 The first item of business is a debate on motion number 374 in the name of Angela Constance on dignity, fairness and respect in disability benefits. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons now. It gives me great pleasure to call on Jeane Tomkins to give her opening... Sorry, Jeane Freeman. I'm marrying you off to the Conservative opposition spokesman. It gives me great pleasure to call on the minister to give her opening debate speech in this Parliament, Ms Freeman. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, if not for the marriage you just entered me into. Presiding Officer, I'm delighted to be here today opening a debate for the first time as Scotland's first social security minister. I know that this chamber has already debated and discussed these new powers and I look forward to working with parliamentarians in the chamber and in the new committee. Our shared task is to lay the foundations of a social security system that we can all be proud of. Given that this is also my first speech in the chamber, I hope that you will permit me to make two brief points. The first is, of course, to thank the voters of Carrick Cymru in Dunwall-e, where I was born and raised, for the trust that they have placed in me. The second is to pay rightful and due tribute to both Adam Ingram, who served the constituency, the south of Scotland and this Parliament so well in the past 17 years, and to Margaret Burgess, in her role in particular in setting up the first social security powers of this Parliament. Her example of putting people first, of hard work and of total commitment to doing the best possible job is one that I very much hope to emulate. I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to open this debate during Carrick's week. This morning, I visited voices of carers across Lothian, hearing first hand about the important work that that organisation does and, importantly, hearing directly from carers themselves about the challenges that they face. I was able to let them know of this Government's absolute commitment to make the best-use weekend of the new powers to recognise the contributions carers make to the quality of life of us all. Those new powers, Presiding Officer, present us with an enormous opportunity—an opportunity to take a different path to the UK Government and to harness the powers to our values so that we support people and tackle inequalities by building a fairer society. In 2012, the UK Government introduced its welfare reformat. Julia Unwin, chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, speaking about it a year later, said that it is a system that is loathed by those who depend on it, criticised by those who understand it and with a public media discourse that demonises poor people and equates poverty with wickedness or hopelessness. Like many in this chamber, I have heard from disabled people worried and distressed by the cuts being imposed and, by the way, they are treated by the Tory welfare system. I have heard how the system that is supposed to help and support them is actually doing them harm. Delays and backlogs, lengthy disjointed and complicated forms and process, inconsistency in assessment decisions and, driving all of that, calculated planned UK Government cuts to our lifeline support needed by so many of our most vulnerable citizens. Cuts in the name of austerity to provide a so-called fix for an economic crisis that they did not create but for which they are now paying a terrible price. UK Government welfare spend is forecast to fall by 1.5 per cent of GDP between 2015-16 and 2020-21, reaching at that point the lowest percentage level in 30 years. Systematic spending cuts at a UK level to housing benefit, incapacity benefit, employment state pensions, employment support allowance and the introduction of a benefit cap. With 85 per cent of benefits remaining at Westminster, we do not have the powers to address all of this unfairness, but we can and we will do better with the new powers that we will have. With a fairer, more transparent approach to social security, we intend to rebuild the trust that has been eroded and build in equality, fairness and respect. Social security is an investment to support people, an investment in people and communities, there for any one of us when we need it and without blame or stigma. This Government has already achieved a great deal with the powers that we currently have. We have protected and invested in the independent living fund, and in the self-directed support strategy and the legislation that underpins it, we have shown our commitment to enabling individuals, carers and their families to have flexibility, choice and control over the support services that they receive. We have fully mitigated the effects of the bedroom tax, providing over 35 million in discretionary housing payments, protecting 72,000 households, 80 per cent of which have a disabled adult, from the terrible anxiety that comes when you are told that you need to pay more for your home because you simply have one bedroom too many. However, with more than half a million people in Scotland receiving carer and disability benefits on your powers, it gives us the opportunity to do more. I now want to outline to the chamber the steps that we are taking to build a fairer and more transparent approach to disability benefits, making real the principles of dignity and respect. We have already committed to maintaining the level of disability benefits and making sure that they will not be mean tested. We have heard many times that the assessment process is not working. Just last year, this Parliament was told of some harrowing experiences of disabled people through the work of the welfare reform committee. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to that committee and its work and the invaluable evidence and insight that it provided. We were told of a process that is unable or unwilling to understand and take account of fluctuating health conditions when a person can have good days and bad days. A process in a system that, as one woman who some days cannot walk or brush her teeth, has said makes her feel like a nuisance and a fraud. How utterly appalling to live with a Tory system that makes someone feel like that. We will reform the assessment procedures to ensure that they work for people claiming disability benefits. The process of applying for and receiving benefits should be easy for everyone to understand and people should be supported through the process. We will set clear time frames for assessments for decisions and appeals. We will ensure that information is accessible for those who need it. If someone has an existing long-term condition that is unlikely to change, they should not be repeatedly reassessed. We will stop the revolving door of assessments for those with long-term illnesses, disabilities or conditions and introduce longer-term awards, awards based on individual circumstances and needs. To provide more certainty and reduce stress to thousands of families while the transfer of benefits takes place, any child in receipt of disability living allowance will continue to receive that award to the age of 18 if they so wish. We will do more. We will build into our system a consistent approach that treats every single person with compassion, with dignity, with fairness and with respect, and nothing less will be tolerated. Research by Contact a Family has shown that higher heating and utility bills are the top extra costs for families with disabled children. In 2014, an estimated 34 per cent of families with disabled children were going without heating. It is simply unacceptable that a parent is forced into making a choice about whether or not to heat their home. That is why we will extend eligibility for winter fuel payment to families with children in receipt of the highest care component of the disability living allowance. I mentioned earlier the immense contribution made by Scotland's 745,000 unpaid adult carers and 44,000 young carers. Carers are motivated by love and compassion and, for many, caring is a rewarding and positive experience, but that does not mean that it cannot also have a negative impact on a carer's physical and mental wellbeing and their financial security. Some carers are forced into difficult choices between work and caring, between studying and caring. Others take lower paid or less skilled jobs to fit in with their caring duties. There are fewer opportunities for carers to do the simple things that we take for granted—meeting friends, going to the cinema, time just for you. That is why it is crucial that we support carers to have a life alongside caring. It is unfair that support in the form of the carers allowance is the lowest of all working-age benefits, so we have committed to increasing it to the level of the jobseekers allowance and an additional £600 a year, an approximate 18 per cent increase. We have won the argument with the UK Government to make sure that any carer who is in receipt of another low-income benefit, such as income support, will remain entitled to that benefit as well. On May 25, the First Minister announced in her speech on priorities for this Government that we will ask our carer advisory groups for their views on how we might make progress on a young carer's allowance to provide extra support for young people with significant caring responsibilities. That suggestion came from the Green Party, and I am delighted that we can show and practice our commitment as a Government to listen and act on good ideas wherever they come from. I know that the Greens wanted to amend our motion calling on us to consider this issue, and I would have welcomed that amendment as I welcomed the idea. The devolution of social security powers and how we use them is one of the most complex tasks undertaken since the Scottish Parliament itself was re-established. It is a huge challenge and one that cannot be underestimated. It involves delivering a range of sometimes complex benefits worth £2.7 billion. Our first priority will be to ensure a smooth transition for people receiving benefits, particularly disabled people and their carers. I am confident that, with shared effort, delivering those benefits safely and securely is a challenge that we can meet. However, an undertaking of this scale will take time to get right, not only in its technicalities, but in the approach that we take to translate our founding principles into attitudes and behaviours that exemplify fairness, dignity and respect. As we make progress over the next few years, we will engage in extensive consultation with this Parliament, with our partners and, importantly, with our communities and the people who have direct experience of the benefits to be devolved, to make sure that we make the most of the opportunity to create a fair social security system. We have a huge opportunity to do things differently and better in Scotland. With that opportunity comes responsibility to make sure that what we deliver plays its part in tackling inequality and making life fairer for the people who claim disability benefits for their carers and for their families. Together, we can build a stronger Scotland where every person has the opportunity to achieve their potential now and in future generations. I am pleased to move that motion in the cabinet secretary's name. Thank you, Ms Freeman, and I call on Adam Tomkins to move the motion in his own name. