that's something that we would need to look at in further detail. In terms of the impact, having looked through cases that come to CAB to see what some of the impacts might be on individual couples, there's a couple that are worth drawing to the committee's attention. In one case, the client received the wrong information about which benefit to claim, and they were claiming universal credit rather than pension credit, which they'd been entitled to. It had an impact on the client's finances so much so that they required support from a food bank. The client received a state pension but the money had run out and they were part of a mixed-age couple. Eventually, CAB was able to backdate the claim for pension credit and give advice and additional support. The backdated claim was £6,650, which shows some of the loss. The other case was where there was a 67-year-old client who lives with a 49-year-old partner. She's disabled following a stroke and a partner's unemployed. They were left in serious hardship due to a seven-week delay to pension credit claim, which some of the cases where there's been a delay to pension credit—that's mirror the waiting period for universal credit—were left with just a state pension of £134 a week. Some of those are the types of situations that we would expect to be providing advice to people on. Those are the circumstances and hardships that may happen after May 15, so that's pretty clear. Adam Stakura. The assessment on the examples that I absolutely agree with. I think that when you're looking at pension or poverty, anyone that's going to be impacted by this after the 15th of May or most of them will then be put into poverty because pension credit, as I said before, is the Government's minimum to top-up to get to this, whereas £163 a week for a single person or £248.80 a week for a couple. By its very definition, all those people are, depending on how the household is structured in terms of the other person, but that individual would go on to the poverty level, so it certainly will impact significantly. On the universal credit, I've just come back to my original point about there aren't enough people claiming it. Your point made about the vision of this Parliament or the Scottish Government or Scotland in terms of how it designs a social security system fit for the future as a good one. I think that the actual social security Scotland style of it is far better than the part for work and pensions in terms of how it is to treat people and how it is to be as accessible as it can. The point was made earlier on about the barriers. If you're looking at how universal credit will roll in, there's half a million people in Scotland who know they're 65 and do not use the internet. I've used this in a committee the other week to make the point. That's the population of Edinburgh who don't see their barrier immediately to claiming the right things or having access to information. Our challenge, the charity, is to proliferate the advice and the kind of means upon which someone can sign up to getting the entitlements that they are due. One of the recommendations that we would say and have is for the Scottish Government and for members of the Scottish Parliament is to amplify these campaigns or be part of them for massive benefit uptake campaigns on the whole. Social security budgets aren't always fully claimed. There is a massive underclaiming anyway, so there is money there. If there was a maximum uptake, it would stretch those things, but there is money there by that very basis. There is room to expand. I want to say to members that there will be the opportunity for brief and I stress absolute brief questions—hopefully brief answers—for just a mopping-up exercise, but the final substantive question of this morning is from the MSP. Good morning. Given what has just been said about building that social security system in Scotland and given the concerns about the ability to mitigate given the fixed budget, wouldn't it be better for a pension credit to be devolved so that we could build that social security system in a wraparound comprehensive way for pensioners? Isn't it the case that we will already have to mitigate the effects of that increase in pension poverty that you have just described through mechanisms such as the Scottish Welfare Fund, which is already a £33 million fund? Do you think that there will be additional pressures on that fund, so in effect having to mitigate the impact of that UK Government welfare change? Briefly, as well, do you think that there is any level of awareness among the population at large about those changes coming in from the 15th of May? If not, what can be done about that? Finally, do you hold any breakdown of information beyond the Scottish level? It has been quite hard to get a breakdown of local authority area, for example. I suspect that the answer is likely to be no, but I thought that I would ask anyway whether you have that local information. I will go and see Adam Stewart. My notes page is running out of white space now. It is a good question on the devolving pension credit. If the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliament feels that it is able to effectively legislate for all of the new benefits, then, yes, there is no judgment on that, but there have been substantive delays to benefits or the devolved benefits that are being devolved. We have worked on that number of years change, so there are challenges in how all of this works anyway. However, if the culture of social security Scotland has to be applied, that would be better for pensioners, I am sure. It is a bit of a non-answer to that, just now. There are pressures on the Scottish welfare fund. Yes, there will be, but, again, people might not know what exists. That is one of the challenges as well to know what exists there for the kind of crisis grants or whatever else. That is a challenge for lots of people. We obviously have said this a few times. We do not know if enough people know the help that is available to them. They could call our free helpline, our free benefits check, and last year we helped Scots pensioners or older people. Anyone over the age of 50 could get about another £600,000 of unclaimed entitlements that they were due. That was last year, and this year we are on track