 We start this afternoon's business with portfolio questions. Question 1 from Marie Todd. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in response to reports that every tenant and homeless accommodation in the highlands is in rent arrears following the roll-out of universal credit by the Department of Work and Pensions. Minister Jeane Freeman. The roll-out of universal credit is indeed causing unacceptable levels of anxiety, hardship and rent arrears. In particular, the six-week wait for the first payment, which I know is turning out to be even longer in areas like Inverness, is pushing people into crisis and resulting in significant rent arrears for local authorities and landlords. That is why the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equality has written to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions requesting a halt to the roll-out of full service universal credit until those problems are fully resolved by the UK Government. Marie Todd. I'm delighted to hear that the Scottish Government asked for a halt to universal credit roll-out as it's clearly damaging my constituents, pushing them into poverty and we're seeing record renter ears of £900. Do you agree with me that this system must be paused until the UK Government resolved the issue of it being a minimum of six weeks to get to your first payment, which for all income family can mean the difference between heating and eating? I say to the member that I certainly do. Once again, we have a UK Government pursuing a policy regardless of its negative and damaging impact on people's lives. It is quite simply a disgrace that in pursuing that policy the UK Government is continuing to fail to address the weaknesses in it and in its delivery. The issues such as the six-week delay, which I find totally unacceptable, were all identified by the Westminster Work and Pensions Committee and are being investigated by this Parliament's Social Security Committee and have been raised by local authorities and the local government association. Once again, the UK Government is not listening, which is why I suspect that Frank Field, the chair of that Westminster committee, has accused him of having his head in the sand. Once again, we are having to urge the UK Government to address these issues immediately. I am glad to accept the invitation to meet with Ms Todd, Drew Henry and local partners in Inverness to discuss the difficulties facing their constituents. Mark Griffin. I welcome the minister's answer and agree that the roll-out must be halted, but that halting will not stop the hardship families in the Slothian and Inverness experience. I hope that the minister will extend DHPs to send a problem there and send that bill to Damien Greene. Stopping the roll-out will undoubtedly impact on the use of our flexibilities here in Scotland. Last week in gender called on the Government to review its own proposals because the draft regulations do not meet their intended objective. However, with no set implementation date for the housing payment flexibilities and potentially being put back further, will the minister come forward with regulations to deliver split payments so that we can be sure to use those flexibilities to deliver the gender equality that is sorely lacking from the current Tory system? I have to say that I admire the member's optimism at the idea that we would pay for something and then send a bill to the UK Government with any expectation at all that it would be paid back. We are already committed to £116 million a year from this Government to mitigate the very worst effects of the UK Government's welfare cuts. In terms of the implementation dates and the point that he makes with regards to engender, we have already said that we are considering actively how to implement our commitment to deliver on split payments. Indeed, engender is involved in that discussion. The consultation on the regulations on flexibility was simply on the two aspects of fortnightly payments and payment of rent direct to social and private landlords. We will rely on the DWP to deliver those. In calling for a halt to the implementation and roll-out of universal credit, we will begin discussions with DWP on how they will implement our flexibilities. We will continue our discussions with engender and other organisations on exactly the criteria that we could use reasonably to implement the delivery of split payments. I will, of course, inform the Parliament and the Social Security Committee when we have reached that decision. Edward Mountain. Part of the way of helping homeless people is not only to ensure that they have houses available for them, but jobs are also available for them. Long-term unemployment has more than doubled under the SNP to nearly 50,000 people. What action is the Scottish Government taking to help those in long-term unemployment find work and thus reduce their dependence on welfare? It's not quite the minister's brief, but very briefly minister. I'm more than happy to, thank you, Presiding Officer. Of course, Mr Mountain will also know that, in terms of youth unemployment, Scotland has now one of the best records in Europe, next only to Germany and certainly much further ahead than the rest of the UK. Our actions in terms of helping those moving from unemployment to employment of course covers our devolved employment programmes whereby by not applying sanctions, we are absolutely confident that we will have greater success than is currently the case. Without the hardship, misery and anxiety imposed on those who have to go through the UK Government's employment programmes. In addition, our job grant proposal, our manifesto commitment, which we will come forward with the details of implementation in the near future, will additionally help those individuals. Without pre-empting a future question, I have to say to Mr Mountain that if the UK Government would do the right thing on housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds, then we might indeed have fewer people who are homeless. Question number two, Colin Smyth. To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take to raise the incomes of families with children