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I move the amendment in my name. We joined the Scottish Government and, indeed, parties across the chamber in welcoming carers week. Carers make an invaluable contribution to our society and play a vital role in caring for family, friends and neighbours. As the amendment in my name makes plain, we welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to implement our proposal to align carers allowance with jobseekers allowance, which will support over 60,000 carers in Scotland. I am grateful to Mr Tomkins for giving me a minute. Can I point out, as a matter of accuracy, that our commitment to increase carers allowance was when our 2015 manifesto in your commitment came six months later? The cabinet secretary makes an unfortunate intervention, it seems to me. There has been a lot of discussion in this Parliament so far of consensus. This is an area where we agree with the Scottish Government. I would have thought that that agreement would be welcome rather than criticised. I thank the Scottish campaign on welfare reform for the event that it held in the Parliament yesterday evening, which I attended, along with a number of other MSPs, including Oliver Mundell, Ivan McKee, Sandra White and Alison Johnstone. I thank Patrick Harvie for hosting the event. The Scottish campaign for welfare reform, the child poverty action group, the poverty alliance, Inclusion Scotland and many other organisations play an essential role, not only in Scottish public life but specifically in Scottish parliamentary life, for example, in the way that they bring the stories of those who rely on our social security system directly to our attention as MSPs. I would like to express my personal thanks to all those who spoke to us yesterday evening. I said in my speech in last week's debate on a fairer Scotland that we want a social security system that supports the most vulnerable, that is focused on giving those who can work the opportunities and support to do so, and that is flexible and personalised. I explained that we have two core aims. Thank you, Mr Tomkins, for giving way. Mr Tomkins has once again said supporting people to get into work. Why, then, is it that the Tory Government has cut the work programme, the moneys, by 87 per cent? Could he explain their reasoning for that and how that is going to get folk into work? As the minister knows, the work programme is one of those aspects of the United Kingdom social security system that is being devolved in full to this Parliament. The fact is whether the Scottish Government likes it or not that 152,000 disabled people are in employment in the United Kingdom now who were not in employment a year ago. I explained last week that we have two core aims when it comes to the benefit system. We want to be supportive of those who cannot work and we want to be effective at getting those who are able to work into employment. Those aims apply both to social security generally and to the support that we give to people with disabilities. Like everybody else in this chamber, we believe that the whole of our social security system should be operated so as to accord to everyone respect and dignity. There is no difference between Conservatives and anyone else in this Parliament on this essential starting point. Some members, however, speak about this as if respect and dignity are new ideas unique to them, which they are bringing to the table for the first time. I have already given way to you once, minister. I will give away one more time in this speech to you, but after I have made a bit of progress with this point, if you will forgive me. Those ideas of respect and dignity in social security are not new. Indeed, they are already written into Scottish social security law, as they have been written into administrative law in the Atty Kingdom since the 1960s. When the Scottish ministers proclaim that they want a social security system based on dignity and respect, they are saying something that we all agree with, they are saying nothing new and they are saying nothing that is not already reflected and enshrined in our law. I will give way to the minister. I thank Mr Tomkins for giving away again. In which case would Mr Tomkins join with me in condemning those folks on his own benches at Westminster, who talk of things like strivers and skyvers? Does he feel that those kind of comments actually show dignity and respect for people? I will choose my own words, minister, and I am not using those words. The minister and everybody else in this Parliament can draw their own conclusions from the words that I use rather than the words that anybody else uses in a different Parliament. I am more interested in focusing on the social security powers that this Parliament has than in shouting from the rooftops about what happens 400 miles from here. Working age benefits perform two different functions in the British welfare state. They support people with very low incomes and they support people with additional needs. Most of the former will be rolled up into a new single benefit universal credit. For people with disabilities, the most important source of income support comes from Employment and Support Allowance, or ESA. The main sources of support for the extra costs associated with disability are disability living allowance, personal independence payments and attendance allowance. All three of those are to be devolved in full. As I said in my speech last week, our approach to welfare and indeed our approach to disability is to say that the dignity of the pay packet is to be preferred to the indignity of a social security system that assumes that people are somehow not fit for work. This is an approach that is working as we see more and more people move off benefits and into work. At the same time, our financial support for people with disabilities has increased. It grew by £3 billion in the last Parliament and in this Parliament more than £50 billion will be spent on support for people with disabilities. There is still more to do, however. The disability employment gap remains too big and that is why we are committed to halving it. We have had some success. The disability employment rate has increased from 39 per cent to 44 per cent. Welcome as this is, that rate is still some 43 percentage points below the employment rate for those who do not have a work limiting health condition. That is the gap that we want to close. I want to say something about sanctions, about which there is a lot of understandable concern. First of all, it is important to understand that those who cannot work are not sanctioned. Claimants for ESA who are assessed not to be able to work are not required to undertake any activities in order to continue to receive the benefit. Only those who are able to undertake work-related activities are expected to do so. Even here, any requirement must be reasonable taking into account the person's circumstances and claimants cannot be required to apply for a job to undertake work or to submit to medical treatment. The sorts of requirements that may be imposed include activities such as skills training, job search support, drawing up a CV or work experience. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions accepted in August last year that improvements could be made to the practical operation of the scheme. It should be reformed, he said, to focus on what a claimant can do in the support that they will need and not just on what they cannot do. That is precisely the sort of change that can be affected by the move to universal credit, which is based throughout on a more personalised approach. Just a few weeks ago, Stephen Crabb, the new Work and Pensions Secretary, echoed those remarks when he said, and I quote, that I want to start a new conversation with disabled people, their representatives, healthcare professionals and employers. I want the welfare system to work better with the health and social care systems. Together, we can do so much better for disabled people. Those comments were welcomed by Liz Sace, the chief executive of disability rights UK. I have already given way three times, Mr Cole-Hamilton. Shall I give way to you one more? Go on then. I am very grateful to the member for giving way. It seems convenient to the member that he is proud of his colleagues at Westminster in certain parts of this speech, but not proud of his colleagues in Westminster at the rest of it. Can he clarify? I am not quoting colleagues at Westminster, Mr Cole-Hamilton. I am quoting the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. I am quoting, in particular, the chief executive of disability rights UK, who agrees with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that we need practical, sensible and effective policies that help disabled people to be able to work if they can, enjoy family life and be part of the communities they live in, the same kinds of things that most people aspire to disabled or not. That is the end of the quotation. I want now to turn in my closing few seconds to DLA and PIP. The personal independence payment introduced in the welfare reform act 2012 is a non-means tested, non-taxable benefit, payable whether the claimant is in or out of work to help with the extra costs arising from ill health or disability. It consists of two components, a mobility component and a daily living component. Entitlement is determined by a fair objective assessment of individual need, to ensure that support is targeted on those individuals whose health condition or impairment has the greatest impact on their day-to-day lives. In comparison with DLA, PIP targets support more closely on those in need, is more responsive, as claimant circumstances change, is based on a fairer, more transparent and consistent assessment of need and is designed to be easier for claimants and their representatives to understand. After some widely acknowledged difficulties of implementation in its first years, which resulted in unacceptable delays in some cases, the Government has worked hard to reduce the backlog and, by the beginning of this year, the average clearance time for new PIP claims had fallen to 13 weeks and to six working days under the special rules for people with a terminal illness. What should the Scottish Government do when PIP is devolved? PIP is based on the right principle. It is a significant improvement over the old DLA. It is designed to provide more personalised support to claimants and to target that support where it is needed most. It ensures that the support we give is suited to the needs of the individual and that is a pretty good working definition, it seems to me, of dignity and respect. It is highly unlikely to be in the public interest for Scotland to go through yet another complex redesign of a system that is now starting to work well. I close with four questions for Scottish ministers that perhaps the minister winding up for the Government later on this afternoon could address. First, do they support our ambition to halve the disability employment gap? Second, when will they tell the Parliament what their proposed timetable is for the transfer of devolved welfare powers to Scotland? I wrote to the cabinet secretary a week ago about this matter, a letter that has not yet received acknowledgement, never mind response. Third, when powers over DLA and PIP are transferred, will the Scottish Government commit to maintaining the more targeted, responsive and consistent scheme that we see in PIP or are disabled people in Scotland going to face yet another costly social security reorganisation? Finally, what roles do ministers see local authorities and health boards playing in the administration of devolved social security for disabled people in Scotland? I call Mark Griffin to speak to him and move amendment in his name. The Government motion in front of us today, by a small but significant change, has the enthusiastic support of this side of the chamber. This Parliament will break new ground simply by setting the level of support for our carers. It will be unprecedented when we begin to take charge of the help provided to our disabled. It will be historic when a social security bill is debated and passed by members present here today. Groundbreaking, it is unprecedented and historic. Those will be at the forefront of the message to the public for the changes in the coming months and years. Three words—dignity, fairness and respect—have opened the door of the heroic possibilities that lie before us, but this is a time when politicians must tread carefully with our language. This is a time when we should and must be humbled by the challenge ahead of us, because it will be outcomes that matter. It will be substance on which we are judged. In seeking to amend the Government motion today, we seek to add substance and to move amendment in my name. It was an SNP manifesto commitment in 2015 and it is a position that the Scottish Labour Party supports. It is a simple amendment. It seeks to ensure that the financial assistance that we provide keeps pace with the cost of living. It starts