 Good morning and welcome to the 34th meeting of the social justice and social security committee. Our first item of business today is a decision to take item 3 in private. Are we all agreed? Yes. We're all agreed. Thank you very much. Our next item is an evidence session on the winter heating payment. The Scottish Government laid the winter heating assistance low-income Scotland regulations 2023 on 16 November. The committee will consider the instrument next week and decided to hold an evidence session ahead gyda'r seisio gyda'r Minister for Social Security a Local Government. I welcome to the meeting Fraser Scott, chief executive officer at Energy Action Scotland, and Dr Mark Simpson, acting co-chair of the Scottish Commission on Social Security, who are both joining us remotely. Good morning and thanks very much for coming up for attending this morning. We've got a few points to mention about the format of the meeting before we start, so for witnesses and members attending remotely, please wait until I or the member asking the questions say your name before speaking. Please also allow our broadcasting colleagues just a few seconds to turn your microphone on before you start to speak. You can also indicate with an R in the dialogue box in blue jeans or simply with a show of your hand if you wish to come in on a question. Please don't feel like you have to answer every single question if you've nothing new to add to what's been said by the other witness that's okay. And colleagues in the room should indicate to my sail for the clerk if they wish to come in and ask a supplementary question. Members online should use the chat box or WhatsApp. So I will begin the question. I will kick off straight away with Deputy convener Emma Watt. Thank you, convener, and good morning witnesses. My first question is directed towards Fraser. I noticed that the map that's been provided to us in the written evidence and the six of the seven areas with the highest levels of fuel poverty are in the Highlands and Islands, but I am aware that many of those areas haven't triggered a cold weather payment in quite some years. Is the winter heating payment going to be a move in the right direction in tackling fuel poverty by getting money to those who are hardest hit? Fraser. Thank you for the question. Thank you, convener, and good morning members. I think one of the things I will say is that the flat £50 payment affords very little heat. A typical usage for a household, that's about 7.3 days of heat, and next winter, if it's not operated in line with something, it will fall to six days of heat next winter. As I said, we know that energy costs come in the first of April and, therefore, through next winter, will be 25 per cent higher than they are this winter. They're not changing at a rate just with inflation. They have their own rate of inflation, which is considerably higher and has been considerably higher. One of the things for me that the map demonstrates is the geographic inequalities that exist in fuel poverty, and the universal flat payment of £50 does not recognise those geographic inequalities or, indeed, socioeconomic inequalities that are also evident or, indeed, the health inequalities that will exist in society. The detriment of experiencing communities with lower average temperatures off gas, typically, is going to be great. In 2020-21, Abymor, Braymar and people who were eligible in those communities all received multiple payments worth over 50 days of warmth. They will now receive, in this winter, just seven. There is considerable detriment to be recognised as a consequence of moving to a flat payment. I appreciate that, over time, the pattern is weather related, and I know that this is a feature of the change, which is breaking the link between the weather and people's circumstances. Quite clearly, in parts of Scotland, the weather can be extreme, and the pattern is quite evident over a number of years. When it is extreme, my worry and my concern is what will step in to support those households who now will experience the greatest levels of detriment because they are off gas, perhaps in the Highlands, Braymar, Abymor and other communities. They will see significant detriment that will be enhanced or increased by other inequalities such as underlying health conditions or disability or families with young children or older people. It is not clear to me what the plan is, should there be an extreme weather event for a sustained period of time. Will it help fuel poverty? In so far as it provides a financial boost to all households, it will do something, but it will be a very, very small effect because, in essence, it is a pound a week over a year. The impact that will have on fuel poverty is negligible, but I would have argued that, if it had been better designed, it could have had a significant life-saving, life-impacting effect in the parts of Scotland where we know it to be the case that it has the highest levels of fuel poverty. With better consequential targeting, some of those households who live there who have underlying health conditions or disability or older people or children or families with young children, they could have been better targeted. That is really clear. We need to recognise that minus 1 will feel like minus 1 in a lot of places, but in islands and in a lot of rural communities minus 1 will feel like minus 5, and there is no protection from wind. Do you think at all that the winter heating payment will be easier to build upon than the cold weather payments? What would you like to see happen to make it more effective at tackling fuel poverty? I guess that there are a few things that I would like to see. The qualifying date for me is a weakness against the cold weather payment, which was a rolling eligibility. That is a weakness, as is the gap between qualifying date and payment received, which is three months in this instance. It may change, but it is the three months that, as is provided for in the regulations, the cold weather payment pays out within 14 days of an event, much closer to the experience of households. My concern is that households are struggling right now. We have seen an acceleration in the rate at which people have been moved from credit to pre-payment. The cash flow requirements for households in those circumstances is great. People will be making immediate current decisions on heat or survive, and they have to wait to receive an amount of money in a considerable period, and in a period that is potentially after the cold weather has occurred. People may have gone without, as a result, for fear of being in debt to energy suppliers. Scottish Government can do that. It has done that in other areas. There is no rural uplift, for example, for those off-gas homes through this benefit, yet Scottish Government grants for things such as energy efficiency or heat pumps, as announced just last week. There is no attempt to understand the circumstances that are experienced by individuals. There is a breadth of circumstances and the efficiency of their homes is important to understand, yet the Scottish Government's own fuel and security fund, which provides payments to households, recognises that and provides varying amounts to struggling households, whether that is to clear debt or to pre-purchase heating oil or LPG or other fuels. It does not seek to provide a flat universal provision. It looks to provide a differentiated payment based on circumstance. It is possible to do it. I hope that that is something to build on, but I fear that it quickly becomes swallowed up, as it is at this point in time, that a small payment against rising energy costs and the relief or the respite that it provides to households who are eligible is brief and all-too-brief and may not be sufficient enough to save lives. For those who miss out on them most, based on previous experiences, their lives genuinely are at risk. Those older households in those areas traditionally receive more multiple payments across previous years. I would like to start off by going back to Fraser. My questions