to beat that. There will be others that will do similar exercises. I mentioned this before you came into committee, just to reaffirm the point. As soon as older people found out that these changes were coming into effect, in January and February, there was a 142 per cent increase in the number of calls to our helpline, specifically about benefits entitlements. We can track calls back to the kind of news that happens when older people are seeing the usual calls up. We have been in the papers or on the radio, on the TV, talking about those things. There is an immediate response for people calling up, so that shows the level. We will be speaking to a thing—not just on benefits entitlements, but about 1,000 people a month—will speak to in general through our helpline. That is not exactly transferable. There is a 142 per cent increase in those people calling about benefits entitlements in that period when that was announced. It shows that it has spooked people and they are asking what they can do or are they entitled. We are desperately making sure that we get more calls in and that we can get people signed up to the right benefits entitlements. We will, over the next number of months until then, run campaigns and outreach work with older people to make them more aware of what they can do to be ahead of the curve on this particular one. I forgot your third question. That was about local breakdown. As far as we were able to get is just an overall UK picture of 15,000 older people in the UK next financial year, 30,000 following your fourth thousandth of the year after that. I put in a written submission that our most basic maths, if you took 10 per cent cuts of that, you could see what it means. Beyond that, there certainly has not been. If the UK Government have a challenge on whatever way I have been able to break it down to nations or states or even regions of England, I am sure that I will have a big difficulty doing so by local authority. It might be helpful as that begins to impact on pensioners in Scotland, maybe even through your helpline, to be able—if that creates a bit of a picture of where there might be particular pockets of pension or poverty arising from this change, presumably you would be gathering that. That would be something that the committee would be quite interested in looking at what evidence emerges of the impact over the next 12 to 18 months, for example. I will speak to colleagues at Age Scotland and the helpline about how we capture that information and how we might be able to collate that for the future for the committee. That would be helpful. We do not have a detailed breakdown, but we would be happy to share information with the committee once the change has come into effect. In terms of devolution, at the time of the Smith commission, we supported the devolution of all social security benefits outside of pensions. It is also that we have been supportive of the approach that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament have taken to the development of the new social security powers. If there are proposals for further devolution, we would comment more on them when they arise. In terms of pressures on the Scottish welfare fund, from what we know, it is quite likely that there will be greater pressures on the Scottish welfare fund. As Adam said, one of the issues that we see at the moment is that people are not always aware of the Scottish welfare fund or the help that they can get from that. We will try to promote that through our work as an alternative to food banks or other unsustainable means. We will also promote the take-up of pension credit and council tax reductions, which are particularly low among older people. If we got anywhere near to full take-up of those, pension poverty would not nearly be eliminated in Scotland. We will try to raise awareness of the change but also of the social security support that is available to people who are in need of it. I think that that was all of your questions, although at least the ones that I have written down. I will finish this session, but I think that there are a few things that we should mop up. I have two or three brief questions that I want today, so please feel free to do the same. I will take primary legislation for others to halt this, but would the UK Government have to go back to the House of Commons and present primary legislation to stop this? Or can they stop the enactment of this via an executive order? My understanding of it is that the UK Government would have to enact primary legislation rather than just a departmental decision to not do it or anything in between that. That is my understanding. It would be helpful for us to get absolute clarity on that, because there is a difference between the House of Commons taking control of this issue and seeking primary legislation to effectively scrub it from the statute book or the relevant UK minister saying that the Government who decided to trigger this provision now also has the ability to terminate this provision. There is probably a balance on the committee that would quite like to see that happen. That is unlikely to happen in short order, so it is not likely to go away by the 15th of May. That is the reality, unfortunately. You mentioned an uptake campaign. Are you aware of a UK Government uptake campaign? Apply for pension credit before you lose it. It is a bitter pill to swallow, £7,000 to get out of some households every single year, but a real targeted UK benefit uptake campaign to get beyond that 40 per cent uptake that we currently have. Is there any information on that and UK Government intent on that? I am not really aware of specific ones on pension credit happening at UK level. Certainly in terms of trying to communicate information about the change. I imagine that the UK Government would probably see it in different terms in terms of that they would regard it as a good thing that people were. The reason for this change is that they would not bring it into force. On your earlier point about whether there are kind of changes to the regulations, my understanding is that it is being commenced by regulations, whether it can be. I hesitate on this one because I am not a lawyer, or whether it could be uncommented by regulations, I am not sure. We have to find