a debate on the provision that we will make for those who need a little extra help. We begin by asking ourselves what kind of society we wish to see for our children and grandchildren and what support is required to help to create it. In this place, we have a majority that have campaigned and worked against cuts and mobility support. We have politicians of all stripes who have fought to build the work chances of our disabled and we have the drive that keeps us awake at night wondering how we can better help those who devote their lives to caring for our loved ones. I am grateful as a young man to those who have got us to where we are today. Those battles for recognition waged and won. Prejudices challenged and beaten back. Perceptions changed in our communities and workplaces. Expectations raised, met and exceeded. Rightly that expectation is building in our communities once again. Building in light of the challenges that are still faced by disabled people today. Challenges that campaigners are fighting against every day. Campaigners who I think will be watching closely how we approach those new powers. It is an expectation not just for those directly affected by the powers that we will hold, but for the country as a whole. An expectation of a system that does not tie up disabled people and carers in red tape. An expectation of a system that preserves people's independence and provides not just a safety net to allow them to survive, but a springboard to play a full part in society. An expectation of a system that moves beyond the idea of social protection and to a new dawn of social enhancement. An expectation of full social engagement, that is participating in education, employment, being able to volunteer to care for your kids and to simply enjoy and live your life. The sentiment of the Government motion today suggests that there is consensus to be found with those of us in the Labour movement and that leaves options for the minister who spoke so passionately this afternoon. I ask her to look back at the history of the Labour movement and social security, a movement that she knows well. So secure were the intellectual underpinnings of the welfare revolution. So self-evident are the cultural values of the movement that delivered it, and so enduring the settlement has been for half a century that I am proud to stand here a Labour member today. Thank you. I am pleased to advise the member that on behalf of the Government we do accept your amendment and indeed welcome it. Mark Griffin. Thank you, minister. I am grateful for that support. I know disabled people around the country will be even more grateful for that support. I think that that support will be needed to create the changes that we need. The choice is clear. She can look to those who have overseen the precipitous decline of Government help or those who seek to raise the bar still further. She can look to those who have marginalised our most vulnerable or those who seek to uplift them. She can look to those who restrict support for those facing challenges or those who seek to enhance it because we in the Labour movement have a long-standing belief that when the barriers block the path of the one, that path is blocked for all of us. That when one person is left behind we cannot advance together. If the Government decides to bring about meaningful change to build a system that will enhance the lives of our disabled citizens, that ensures that our carers are provided the support that they deserve, that reflects the language in the motion today of dignity, fairness and respect, she will have the support of that of the Labour movement. I say to colleagues right across the chamber that the future of social security requires us to work together, not with our eyes clouded by political grievance, but with our focus firmly fixed on the expectation of a nation, an expectation that reflects a society that we want to see, one based on dignity, fairness and respect. I think that there are times in this country where we, as individuals, are going about our own business and enjoying the opportunities that we have been blessed with. In this country, when it is political parties and activists, we campaign tirelessly on issues that we hold close to our hearts. Then there are times when we must come together, inspired by the dignity of the individual, united by a collective impulse to build and shape a shared future. We, in the Labour movement, believe that this is one of those times. We now move to open speeches of up to six minutes. I remind members that generally that means fewer than six minutes. I please call Gillian Martin to be followed by Jeremy Balfour. When the welfare powers that are coming to Scotland we have the opportunity not just to do things differently but to learn from the mistakes of the UK Government and how people in Scotland with disabilities are treated. I have spent the last week canvassing opinion from those who have disabilities in my constituency of Aberdeenshire East and those who care for them on the issues that they face living in a rural setting. I am very conscious of the fact that I have lived a life that has not had the type of challenges that they face. With a very low amount of MSPs in this chamber being disabled, it is incumbent on all of us to do the same every time we debate how to improve the lives of those who are. Even better, let each of us as parties look at what we can do to get more people with disabilities access to the public positions that we are in, then we can have first-hand experience as we debate those issues. Last week, we heard the Tory spokesperson on social security in this chamber lecturers on what he saw was the overuse of the word dignity when talking about welfare and disability. One thing is for sure to the people that I spoke to last week in preparation for this debate, dignity was not a word to be used with disdain. It was something that every one of them wanted and rightly deserve and something that has been sadly missing from their treatment by the UK's department of work and pensions. In the emails that I received from disabled constituents, the word dignity had taught billing alongside the word independence, and that was more keenly felt for those in areas that did not have the public communities that urban environments have. In the past, many of my constituents have had to travel for work capability assessments. Given where some may live, doing this independently is not an option, particularly where public transport is not as frequent or as suitable as it is in urban areas. Many rely on their carers to get them to where they need to go. This week, as has been mentioned, is carers week, and I made a point of visiting the young carers facility at Quarriers in the Inverury on Monday. During that visit, I spoke with some young carers and I was struck by their stories, which added another dimension to the issues that people with disabilities face. That of the impact on their children when a system is not sympathetic to a person's situation. A very substantial amount of adults with illness and disabilities are cared for by their children. When a disabled parent faces an appointment at a time or location that does not take into account the rural location in which they live, it impacts not just on them but on their children. As we have all seen, if a person misses or even slightly later an appointment under the UK system, sanctions have been swift and often impossible to overturn. In addition to this, when a young carer is involved, every assessment that must be attended could mean time off from school. Of course, those young people are not of driving age and must rely on public transport or assistance from a voluntary support group or a family friend. What we have the opportunity to do is to manage the welfare powers that come into this Government is to use 21st century technology to make lives easier for people with disabilities. A cessation of the unnecessary and often time consuming visits to an urban location for assessments would make a great deal of difference to people with disabilities in rural areas and their carers. As we tackle the connectivity issues around rural areas that are in this programme for government, let us also consider how we serve the disabled in rural locations for whom travel is an issue. Let us consider how we use technology to help young carers to manage their responsibilities. As a final point, reaching across to the portfolio of education and the subject of reducing the attainment gap, which is a key priority of this Government, what we do in terms of support for young carers at a welfare level can also support their achievements at school and progression into post-school education. Getting welfare right can make the difference between rural young carers accessing their right to further and higher education and making the onward journey to contributing to Scotland's economy. To this end, it is not only right that young carers do not lose their allowances if they access further and higher education as they did under the UK system, even if that was full-time distance learning like the Open University. We have the opportunity to make our disabled citizens and the families who care for them not only reach their potential but to live a life that is supported and not made more difficult by a system along the lines of the UK one that they have been subjected to in the past. I hope that, before long, all welfare powers are devolved to this place, so that we can take full responsibility and have fairness across the board. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is a great honour to be elected to this Parliament. It is even a great honour to be elected to represent the area that I was born in and have spent most of my life in. Llofiens is a great place to live, work, play and study, but the region faces challenges ahead and I will seek to represent and lobby on behalf of all my constituents who have put me here for this five-year term. Ruth Davidson and the Conservatives appealed to a wide audience during the last campaign. The constituency that I fought was North Midlory and Musselborough and we saw the Conservative vote go up by 9 per cent in that area. Many people that I spoke to as I went door-to-door said to me that they were voting Conservative for the first time because they were simply disillusioned with Labour and they wanted to hold this Government to account. That is what I and my colleagues will do over the next five years. Can I thank a number of people—previous members, Gavin Brown and Cameron Buchanan—and also to put on record my gratitude to David McClecksey, who sadly passed away during my last term. I was in politics from my university days and David was a model and a role model on how you should conduct yourself. I want to thank my family for their support and also put on record my thanks to NHS Llorian. During the campaign, I sadly got a heart problem and ended up spending six days in the Royal Infirmary, where I had superb care and I thank them and all who helped me through that period. Finally, I thank the staff here for the welcome and the way that they have made us all feel as new members. I was told when I entered this place that I would have to make difficult decisions and sometimes compromise. I did not understand what would happen so early on in my time as an MSP. Only six days after being elected, Hibs won the cup. On Monday, somebody put down a motion asking us to congratulate Hibs for winning the cup. As a long-life supporter of hearts, I both had a difficult decision and a compromise as I signed that motion. If I may now turn to the debate this afternoon, I fully support the amendment that was put down by my colleague. I should declare two interests at this stage. For 22 years, up until the fifth of May, I worked as a disabled member on tribunals that heard DLA and PIP cases, and, secondly, I am personally in receipt of PIP and previously DLA. I am pleased that those powers have been devolved to this Parliament, and I hope that the Scottish Government will take those powers on as soon as possible so that we can hold them accountable and then move on from where we are. The danger is that we keep looking back and blaming others. The powers are there, let's take