were actually going to be for Mark, but given what you have just said, it is not just those areas that are affected by cold weather. There are areas in cities that are pretty badly affected by cold weather, and there are people who are affected. If we were working the way that you are suggesting, they might have missed out on it. Surely whichever method is used, the likelihood is that you will not only get everybody in this way, but at least everybody will get something. Thank you for that. In previous evidence, we had suggested that the cold weather payment system was far from a perfect system, simply because it was based on a certain number of weather stations across Scotland that created the catchments for qualification, and it was not to say that they were correct. All I am reflecting on is the difference between what is proposed and what previously existed. There were good elements to the cold weather payment. The rolling eligibility, the 14-day response for payment, is good and is significantly better than is afforded by the provisions of the regulations that we are about to introduce. There was opportunity to look at maintaining the weather connection, and there are other climatic factors that could have been brought into the provision, for example. We could have looked at not just the absolute temperature, but, as a previous question suggested, it could feel different. That wind chill factor is measured by our weather stations. The pattern of weather stations could have been increased, so there were other options available. We could have retained some of those best features. Over time, we could have looked at the enhancement based on the efficiency of a person's home, because two similar houses and two similar locations in Scotland will have different experiences in terms of their heat demand. However, the flat universal payments do not recognise that, and that has been the pattern of UK Government support and Scottish Government support in a large extent. I pointed out that the fuel and security fund has gone further than that, with a similar £20 million budget. However, it is possible to do that. We just need a level of sophistication. Perhaps we do not have that sophistication, but we are breaking the link between extreme weather and this payment. In extreme weather circumstances, what will Government's response be? We have the minister in front of us. We will be asking a lot of those questions when the minister is here, but I thank you very much for that. The breaking the link with the weather, how does that align with the statutory social security principles? Do you think that it impies on the word? Do you think that it is in line with them? The first thing that I will say on this, which I am sure that I have said before in front of the committee, is that any question about alignment with the social security principles is never straightforward, because they can pull in different directions and their interpretations are not always set at stone. I will focus on a couple of principles. The principle of social security should contribute to the poverty reduction principle that the Government should seek to continuously improve the system and the principle that the system should be efficient, because when we were writing our report at the commission, those seemed to be the most relevant. Breaking the link with the temperature will increase the contribution of social security to poverty reduction in most parts of Scotland. I am conscious of what Fraser has just said that that will only be to a relatively level extent, but none the less it does represent an improvement from the perspective of most of the people who receive a low income benefit in those areas. As we have already heard, the opposite may likely well apply in some areas where there have been three or more cold weather payments in recent years. In Breymor, in particular, that has been a really regular occurrence. It is probably easier to say that making this uniform payment of £50 is again in terms of administrative efficiency. Indeed, we talked about the retention of a cold weather contingent element of the payment in the report. The Scottish Government's response to that recommendation seems to indicate that we underestimate the administrative challenges that are associated with retaining a temperature contingent payment in relation to the relationship between the Met Office and Social Security Scotland that would be required. That is certainly a point in which the committee might want to seek some further clarification next week when it has the opportunity. I appreciate that answer and it highlights the complexity of whichever way we go. There are going to be winners and losers, which is an unfortunate choice to use, but not everybody is going to be treated equally. What are your views on not making additional payments to those areas that you have talked about? Those are the experience more than three weeks below freezing temperatures. How much of a difference do you think that that is going to make? How much of an impact does it only have? I am slightly reluctant to speculate too much on that. Frazers, the submission that you all have in front of you sets out really vividly what the consequences could be if there is widespread inability to meet energy costs. We cannot say that that will be the inevitable consequence that is directly relatable to someone in having more than £50 of support when they might have previously got £75. What we cannot say is that those payments do not target people who merely have a low income, they are people who are on and out of work benefits. They are also likely to have higher heating costs because of the nature of their household composition. It is certainly the case that every pound can get counts, and that is truer than ever this winter. We suggested in our report that one consequence of that could be that other than the colder areas see additional applications to the Scottish welfare fund if people are struggling to meet their energy costs. We suggested that the Government might consider putting a bit more money into the welfare fund allocation for certain local authorities. Their response tells us that that would be incompatible with the current approach to distributing that money. I am not going to argue against that, but it certainly seems clear that local authorities across Scotland can probably anticipate cooler weather, triggering crises for some household this winter. Being an area that has historically experienced more of those cold spells is one factor that might increase the likelihood of that. It is interesting that the Scottish Government's response to the report says that it retains the ability to legislate for additional payments should that arise and should the funding be available, but it is not really clear what that would mean in practice or what the current thinking is on when an additional payment would be triggered and what it would be made to. That will be an area of questioning for the minister when he is in front of us. Thank you very much. Just before I go, is it not clear from both the answers that a lot of the issues that we are facing here are not just down to this payment, but down to all the other factors that people under these circumstances are having to face? It is a much bigger issue. The payment only becomes an issue because there are existing vulnerabilities and those are due to people's income from other sources, including other social security benefits that are due to weather and your heating system and your installation. That is not a straight forward issue. Thank you very much, James. We will now move to questions from Jeremy Balfour. Good morning, panel. I wonder if I can go back to Fraser just for a moment, just one question, which really follows up my two colleagues' questions. Clearly next week, all that we can do is vote yes or no for those regulations, and I suspect that we will all vote yes next week. If you could have another year, so you have 69 months to redesign those regulations, what would you be saying to us as a committee and to