living in poverty. Cabinet Secretary, Angela Constance. The Scottish Government is committed to maximising incomes and tackling poverty and inequality. That's why we've taken a number of actions to help low-income households in the face of UK Government's austerity agenda and welfare cuts. Let me give the member and the chamber some specific examples. We are investing massively in childcare and early years. The total benefit to families from the 1,140-hour commitment of funded entitlement is estimated to be worth over £4,500 a year per child. We are also providing free-school meals for all children in primary 1,2,3,7 families around £380 per child per year. We are maintaining our commitment to support people in Scotland affected by UK welfare cuts via the Scottish welfare fund, mitigating the bedroom tax and the council tax reduction scheme, which together provide a substantial support to tens of thousands of families every year. In addition, our fairer Scotland action plan sets out 50 concrete actions that will take over the course of this Parliament to tackle poverty and inequality. Last week, it was revealed that child poverty in Scotland was on the increase with 40,000 more kids falling into poverty. Despite that rise, the First Minister failed to mention the word poverty once in her conference speech at the weekend, and today we'll spend two minutes talking about child poverty as opposed to two days we will be debating another referendum. Will the cabinet secretary use those two minutes today to commit the Government to a real positive action that will make a difference by supporting the calls by the child poverty action group to widen the scope of the child poverty bill to allow for a £240 per year rise in child benefit this year, taking tens of thousands of children out of poverty? Does the Parliament have the powers to help to tackle child poverty? Will she use them? The cabinet secretary has been working to eradicate child poverty all her political life, and it has to be regretted that there was very little comment last week from the Opposition on the truly shocking rise in child poverty that we are seeing in Scotland and, indeed, across the UK. A shocking rise in child poverty in a country as rich as Scotland is purely unacceptable for us to have one in four of our children, 260,000 children living in Scotland, living in relative poverty. However, as part of our programme for government, we are in the process of introducing a fundamentally important child poverty bill, which is all about eradicating child poverty in this country. With respect to the member's point on regard to child benefit, I have said before on many occasions in this chamber as we proceed with the child poverty bill, as we proceed with our new social security powers. It is imperative that we discuss, debate and challenge each other about what more we can do within the powers and resources that we have. I have no aspiration to close down any aspect of that debate. However, the one thing that I do know is that if we are going to be successful in turning around child poverty in this country, we have to ensure that we get more support to those in need. What I would say with respect to the Labour Party with regard to its proposal, which will cost £225 million each year, on seven out of every £10 would be spent on children not living in poverty. What we have to do is a government, we have to proceed with getting more support to those children in most need. We have to proceed indeed with the new powers that we have and also our very ambitious targets around affordable housing. Gillian Martin. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can the cabinet secretary comment on the potential impact on women and families on low incomes who rely on child benefit but who will now be asked to prove that they have been raped in order to get payments for a third child by the UK Government? We are fundamentally opposed to this policy, which is frankly inhumane and irrational. Indeed, I would go further. It's a policy that I would consider to be barbaric. We remain deeply concerned about the impact of this policy. Actually, the impact will have on low-income families, many of whom are already feeling the effects of other so-called welfare reforms on their income. There is no, to be clear, absolutely no acceptable process which can ever be put in place involving a woman being forced to disclose being raped in order to access social security support for her child. Many other organisations, Presiding Officer, have said likewise and their experience in this field should be heeded. Adam Tomkins. I associate myself and my party with a number of the remarks that the cabinet secretary made in response to Colin Smyth's question. On the subject of the child poverty bill, the Life Chances Act requires UK ministers to report on the number of children living in workless households. Given that, as we know, work is the best route out of poverty, and those are, of course, not my words but the JRFs, why does the Scottish Government's child poverty bill not include a similar provision for Scotland? Cabinet Secretary. I think what Mr Tomkins really needs to recognise that, yes, work is imperative, but work has to pay. What the scandalous and shocking figures showed last week is that the number of poor children living in households that are working households is now at 70 per cent. Quite clearly, work is not paying in this country. Despite evidence of economic growth, we have seen no real rise in wages. What we all know to be true is that, while there are many different measurements of poverty and child poverty in particular, we have to galvanise action around the fact that income or lack of income is the biggest driver of poverty. That is why, in the face of a Conservative Government who has scrapped statutory income targets, we are now embarked on our journey to reintroduce those statutory income targets, but statutory income targets are more ambitious than the targets that were scrapped by the Conservatives. Given the rise in child poverty in Scotland and across the UK, it is perhaps not surprising that the Tory Government has scrapped those statutory