them and move forward. As we move forward, let's not just change for change's sake. Clearly, PIP wars are changed for many people. Reassessment, tribunals, filling out forms, and to unsettle them with yet more change for the sake of it would be unhelpful for them and their families. So, yes, where autoacid and changes need to take place, let's do that, but let's make sure that we don't throw the baby out with a bath water. Can I concentrate just very briefly on two areas of PIP? I think that it has bedded down and is working well. I think that the majority of people are better off than they were under DLA. The beauty of PIP is that it focuses not on a diagnosis but on a disability, and it focuses on what individuals need and how that can be met. There are two areas that we need to look at going forward. Certain disabilities, because of their nature, seem to be struggling to get the new PIP. An example of that is people who have epilepsy, which is uncontrolled and can have a devastating effect on people's lives. Because of a 50 per cent rule, sometimes they miss out, and I think that it would be worth the Government and the Parliament looking at that afresh. The second area is in regard to appliances and how we define what an appliance is. I don't know how many of you put your socks or tights on by sitting on the bed this morning. Under the interpretation by the upper tribunals cases, that would be seen as an aid and an appliance, and that seems to me a far too broad term and not what people expected. I think that we need to look at terms. Finally, we all agree that we need disability benefits, but they should be focused on the individual, and they should always be there to help that person and their family to be all that they can be and flourish and experience life as much as possible and not as sometimes benefits are seen as to hold you back and not allow you to be the person that you are meant to be. I call now Bob Doris to be followed by Johann Lamont. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. In terms of speaking this debate in relation to dignity and respect for those on disability benefits, I actually want to refer to a constituent of mine who came along to the Postal Park library when I hold a parliamentary advice surgery just last Saturday. I would like to thank her for her permission to use her story and to illustrate just why it is so vital that as many welfare and social security powers sit in our Scottish Parliament and we have to do far better than a UK Tory Government who have demonised and victimised some of our most vulnerable citizens. My constituent received contaminated blood in 1977 during a surgical procedure. However, that did not come to light until the year 2000, when my constituent was diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C and cirrhosis of the liver. That has a significant impact on her health, and she will not recover. However, ATOS and the DWP continue to insist that she is repeatedly reassessed. My constituent was a victim when she received contaminated blood. She felt stigmatised when her diagnosis was confirmed, and now she feels targeted and victimised once more each and every time she's required to be reassessed for DLA. My constituent won't recover, I've already said. She won't get better, and she's campaigned for answers and justice on a variety of issues understandably for many years. Why has the UK Government continued to require repeated reassessments? There's no way to turn the clock back to pre-1977 when she was a victim of contaminated blood. Thank heavens that our Scottish Government has signalled a different way of treating some of our most vulnerable citizens. I look forward to the use of longer-term awards and, indeed, lifetime awards in certain circumstances for DLA and PIP, for some of our most vulnerable citizens, for my constituent that I met in Pulsopart library in Saturday. Doing that, minister, can I ask that specific consideration is therefore given to those who find themselves in my constituent's circumstances? Not just for their physical wellbeing, but for their emotional wellbeing, feeling repeatedly victimised and traumatised every single time a reassessment is required. For the purposes of time constraints, I won't mention her recent experience with Atos, which was why she was at my surgery. I found out the overall story, but it is needless to say that organisation has never been fit for purpose and there continues to be significant problems there. I would like to turn now to a local organisation within my Mary Helen Springburn constituency called North Kelvin Sports. It is a wonderful organisation that runs nine young people's football teams across the constituency and provides an amazing social benefit. Those are a variety of courses in relation to tackling sectarianism issues and a variety of other social issues within North Glasgow and beyond. It was funded by awards for all, and it hopes to encourage inactive individuals, particularly to encourage those who have been released from prison, those who are recovering from addiction and those who are long-term unemployed, targeting in a positive way, if you like ESA claimants. Jobcentre Plus locally was also very enthusiastic. It was trying to develop a real partnership approach. I have to say that the off-the-bench initiative was not successful. The main barrier was the poor uptake of volunteers to go and participate on that course, because many of them were terrified that participation in the off-the-bench course would be used as a trojan horse to withdraw their benefits. There was an example of good, honest decent people within Jobcentre Plus at a local level trying to work in partnership with a community organisation, but the system just would not allow it. I mention that because we will not have powers over that in this Parliament when the limited powers come here. Only 15 per cent of all social security and welfare payments will come to this place. That is not the limit of my ambition. We have to transform the lives, not just of that lady who was at the Postal Park Library, where we will get the powers to help her. We have to get the powers to this Parliament to transform the lives of the people who could have benefited from that off-the-bench course in a productive way, but the system just did not allow it because the UK system just is not flexible enough to allow it. I want to say one final thing on a more personalised level. Some of you will know in this place that I lost my father on election day. He passed away on election day. He claimed disability benefits for a significant part of his life. However, when I was younger, one of the main concerns that I had was that my father was sometimes worried to be well, because the system just did not support you if you thought that you might be able to do a little bit more. As soon as the UK Government or DWP gets a whiff that you might be able to do a little bit more, with a fluctuating health condition you could embed all the next day when you try to do a little bit more. It sanctions you, it withdraws your benefit and it dehumanises you and it is not fit for purpose. I am glad that some of the limited powers are coming to this Parliament and I have no doubt that the Scottish Government will do just the right thing. I now call Johann Lamont to be followed by Alison Johnstone. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is fitting that it is in carers week that we are continuing this debate about how we ensure that there is dignity and respect in our welfare system. Carers, in particular, have punched well above the weight in this Parliament since it was created. I think that now we have to make again a commitment that we give them more than worn words in return, that our decisions will make a difference to their lives rather than simply being a question of us sharing their pain. I know that respect and care for carers is felt right across the Parliament but I think that it is a particular challenge that we should rise to over the next period. I think that we should thank disability groups for their energy and that they deserve to then, as a consequence, shape political debate, policy and, critically, the spending choices in this Parliament. I want to thank Inclusion Scotland, Glasgow Disability Alliance, Disability Agenda Scotland, all of whom, and more, were active during the election campaign in ensuring that the issues of people with disabilities were highlighted. Listening to campaigning groups is not just for the election trail, but it should be at the centre and focus of what we do now with the powers that we have. I have to say that much of the debate on social security and the impact of welfare changes has been profoundly damaged by the facile and cruel division of our population into workers and shirkers by people whose education and income should have meant a great deal better analysis. It is a corrosive characterisation of our society and one that damages and stigmatises and denies the reality of inequality and injustice faced by all too many disabled people, not just in Scotland but right across the United Kingdom. It is right to ensure that people who cannot work are treated with dignity and respect and are supported to live as fulfilled a life as possible. That is part of being a decent society. I want to pay my full part—I know that my party does too—in developing and funding those supports rather than people having to fight for them throughout their lives. It is an on-going feature of the lives of disabled people and their carers, not just that their entitlements are minimal but even those entitlements have to be fought for against a system that seems to want to deny them. Given that over 50 per cent of welfare reform falls on the shoulders of disabled people, it is understandable that much of the debate that we are having is about the benefits system. However, there is a danger—not intended by any of us—that, in that debate and focusing on benefits, we reinforce a model of helplessness and hopelessness of disabled people. Denying the people, as Bob Doris had said, the opportunity to do a little better because they will suffer for it. All that we can do to help disabled people is to talk about benefits. My party has always sought to be the party of full employment. I am old enough to remember that my mother's generation fought for the right to work because of the independence that it brought. It is right that people with disabilities should have the right to work too. We have to challenge the massive injustice to people with disabilities. They are to deny the right to work where they can to achieve their potential and fulfil their ambition. The statistics are stark. Young disabled people are up to three times more likely than their non-disabled peers, not to be in education, employment or training. Disabled people are more than twice as likely as non-disabled people to have no qualifications. Less than half of working-age disabled are in employment, compared with 80 per cent of non-disabled people. That is the greater scandal at our hand. We build barriers against employment of disabled people and then denounce and punish them for not working. That is shameful. That is an issue of equality and fairness, but it is also an economic issue. It is my contention therefore that social security and the debate around that has to be seen not just in investment in benefits, which it must be, but it should include investment in action to overcome the barriers faced by people with disabilities. I believe that the challenge for the Government is to ensure that it mainstream its thinking on benefits and the needs of disabled people into their employment strategies, too. It cannot be right that, in 2012-2013, according to Inclusion Scotland, just 63 out of 25,691 modern apprenticeships went to young disabled people. When we talk about the question of fairness and dignity, it has to be about employment opportunity. What is the Government going to do in its business pledge to expect employers to provide opportunities for people with disabilities? In public procurement, are we asking that those who seek the benefits of the public purse to provide more employment opportunities for people with disabilities? We know that the Scottish Government