the Scottish Government to improve those regulations? Can we do it through this, or is it better that the Government indicates to create a new benefit for which we have a power to do here in Scotland? Is it amending those regulations or a new benefit, if that is possible to answer that one? I think that one thing to say is that the benefit system is the best way to reach people on the lowest incomes and some of the greatest vulnerabilities without a doubt. Anything that we can do to improve our benefit system I would vote for? Absolutely. If I was given 12 more months, what would I look to see at the end of 12 more months was a benefit that is far better targeted at the things that we know are true for people who are already on benefits in relation to fuel poverty, for example? We have a fuel poverty act in Scotland. It talks about the enhanced heating requirement, so the act recognises that some households have an enhanced heating requirement. Therefore, greater levels of consumption are expected to be achieved for those households. Our benefit system should, in a greater way, acknowledge and act in a way to respond to that. For child winter heating assistance, that is an excellent benefit because it does provide for households with children with a disability. The act recognises having an enhanced heating requirement. However, it does not go beyond that point. It does not go into adults with disability or older households or people who may have life-impacting or life-limiting conditions. Therefore, the act exists and a better alignment with the act and social security is what I would aim for. I think that we should learn from this winter without a doubt we will have to. I would be surprised that a payment that comes in February of a winter period is going to be particularly effective for households, because it will not have provided them with the heat of power for their homes in the periods when they needed it, particularly for those low-income households who have a greater prevalence of the use of prepayment metres, whose cash flow requirements are significantly different to households who have direct debit or credit. That recognises those circumstances. Beyond that, in the future, I would hope that we could scale provision. If that provision is about heat and warmth, there is inequality in people's experiences that can be changed. As the energy efficiency of homes changes, someone who lives in a B energy-efficient-rated home over someone who lives in a G-rated energy-efficient home and is eligible for qualification, funding should be scaled to provide equity, not universality. One quick question to Dr Simpson. The Scottish Government argues that most people will gain under these proposals, but they recognise that some people will not gain. Have you done any analysis of who gains, but maybe perhaps more importantly, who loses out in regard to this? Is it a geographical question, or is it an issue around disability as well? It is an issue around disability in as much as the eligibility criteria are based on low-income plus another factor of which disability is won alongside having an older person or a very young child in the house. However, whether you are a winner or loser within those categories is more geographically determined. If you are in an area that you won with the previous regime, you have met the temperature condition for a cold weather payment being made up to three or more occasions during the winter. That is usually Breymor, and it is sometimes Avi Morglach, Glucklust, Carnach and Tullock Bridge. They are the main areas that we are talking about. That is where the losers are going to be concentrated. If you are elsewhere, particularly if you are outside the islands, you might be receiving a payment for the first time in many years or maybe the first time ever. That is relatively easy to identify. Although the number of people who stand to lose out is fairly small, the commission's report highlights that, in the original 2019 position paper on the devolution of this area of support, the Government stated that nobody would lose out at that point. There has clearly been a change of position on that. Again, that is something that members might want to explore next week. If I might add a little bit to Fraser's answer to your previous question as well, there is a recurring theme in the evolutionary journey that we are all on. There is only a limited amount of tinkering that can be done at the same time as an area of social security is transferred from the DWP to the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland. It has become quite common in Scottish reports to look ahead to what has been finished after that process and say, here is what you might think about in a future review. With an idea of that in the report on that particular payment, we did highlight specifically the cold weather contingent element, the possible inclusion of end-work claimants of universal credit and the necessity of a qualifying week or where the qualifying week should be as part of a future review. However, I also want to think that that aligns with what Fraser said. There is going to be a need to look at that wider winter heat and assistance landscape because there are various different payments to various different people, and it might be possible to rationalise that a little bit in the future. However, all that needs to be considered alongside the non-social security response as things that can reduce people's consumption and reduce their costs, as well as helping them to pay the bills. It is an area in which there could be a lot of thinking to be done as we move along in the road. Thanks very much, Jeremy. We will now move to questions from Pam Duncan-Glancy to finish us off for theme 1. Good morning, Mark and Fraser. Thank you for the submissions that you gave us in advance, but also for the questions that you have answered so far. Some of the questions that I had have already been answered, so I will not repeat them in the interest of time. I will start with a question for yourself. Mark, if that is okay, in your submission you say that breaking the winter link is retrogressive in terms of human rights. Can you explain that a bit more? The Scottish Government's answer, as far as I can tell, seems to be that the unreliability of cold weather is difficult for low-income families, and a predictable one-off payment is better. How would you respond to that, given the comments about human rights? The issue of non-right regression allows quite closely with the continuous improvement principle, so we are required to conduct our scrutiny with a view to the UK's human rights commitments, in particular to the international common and economic, social and cultural rights. The non-right regression principle is really at the heart of the covenant, because it does not always give a great deal of clarity on what level of service is required to fulfil a right, but one thing that it is quite clear on is that progress should be forward and that the level of provision should not be rolled back unless there is a very good reason for doing so. I should be clear that our report states that we consider that the introduction of the new payment will represent an improvement for most of the people who are affected, but that does not mean that it is unimportant that there is this group in the areas that have more often experienced cold weather, for whom the level of support will be reduced. In Bremar, in one recent year, there was a total of £175 in cold weather payments were made, so the drop from that down to £50 is quite significant, potentially for the house who is affected. Equally, as I mentioned previously, there are other areas in which people may never have received a cold weather payment at all, so they are receiving £50 where they might have received nothing. It is not a uniform picture, but I think that the fact that there is only a minority of people who have experienced that regression does not mean that it can be ignored. Sorry, was there another part of your question that I have missed? No, I