out. There is no evidence of an uptake campaign that we are aware of, so it is for brevity. I would not bring myself to cure it on that. Mix-stage households will fall into universal credit. That could mean conditionalities. In reality, we are talking about the sanctioning of pension households now. That is something that the UK Government could rule out if it wanted to, is it not? It could have light touch or no conditionality on those households, even if it moved to universal credit. Are we talking about potential sanctioning of pension households under universal credit? My understanding is that the pensions themselves would not be required to seek work or have work search requirements. However, we do not know how that will apply to their partners as the entire amount of universal credit is sanctioned rather than as it is paid to the couple. You could potentially have the household sanction. Ultimately, if the job center class decided that, the working-age person who might be looking after the pensioner is fit for work and can work, and they are not trying hard enough to get work, I hate saying these words quite frankly, they could sanction the income to that household. That is a new thing, is not it, for a pensioner household? For brevity, the answer is probably yes. I am 50. Final thing on passported benefits. Is there a way of flagging up under the universal credit system speedily that any universal credit household that has a person as part of that claim, who is of pensionable age, would automatically accrue the same passported benefits? Is there a way to fix that passported benefit issue? I do not have an answer to that just now. I will seek to get one for you. We understand why we would be asking that, because there is another way of mitigation cuts both ways. We would rather not have the bad lot but can make a best of the bad lot for as long as it exists. That is an obvious route, Mr Gowens. Any ideas about that? It is something that I can go in and have a look at what options might be. Additional questions from members. I was wondering, do we get the chance to make a couple of observations subsequently or should we make those now, or are there still questions? If there are any more questions, and I did ask a few there, but I did try to make as brief as possible what I will permit them. We will have the ability to discuss our impression of this evidence session in private once it concludes in theory. We could decide what of our actions we wanted to take. There is a variety of actions, so we can correspond with Scottish and UK Governments and we can be as diplomatic or we can be as hard-hitting as we like as a committee. However, there are other mechanisms at our disposal, which I know that you are aware of, Mr Brown, which might set precedents for committee, which we may or may not want to do. We are ruling in the committee members' hands. Are there any more questions at this point? Keith Brown. I am very happy for the answers to be brief. I intended to ask whether you believed that the bedroom tax exists or not, because that might seem incredible being a subject of debate at this committee, but you have both mentioned it, so I assume that you do. We have heard a mention of the fact that Jeremy Balfour has raised the question, is this an important change? You have said that it is a devastating impact on pensioner poverty and the prospect of forcing pensioner couples apart, plus the prospect that the convener has just raised, of sanctions being possibly applied. That answers the question. To me, it seems absolutely barbaric that we would try to do that. However, the bigger question that was raised by Jeremy Balfour was, should that be mitigated by the Scottish Government, which, to my mind, would be interesting in your comments, since it raises the question of how somebody can hold two views that would support this devastating attack on pensioners and yet support its mitigation. I do not know how you can hold those two views together at once, and it would be interesting to have your view on that. Presumably, if there was to be further mitigation, that would have to come at the expense of something else, whether it was council tax reduction or bedroom tax mitigation. The point that you made about how complex the system is already makes an absolute nonsense of the idea that was put forward by Michelle Ballantyne, that we should set up our own system, almost regardless of what Westminster is doing. It is obviously going to be shaped by the wider agenda of social security. Just to hear if you have any comments on that. I would not like to have a view on a member of the Scottish Parliament's positions, that is for them to have, if you will permit me that. I answered admirably like someone who may should be sitting this side in the danger with diplomacy. Jeremy Balfour, just before I take you in, Clark has just pointed out that we technically do not have an item in private to discuss the matter. I am also minded that, given the time constraints that we have in relation to the coming into place and the work that we have in this committee, we do have the option to discuss in public what course of action we might want to take and put that on the public record. I would note that that requires a good degree of responsibility across all members across the party to divide as well about what reasonable actions would be. I would ask members whether they would be minded to do that. I apologise to witnesses that I am just raising this point of procedure at the moment. Do members think that we should have a discussion in public over what a course of action might look like? I would be minded to do that. Any course of action should be challenging for all layers of government, not just one, but we should have a look at that. I see nodding heads, so we will conclude the evidence session, not just yet, because Mr Balfour wants to come in. I commend him more for coming rather than if we are doing an open session after this, I will hold mine back for that moment. I thank members for agreeing to that. It is a public session. First, although we are still on this agenda item, I thank both of you for being as formative as possible in the circumstances in relation to the impact that this will have on older people, who represent and support all