policy is that every public body should have at least one contract with a supported business, and I would welcome an update on that. However, can we do more in ensuring that the reservation of contracts creates further opportunities for people with disabilities? What is our thinking about employment and skills to recognise the barriers of people with disabilities? What are we doing around stigma? What are we saying about the whole question of social care? I must underline to the Government the importance of the funding of voted government in this regard. Small bits of money make it possible for people to secure and maintain their work. That is not the minimal impact of a Government choice, but it can be the difference between a fulfilled life and one not fulfilled by too many in our communities. In conclusion, fundamentally, the question that we have to address, we have powers not them all, how do we use them and how do we focus them? How can we increase resources by a fairer taxation system, or, if not that, a fairer redistribution of what resources exist? I am sure that there are many across the chamber who will agree with me. That is not special pleading for us to do a favour to people with disabilities, but it is to provide them with a level playing field. I will let a field that currently is tipped very much against them. I look forward to working with the Government in ensuring that it is thinking not just on benefits, but the rights of disabled people's employment will be at the centre of the work that they do. With a range of new powers being devolved by the new Scotland act, this session of Parliament has the potential to be the most transformative since the first, back in 1999. In particular, the transfer of power over some aspects of social security can enable us to give everyone in Scotland the basic security that we all deserve. It could not come a moment too soon. Those of us at last night's Scottish campaign on welfare reform meeting heard from Ryan, who told us that disabled people were three times as likely to be sanctioned as they were to be found a job. That is why a recent DWP-backed project found that every £3 cup from benefits reduces the likelihood of participants returning to work by 2 per cent. Recent years have seen an unprecedented attack on the support that is relied on by those who need help most. The centre for welfare reform estimates that disabled people had almost 30 per cent of the cuts targeted upon them between 2010 and 2015, and the figures for the most severely disabled are even worse. A wealth of research into cuts to disability benefits has shown that the recent changes have made it less, not more likely, that claimants will get into work. The current benefits system not only lacks the financial support that people need, but people feel lost and powerless in a system that sometimes seems determined to defeat them. It is not a supportive system, it sometimes feels like an ordeal. Too many people face appeals that drag on for months, their files are lost, they are not able to speak to anyone with the power to help them. We know that that causes a huge amount of stress to claimants, and it can leave them to without the basics of life. The trust-al-trust estimate that benefit delays and changes, many of them avoidable errors in benefits delivery, comprise 44 per cent of all referrals to food banks. We must do better, and with the new powers of the Parliament we can do better. Scottish Greens believe that now is the time to radically re-found the benefits system in Scotland, to begin the necessary culture change, and those new powers offer us a chance to chart a different course to that pursued by Westminster. We can have a social security system that does just that, provides security, but not just security of income but a set of clear, defined rights that people in need can rely on and not feel they are subject to the whims of the benefit authorities. That is why my amendment, which was not selected today, asks Parliament to recognise that rights, as well as respect and dignity, should be at the core of social security. I would like to move on to how we can use the new powers to help Scotland's young carers in particular. We all agree that unpaid care work is a hugely valuable contribution to our society. Three out of five of us will become carers at some stage in our lives, and one in ten of us is already fulfilling some sort of caring role. There are, as we have heard, around 745,000 carers in Scotland, and 44,000 of those are young carers under the age of 16, with some studies putting the figures as high as 100,000, one in 10 of the school-age population. Gillian Martin was right to point out that supporting those young people is an important part of closing the attainment gap. Unpaid care in Scotland has an estimated total value of £10.3 billion, and that means that, even at a conservative estimate, young carers provide free care worth over £600 million a year. Carers of all ages face huge challenges. A third are struggling to pay utility bills—47 per cent have been in debt, half are struggling to make ends meet—cutting back on food and heating as a result. However, young carers face additional challenges. Most are caring for someone with a physical health problem, but they are often also giving emotional as well as practical and personal care. One in 10 are caring for more than one person, and around 50 per cent are caring for more than 10 hours. All of that is at age 12, the average age for a young carer. Clearly, carers of all ages and young carers in particular both need and deserve better support. Now that we have the opportunity, the new Scotland act devolves power over carers allowance, so we can now use the benefit system to show that we value unpaid care. I was proud to stand on a manifesto that put recognising and valuing care work front and centre. We called for a significant increase in the carers allowance to £93.15 a week, and also echoing a call made by members of the Scottish youth Parliament in a petition to Parliament three years ago for a young carers grant to recognise the care work that so many young carers, young people do every day. MYSP Lauren King spoke about the difficulty that young carers have in accessing financial support due in part to the fact that carers under the age of 16 cannot access carers allowance. Scottish Greens welcome the progress that the Scottish Government has made by getting it right for a young carers strategy, but let's act now to make sure that young carers are further protected from poverty. I was pleased to hear the Government pick up on our green manifesto commitment to young carers allowance and I welcomed the minister's positive and supportive words this afternoon, and I'd warmly welcomed the opportunity to work with the minister and the Government on developing this. This Parliament is now presented with both the chance and the imperative to create a new, fairer, empowering and rights-based social security system to reduce the increasingly unfair and dysfunctional system that has resulted from Westminster welfare reforms. The Scottish Greens welcome the moves towards this that the Scottish Government has made so far, and we look forward to working across the chamber to achieve this vision. Finally, young Ryan, who spoke so eloquently at last night's meeting, said that the Scottish Parliament has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to design disability benefits that work. Let's not waste it. I agree wholeheartedly with him. Can I remind members that, when people take over their allotted time, it penalises their colleagues? So can I have some brevity from now on, please? Sandra White, followed by Liam Kerr. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I welcome the minister to her new role and new post, and I'm sure that she'll enjoy the post very much. As a member of the new social security committee, I look forward to working along with the minister and the cabinet secretary. I want to start off with a quote from Sam H. The first thing that Sam H says is the problem. The problem is that the current social security system is absolutely failing people with mental health problems. They cite from their research that 98 per cent of respondents from mental health has suffered due to welfare reform. 79 per cent of service users had reduced income. 48 per cent of service users were less able to pursue leisure and social activities and really startling in very horrific. Of all, six suicide interventions were undertaken during the period of the research that Sam H made into welfare cuts. Absolutely astounding. We should all be ashamed that something of that happened on anybody's watch hours or anyone else. If I could turn to the Scottish Government in motion, and in particular the commitment to involve carers, disabled groups and representatives of those groups in the development of the Scottish benefit system, I really believe that that is tremendously important. Alison Johnstone mentioned the meeting last night. That came across last night that people were not being involved, things were not being transparent enough, and they did not know what the next step was. I think that that is a really important aspect of the new system that is coming to the Scottish Parliament. It really goes to the heart of any decisions that will have an impact, as we all know, on the daily lives of the people who access benefits as well. As the motion states, dignity, fairness and respect goes to the very heart of what we are doing here in this Parliament and the social security system and commitment that we make to the people of Scotland in this Parliament. If a recollection is right or correct, I believe that this recommendation is also one of the Christie commission's recommendations, which we have also adopted. That is very important. Certainly from my experience of constituency cases, I am sure that it is the same from everyone here. Benefits, cuts and benefits, PIP, personal independent payments, have been raised more and more with myself. When you go out to visit constituents, I was at Flourish House last Monday, PIP was raised on numerous occasions. Basically, people were presenting themselves to be told that they no longer were able to access or meet the criteria for any payments. The work that is being done by agencies to help people with mental health problems to recover or even appear to lead a normal life was absolutely cut back by the fact that they appear at these panels and they are told during the assessment that they do not meet the criteria and therefore everything is fine. That has a devastating effect on those people and the agencies that work with them, particularly in Flourish House, who I met a number of them, all the good work that they have done sends them back. As I mentioned with Sam H, other problems have come forward with that in particular as well. The valuable work that they carry out with people with disabilities and mental health problems is stopped by what happens when they go to these panels. That is why it is very important that we are looking at the assessment procedures, which will be reformed to stop the revolving door of assessments and appeals, which directly contributes to increasing stress and anxiety. Amongst people who are left in limbo and do not know where else to go, the introduction that Bob Doris mentioned is a long-term award for existing long-term conditions. That is another policy that I am very welcome. I hope that all parties, regardless of the politics in the chamber, would support those proposals. I note that the Scottish Conservatives have put in their amendment about working collaboratively with other parties. I would like to point out to Mr Tomkins that I appreciate that, but it would also be more helpful if the truth was told that the cuts are coming from the Conservative party in Westminster. I would appeal or urge the Scottish Conservatives in this Parliament to speak to the Tory Government in Westminster that no more cuts are forthcoming for anyone, not just in Scotland but throughout the United Kingdom. People have had enough, and the stats that I said about people attempting to commit suicide are shameful. I would hope that they would take up that as a genuine offer to speak to their counterparts. I see them running out of time, Presiding Officer. I would like to finish with a quote from Enable, which shows that we really need to do something, and we will, in the Scottish Parliament. The first quote is, Claiming DLA is difficult, the forms are horrendous and it is upsetting having to justify every bit of support that your child needs and having to write in minute detail exactly what is wrong with your child. Another quote from the local authority came in to fill in the DLA form. She was very insensitive and had it in me, and she said, just take these boxes. Those are the things that we have to make sure does not happen in the Scottish social security system. We owe that to the people, and we are sure that if we all work together, we will be able to make sure and ensure that that does happen. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Liam Kerr, followed by George Adam. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. There are three contributions that I wish to make in support of our amendment to this motion. The first is a caution. This is an important debate. Powers will be devolved to this legislature, which give unprecedented ability to provide disability benefits in particular. In receiving these powers, I echo Sandra White's point, we have an opportunity to look forward to work collaboratively using the best abilities of all parties to ensure fairness to all stakeholders, but this can only be achieved if we ensure that none of us falls into the basic error of demonising, to use Mr Doris's word, any of the contributors to this debate or the wider ongoing discussions. It would be very easy in a debate such as this to constantly hark back in particular to Westminster policies—evil Tories—but to do so would be as unconstructive as it would be unproductive. I say to Jeane Freeman. Sandra White, I thank the member for taking intervention. I do not think that I mentioned demonising anyone, but what would I ask? Do you actually think that what happened from Westminster in cutting the monies to disability claimants was the right thing to do? Liam Kerr? It has gone up, is my understanding, and we have devolved it. If you allow me to develop the point, Sandra White will allow me to develop the point, then she will hear some more on that. I was encouraged to hear Jeane Freeman at the outset talking about listening and acting on good ideas wherever they come from. Let's not alienate anyone without reason on this. If Scotland chooses to take a different path to that of the rest of the UK, that will be its prerogative. Let's look forward and decide what is that best path without unedifying attacks that do not do anything to move the debate forward. Johann Lamont? When I recognise the responsibility of this chamber to take the powers that exist and to do the very best to build consensus, would you agree with me that some of your colleagues who defined this debate as being between shirkers and workers was profoundly unhelpful and it should be language that would be left elsewhere? Liam Kerr? Nobody has used those terms in this chamber from these benches. What I would say to Johann Lamont is that this is a new term, this is a new election, and these are new people. We come at it with our own. I'm afraid I just can't. I've taken two and I have six minutes. Let's look at what underpins the amendment proposed from these benches. The implementation of a disability benefit system for the vulnerable, the distressed, the disabled, which is empowering, facilitates participation and which recognises everyone's contribution and value to society is one which we can all support. We can all agree that any social security system should provide a safety net with the ultimate ethos to use citizens advice Scotland's wording of a more equally and socially just society, which in practice I would suggest means enabling those who require disability benefits to achieve an appropriate standard of living whilst promoting independence, participation and equality. Clearly Scotland cannot simply offer benefits to anyone that demands them and if we accept that as a premise then it also has to be accepted that there is a line to be drawn beyond which people do not have an entitlement on one side of the line a person is in the category disabled and will receive benefits on the other they are not in the category and do not defining that line will be one of the great challenges and it is a line which must be very carefully drawn and only done after objective reason scrutiny and investigation and if you are with me that there has to be a line then you must also agree that it's vital that appropriate experts make the assessment of which side of that line an individual falls and that they use objective clear unambiguous criteria applied in a manner that fully respects the individuals involved and ensures all stakeholders including those being assessed have confidence in the system and we should not be restricted in deciding who and from which professions are best placed to make that assessment or the process involved in doing it now some in this chamber have made clear they feel the UK government system is too harsh or makes inappropriate judgments and I do not challenge the strengths of their feeling but we have an opportunity to design a system that is bespoke to Scotland and simply pointing at the UK government and saying you've got it wrong will do nothing to advance this opportunity quite the contrary whatever this chamber's view of the UK government system there are lessons to be learned as Adam Tomkins said at the outset Jeremy Balfour supported and I note the child poverty action group have accepted the personal independence payment is based on the right principles improved on a disability living allowance system and provides support more geared to the needs of the individual it is unlikely to be in the public interest for Scotland to go through a comprehensive redesign of the system for political expediency that will be the task of this Parliament to draw the line appropriately following objective debate and selecting appropriate experts which leads to my final point there is a fundamental risk of category error in any debate such as this in so far as it is very easy to categorise a group as the disabled and leave it at that what our amendment makes clear is that the category person in receipt of disability benefits is not fixed nor is membership of that category an ending itself with the person remaining in that group or being ascribed other characteristics automatically a disability and or being in receipt of a disability benefit is not and should not be a barrier to work many people in receipt of disability benefits cannot work and must not be stigmatised or suffer any prejudice for that reality but many can want to and need our support to get into work the amendment could you close now please in conclusion we look forward to the powers over disability benefit coming to this Parliament and this party will play its part in designing a system that is targeted appropriate and fair you really must close now Mr care George Adam followed by Alex Cole-Hamerton thank you very much Presiding Officer I take on board much of what all the members in the chamber have taken on today and I take on board the contories are wanting to talk about how we can deal with the powers that we now have but they can't get away from the fact no matter how you try to dress it up the heartache that has been caused in communities throughout Scotland with their so-called welfare reforms you cannot just say this is day one this is the new beginning you have to take responsibility for some of the things that the Tories have done gladly mr Tomkin well will the member accept that disability living allowance and PIP have gone up every year since the Conservatives that became the government in 2010 George Adam what I will accept mr Tomkin is the fact that you have put heartache families through disabilities said tests to make sure that they actually have to prove how disabled they are you've had people who have not assessed their actual condition and have failed their PIP and 80% in appeal end up getting it anyway you've made an absolute first of the situation so you can't dress it up and try and kid on that you are the good guys in this whole scenario the fact that respect for individuals is at the very heart of everything the Scottish Government intends to do with disability benefits will be a welcome change to many of the people and families living with disabilities currently the Westminster Tory government has treated disabled people with no respect offering them no dignity and making them feel that their disability is their fault whether it be the attacks by the Westminster conserved to government on their benefits the very money that is keeping them and their families giving them the opportunity to get by many members will be aware I work with remture access panel and I'm the patron of the Scottish disability quality forum and through this work I've seen the heartache and devastation caused by the Tory administration in Westminster it is only right that this Scottish government challenges itself with treating disabled people with dignity and respect as this is carers week I should declare a interest as a carer many of you will know how I stay sane and I am her primary carer although she's done not a bad job in the past 20 years keeping me in the straight and narrow but today is our wedding anniversary and I'd like to use our 20th wedding anniversary and I'd like to use our example of dealing with multiple sclerosis and the challenges that's had I've seen how a disability can affect someone in their life from a young woman walking down the aisle 20 years ago to now if she probably did that Mr Tomkins should probably fail her pip assessment which would probably ensure that which also to say a woman now who has to adapt how she lives her life to deal with her disability now Scotland is full of these stories families struggling to deal with lives many challenges with the added disadvantage of also dealing with lifelong conditions when we work with these families in their time of need we need to ensure that the state does not become one of their extra problems that is what exactly is happening at the moment with the so-called Tory welfare reform presiding officer the conservative double talk for making the poor and disabled is actually a case of just actually making them poorer and less able at this point presiding officer I'd like to talk about take this opportunity to discuss two elements of the debate that are extremely important to me the role of carers and living with long-term conditions as I've stated previously Stacy I am Stacy's primary carer but I'm lucky I'm lucky enough to have the support of a family who can actually make sure that I can go out and try and achieve everything for our own family but others don't have that opportunity others don't have that support and we need to ensure as a government that we can offer that type of support for carers and make sure that they get that support and opportunity to be able to do that many carers can't work many carers can't work the sole earners they are the sole earners but they can't work because they have so much to do with their caring work as well so an MS is obviously a condition that I have to live with and when I say I have to live with it I have to live with Stacy dealing with MS and she supports me and her family supports us to make sure that we can deal with her but the MS Society in Scotland recently asked us all to make welfare make sense and that's not a strange request because when you look at the current system it does not help long-term conditions like multiple sclerosis we need to find a way to ensure that we can make that easier and one of the things that they came up was with the welfare system in Scotland must must not threaten the financial security of people affected by MS through unmanageable assessment process and short-term awards but instead show how greater understanding of the complexity of their condition we must take into account the conditions that individuals have and what they have to deal with in that case as well and the key findings of a recent MS Scotland survey