do not think so. I asked about the unreliability of a cold weather and the more reliable it is. You have kind of touched on it, but if you have more to add. Yes. Well, there is unpredictable to an extent, but it is fairly predictable that winters in Bremar are going to be cold. Thank you. I appreciate that. Fraser, you said a moment ago that you would vote for anything that improves the benefit system. I share that view. Do you think that that improves the benefit system? I think that it does provide a universal uplift to people. I do not think that the benefit system generally provides sufficient levels of basic income to households. On that front, yes, the value of it, at £1 a week, is not a significant amount or is not significant enough of an amount. I touched on what Mark just said when he talked about the payment that was received in Bremar of £175 versus £50. That simply looks like £125 detriment, but you have to bear in mind that when that £175 was received, the energy costs of that household were two and a half times less than they are now. The scale of the detriment is significantly greater than is evident in the financial dimension alone. The impact that it will have on those households in terms of what they cannot achieve is incredibly significant. For me, what happens next? In those households who once received who do not receive, the national health service will be left to pick up the pieces. Those households are more likely to seek visits to their GP's practice or to be admitted to hospital as a consequence, particularly where they have an underlying health condition, which simply has been made worse by the lack of heat and power that they have been able to achieve. I know that the numbers of people that we are talking about are relatively small, but who is live in this space is worth less, because we are going to consign some households in some areas to a considerably poorer provision of support than was previously afforded. Even if that is one person whose life is lost, we could foresee that that could happen and we have not put in place a protection that will ensure that there is no detriment to that household when we are failing. Therefore, is that an improvement on the system? I do not think that that is the improvement, but that is definitely a failing of the moment that we have in front of us. Thank you. I just want a very brief follow-up on that. I appreciate that, Fraser. Do you know how many people will lose out to have a figure for that? That I do not have in front of me, no. I do not think that it has been harder for us to gain the access to that level of detail within the benefit system over the number of households in places. We get the trigger information, absolutely. It has just been much harder to gain that information. I hope that that is a question that you can ask Social Security Scotland, because surely they must know. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Pam. I have actually sought some clarification on how many households received the cold weather payment over the past few years, so that we have an understanding of who will lose out or who will gain. I think that James Dornan wants to come in with a quick supplementary on that. I am sorry to go back to Fraser, but Fraser, you seem to be almost suggesting that all the ills of the people in Braymar are down to this payment. If those people in Braymar are losing out, that is tragic. If it goes round the other way, the way it used to be, you have people in Glasgow and in other areas that are losing out just now. It is not a case of everybody's going to be sorted if it was the old way or this way. Surely it is going to be almost impossible to get a system where everybody is covered. It is always going to be difficult to design a system where you have no gaps without a doubt. However, what is clear to me is that we know that the Scottish Government knows, for example, from the work that is done on the Scottish House condition survey and is recognised in the fuel poverty strategy that there are inherent inequalities across Scotland. The levels of consumption of energy that are required to achieve the same levels of comfort enjoyed in different parts of Scotland are not the same. In some parts of the Highlands and Islands, households are consuming double the levels of GB average consumption to keep their homes warm. As a consequence of things like being off gas, so in Glasgow, for example, households are typically on gas and in the Highlands they are not. The cost of keeping the exact same house warm in the Highlands that you would find in Glasgow will be greater to the cost differential to achieve the same levels of comfort and, therefore, the same levels of protection for life are different. For me, that is a flaw in a universal provision is that it does not recognise that and has no protection afforded where those circumstances exist and we know that they exist. I could debate with you about the level of housing in some of the areas in Glasgow, but I better leave that for another day. Thank you, James. We have spent quite a lot of time on that first section of questions, so I will maybe need to hurry people along a little bit more as we move on. We will move now to theme 2, the level of payment, and I will bring in my colleague Paul MacLennan. Thank you, convener. I note your comments on time, so I will try to keep it as quick as I can. It is really just the first question to yourself, probably, Fraser, and I am bringing in a mark. Obviously, we have discussed the £50 at the moment, and I think that you have both touched on other payments that are kind of out there in the broader context, I suppose, of trying to support people, the most vulnerable in our society. Now, we are in a context of recession, tight budgets, and, of course, within a fixed budget in Scotland, if we take the money from this budget to be more than, of course, we need to take it from another budget. I am just wondering, in terms of the context about other payments that are out there, Fraser, I do not know if there is any comments about, you talked about, obviously, the target, how we could look at it in the round, how that could be better targeted in that regard, because you mentioned that, but within the context of other payments, I do not know if you want to comment on that one. Thank you, Paul. I mean, I think that one of, yeah, you're right, there's been enough of a lot of one-off payments provided as government, UK government, let's start with there, UK government has provided them and has defined them as one-off payments, and what we've seen this year is a whole range of payments, many of which have gone through social security, which does mean they are automatic, and that's good, but they're automatic. The value of those payments against the scale of the change that households are facing is still, it's a lot of money, but the impact for households is they're still going to see a doubling of their energy costs, even with the support that they're able to attract, whether that's the uplift on universal credit or the amount for older households or for people with disability that are being provided automatically, or indeed the £400 universal payment, which obviously is problematic in itself for many households who've yet to receive the benefit of it, particularly those pre-payment meter households, many of whom have not redeemed vouchers on that £400, but there's also a much broader level of crisis support, and I guess I now fear the word crisis because it seems like it's normal, we're normalising the crisis, there is a lot of crisis funding available to households, uplift to help with pre-payment, to deal with some debt, but we're not, the system is broadly broken, it's not been fair, it doesn't have people at the heart of it, but it isn't working well for me, and as I look ahead to the winter in front of us for 2023, the provision of support for households falls relative to this year, but has been more support provided this year than will be provided next year, and the energy cost will be 25% higher next year