their constituencies right across Scotland. I thank both of you and your organisations for the work that you do. Please feel free to stick around. You are under no obligation to stick around for our discussion, but please feel free—there is no need for you to leave the desk and hang around, and you can listen to our observations. At this point, what I would say is thank you very much, but your role in relation to the evidence session would draw to close at this point, so thank you both very much. All members will have to be relatively brief. I will speak last, if I have spoken enough at this committee. What course of action should we take based on the evidence that we have heard here today? As a minimum, we should write to the UK Government on the back of the evidence session that we have just had citing some of the evidence about an increase in pension poverty, the impact on things such as the Scottish welfare fund, and to express our deep concern and ask for a 11th hour halt to this madness and to ask perhaps what assessment has been done around the impact. What impact assessment has been done around the impact, particularly on Scottish pensioners, given our area of interest, is that. I think that, as a minimum, that is what we should do. Can I ask you, Shona, in relation to any letter, whether or not we would raise various themes that you have not yet mentioned? In relation to, for example, passported benefits, potential sanction and just list them relatively briefly in any letter to the UK Government and the lack of clarity in the concerns that we have. I am conscious that it is reasonable to say that there is a majority on the committee in relation to the May 15th being delayed, cancelled, put off, halted, should not happen. A majority on this committee might not be unanimous and I would rather not seek to go to a vote in what is an open discussion. I would look at my Conservative colleagues and just wondering if their concerns are such that they would prefer the UK Government at the very least postponed if not cancelled the proposals for May 15th? I think that the questions that Shona is asking around the impact of this and the questions that you are asking about sanctions, universal credit, all those questions are legitimate to ask, and Shona would be very happy to sign up to those type of questions. I am not persuaded on what I have heard that I would be looking for this to be stopped. If you will write in the letter on that paragraph, I would prefer that the majority of the committee is asking for this to be stopped rather than the whole committee. However, if you are trying to get a letter that we can all sign up to, certainly the questions that Shona has raised around that I am very happy for those questions to be put to the UK Government and we hope to get an answer back. Rather than having a long debate on this, I think that there is an issue whether we then put this down on the majority of the committee, I think that this should not happen, rather than having to do two letters. I suppose that the other thing that I would want to add to that is that the point that I was trying to make that might not seem to be quite understandable. I absolutely understand the point that you are making, convener, that if the Scottish Government does step into this, that comes with a financial cost and it can't do everyone. I promise that I am going to let you extend on that point. That might be moves towards what representations we would like to make to the Scottish Government, so I wonder if it is possible just to give those off in relation to the UK, because that might be a good structured way of doing it. Michelle Tate, in a second, I would think that, in a very helpful your comments, Mr Balfour, I think that we can coalesce around the one letter. I just wanted to make sure whether, in that letter, the line where we talk about halting this is a majority rather than the entire committee. We have got that distinction now that it wouldn't be the entire committee. I don't know whether it's both conservative members or not, to ask the UK Government to halt those proposals. Michelle, it would be helpful if you could let us know where you are on that. I think that where I am, there are two elements. The first thing is that we have to recognise that this is not retrospective. That is quite an important point. The conversation that we had about the uptake and ensuring that people have, by 15 May, engaged with their right to pension credit as it stands. I think that I would, in the letter, be highlighting that we have a concern that people, this is complex and people don't necessarily understand their rights, and that we would be looking to get reassurance that everything is being done to ensure that everybody who is currently entitled gets that entitlement. Because it's not retrospective, the impact is going to be on people going forward from where they are when one partner reaches pensionable age. I'm not sure, as yet, that I wholly understand what the impact of that is going to be, because it's not about taking money away that they currently have. It's about not receiving money that they might have been entitled to had the change not been made. I would certainly be interested in having a better understanding of what that might mean going forward. Where are those households now? What is the impact going to be? For somebody who's not already working, for example, who reaches pensionable age, presumably there's—well, I don't know entirely whether there's going to be no change in their circumstance or whether there's slightly better off because some sort of pension kicks in over the top of it, because pension receipts are not deducted from universal credit. However, I think that that is something we haven't really talked about today, and that is where we need to do it. Our expert witnesses over there, I think that's the kind of research we need to understand. I probably would share Jeremy's position is that I wouldn't be calling for it to be stopped, but I do think that it needs to be better understood. Whether that is asking them to say, hang on a minute, we could do with a bit more time to understand this before it's implemented, that kind of is where I am. I think that that's helpful with a whole discourse around better