found that most people who are diagnosed with MS happens between 20 and 30 years old key years working life key years in your educational life 80% of them with MS end up not working within 15 years of actually being diagnosed that shows you the challenges that we have with many other long-term conditions and it's good that the Scottish Government continues to talk about respect and dignity during this debate but as someone once said let's not don't count the days let's make the days count let's make sure we get this right and support families throughout Scotland who are having to deal with long-term conditions and disabilities Following the next speech open contributions must be restricted to five minutes I'm sorry about that Mr Cole-Hamilton you have six minutes followed by Marie Todd sorry Mr Cole-Hamilton That's quite all right thank you Presiding Officer during my first speech to this chamber I talked during the Europe debate about my delight at the consensus forged across the benches and across the parties on that particular issue and today I rise to deliver a speech in such a vein throughout the election campaign the liberal democrats fought on common ground with both the government benches the Labour party and the greens on the need to improve the lives and the quality of support available to families affected by disability in this country so I am delighted that the government have brought this motion before the chamber today we will be supporting it as we will be supporting the Labour amendment we meet at the height of carers week and many people have rightly made reference to that and it is right that they should do so because the army of carers that we rely on in our society are the unsung heroes of the care sector without their support without the love that we arguably as a country exploit then the cost to the care sector would be doubled many many times over they are in many cases just one late night hospital dash away from surrender but because they love their families they keep going and they keep going and I think that I would like to make special reference as it has been done so by other members today to the needs of young carers because we often forget that young carers are more than just young carers they're children they're young people as well they care for a sibling or a parent who have profound disabilities but they still have to sit exams they still have to have a meaningful childhood and it is incumbent among us and our the powers that we now have at our disposal to ensure that they have as normal and as happy a childhood as possible. Public policy is a vehicle through which we can extend help and comfort not just to those affected by disability but by those people around them so my remarks will focus on both of those groups in the time I have and I want to speak to three particular things firstly getting help at the point of need secondly ensuring that our society is geared up and that we remove any systemic or bureaucratic barriers whenever we find them and finally to ensure that political rhetoric is matched by reality now in many cases disability as we know is first manifest in early childhood or infancy and detected then as well it's often a terrible and life-changing moment for families when they realise that they will be forever affected by this particular disability but detection is not always immediate and it is not always visible and I spoke in the Ferris Scotland case debate of the case of my constituent who has been fighting for the best part of a year for her daughter to get a diagnosis on the autistic spectrum in terms of the waiting list that she has had to contend with for child and adolescent mental health having that barrier is an immediate problem in terms of getting people to the starting line of state support and again whilst we can all agree on what a dignified and holy humane system of Scottish social security should look like we absolutely need to look at the peripheral barriers that stop people getting to those starting lines in the first place diagnosis is not the only barrier to getting people state support awareness is a big problem as well when I was working for children's charity which specialises in delivering service for families affected by disability I met a family who got a diagnosis at birth about a lifelong condition their daughter would have to contend with it was only at the two-year check-up of their daughter when they met a family whose child had a similar condition that they were made aware that they were entitled to any form of state support or assistance this is a profoundly disabled child we have to do better at making sure that families have an awareness of the support available to them but as we've heard there are many barriers and traps to people once they do get support and throughout their lives in modern Scotland they have to face tests sanctions and undignified and unfair testing regimes we must form a progressive alliance across this chamber to unpick and dismantle these and I congratulate the Government for the work that it did just immediately prior to the Scottish elections in terms of ending the manifestly unfair removal of the disability living allowance for children who went into hospital for protracted hospital stays there was an assumption there that because your child is in hospital you no longer have caring responsibility for them when ask any carer just how manifestly untrue that absolutely is and then finally we need to talk about political rhetoric and how we marry that up with the actions that we as political classes take the talk is often cheap in this area and those affected it is action that absolutely matters most we can look right across the history of devolution to the fact that there are still people today fighting for justice after the contaminated blood disaster and recognition of the challenges that they still face I think we are finally reaching a marriage between political rhetoric and reality there but there is still a long way to go in 2008 the Scottish government didn't try to okay my apologies in 2008 the UK government came up with a strategy for children with disabilities aiming high for children with disabilities and that was met with 36 million pound Barnett consequential that came north yet still we are waiting for a strategy for children with disabilities and indeed we need to make sure our local authorities are delivering on their political realities in terms of the single outcome agreements they set and so seldomly reference the needs of people with disabilities so finally I am grateful to colleagues from across this chamber for the respect they've shown each other because we do everyone a disservice that is affected by disability and I applaud the government for bringing forward this motion you can rest assured that the Liberal Democrats will support it thank you the call Marie Todd to be followed by Elaine Smith thank you very much Presiding Officer for the past 20 years I've worked as a clinical pharmacist specialising in psychiatry mental health is the leading cause of chronic illness and it represents up to 23% of all ill health in the UK it's the largest single cause of disability mental health problems often affect people of working age and they're really common we've heard before in this chamber that one in every four of us will suffer a diagnosable condition one of the reasons that I came into politics is because I witnessed on a daily basis the unfair effect the welfare system was having on the patients I was working with medication can really help some of these illnesses but no medication can overcome the effect of poverty or isolation I've seen first hand the effect of the Westminster attitude to welfare I've seen a patient with treatment resistance schizophrenia wrongly declared fit to work and consequently losing her benefits I watched her try to cope with the threat of homelessness and the stress of the appeal process and I watched her illness deteriorate to the point that she needed to be admitted to hospital for several months it's a barbaric way to treat our most vulnerable citizens and and let me tell you it's expensive inpatient care in a psychiatric hospital costs nearly three thousand pounds a week that is truly a false economy I have also worked with people who have attempted suicide because they lost all hope after losing their benefits any one of us here in this chamber would struggle to remain healthy if we felt we were the victim of blind economic forces beyond our control or if we felt that we had no say in shaping or determining our destinies many people with mental health problems can work and want to work we need to support them to work where they are able however the current welfare system does not do this it's mistrusted it causes anxiety and it lacks sufficient flexibility to measure the impact of mental health conditions on a person's ability to sustain employment this isn't just my opinion there's now a substantial body of evidence which demonstrates that the welfare reforms introduced by the coalition government let me say in Westminster were not fit for purpose for people experiencing mental health problems the royal college of psychiatrists the samaritans and samhach along with many others have all raised concerns the devolution of parts of the social security system provides an excellent opportunity for us to redefine the narrative around what we want the system to achieve we have to be clear that it should be about empowering citizens facilitating participation and recognising everyone's contribution and value to society so what needs to change the people undertaking assessments of an individual's ability to work have to have an adequate knowledge and understanding about mental health we have to acknowledge that stress and anxiety are having an adverse effect on the mental health of those being assessed and reassessed and then reassessed again many people are being refused payments or are having their benefits cut or withdrawn only to have them reinstated on appeal we have to make the system work more effectively and we have to remove the fear factor the patients that I worked with suffered a double stigma firstly from having a mental health problem and secondly from being on benefits we need a system of social security that doesn't stigmatise people or punish people who receive benefits the assessment of an individual's ability to work has to be based on the person's day to day abilities and not on an isolated instance one of the main criticisms of the current system is the lack of sensitivity to illnesses which vary in severity from day to day or week to week we have to recognise that for some individuals with chronic illnesses where there's much less chance of a significant sustained improvement or even an ability to live independently repeat assessments are unnecessary let's look at the evidence let's work with the service users and let's work with the professionals who work with them too to design much more effective policies and services by working together we can make sure we design a system which is better equipped to meet people's needs the Scottish Government has a proven track record of taking action to protect the vulnerable through our commitment to universal services sorry can I ask the member to wind up very quickly establishment of the Scottish welfare fund and ensuring no-one in Scotland is impacted by the bedroom tax with dignity fairness no must stop you there sorry we're very tight for time so Colleen Smith we're followed by Morris Corrie mrsmith thank you president officer and can I welcome the minister to her role in November 1942 the beverage report was presented by its author Sir William Beverage to the British Parliament it provided a summary of principles necessary to banish poverty and want from Britain and it proposed a system of social security which would be operated by the state in 1945 Clement Atley's Labour government announced the introduction of the welfare state as contained in that report and this included the establishment of an NHS in 1948 with free medical treatment for all at the point of need and a national system of benefits was also introduced to provide social security so that the population would be protected from the cradle to the