than this year, so looking ahead it's going to be even harder, so this payment in the context of that, for me, I struggle, I struggle with it, it's £50 set against, it's like a finger in a dam, you know, and I think what we need to see is a far more integrated set of supports provided to households than we have, and for households who receive it, those who've never received one before, this will be a boost, as we've talked about already, that idea that there's still detriment that we recognise in introducing it and we have not offset or mitigated that detriment again feels like a failure of design, and we need to get these things right because the consequence of getting them wrong can be catastrophic for households, and for me that's always the bottom line in all of this, it can be catastrophic for households, and we know it to be the case, because the highest levels of winter mortality, one of the highest levels of winter mortality anywhere in Europe, we have some of the poorest quality housing, and I know that in the previous question I got there was, yeah, there are more issues at play here, yeah, there's access to gas, there's the issues about equity and the price of energy and other things, but you know the bottom line is the consequence of getting things wrong right now can be catastrophic. I think Mark would like to come in at that point. I've just had a supplementary just to get Mark to come in on that as well, Fraser, just on that, one of the key things obviously, there's a view that Scottish welfare fund is going on just now, and obviously that can be targeted on a local authority basis, which now we can pick up the points that you're talking about, about how we get, I suppose, the fairest scheme that's out there. I don't know what your thoughts would be on, you know, almost trying to look at it through the welfare fund, where there is that discretionary element for local authorities then to target where they know. There are particular issues, for example, rural areas where it might be oil based, so I don't know what your thoughts are not, can you just touch on that and then, I know that Mark wants to come in on that, but just on that specific point. I think it's been important that we have had other supports available, but the weakness in many of those other supports is that they require applications to be made by very vulnerable people, people who are struggling, people whose mental health has taken a significant hit simply because of the cost of living crisis and the impact that's having on their household. For me, the more that can be done to provide automatic support, the better, and it may still require us to provide other supports for households who fall out with the scope of those automatic provisions, but what we have in the moment is that many people who are eligible for payments through social security are having to still go to crisis funding to get support in order just to get through this winter. Thanks, Mark. Mark, what to come in? Yeah, absolutely. In the commission's report, we did point to the welfare fund as a possible means of addressing some of the gaps that this might exist, but that doesn't mean that it's the ideal means because, as Fraser's already alluded to, it's not just a case under the welfare fund of a local authority targeting money where it knows there's an issue, it depends on people. Summoning an application that is, in effect, an admission that I am in crisis and psychologically that's not always easy for people to do. I think that wider question of adequacy is a tricky one. I don't particularly get a sense that the level of this payment has been devised within me to what would be an often inverted commons. It's been informed by the level of two cold weather payments and a political calculation that can be afforded at present. It's also a small piece of a much bigger jigsaw. Fraser's paper is really uncompromising on when it sets out the way in which energy costs have stripped the level of support provided to low-income households, but that support is a blend of UK social security, Scottish social security and the additional payments that have been made available recently by both Governments. If we regard the total level of support as inadequate, it's not necessarily easy to point the finger at one particular payment and say that's the cost. We do emphasise in our report that winter heating payment is a contribution towards energy costs. It's not something that is intended to or ever could cover them in full. For many households, that's going to be a contribution that they wouldn't have received under the previous regime. That would certainly be welcome, but whether it's adequate is probably for others to judge. Thank you very much, Paul. We will now move on to our next theme, and I will take questions from Janine McBelfour. Just a couple of questions, I think that we are building on what we have already discussed. I am at ease in regard to eligibility criteria. I am particularly around those with disability, because there will be those who are on disability payments but who are not on other benefits. Are you concerned that they are going to miss out, and would you like to see the criteria extended to all adults who are on the new disability living allowance? Maybe Fraser wants to start with that. I am in a position where I would say that I have put this in hands for everybody who is going to struggle. Without a doubt, that group of people will indeed struggle. In Scotland, we tend to do a little bit better over recent times in terms of inclusion of financial support for people with disability versus England and Wales. Indeed, in the energy supplier provided warm home discount, in Scotland households with disability are included in our payment, whereas in England and Wales they have been removed from the payment system. In some respects, things that are happening in Scotland have been better. Without a doubt, all households are struggling right now. Many households who are just above qualification lines absolutely should be brought into scope. One of budgets afford is the question, but for me it is not about the budgets and the right thing. If we believe that people's lives are at risk and that there is an opportunity to effect a change there, we should take it. I will, I think, let someone else worry about the budget. That is my consequence. I do not have to worry about that budget. I do worry about the people who go. Mark, if I can just read the question slightly for you, because I think that in recommendation 9 of your report, you picked up the rows out who are on the new adult disability payment but do not include in-work benefits, will not get this. Is that a concern for you? Would you like to see that looked at again by the Scottish Government? If so, why? I think that this is one of the things that we had added as something that probably was never going to be feasible to look at at this point, but that we would certainly like to see looked up in a future review. On people who receive disability benefits, first of all, it is certainly recognised by Governments and the World Health Organization that disabled people will typically have higher energy costs. They will often spend more time at home and they will often need a higher temperature while they are at home. Additional support for disabled people generally is something that could well merit consideration, but it is not something that we recommended in our report as a feature of winter heating payments specifically. The reason for that is that winter heating payment is a low income benefits and not everyone in receipt of a disability benefit is on the low income. If you are all one of the qualified low income benefits and you have got a disabled person in the house, then you qualify for already. The position of someone who is on disability assistance but on a higher income is, in a way, a separate question. Child winter heating assistance is the more obvious model there than winter heating payments. When it comes to people on in-work benefits, there were a few things that I guess were