understanding the numbers involved, the impact on pensioners, and the lack of clarity that the third sector had that we had today. We do have to better understand that. I'm sure that that could be in any letter. Mark Griffin and then Keith Brown. Thank you, convener. I think that we should write raising a lot of issues that we've heard and everyone's really concerned me about potential sanctions, driving behaviour change, the whole impact that it could have on our households and come through that impact on passported benefits. While Michelle makes the point that it's not retrospective that actually changing circumstances could lead to an application being rejected, so it could impact on someone who is getting pension credit. Right now, if they have a change in circumstances, they will then lose that access to pension credit, so that still could happen. I think that if committee isn't going to call us around asking for a postponement to that decision, then I think that certainly the majority of the committee should ask for the decision to be reversed. That's very helpful. We can reflect that in the one letter and the respectful way, absolutely. Keith Brown. A couple of points. First of all, Jeremy says that, as part of his contribution, I chose not to understand. I wouldn't be keen to get some clarity as to whether, when he talked about the mitigation of this measure, potentially by the Scottish Government, that is something that he supports and if at the same time he supports the continuation of community council tax reduction and bedroom tax mitigation, it would be useful to have that as a background. On the point about reversing, if it's possible for the UK Government in less than three weeks to get all through the commons, the measures for Brexit, then it's perfectly possible for them to find a way to reverse this decision, so I'd be very keen that we did make that clear. I think we have to be quite unequivocal. There's a little option to choose to not understand the fact of what the evidence we've just heard that this is going to be a devastating thing for pensioner poverty very soon. The idea that we can be forcing couples apart because it makes financial sense for them to do that is just horrendous and the idea of sanctioning pensioner households. We have to be very unequivocal and not mincer words in saying this. I should also say that if this committee agrees to do something, it's not a majority. When the Parliament agrees to do something, if the vote wins, that's the Parliament deciding it's this committee. The point that I would make is that, similar to what Shona has said, I was thinking whether we should make a statement of the committee's views in any way, but this committee notes with grave concern that the UK Government's changes to pension credit and believes the view of age concern Scotland at this measure potentially having the effect of forcing pensioner couples apart and representing, in quotes, the devastating impact on pensioner poverty requires this measure to be vigorously opposed. Therefore, the committee calls on the UK Government to take all the necessary measures to reverse this decision until, at the very least, it carries out the impact assessment that it failed to carry out when it proposed this measure eight years ago. If those points are included, then I'd be happy to support the positions that we mentioned. I will take you back in, Jeremy. Alison Johnstone. I'm just very content to support proposals to write to both the UK and the Scottish Government given the Conservatives' long-standing—I don't know. I think that most people believe that the Conservatives have always been very strong on the welfare of our older citizens, so I do find this an astonishing proposal—absolutely astonishing. The fact that we've taken so much evidence on universal credit itself and now it's going to impact on the lives of even more citizens, and particularly the evidence that we took around the fact that it is digital by default for a group of people who find that even more challenging than I myself do. I just have grave concerns about this. Age Scotland, in its submission, said that, while the UK Government says that pension credit wasn't designed for working age claimants, universal credit was certainly not designed for pensioners. Everything that we can do as a committee to highlight our concerns would be very worthwhile. It is frustrating that we are constantly having to look at mitigation of policies, but I think that it would be helpful to understand what the potential impacts will be on Scotland and on that welfare fund that may be called upon even more than it has been. I'm starting to see a genuine increase in the polarisation of views that might not be able to be accommodated at Alasdair Allan. I think that that's true. I was really just going to observe that it may be that the clerks with their expertise can draft a letter that talks about the views of the committee, somehow or other, that refers to the fact that a couple of points that were dissent in voices. I would tend to agree with Keith that we shouldn't mincer words that we should have a report—or not a report—a letter that speaks on behalf of the committee if possible. Okay. I think that I have to let Jeremy in and then I'm probably going to have to make a suggestion to the committee after that, but Jeremy could do it. I mean, I suppose that this is where I am slightly—maybe I'm not here and if I am—I mean, I didn't hear that for me in Scotland today. I mean, that's why I asked a very specific question, you know, and I think for me—and so when you say that—I mean, again, it's not fair, because we're here and they can answer for themselves later, but my impression was from me in Scotland that this is an important issue, but this is not the most important issue affecting older people in Scotland today. So I think that we've got to be careful just with the terminology that we use. I am not saying that it's not important. What I'm saying is that I don't think it is—well, they were very clear that it is not the most important issue on their agenda at the moment. I mean, I mean, I can't—I mean, I would have thought the scholar of the clerks could put down a sentence on a paragraph to say just simply the majority of the committee want to see this