income targets. Therefore, in my view, we are trying to sweep child poverty under the carpet. Alex Rowley. Most of Scotland would have been horrified last week when it saw the increase in child poverty and, while it does not escape me, the impact failed Tory austerity in leading to a lot of that child poverty. The important point is what we are going to do about it, and I think that that is what people want to say. The last Labour Government lifted over 200,000 children in Scotland out of poverty, over a million children in the UK out of poverty, and it did so by introducing tax credits. So, while the minister may want to target and say that the child poverty action idea of £5 on child benefit would not target, there is the opportunity to look at tax credits and increasing tax credits. There is the opportunity to look at free school meals and target the funding through free school meals. There are a number of ways. My question would be, we need to work together on this. Are you willing to work across this Parliament to tackle the blight of child poverty in Scotland, which is not acceptable? I am indeed more than willing to work across this Parliament and across local and national Government and Civic Scotland to address the absolute scandal of child poverty in a country as rich as ours. I would with kindness remind Mr Rowley that the Labour Party, if my memory serves me correct, voted against free school meals. I think where he raises an interesting point is around the Labour Government's use of tax credits in terms of 97 to the early 2000s where they did make progress in child poverty before it then stagnated. So, there is indeed more to be done. We should have a sense of urgency and a sense of impetus. I do remind Mr Rowley that unfortunately we don't have powers over tax credits, but we are always going to be looking much more at what we can do. The reality is that, with 15 per cent of welfare spend, the reality is that we will not be able to make up for all the unfairness in the remaining 85 per cent. As a Government, what we are doing, we are investing heavily in childcare and early learning. We have a new £29 million programme that is looking at tackling poverty. We have a commitment to deliver at least 50,000 affordable homes. Of course, we have 50 very concrete actions that are set out in our fairer Scotland action plan. I just sometimes wish that for the members across there, while I am absolutely open to scrutiny, we should all be examining our hearts very closely to look at what more we should be doing. I sometimes wish to point the finger a bit more at this law over here. I suggest that we have a lot of time on these early questions. Question 3, James Kelly. To ask the Scottish Government what provision it is taking to support social housing. Minister Kevin Stewart. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The provision of social housing is and will remain a priority for this Government. We are committed to maintaining and expanding our social housing stock as part of creating a fairer society. To do that, we have clearly set out our ambition, committed over £3 billion worth of funding for the delivery of 50,000 affordable homes in the current Parliament. 35 of those will be for social housing, an increase of 75 per cent on our previous social rented targets, which we know not only were they achieved, but they were exceeded. James Kelly. I noted in a recent reply to Alex Rowley that there had been slow progress towards the Scottish Government's target of achieving 35,000 socially rented properties with only 6,000 forecasts to be complete so far. Given that backdrop, it was something of a surprise at the Finance Committee last week to find out when Derek Mackay presented evidence on the spring budget revision that £20 million had been underspent on the housing budget and had been allocated elsewhere in the budget. Does the minister not agree if he thinks that housing is a priority, that that is an outrage and that he should be seeking at this late stage to reverse that decision and ensure that the £20 million is spent in this financial year? Minister. Presiding Officer, I think that Mr Kelly was at the Finance and Constitution Committee on Wednesday 15 March where this matter was discussed. We have had a healthy and encouraging start to the programme with over 20 per cent new-build starts of affordable homes that were approved in 2016. In terms of the number that he quotes in terms of £20 million, that relates to money from the affordable home supply programme that was given back to the capital departmental expenditure to be redistributed with the understanding that it would be reallocated to the NHSP at a later date. I will reiterate what I said previously. We have committed £3 billion of resource over the course of this Parliament. If Mr Kelly is looking for scandals, the biggest scandal is the fact that in the last term of the Labour-Liberal coalition they managed to build a total of only six council houses in Scotland. To ask the Scottish Government what investment it will make in social housing in South Lanarkshire over this parliamentary session and how many homes for social housing will that provide. The Scottish Government will make over £35 million available to South Lanarkshire Council over 2017-18 to deliver their affordable housing priorities. That will deliver an estimated 600 completed homes for social rent over those two years alone. We also know that councils need as much advanced notice as possible of their full resource planning assumptions for 2018, 2019 and beyond. That is why later this year the Scottish Government will bring forward a new offer of resource planning assumptions for councils to March 2021. Graham Simpson I thank the minister for that previous answer. It is interesting to hear how much money is going to South Lanarkshire. What is he doing to ensure that some of that money is going to the smaller housing associations not just in South Lanarkshire but across the country? Thank you, Presiding Officer. I know that Mr Simpson has asked similar questions before. What I want to see right across the country is co-operation between all partners to deliver