on our minds there. First of all, there is a basic inequality in how the regulations treat people who are in work and receiving income support, employment and support allowance or jobseekers allowance. They qualify for winter heating payments on the same basis and the same way as people who are out of work and receiving the same benefits, whereas in-work claimants of universal credit can only qualify if they have a disabled child and their family. Secondly, we all know that there are low earners out there who will face essentially the same cost of living challenges as people on out-of-work benefits face. They may have more income but that extra that they are getting could well be taken up by some of the costs that they face because of their in-employment. Thirdly, the social security charter requires the Scottish Government to work to improve people's perceptions of social security. Targeting and providing support to people who are out of work that are not available to very low earners is not necessarily something that is likely to help with that project. Those were a few things that we were thinking about but I would emphasise that we are recommending a review of the qualifying benefits, which is something that the Scottish Government has indicated that it is open to. We are not prejudging what the outcome of that review could be. There is another difference between the legacy benefits and universal credit and that income support and the others are paid to people who are out of work or only working in very few hours. People on universal credit could be working a far greater number of hours and have significantly higher earnings. That does not mean that it takes down eligibility to have more universal credit payments, but to limit that to the lowest earners for consistency with the current approach on the other benefits would potentially have been a lot more work for Social Security Scotland to do to identify who has entitlements. It is another example that I mentioned at the start of that administrative efficiency principle and to pull it in a slightly different direction to some of the other principles. Very quickly, Mark, I was interested in your very opening remark there that this is not the time to do it or the capacity is not there to do it at the moment, sorry if I misquoted you. I'm interested to know why you think that is the case. Is that because there's too much happening within Social Security Scotland for them to take this on as well or we have a capacity issue for you on this? I suppose capacity issues can always be addressed to some extent if there's the willingness to spend to increase capacity, but I guess what I was really referred to was that it's something that we've seen repeatedly with the devolution of functions from DWP to Social Security Scotland. We've seen it with the various forms of disability assistance, we're seeing it here, and we may well see it again when one carers assistance comes around, that the first stage of the work is to get the function transferred and the Government has always emphasized that mantra of safe and secure transition that that's the first priority and that that limits the scope for a comprehensive redesign at that point and I can see why they've made that argument, but I guess what we as a commission and maybe yourselves as a committee need to be mindful of for the future is that that doesn't then become that what is inherited becomes the default and that that just continues that there is an open mind in future reviews when the time is right. I'll actually just go straight back to you to lead us on to theme 4, which is on the qualifying week, thank you. Thank you, I'm going back to what Fraser said earlier on that February wasn't the right month for people to get the payment. I understand why you think that. Can you then suggest which month would be the appropriate month for the payment to be made? I've got a couple of observations on that. If there's a qualifying day, then I cannot see why after the qualifying day it would take three months for a payment to be triggered. If the existing cold weather payment system can pay out within 14 days, then I can't understand why this would not pay out within 14 days of achieving the qualifying day, because that just seems like a relatively straight forward acceleration of the rate of payment, but the benefit to the household would mean that they would have that £50 more in advance of need and therefore able to satisfy need than receiving it in February where they may have foregone heat and power, because they simply couldn't decide whether they would be able to do that or not, because that payment to come in February, people on the lowest incomes can't borrow that money in order to achieve that heat and power, except by getting into debt with their energy supplier. If you're already on a pre-payment meter potentially repaying debt or having a cash flow requirement that is burdensome, people will have foregone their energy over that period when they do receive that £50. If anything could be done now to accelerate that payment to households, I would urge the committee to recommend that to the minister. I just ask the same question to Mark. Do you have a view omish or do the commission have a view omish? Well, the commission certainly has no specific recommendation about payment dates in our ports. We do know that various stakeholders have argued that payment should be made as early as possible. I don't think that we would disagree with that argument. I just don't think that we're particularly well placed to say when the earliest possible date is likely to be. Thank you very much. We'll now move to questions from Pam Duncan-Glancy. Thank you, convener. I'll be quick as well. Do either of you have a view about why a qualifying date was suggested, as opposed to the previous approach? I go first. Pam, I have literally no idea. I can only see that the qualifying date there could be for budget certainty and that you know on that date in November what the spend is likely to be by the time you get to the end of March, so there's probably an efficiency built into this. It clearly isn't the best thing for those households, particularly households whose economic circumstances change beyond that qualifying date in November. At this time of great uncertainty, cost of living crisis, recession, many, many households' circumstances may indeed change beyond the qualifying date and receive no support in the way that those who do meet the qualifying date do get. Some say that there will always be winners and losers in this space. I would still draw the parallel to the code with a payment system, which is a rolling eligibility and a payment that can be received within 14 days. The aspects of it seem stronger than what the regulations afford for the payment system. Like a number of other payments that we have seen in reduced, the code with a payment system is dependent on information from the Department for Work and Pensions to identify who is receiving the qualifying UK benefit and has the necessary household circumstances. That information needs to be transferred to Social Security Scotland so that it can see who is entitled. As far as I can tell, having a qualifying week simplifies that interaction. It means that who the DWP wants to get that information, and then you only have to go back later to mob up the people who have a pay resource, suspensions or reconsiderations on going at that time. If you extend the qualifying periods or you have multiple qualifying weeks, then you are having to go back to DWP more often throughout the winter to get that information, which presumably would not be impossible, but it adds, I guess, to the administrative burden that would be on Social Security Scotland. That would be my understanding. Mark, when you say that we would social security Scotland, we need to go back to DWP. I understand that if they do it in one week, they get the data from that week and that's it. If the mechanism is there to get that data once, surely it wouldn't be administratively burdensome to get