 The First Item of Business this afternoon is portfolio questions, and the portfolio this afternoon is social justice. I make a plea again for succinct questions and answers, to allow us many members to have the opportunity as possible. Question number one I call Russell Finlay. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its legal challenge to the decision of the UK government to issue a section 35 order in relation to the Gender Recognition Reform Scotland Bill. I gave a statement to this Parliament on the 19th of June on the reasons for the decision to challenge the UK Government's issue of a section 35 order, which the member was present for. In doing so, I noted the strict limits on what was possible for me to say in relation to that challenge, but that, in the interests of transparency, we were intending to publish the terms of the Scottish Government's petition for judicial review. Following that statement, the petition was published in full on the Scottish Government website. As the member will be aware, the Scottish Government cannot comment any further on what are now live legal proceedings. Russell Findlay. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. Two weeks ago, I asked the cabinet secretary to explain how the SNP can push its gender self-ideal law, while at the same time Humza Yousaf says that a rapist claiming to a woman is at it. The First Minister continues to tie himself up in knots over this fundamental contradiction. Will the cabinet secretary confirm that the SNP cannot answer that question? To do so, she would admit that her self-ideal law is wide open to abuse by male sex criminals. As the member will be well aware, the aspects around those who are in the prison estate often include individuals who do not have a gender recognition certificate and therefore are in the bill that was passed by the overwhelming majority of the members of this Parliament makes no change to the risk assessment that goes on in each individual case within the prison estate. To ask the Scottish Government when it last engaged with Social Security Scotland. As an agency of the Scottish Government, there is close engagement with Social Security Scotland on a daily basis. As cabinet secretary, I also meet regularly with the chief executive to maintain oversight over the activities of the agency. Thanks to that close collaboration, we have established a social security system based on the principles of dignity, fairness and respect. We are now delivering 13 Scottish Government benefits, seven of which are entirely new forms of financial support, available only in Scotland. Thank you, First Minister, for providing that clarity. As one of my constituents' application for adult disability payment claim was delayed due to their GP taking over five weeks to provide the key health information that is required for their application to progress, will the Scottish Government explore additional options to enhance communications between Social Security Scotland and GP to promote quicker decisions and quicker payments that avoid lengthy ways? Is there potential to streamline IT systems at GP surgeries to speed up this processing? There are a number of avenues that the agency is looking to ensure that they progress so that people can have their applications decided as quickly as possible. Obviously, GP's are only one of the sources of information that Social Security Scotland can go to. Therefore, the agency will give consideration whether it should be a GP or, indeed, another professional or someone else who knows that individual client well enough to be able to provide that supporting information. The agency is also working with partners such as GP's and GP practice managers to ensure that we are all learning from the still very new benefit that is now live. There have been a growing number of reports over recent weeks of Social Security Scotland website not functioning properly, with a number of my constituents waiting hours for responses from websites. What representations have been made to the cabinet secretary on how Social Security plans to fix these issues? There is a high demand both for web chat and on the telephone lines. Social Security Scotland has already taken action to try and ensure that clients who are phoning in are receiving more timious replies. The agency is also looking at what more can be done with the telephony system to improve the efficiency on that. I will be happy to work with the member and provide further updates on that in due course as the agency develops. We heard dignity, fairness and respect again as the guiding principles of Social Security Scotland from the cabinet secretary just as we did in 2019 when she spoke of the bill. We know that the Government has failed to deliver handing back social security powers such as the administration of carers allowance, so 2025 leaving thousands of Scots at the peril of the Tory run DWP. Indeed, as we have just heard from Jeremy Balfour, there are serious issues in terms of call handling and web chats and 28,000 calls to Social Security with people waiting more than an hour. I am sure that the cabinet secretary would reasonably recognise that that does not match that 2019 aspiration. Will she tell us what she has done since coming to post to review the operational performance of Social Security Scotland to ensure that it looks and acts like the system that was originally promised? Clearly, there had to be some changes to the timetable that we made clear at the time, particularly because of the impact of Covid, and that was not just because of the challenges with the agency or with the Scottish Government, but also the very understandable pressures that were on the DWP as it sought to assist people at the very start of that. I think that context needs to be borne in mind. I am heartened by the representations in the discussion that I had with another member today when we talked about what was felt by people who are being responded to by the agency in a way, as the member reported to me that they felt that they were being believed by the first time. We should take heart from the fact that we are delivering a system that has dignity, fairness and respect of the heart. Yes, there is more to do. Yes, we have much more to do. For example, on the waiting times for the processing of adult disability, the agency is taking action. I have met the chief executive and will continue to do so on a very regular basis, as we work through even further actions that