the 50,000 affordable homes in Scotland. Is Mr Simpson as well aware that I have been looking at council strategic housing investment plans and looking closely to see what involvement community-based housing associations are playing in delivery? I said to the local government committee that I would report back to them after analysis was done and was complete on those ships. I intend to do so and I will embark to let Mr Simpson know exactly what the situation is regarding community-based housing associations at that point. Edward Mountain To ask the Scottish Government how it encourages volunteering in communities. The Scottish Government recognises the vital contributions made by volunteers to communities across Scotland and we provide a range of support to enable people to participate on issues that matter to them. Our £1.1 million volunteer support fund provides for community-level grants to create new or enhanced volunteering projects and to increase the diversity of volunteers. We also provide £800,000 to volunteer Scotland to develop, promote and enhance volunteering across the country. In addition, the £8.4 million provided through Scotland's third sector interfaces and Voluntary Action Scotland includes support for volunteer development. Edward Mountain Thank you, Minister for that answer. As the Scottish Government knows, volunteering in the Highlands is well above the national average. Given in 2015, nearly 77,000 people volunteered in the Highlands through an organisational group. Interestingly, with more women than men volunteering, does the Scottish Government support HIE and their investment in projects such as Project Trust in Argyll that encourage volunteer opportunities? How will they take the information from the Highlands to roll out what is being achieved across Scotland? It is true that volunteering is highest in rural areas in comparison to urban areas. Volunteering in rural areas is at 65 per cent and 49 per cent in more urban areas. Highlands and Islands Enterprise does a stellar amount of work in supporting social enterprise and volunteering in that part of the world. Tavish Scott To ask the Scottish Government when details of funding for the third sector interface model for the 17-18 financial year will be finalised. Third sector interfaces such as Voluntary Action Shetland had their funding protected at the same level as 2016-17 for the first quarter of 2017-18. With a draft Scottish budget published in December 2016 we wanted to make sure that third sector organisations had sufficient time to plan and discuss their work for the next financial year. A further offer of grant funding for the remainder of 2017-18 will be issued shortly. Tavish Scott I thank the cabinet secretary for that reply and also for the letters that she wrote to me on Voluntary Action Shetland and the needs of that particular organisation who are doing important work in this whole area. Would she accept that the point that she has just made on one quarter is indeed the challenge in terms of long-term staff contracts and indeed providing provision over a period of time? Would she undertake to at least explore the potential to be anordinately helpful, not just for Voluntary Action Shetland but indeed for voluntary organisations more generally? Cabinet secretary. Yes, I accept the content of Mr Scott's question. If I can say to him in terms of the funding for the next financial year, we hope to have issued grant funding by the end of April, beginning of May. We are glad to have been able to have protected the overall third sector budget at £24.5 million. The point that he makes about the need to move to three-year rolling funding is well made. He will have noted that we have made progress in that with the equality budget and as we move forward we will be looking to extend that to other areas where the third sector benefits in line with our manifesto commitment. To ask the Scottish Government what powers and responsibilities have been devolved to Highlands and Islands communities in the last 10 years. Minister Kevin Stewart. Empowering communities has always been a focus of this Government. We want to strengthen the voices of communities and the decisions that matter to them and empower people to take forward the solutions that can make a difference to the communities where they live and work. Our Community Empowerment Act provides new rights to communities to participate in community planning and make participation requests. It also introduced asset transfer to make it easier for communities to take over public sector property for the benefit of their communities. Our Community Choice programme also enables communities in the Highlands and Islands area and across Scotland to make decisions on local spending priorities. We want to continue to improve the relationship between citizens, communities and councils, which is why our programme for government set out our commitment to review the roles and responsibilities of local government. Kate Forbes. Minister for that answer. There are a number of communities in my constituency using the Empowerment Act to do everything from building houses to hydro schemes, health centres to schools. What analysis is the Scottish Government doing on the success of community empowerment legislation and how are they helping communities to make the most of it? I am always interested to see communities thrive and use the Community Empowerment Act to their benefit. I am particularly pleased to hear about community hydro schemes as there is a very successful one in my constituency at Donside village. The Scottish Government will keep under review the different parts of the Community Empowerment Act to look at the impact on improving outcomes for people and communities across Scotland. Obviously participation requests that part of the act comes into play on 1 April. I will be keeping a very close eye on what is happening across the country to see where they are being utilised. The request will show whether a council is already engaging well or not with its communities. Ms Forbes can be absolutely assured that we will continue to analyse and review every aspect of this act. Question 7 Gordon Lindhurst. To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making on improvements to the planning system in light of the review of the Scottish planning system. Following extensive stakeholder engagement we published a consultation paper in January inviting views in our 20 proposals for change. The consultation is open until 4 April and during that time we have held a number of engagement events and public drop-in sessions around the country. We have engaged with a large number of stakeholders on our proposals. I hope that everyone will take this opportunity to make their views known and I look forward to seeing the responses. Gordon Lindhurst. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. Yesterday the Scottish Government announced that a decision on the proposed Pentland film studio in the outskirts of Edinburgh would not be affected by the PURDA rule in place for the local government elections in May. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that a decision will be made on that before the elections in May and that another political delaying tactic by a Government scared to make what should be a local decision before a local election? Minister. I thank Mr Lindhurst for the promotion. First of all, it's news to me that I'm a cabinet secretary. Mr Lindhurst and other members should know that it is not the job of the planning minister to speak in this chamber about live planning applications. We received the report on Pentland from the reporter on 22 December just prior to the Christmas and New Year holidays. Officials have been looking at that in the meantime and a decision will be taken after all of that is analysed. Question 8. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the 72 per cent of respondents to its consultation and social security in Scotland, believing that it should aim to deliver social security through already available public sector services and organisations. Minister Jeane Freeman. I thank the member for his question. While it is true that 72 per cent of respondents to our consultation said that social security should be available through public sector services, 84 per cent also stated that the social security agency should deliver all the devolved benefits. I think what that shows is that people who are responding the over 500 written responses we had and indeed in the many meetings and discussions I attended individuals and group organisations knew that there are a variety of models that need to be assessed. I expect to announce in the spring a preferred model for the social security agency that that decision will draw upon the evidence from a detailed options appraisal exercise as well as the responses to social security consultation and will hold true to our commitment that the social security system will be consistent, person-centred and uphold the principles of dignity, fairness and respect. Jackson Carlaw. I thank the minister for that response. I too had noted the contradiction between those two responses. Given the shambles that ensued last embarked upon a bespoke delivery system with farm payments, what confidence can the people of Scotland have and what assurances can the minister give that Scottish Government and competence will not be history repeating itself? Minister Jeane Freeman. I do not want to start trading shambles with Mr Carlaw but you know shambles of universal credit we have already touched on at the start of these portfolio questions. I have already given the social security committee the absolute assurance that all the lessons learned from various IT and other programmes conducted not only by this Government but by the UK Government themselves will be built into and learned from as we build our social security system and service for Scotland. Indeed, that is precisely why we are taking that planned approach that we have talked about so often in this chamber. Learning from the consultation exercise but very importantly using the direct personal experience through our experience panels which I am sure Mr Carlaw and other colleagues are promoting for us to recruit those 2,000 volunteers whose personal experience we will draw on and gain much from. I would remind the chamber that I am the parliamentary liaison officer to the cabinet secretary. To ask the Scottish Government whether it has received assurances that it will not impose the changes to housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds in Scotland while discussions regarding a possible exemption are on-going. Minister, Jeane Freeman. I regret to say that no, we have not had that assurance. The DWP rejected our request to draft their regulations in such a way that would allow us to use existing Scotland Act powers so that we could ensure that young people do not lose access to much needed housing support. Despite on-going engagement and a number of requests to this effect we have not received any reassurances from the UK Government even though the DWP's regulations are expected to come into force on 1 April. That is both disappointing and dismissive of the difficulties that many young people face in obtaining and sustaining a tenancy in Scotland. Mary Evans. I thank the minister for that response which I agree is incredibly disappointing that the Tory Government is removing housing support from vulnerable young people and that the impact of that policy will lead to a rise in homelessness of people in that age group. Minister. I agree with that. The policy will clearly lead to a rise in homelessness amongst the age group, the 18 to 21-year-olds that we are talking about. Our commitment as a Government is to retain housing benefit support for that age group. The ludicrous consequence of the UK Government's policy is that if a young person is assessed as homeless our strong homeless legislation in Scotland means that they will be entitled to a minimum of temporary accommodation and therefore will become eligible for the housing element of the universal credit but will not be able to move into settled accommodation without losing that entitlement again. As the chief executive officer of Centrepoint said, the UK Government should scrap the policy rather than try to make a bad policy work. Question 10 Fulton MacGregor. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in light of the report shifting the curve that people in minority ethnic groups are often the most disadvantaged and can face additional barriers when trying to get out of poverty. We want to remove barriers that minority ethnic groups face as we aim to create a fairer, more equal Scotland. Our race equality framework published last year set out our approach to tackling a range of poverty-related issues through to 2030. Actions include improving information and services on benefit uptake and money advice amongst minority ethnic groups and publishing an equality's evidence strategy in spring 2017. Our fairer Scotland action plan provides a set of poverty and inequality actions that will benefit all of Scotland, including minority ethnic groups too, such as bringing forward a child poverty bill, tackling the poverty premium and delivering at least 50,000 affordable homes over the current parliamentary term. Scottish ministers also benefit from advice on our approach from both the race equality framework adviser and independent adviser on poverty and inequality. Fulton MacGregor. I thank the cabinet secretary for that response. Given the on-going Scottish Government anti-poverty work and the aspirations of the race equality framework to tackle poverty for minority ethnic communities, would the cabinet secretary consider asking the independent adviser on poverty and inequality and the race equality network adviser to meet and discuss the intersections of race and poverty and what could be done to address the disadvantage and barriers faced by minority ethnic communities? Cabinet secretary. I am pleased to say that the advisers have already met to discuss their respective roles and are due to meet again next month. I will make sure that both advisers are aware of the concerns that Fulton MacGregor has raised today. In the meantime, we are working to ensure that the advice that we receive from our advisers is joined up and encourages co-ordinated cross-Government action. That is why our Fairer Scotland action plan is also committed to establishing a national poverty and inequality commission later this year and I will announce the details of that commission shortly. Does the cabinet secretary recognise my concern from the European Court of Justice ruling that has made a ruling that says that employers can ban their workers from wearing a headscarf at work? That has a particular impact on Muslim women accessing the labour market but also has implications for Catholics who may wear a cross at work, Jewish men who wear a skullcap or indeed Sikhs who wear a turban. Can she therefore please tell us what the Scottish Government will do to address the issue and what action if any needs to be taken here in terms of the impact on employers and what impact it has on Scottish courts? I thank Mr Sarwar for his question. We are very much aware and have looked at the detail of the judgment from the European Court which has ruled that in some instances employers have the right to have an eternal rule to not allow the wearing of philosophical, political or religious symbols and that includes for example the Islamic headscarf for women. In terms of my position and this Government's position we are not in the position ever of telling women what to wear. It is a matter of individual choice and conscience whether a woman wants to wear a headscarf that is of significance to her personal beliefs. I can confirm as I did yesterday at a race equality framework event marking the anniversary of the publication of the action that we will take in and around race equality that we have no plans to introduce any legislation on this matter and we are not required to do so. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to concerns that the Child Poverty Scotland Bill does not contain sufficient measures to lift children out of poverty. We consulted extensively on the Child Poverty Bill and received very broad support for our proposals. John Dickey of the Child Poverty Action Group welcomed the bill saying that the ambitious new targets and the legislative framework that underpins them will help to ensure that child poverty remains high and that the Government is constantly healthy account. I couldn't agree more with that. The bill will make Scotland the only part of the UK with statutory targets on child poverty and demonstrates that we in stark contrast to the UK Government will continue to prioritise tackling child poverty. The bill contains a number of measures that will do that. The point is not just measuring it but tackling it. Does the Scottish Government accept a link between child poverty and educational under-attainment? If so, and given the First Minister's claim that closing the attainment gap is her top priority, why does the recently introduced Child Poverty Bill contain no provision requiring Scottish ministers to take steps to address or indeed to close the attainment gap? It's somewhat ironic that the reason that we are having to introduce a child poverty bill in the first place is that the UK Government scrapped statutory income targets. Statutory, they recognise that the main driver of child poverty is income or indeed lack of income. So, as a Government, we won't be found guilty or wanting like the UK Government who seemed determined to sweep child poverty under the carpet. Can I also say to Mr Tronson, I'm sure he knows this point for sure, is that what the bill will do, it will require ministers indeed to meet for ambitious statutory targets to reduce child poverty by 2030, but the targets set the framework for action, but the action itself does indeed come from policies, which is why the bill also requires ministers to have a child poverty delivery plan with very specific measures and policies to lift children out of poverty, and the first plan will be published next year and updated in 2021 and 2026. Thank you, cabinet secretary. That concludes topical questions. Apologies to members who were not able to call, but we're quite tight for time given the number of speakers who wish to contribute this.