that data several times over a longer period. That's probably a question for Social Security Scotland, rather than me. Clearly, yes, the mechanism exists in principle. It could be run more than once, but how much extra work that creates someone else would be better placed to comment on. Fair. Thank you. Thank you, Pam. I will just move straight back to you for theme 5. The winter heating payment unit in your submission, Fraser, provides less impact on fuel poverty than the benefit it replaces. In addition to what you've already said about the geographical impact of it, can you expand on that so that we can have an understanding about the gaps in addressing fuel poverty that the version of the payment creates? Thanks, Pam. For me, that is about the change of circumstances. When the benefit was planned to be introduced in 2019 and the budget was identified and the payment was determined as being £50, energy costs were two and a half times less. Therefore, the amount of respite that it would have provided had it been introduced then would have been significantly greater than now. Fuel poverty rates in Scotland are rising. The Scottish Government estimates for the impact of the April price increase was that it placed one in three households in fuel poverty, one in four in extreme fuel poverty. Consequently, we have had the one-off payments from the UK Government and the provisions of things through the fuel insecurity fund. All of that has done little because energy prices rose by another 20 per cent in October and largely wiped away the benefits afforded by those supports, leaving us with much higher levels of fuel poverty in Scotland than in 2019 and 2020. In terms of its impact on fuel poverty as a £50 payment, it is going to be negligible, similar to that, because it is a very small payment for what is now a very, very expensive and essential part of the household budget. For me, that is the big difference in seeing this in the context of fuel poverty. In the past, you could argue that it was targeted and has a better alignment to fuel poverty purpose because it sought to provide some equity in terms of the comfort that is available to households who receive the benefit. That payment to the households in previous qualifying years tried to say that, in those communities that were significantly colder, they had significantly higher heating demands and the state provided a support to try to achieve a level of comfort that would have been enjoyed had to be somewhere else. Therefore, in terms of its impact on fuel poverty, it was directly relating to the energy needs and the comfort that that would provide for it. That will not do that, and it will not do that for a few reasons. One of the reasons is the scale of the benefit. If it were to have been kept in line with energy costs, it would be well over £100 to £125, perhaps, would provide you with the same amount of energy that would have been afforded to households in 2019, because energy is not rising with inflation. It has its own inflationary rise. I think that it is quite clear that all the inflation energy in itself is about 2 per cent of the inflation that we experience, but the inflationary impact of energy costs directly on the lowest-income households is significantly greater as a proportion of their household income than it is for households with higher median incomes across Scotland. The impact of it is going to be negligible in terms of fuel poverty. If we look at that in maybe a year's time, how do we align that better so that it has more of an impact on those fuel poverty figures? For me, that can only be through better targeting and better recognition of things like the enhanced heating requirement within the Fuel Poverty Act and what that benefit could do to support that. I appreciate that. On the same theme, I have a quick question for Mark, if that is okay. You have highlighted in your response and noted a few moments ago that there needs to be a review of the fuel payment infrastructure in Scotland. Have you discussed that with the Scottish Government and can you comment on whether it is likely to do that or whether it wants to do that? We have been asked our task is to discriminate and draft regulations that come for us, so that is what we have focused on for these. We cannot be blind to the wider context when we do this. Ultimately, there will be separate payments that are intended to provide support with energy costs for people with low incomes, people with a disabled child in the house or for pensioner households, and potentially various gaps remaining in our architecture as we have been hearing about this morning. We have not had any specific discussions with the Scottish Government on what a more rationalised future system might look like, but it is not impossible to conceive of a move towards a similar benefit that gives different amounts to people depending on their circumstances. That is probably one for the future. We will now move to questions from Miles Briggs. I had two short questions to close with regard to the discussion that we had this morning. What other support do you think the Scottish Government should be providing to families and individuals struggling with the cost of energy? Do you want to come in, Mark? The income that people receive is compartmentalised at the different payments, but it does not stay compartmentalised when it comes into their accounts. When they are meeting their energy costs, they are drawn on all the resources at their disposal. From that point of view, if you are an out-of-work parent to a three-year-old, what will make a difference to your ability to pay your energy bills this winter is not so much the introduction of winter heating payments, it is the recent increase to the level of Scottish child payments. There is a wider package of support that people will be drawing on. I have said already this morning that social security is the only part and can only be part of the solution to feel poverty. It needs to sit alongside that focus on consumption and cost as well. That is for parts of Government other than the social security directorate. It is probably more Fraser's area of expertise than it is now. I think that the answer is always much, much more. There has to be more support than has been provided. We have to do the best that we can for all the people who are struggling every single day and struggling right now. Scotland has record levels of energy debt. It has record amounts of people who are being moved from credit arrangements into prepayment arrangements. It has people who are struggling with the equivalent of that, particularly in off-gas areas, where they are having to repurchase for the winter amounts of oil or LPG or solid fuels or biomass. There are lots of contextual issues that suggest that we have to do much more. We are not at a place where people are able to enjoy the levels of warmth and comfort in their homes that they experienced pre-pandemic. We are not there. We have much higher levels of fuel poverty. We have to do much more and do much more with what we have. Although that is not an issue for this particular committee, clearly one of the key aspects of that is to reduce those levels of consumption in a safe way by improving the efficiency of their homes. If we did so, the call on some of the benefits that are being provided could be reduced simply because people have less of a need to have something that is called a winter heating payment if their resilience in their home is such that they perhaps did not need it for that purpose. They may have other income issues and other things that they are struggling to receive. However, for me, the first benefit is called winter heating payment. People's expectation is that we will provide that. What we can see immediately is that the level that it is set at will provide very little. It is well seen as it is for those who receive it. We will still afford them very little. Can I just stop there because we have got something going on in the background and I do not want us to not be able to hear your answer? I