can be taken to improve that. Eight to ten weeks was meant to be the maximum that anyone would wait for adult disability payment, but that is becoming the average. Has the Scottish Government misjudged this timescale on what is being done to address waits? We have, at this point, a four-month average processing time. One of the aspects that is a factor in this is that, unlike the DWP, the agency has responsibility for supporting information and the collation of that. We heard from the original question from Stephanie Callaghan that it sometimes takes other agencies and other organisations some time to reply to Social Security Scotland with the source of information that will allow a decision to be taken. That is exactly why the agency has already taken a number of steps to ensure that they are going to the right people. It is important to ensure that we also make sure that we take our time—not too long, of course, but we take the time to make sure that the eligibility is checked and that the decision is the right one the first time round, because what we do not want to see is what we have in a PIP situation, where many people were turned down and then had to take it on to appeal. It is taking an unnecessarily long time at the moment, but the agency has already taken a number of measures in place to ensure that that will improve. To ask the Scottish Government whether it has conducted any analysis of the potential cost to the public purse of introducing a minimum income guarantee. The work to define what a minimum income guarantee could look like for Scotland, including costs and delivery, is led by an independent steering group that comprises of a strategy group of cross-party MSPs, including Miles Briggs, and an expert group from across the third sector industry and academia. The expert group published an interim report that sets out early considerations for a minimum income guarantee in March, and will publish a full report next year, which I expect to include consideration of the costs of a minimum income guarantee. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. As the cabinet secretary mentioned, the Government's working group for a minimum income guarantee was established almost two years ago and, yes, it did produce an interim report in March, but it contained absolutely no information on the two most important questions—the level of the income guarantee and how much it would cost. Until the Government sets out the cost, that plan is a fantasy, but in two years it still has not managed to even do that. So why is the SNP Government wasting time and resources on pie-in-the-sky proposals? That is a deeply disappointing question from Annie Wells. I say that because when we were at the anti-poverty summit not just a few weeks ago, that was one of the areas that many campaigners strongly urged Government and Opposition parties to look at. That does not say that it is a simple answer, but it does not necessarily mean that it is all deliverable within the devolved context that we are in. However, I think that it is deeply disappointing to see that Annie Wells is ruling aspects out. I would presume that the questions that she has raised today have been issues that, for example, the cross-party MSPs that are on the strategy group are also challenging the expert group on. The current cost of living crisis, which is unprecedented in scale, comes on top of a decade of Tory austerity, exposing the insufficiency of UK Government's safety net. What difference would it make if key welfare and employment powers were held here in Scotland? One of the challenges that we have when we are looking to see how we can tackle poverty in Scotland is what we can do within the powers that we have. We have seen with the game-changing Scottish child payment that the Scottish Government is determined to move forward with what it can do here, but it is clearly the case that if we continue to have the vast majority of welfare and all of the employment powers that are held by the Tories at Westminster, we will consistently be held back in what we can do here. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to encourage house building in Scotland. Over the course of this Parliament, we are making available £3.5 billion to support the delivery of more affordable homes. Within that £3.5 billion, we have published five-year local authority resource planning assumptions totaling £3.221 billion. That has provided the confidence, certainty and assurance that the housing sector needs to deliver progress towards our ambitious 110,000 affordable homes target by 2032 and building an achievement of having delivered over 118,000 affordable homes since 2007, over 83,000 of which were for social rent. Despite that answer, recently a £200 million project by the Get Living built to rent specialist aimed at building 1,500 homes in Glasgow was put on hold with a spokesperson for the group saying rent controls have unintended consequences that only serve to exacerbate the underlying problem. Will the Minister admit that his Government's rent freeze has negatively impacted house building and will he support Scottish Conservative calls for a housing delivery agency? Analysis of that policy is still going on at the moment and I am sure that Mr Harvie will pick up that in due course. There is a key thing in terms of the first question that you asked. As a context, only today we have seen the 12th interest rate rise in the row to 4.5 per cent. Construction inflation is also at 20 per cent. When it comes back to his own area, we have seen a 17 per cent rise in funding from the last Parliament in Glasgow area, and the south manager of which he always covers is a 30 per cent rise in that. I have just met a Glasgow council yesterday in terms of that and discussing how we take that programme forward. Social rented and affordable housing is incredibly important for my constituents. Can the minister say any more about the £3.5 billion programme that he has already referred to and how it is being targeted? I will probably refer the member to just a question that I gave in his area in Glasgow around the ambitious funding programme and the increase that we have done. As I mentioned, more than £3.5 billion has been directed towards delivering local authorities strategic priorities. I am planning to meet as many local authorities as I can, including Glasgow, which I met yesterday. 