come to an end, and I can't see that in any way weakens the letter that you would be signing. I mean, I think we're going to get into problems if we are going around, say, the whole committee believes this, because I think, you know, we're going to enter territory that we haven't done in previous years and we've tried to unite round letters. Okay, so I think that the committee has a couple of options here, and I've actually got a decision to make as convener. The option is, as we write as a committee, and I think that that may mean that our conservat—I'm not trying to not get that consensus, but it might mean that our conservat colleagues cannot put their names to the committee later, but I increasingly can't see how we can reflect the kind of language that I think the clear the majority of the committee wishes to be in that letter that's going to get a consensus, and I'm seeking to exercise my judgment to share its chair mutually and responsibly, but I think it'd be remiss of me to say I just don't think, based on the views that I've heard, that there's a way of us all hanging together in relation to this issue. We therefore have two choices from what I can see. We draft the letter, and this is a steer to the class which is all but to draft this on behalf of the committee, and we make it incredibly firm, and we don't talk about majorities, we talk about the committee, and if that just means that the committee member signed that letter, but our conservative colleagues cannot sign up to that, they cannot sign up to that, but the committee has a view, and that can still be expressed in a letter, and I'm just checking that, so that's competent in terms of procedure with the clerks. You can be reflected in the letter. Okay, that can be reflected in the letter. The alternative, and Mr Brown has effectively suggested a motion without notice, and I know that you should be prepared for some words there. Now, my preference, and it's for my decision is convener to decide whether to take a motion without notice. If we can get a consensus to draft a strong letter, which will encompass all the views that Mr Brown has effectively put in that motion without notice, had I decided to accept it and would reflect in the letter that our conservative colleagues can unfortunately not sign up to that, then we have a committee view and it goes to the UK Government, because I'm very reluctant to accept a motion without notice because I wouldn't want to set precedence on how the committee does its business. Again, I much rather prefer that the committee has discussions and reflections of evidence in private, because you have a much more full and frank view from all committee members for being really quite straightforward about it, but given the significant time constraints in my personal view now, the impending impact that we're talking about up to £7,000 has been taken out of pensioner households, and then, under the threat of sanction on top of that, deeply worries me, and I don't think that we've got the time to wait to make the committee's views known, and I would rather do that in a letter rather than do it in a motion without notice, which I think creates unhelpful precedence. All that would be in my gift, so I would ask for the committee's agreement to take that course of action, Michelle. There was a note in our papers that the Work and Pensions Committee wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions asking for more information about the expected impact in January. Do we know if they've received a response, and do we know what it was? Clare's indicated that we don't know, and we should solicit additional information on that, but what I'm clear about is—we're about to talk about the Scottish Government in a second now in relation to impact and mitigation, which is the next topic that we have to go on and look at, of course. I don't think that we can wait. I think that we have to decide that it's Scotland's Social Security Committee. What are our views on pensioner poverty and those changes? So, yes, let's get that information, but I'd be minded as convener that we should not hold up the work of this committee in relation to that. With the caveats that I have suggested, I suggest that we bring a letter back to committee next week, which will obviously seek the approval of the committee, but Jeremy and Michelle obviously won't be able to sign up to that, but that will be reflected in the letter. We may have to circulate that in that case, given the time constraints, but we'll circulate that to all members. It's very brief and convenient just to understand that, if a letter like that normally goes and generally asked because I haven't been involved before, is it not just signed by the convener on behalf of the committee, or are you suggesting that we individually sign it? We can do either. I'm happy just to sign it as convener, but we'll have to reflect on that letter. The committee has agreed that, but note that our Conservative members were not able to coalesce around that view. I don't think that it was the case that Age Concern Scotland said that it wasn't the most important thing. It said that it was a number of important things. That was a bit of a difference. It would be useful when we come back to discuss the mitigation if it's possible to get an answer to the question, which opposed earlier on whether it supported the mitigation, Jeremy and Michelle support the mitigation of this measure, support the continued mitigation of council tax reduction and also the mitigation of the burden tax or not. It just helps a better discussion. Let me come back to that discussion in the future. I think that we're about to have that discussion just now, Mr Brown, because we are Scotland's social security committee. It's not just that we've been challenging to one layer of government. It's about looking at all layers of government and putting challenges out there, but we have to decide where we are as a committee in relation to that. Who was it that I started to talk about that? Jeremy, do you want to start off that conversation? I think that the letter that I want to write to the Scottish Government is probably a slightly broader letter in that I totally accept the point that you've made on a number of cases in the community of that. If