think that we are okay now. Sorry to interrupt you. I just wanted to be able to hear you, so if you could carry on now, that would be great. Thank you. I thought that that was the hook coming from a pantomime saying, it is that kind of time review. Mike McKee's thing is that the expectations for people who receive it are that it is about heat. Obviously, the key aspect of why it was renamed from low-income winter heating assistance to a winter heating payment is that it affords people heat and warmth and provides a comfort that it is going to be there. The fact that it is predicated around providing for heat is that, for me, we have to look at the value of that. As I said, the £50 is not sufficient and has not kept pace with the changing cost of energy. Therefore, the amount of heat that it provides is considerably less. I guess that I would always ask the purpose of the payment. Is it just simply financial or is it indeed about heat? If it is about equity for that heat, it would have to be significantly higher than it is. I think that we picked up everything that you said. Specifically, I think that a call for more also around insulation programmes is what you were pointing towards. Finally, I wanted to ask a question with regard to extending eligibility and what the panel's view was with regard to winter heating payments being extended to support terminally ill people as well. Have you done any work on that specifically? I bring you back in, Fraser. It has been quite clear that, in all the one-off support that has been provided over the last 12 months by Governments, there has been insufficient targeting for people, particularly people with life-impacting, life-changing and life-limiting conditions. It has been very little that has been done that recognises that those households have significantly different needs to live in warmer homes for longer periods of time. There simply has not been sufficient protections put in place, indeed, for many of those households, whether that is with the regulator of GEM and for leading through into our energy networks and our energy suppliers. Equally, we have called many times for there to be specific financial supports provided for people whose circumstances could be classed as life-limiting, life-impacting, life-changing, people who have got active cancer diagnosis at the age of 1500. None of that has been provided by people who have got dialysis equipment, oxygen equipment that needs to be running for potentially 24-7. Nothing has been provided by differentiated or those households. I think that that is something that we should be looking at, whether that is right for this benefit or not. I think that the key thing there is a call to provide that support. Thank you. Mark, do you want to come back in? Sure. I think that I would probably agree with the gentleman in Fraser's pose in comment that it is not necessary—winter heat in time—that it is not necessary the right vehicle for that kind of support. If you are on a terminal illness, as a disability assistance rose out, you are very likely to be receiving a disability benefit. If there is also a qualified family income benefit coming into the household, then you will benefit from that. I mentioned in response to Jeremy's question earlier that households, including a disabled person, who are not on a low-income benefit, who are higher earners, are a separate conversation. It is about responding to the extra cost of disability rather than responding to low income. I think that there is a case for looking at it, but it is separately to that. I will now move to questions from Deputy convener, Emma Roddick, to finish off. I just want to pick up Fraser on a few things that you have said, because you have mentioned the fabric of houses a few times now at this point. There are obviously a lot of factors contributing to fuel poverty, but in an ideal world, if we could tackle it from every angle, how big a role should social security ideally play compared to regulating energy companies, the fabric of buildings and the overall design of energy policy? There is really no getting away from the fact that energy is expensive right now, whether it is individuals or the Government that is paying for it. Scottish Government's fuel poverty strategy recognises those drivers, and it is important that we continually recognise those drivers. There is not a single approach that will make the difference for households. In Scotland, half of our homes are essentially deemed as inefficient homes below a line. Let's not see whether that line is the correct place or not, but none the less, half of them are inefficient. They are not evenly distributed either. There are different varieties across our local authorities and in our island communities. It is a case of the equality of our homes needs to be improved and improved at a rate of knots for us to be more resilient in what appears to be a changing, fluctuating energy market, where at this point in time we have little control over those prices. The affordability of energy as one of the other drivers of fuel poverty is important that that is addressed. The system is not fair and it does not have people at the heart of it as the profits of companies overriding those very important human aspects. We absolutely believe that there should be a right to have affordable energy, ideally a right to have affordable and low-carbon green energy, but we should have a right to have that and a right to live in a home that is of a good standard that we do not have. Beyond that, in terms of social security and income, which is for me where the other driver is, when people's incomes are too low, even if energy was cheaper but people still lived in inefficient homes, they would struggle to heat those homes and that would be detrimental to their health and wellbeing but has an important role to play. We should have a right to have a decent level of essential or basic income. All households should have that and that those things together would eliminate fuel poverty to a large extent. Overall is the lack of specific policy in other areas, meaning that social security out of necessity is playing a larger role than it ideally would need to? Social security has been asked to step up because the other aspect in terms of the affordability of energy has changed so rapidly and to such an extent. Even though I said that energy prices will be treble 2020 when we get to April, that is a protected amount. If it had been left to the market price, it would have been three and a half times more, and it would have been a bit more expensive. Further expense on top of that could have been £4,000 for that modelled consumption. Without those protections in place, many more people would have faced unaffordable energy costs. Social security has been asked to step up because of vulnerabilities and low income households simply being faced with bills that they cannot pay. When they cannot pay those bills, health and wellbeing would suffer. We would face a cliff edge for me. If people could not afford their energy costs, they would go without their health and wellbeing would decline. The national health service would be put under incredible pressure from people whose health and wellbeing had worsened significantly. We would undoubtedly see catastrophic deaths over our winter period with people simply dying in their homes because they were unable to eat them. However, we need all those aspects to work better together. We need to do things faster on energy efficiency. We ought to prioritise the fabric of our buildings and finding ways to ensure that that happens quicker. However, we are not there. Thank you both very much for providing evidence this morning. The committee will consider the instrument next week when the Minister for Social Security and Local Government will be attending. Your evidence this morning has been extremely helpful in advance of that meeting. We will now move into private session. Can members who are joining us remotely please use the Microsoft Teams link in their calendars to join the meeting?