70 per cent of those needs to be delivered for social rent. From April 21 to the end of December 22, the programme has supported delivery of 12,430 homes for social rent. 77 per cent of which were total affordable homes delivered during this period. We are also supporting home ownership for those who need support through our Lyft shared equity scheme, which helps people in low to moderate incomes by their first home, with 1,678 households having benefited from the support in the same period. Constituents have contacted me concerned about the accessibility of their homes. Despite properties being advertised as wheelchair accessible, there are no fire evacuation procedures for disabled tenants. If there were to be a fire, they would be stuck in their homes and unable to get out. What could the Scottish Government do to ensure that emergency escape routes for disabled people are designed in homes and implemented when building properties from the start? Broadly, there is a fair in needs assessment that is being prepared at the moment in terms of how we tackle that particular issue. The issue that you raised, I am happy to pick up any specifics that you have and come back to you on that matter. Question 5, Pulswicki. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the delivery of the Scottish welfare fund. The Scottish welfare fund provides an essential source of crisis support and helps with independent living, since it began in 2013, and excess of £380 million has been paid to more than half a million households. A set-out in our response to the recently published independent review, we are working with local authorities and stakeholders to put in place an action plan with agreed improvements so that the fund continues to deliver for those in need. Pulswicki. Thank you, Presiding Officer. A research into the cost of living crisis from poverty alliance and the Scottish women's budget group last year recommended better promotion of the Scottish welfare fund. However, it has been put to me that Glasgow City Council feel they cannot promote the fund as it is oversubscribed, meaning that many low-income families in the city are unable to access this lifeline support. Given how much local authorities like Glasgow rely on central government for funding, will the cabinet secretary commit today to providing councils with the resources that they need to deliver this fund to families who desperately need it? It is certainly an obligation of local authorities to promote the fund to those who they think would require that or are in need of it. I take the question from the member in good faith, but I would say to him that this is my second portfolio question in social justice. It is the second time that I have been asked by a member from the Labour benches to be spending more on something. It is all very welcome, and I will listen very seriously to suggestions about how the Government can and should spend more money, but we also have to have a discussion about how that could be paid for, and that is a discussion that I would be more than happy to take forward with the member as we move forward. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I apologise for not being in the chamber at the start of those questions. As part of the Scottish Welfare fund, we see community care grants. Can I ask specifically what plans the Government has to reform that application process for families and individuals caring for someone who has been released from prison or young offenders institutions specifically for those payments to be made before they leave those institutions? The member raises a very important point. Clearly, we have had the review into the Scottish Welfare fund, and we are in the process of working out an action plan on that. If there is something that could be done in that area, I will be happy to update Mr Briggs on that in due course. The cabinet secretary will be aware that a big hit on the Scottish Welfare fund is the mitigation of the UK benefits sanctions. Does the cabinet secretary share my astonishment, and I am sure the astonishment of Mr Sweeney, that Labour has an eagle and pledged to scrap universal credit and will keep the sanctions regime? Therefore, is it not clear that change is not coming? It is a concern that we are seeing the UK Labour Party reneging on a number of pledges that they have, and the importance of that to the powers of the Scottish Government and the responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament is how challenging it is for the Scottish Government to continue to have to mitigate against UK Government policies. It is therefore deeply disappointing, but unfortunately not surprising that there is very little difference between the UK Labour Party and the UK Conservatives on a number of benefits sanctions. That is deeply disappointing, but it particularly shows that Scottish Labour continues to be the branch of the UK Labour Party. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle homelessness in South East Asia. Our ending homelessness together plan sets out how we will prevent and tackle homelessness nationally through the implementation of rapid rehousing, scaling up housing first, and introducing no-homeless duties that will ensure all public bodies work together to prevent homelessness. Since 2018, we have provided £1.94 million for the local rapid rehousing in plans in the two local authorities areas. Additionally, they receive over £1.24 million annually for homelessness prevention. We have also made available over £132 million for affordable housing in the two local authorities over this parliamentary term, which is an increase of 17 per cent on the previous term. The number of homeless applications for July to September has increased by 60 in a year in East Asia and by 41 for the same time period in South Asia. What engagement has he had with the local authorities and what specific plans the ministers have to develop a solution to rural homelessness? I thank the member for that question. In relation to meeting local authorities, I have already met Edinburgh and Glasgow, and I would be happy to meet the two local authorities that you talk about to talk about what their plans are and go into more detail in that regard. I think that there is more work that needs to be done with the local authority in that regard, so I am happy to offer a meeting with the member to go and discuss with the two local authorities. A supplementary question from Bill Kidd has been requested, and I am happy to take it, but I remind Mr Kidd that the question relates to tackling homelessness in