the Scottish Government mitigates something, that comes with a financial cost. Obviously, there has to be a political decision on which ones we're going to mitigate and which ones we are going to mitigate. At the moment that there are two or three that the Scottish Government has chosen to mitigate on, and that is a decision that the Parliament has made. It's a political decision that political parties have come to. What I would be quite interesting to know is that, within the hierarchy of Scottish Government, is there some kind of thinking of how do we decide which ones to mitigate and which ones we don't? What assessments are done at the Scottish Government level in regard to impact, in regard to financial cost, in regard to—I'm clearly not saying that you can choose to mitigate everyone, but I think that it would be interesting for the Parliament and for the committee to know how that decision is reached. Is it purely a political decision that we're going to do this, or is the academic research done to say that this has to be done or this doesn't have to be done? I don't know if that makes sense, but I think that we need to be presuming that there's some working done within the civil service on the guard to this. I would be interesting to know what criteria is used to decide whether we're going to intervene on this one or whether we're not going to intervene on that one. I think that that's very helpful. Other comments from members? In that letter, we should reflect the discussion that we've had with the witnesses that acknowledged that the Scottish Government is not in a position to mitigate every UK Government welfare reform. I think that that should be stated, but what we could think would be useful to ask is what assessment or are they going to do in assessment of the impact on support mechanisms that are already in place? The Scottish Welfare Fund, has there been any analysis of potential impact on the welfare fund from the impact on pension of poverty? I think that that would be helpful to know in particular. I think that that's quite important for consistency of the committee as well, because we've been asking the Scottish Government to keep under review the levels of the Scottish Welfare Fund, and evidence that the committee has is of course its underspent across 32 local authorities. Some local authorities have put additional monies to the welfare fund, and others are not spending all the allocations that they're given. I think that that's a pretty useful element to include in any letter. Additional comments to give a steer to the clerks are going to have to draft this letter. I know that Mr Brown is keen that I say something, so I will respond to some of the questions that you're asking. It builds on what I was saying earlier about should things be universal or should they be targeted at those who need the most, those who are most fundable, those who find themselves in poverty. The reality is that the Scottish Government already does that. Discretionary housing payments are exactly that. They are discretionary housing payments. You have to apply for them, and it looks at your income and your outgoings and decides whether you need that extra help, and it's on that basis that the spare room subsidy is mitigated. It's not mitigated universally. I think that the same applies when we're talking about something like this issue around pension credits. What I want to do is have a really robust conversation around that and look at how we do that. As a social security committee, I think that's really important because we can play politics around this room as much as we like, and you can attack me and I can have a go back at you, but it actually isn't going to help the people who actually need our help in terms of making sure that whatever we're doing is robust and is targeting the right people. I personally don't feel if my husband retires not to use, but he will retire before me, and I wouldn't necessarily feel that therefore he should get a lot of extra money when as a household we don't need it. I'd rather it went to a household that did need it. I'm sure you would agree with me on that. I think that the conversations we're having here and when we're seeking evidence and when we're trying to find a way forward, we need to be focusing on this, not focusing on trying to not lumps out of each other because we can do that in the chamber, that's fine, but in terms of the committee, we're here to really try and get underneath this to really understand it and to make sure that every recommendation we make and every letter we write and everything we call for is backed by evidence and we should all be able to support it because actually at the end of the day, if we've done our job properly, it should be hard to disagree with each other, and that is my view, and I will hold that, regardless of what gets said in here. We are actually allowed to disagree with each other, but we should always do it respectfully across this place. For my part, this is not about playing politics. It's a protecting pensioner household that looks set to lose £7,000 and be under the threat of sanction, which is why I think that the committee has to move quickly on this. It's also worth saying that we should just check the factual situation before we put any letter in relation to universality, because actually not everyone will automatically get pension credit. You've got a universal right to apply for it, but it's not a universal entitlement to receive it, so, for example, if you have £16,000 worth of capital, you don't get it, for example, so it's not a universal benefit. I'm just saying that it means tested, but the people of Wales don't apply for pension credit. That's helpful, so I'm writing wrong at the same time. It means tested, but the example that I gave is not one of the tests that apply, so that's all the more reason just to get the factual situation so that that illustrates the point. So, are we saying to the Scottish Government we want to ask what assessment they have made of the impact on pensioner poverty in relation to those changes made in 15th? Are we saying to them what representations are they made to the UK Government? What discussions have they had with the UK Government? Are we going to ask them how they're seeking to