South and East Ayrshire. Can the minister explain how proposed powers to raise council tax in South Ayrshire, and on second and empty homes, could help tackle homelessness by maximising the use of existing housing stock across the country? Our aim is for everyone to have a safe, secure and warm home. Local taxation is one measure that can influence ownership, patterns and availability of homes to meet local needs. When we introduce powers in 2013, enabling councils to vary or remove council tax discounts, a number of second homes reduced, and the rem new generated was ring-fenced for local affordable housing. Extending those powers to enable councils to choose to charge a council tax payment could further encourage behavioural change in how we use homes, and I look forward to seeing the responses to the current consultation on that Question 7, Stuart McMillan. To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to tackle child poverty in the Greenwick and Inverclyde constituency. We are providing a range of support that will benefit families in Greenwick and Inverclyde, and indeed across Scotland, including investment in the Scottish child payment, 1140 hours of funded child care, free bus travel for under 22s and the Scottish welfare fund. Our five family payments, including the Scottish child payment, could be worth over £10,000 by the time that an eligible child turns six, and over £20,000 by the time that the eligible child is 16 years old. I thank the cabinet secretary for that reply, and the cabinet secretary will be very much aware of the Trussel Trust's end of year figures for 2022-23, which indicate that the number of full bank parcels distributed in my constituency rose by 36 per cent. The figures for the whole of Scotland did show that the Scottish child payment seems to have had an impact as the rise of the number of households with children receiving full bank parcels was nowhere near the levels experienced elsewhere in the UK, but I am still concerned that it was not enough to protect every family from food insecurity. Does the cabinet secretary therefore agree with me that this shows that Scotland is taking a different approach to tackling child poverty, and if the UK Government is not prepared to match progressive policies, like the Scottish child payment, it should evolve in necessary powers so that we can go further to help low-income families in Gwyrwch, Llywodraeth, Clyde and across Scotland? It is very easy to see the contrast between the approaches of the Scottish and UK Government. You have the Scottish Government that not only introduced the Scottish child payments but has now went from the original campaign ask of £5 to the position that we are in at the moment. That is very, very important. At the same time, of course, you had the UK Government cutting universal credit by £20. The real challenge is that, for example, we are spending £84 million, making that available to local authorities, spending on discretionary housing payments, for example, directly to mitigate against UK Government welfare policies. That is a frustration, and it should be a frustration for everyone in this chamber. 8. Arianne Burgess To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with local authorities regarding any preparations for the potential impact of the proposed illegal migration bill on asylum seekers currently accommodated in hotels in Scotland. The Scottish Government is deeply concerned that the UK Government's illegal migration bill will push people deeper into exploitation and destitution. We have urged the UK Government to stop the bill and focus on improving the asylum system to increase the quality and speed of decisions. That would reduce the number of people accommodated in hotels and the risk that they are left in prolonged limbo without the ability to work or access services. Asylum and providing accommodation is entirely reserved to the UK Government but, of course, has an impact on our local authorities. I will discuss that with the cosla spokesperson for community wellbeing when I meet her shortly. 9. Arianne Burgess I thank the minister for that response. Murray Council and Health and Social Care Murray will be supporting people seeking asylum arriving in my region over the coming weeks. How can the Scottish Government support the oversight group to ensure that our communities are fully involved in welcoming new residents and that we do not see a repeat of the short notice changes to accommodation arrangements seen in other areas? The new Scots refugee integration strategy provides a framework that can help planning to support people seeking asylum in line with our principle that integration should be supported from day 1 of arrival. New Scots was developed in partnership by the Scottish Government, cosla and the Scottish Refugee Council. Asylum and accommodation is reserved to the Home Office, which should engage with local authorities as early as possible. We believe that the Home Office also needs to provide long-term funding for local authorities and services, which recognises the true costs of asylum dispersal to local authorities and enables better support for people seeking asylum, as well as for those local communities. As the minister has outlined, the Scottish Government Council is in the third sector. I have worked well to implement Scotland's new Scots strategy, which supports refugees and asylum seekers into our communities from day 1 of arrival. For Westminster, to disrupt that good work would be unforgivable. Can I ask what communications the Scottish Government has had with UK Government counterparts to express Scottish communities' opposition to the bill? Yes, absolutely. The Scottish Government has made our opposition to this bill very clear. The Cabinet Secretary for Constitution wrote to the UK Government in March to say that we condemned the bill's cruel and inhumane provisions and to urge them not to proceed with it. On 25 April, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice again wrote to emphasise Scotland's significant concerns and our intention to table a legislative consent memorandum due to the clauses that alter the executive competence of the Scottish ministers and to point out the opposition of this Parliament to the bill following a recent motion passed. Thank you, minister. That concludes portfolio questions. There will be a short pause before we move on to the next item of business, to allow front bench teams to change positions should they wish.