engage with the Scottish third sector in terms of mapping out some of those issues and providing support where they can? Are we informing the Scottish Government we've had a discussion in relation to mitigation? The committee's already got a view that we don't expect the Scottish Government to mitigate everything, but what we do ask them to do is to consider how they can assist and mitigation may obviously be one of those options that can be used. The committee's already got positions on this, and we have to certainly include that within any letter. It might be helpful to include a letter to both the Scottish and UK Governments that the 40 per cent take-up rate of pension credit is the need to increase that absolutely and to get as many people as possible to apply for pension credit who might be impacted before that made the 15th deadline. I'm just putting all of this on the record because we have to give a steer to our clerking team to draft that letter, Michelle. I don't know whether anybody else in here agrees, maybe they don't, but I still think there is something as well about not just mitigation but about design generally of the social security system going forward. I'm hoping that the social security system of Scotland isn't just what we'll do, what the UK will do and what we'll mitigate anything that it doesn't do, because that isn't really a personalised system for Scotland. I think that the issue is a larger one beyond this issue as well, and that is what thinking has been done at a higher level in regard to this mitigation policy in general, so not just specifically for this one benefit, but just in general what is the Government's thinking around when we intervene and when we don't intervene? Is there a criteria around that? I think that you made that point quite powerfully and clearly at the start of your contribution. I'm seeking to draw this to a close pretty shortly. Keith, do you want to come back in? I'll certainly make it the last point that I make, although I realise that we haven't, and I didn't intend to and forgot to raise the issue of severe disability, which is also included within pension credits, and it would be interesting if it's possible to add to the lengthening list of things that the clerks have to put into this letter. It would be useful to have some clarity around that, given some of the politics that we saw in the chamber yesterday. However, if I can just come back to the point, it seems to be that every time Westminster takes a decision on this, we immediately start looking at the Scottish Government and its social security system and looking to see what it can do, and I understand that that's the reason why, but we shouldn't take our focus away from where this is originated from, and I think that it's important that we do that. I think that the point that I raised, the question that Michelle answered was actually a different question to the one that I asked, but I think that we got the answer. I do agree about the need for a debate about when a benefit should be universal and when it should be means-tested. I think that it's a perfectly legitimate debate, but I take it from that answer that it's your position, because this was a question opposed. That stands instead of a commitment to maintain the mitigation that's currently there for council tax reduction, for bedroom tax mitigation, and for this measure. I think that that was important to get that, and the reason why it's important to get it is that the committee is concerned with social security, and the two systems are interrelated. We need to have an understanding of possible changes to future mitigation to have a rounded view. That's why I wanted, but I won't say any more. I now feel incumbent to let Michelle Ballantyne back in, but can I just make the point to committee members that this is a discussion about content of letters. I'm pretty sure that we've got agreement in a letter to the Scottish Government, which will have to be circulated unanimously by the committee, and we've got agreement. The committee should state its view quite clearly to the UK Government, but Michelle and Jeremy will have to make it clear that that's not what they sign up to. We have to see the letter first. I think that the appropriateness is that we'll reflect in that letter that you've not signed up to that. We've actually got there in a respectful manner, but you were mentioned Michelle Ballantyne, and it's only appropriate to give her the chance to respond, but then we really have to move on. What Keith is seeking is manifesto commitments, and clearly this is not the place I'm going to sit here and talk about manifesto commitments any more than you are if I started picking things and seeking them from you, because you'd have to go back and check with your party in general, I assume, unless you're a unilateral decision maker. I know I'm the chair of a committee, not a presiding officer, but you, you, you, respect folks. It's Keith and it's Michelle, where we're nearly there now. We've managed to do this respectfully, so do you want to bring your remaster to us? I am being perfectly respectful, and I think that we had that discussion at the last committee meeting. I think that I've made my personal views quite clear. I can't be any more clear than that. Can I thank all members for how we've conducted our business this morning and in public in a mature way, strongly held views, and we'll get the clerks to draft both those letters. Thank you, and as we've already done, and I see that they've remained for the discussion. Can I thank Rob Gown and Adam Stacura for coming along and providing the information that inspired that discussion, or did I say debate, that followed after the evidence session? That does conclude agenda item 2, and we move to agenda item 3, which is subordinate legislation, and I can refer members to paper 3, not by the clerk. The committee is invited to consider the council tax reduction Scotland amendment regulations 2019, SSI 2019 forward slash 29, which is subject to the negative procedure, is the committee content to note the instrument. And that unanimous declaration of contentment may I thank everyone, and we now move to agenda item 4, which we've previously agreed to take in private, so we're now moving to private session.