grave this then was the foundation of the modern welfare state and those of us in the Labour party are very proud of that as the minister said in her opening I hope that we can have a Scottish social security system that we're also proud of because I can't imagine that Clem Atley and I Bevin founder of the NHS would have considered it some 70 years after their system to make people socially secure we would have to debate dignity fairness and respect and disability benefits however it's obvious that we do cuts to disability benefits are unfair as pointed out in the government's motion and they cause stress and financial hardship which is a major impact on health and wellbeing and researching her book Kelly Garthwy worked in the food bank and she found that the impact of welfare reform was a major reason for people using food banks along with issues like ill health and caring responsibilities and redundancy and she gives an example of a food bank user Martin who shows how undignified people can feel on benefits and having to rely on food banks he'd no electricity so he couldn't afford to feed the meter because he couldn't afford to feed the meter so he was given a box of cold foods and when he was asked if he wanted tinned fish he said salmon on benefits don't let the government hear you're giving out luxuries like that Kelly points out how this shows the ingrained stigmatisation of people using food banks another example was a woman sally who has ME fibromyalgia and bipolar and she had to use the food bank because of benefit changes and she said although the staff at the food bank are very respectful being forced to use the food bank and having to rely on such little money has made me feel less of a human being I wish the government would stop and realise we are human beings not second class citizens well with the devolution of some benefits to this parliament specifically disability benefits government here has the opportunity to treat people like human beings and although much of what he said today I think could apply to the whole of social security there is an emphasis in the motion on disability benefits which definitely need a more sympathetic approach as the helpful alliance briefing tells us it's one that must be underpinned by a human rights approach and that means a shift in perspective towards people who are entitled to benefits and a change in language use when referring to people they also recommend advocacy support during the assessment process and I'm pleased to know that Scottish Government intends to make assessments fair and transparent many people particularly elderly they don't get the benefits because sometimes they don't know where to start applying or they're too proud or because they actually take no for an answer in the first place and they just don't appeal so they need to help to access which rightfully there and I think it's good the government has recognised this so this parliament now has the powers to do things differently to treat people with kindness compassion and respect and the transfer of their welfare powers and tax powers gives this parliament the most power and responsibility it's had in its history over the years I think these were the powers that were most often mentioned as the ones people wanted devolved but to paraphrase my friend the late jamie read powers without principles or indeed purposes are hardly worth having the people demanding those powers undoubtedly believed that if welfare and further tax powers were devolved then Scotland would make different more compassionate choices to those of the Tories at Westminster to do that this government and parliament needs to be ambitious and invest more in this sector just changing priorities will not be enough in the red paper in Scotland 2014 Katie Klatt points out that in Scotland those choices that have already been taken on prescriptions, tuition fees and free personal care have simply been taken at the expense of other areas of social and welfare policy the cake has been divided differently perhaps but has not been made bigger now as members who know me will be aware I supported all of those policies when it wasn't politically fashionable to do so but I don't think that we have to make choices between good policies it was actually the norm in previous decades for any politician calling themselves left of centre to make the argument for progressive taxation on understanding that to get decent public services and a fair society we all need to pay fair tax so if this parliament is really to come of age and if it's make-up is really a majority left of centre then I believe we must use the new tax powers to make the cake bigger so that we can provide dignity, fairness and respect in disability benefits and better public services. I'm going to finish with Nye Bevan who said in place of fear when talking about the NHS in welfare and I quote to call it something for nothing as absurd because everything has to be paid for in some way or another unless it's taken from somebody else in the public purse that can't afford to lose it in a better and more just system of benefits and public services must be paid for and I would suggest through fair and progressive taxation. Thank you. Thank you Mr Smith. I call Maurice Corry followed by Christina McKelvie. Mr Corry. Thank you. Deputy Presiding Officer may I welcome the minister in her new role. I wish to speak in this debate in respect to the armed forces servicemen and women and their needs for dignity, fairness and respect with reference to the welfare benefit system. Since World War 2 we have seen our armed forces deployed overseas on several campaigns from Korea and Suez in the 1950s and onwards to the present day. Our men and women of the armed forces take up the call of duty as ordered and they go to these theatres of operation and the knowledge that they could pay the ultimate sacrifice. Those who very sadly are killed on operations leave behind them loved ones and dependents whose lives have been turned upside down. This can be the same for those servicemen and women whose life changing injuries have the same impact on loved ones and families and life ahead and therefore the service person living with a disability. As you will call in my first speech in this chamber, I spoke about the armed forces community covenant and its purpose when it was implemented in May 2011. It is precisely the purposes of the covenant which is to help and support our sailors, soldiers and airmen and women reservists and veterans who find themselves in the situations that I have already described. The covenant brings together our national government, our local authorities and our communities and those serving in the armed forces and our veterans. In further looking at ensuring our serving armed forces personnel are fairly treated by the welfare system, there are varying levels of experience when they and our veterans are dealing with the social welfare benefits. I thank Mr Corry for giving way, Presiding Officer. In his initial speech in this place, I responded by saying that the MOD itself could do more in terms of helping folks with mental health problems when they leave the armed forces. I think that it is all fair and well that we have a social security system that deals with all cases, but I think that the MOD itself has a role to play here. I wonder whether the member agrees with that. I fully agree with that. In fact, I have been dealing with that in my shadow post on that one. Various organisations who provide support to veterans in Scotland have experienced some issues that I have now highlighted. Veterans lack the knowledge generally about the welfare benefits system. Some of their civilian counterparts have a greater awareness of the system through family members being in receipt of benefits. There are areas, sadly, where some generations of families in Scotland have never had employment, very unfortunately, and, as such, understand the welfare system by need of them and how it helps them. Nevertheless, veterans are likely to have little Pacific awareness of the recent changes in the benefits system, such as PIP. Veterans are in the main very reluctant to seek assistance from the benefits system, citing a feeling of personal failure. Welfare benefits staff generally have a lack of awareness of the needs of the veteran client group. There are myths and misconceptions that are bound about what a veteran is following on from similar myths about what it is to be a member of her Majesty's Armed Forces. Communicating with the welfare benefits staff can be difficult and frustrating for the veteran. There is evidence that, despite having consent of the veteran, the welfare benefits staff will not discuss a client without a client being present. Veterans frequently comment that, having served their country, they feel that the welfare benefits system does not take niceness of the service and the military covenant. Many of those points can be evidence through organisations such as Glasgow Helping Heroes, Veterans Scotland, SAFA, Shelter Scotland, Scotland's Veterans residents, Erskine and Legion Scotland, to name but a few. My research and experience has shown, over the past few years, since the implementation of the military covenant in 2011, that several key elements of welfare benefits are now firmly in place for our armed forces, serving personnel and veterans. Those are such things as child benefits, statutory six pay, armed forces independence payment, PIP, sure start maternity grants, job allowances, tax credits, childcare costs, council tax relief, when on military operations and social housing. In respect to the benefit of social housing allocation, it took some considerable time to bring fairness to our armed forces personnel when they leave the services and their ministry of defence house. For many years, there was no recognition of many years of living in MOD housing by local authorities and housing associations. Therefore, our armed forces personnel went to the bottom of the pile, for they did not have enough points on the housing ladder. Realising the unfairness here, I take the point that the UK Government encouraged change to this with local authorities. In this case, there is now a recognition of the time spent in the ministry of defence housing, so it is on parity with civilian housing. Since the implementation of the military covenant in 2011 in the UK, signed nonetheless by a Conservative Prime Minister, things have come a long way for our armed forces men and women and the 260,000 veterans now resident in Scotland. Nevertheless, there is still some way to go yet to reach the levels of recognition support that we see for veterans in the USA, Canada and some Western European countries. We can achieve that in Scotland, I am sure. To get there, we must build on the successes so far by listening to the needs of our armed forces services, men and women and our veterans throughout Scotland for dignity, fairness and respect in our welfare benefit system for them. The member to stop right there, that is a good place to stop. I now call Christina McKelvie to be followed by Claire Adamson. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Convention of Human Rights, disabled people have a right to be treated with dignity and respect. That is a fundamental right. The UK and the Scottish Government also have a duty to progressively realise those rights contained in the UN Convention of the Rights of Disabled People, which includes the rights to adequate income and to be fully included in social and community life. That means the right to safety, security and the right to live life, or in some cases what is left of that life, free from the worry of being able to afford to heat or eat. Inclusion Scotland tells us, and I thank them for their briefing, that disabled people are being robbed of their dignity and respect, an adequate income and sometimes even their lives by the current benefit system. Sanctions are being imposed unfairly and disproportionately on disabled people, especially those with learning disabilities and mental health issues. A combination of welfare reforms, a work capability assessment, mandatory reconsideration and sanctions are pushing an increasing number of disabled people into poverty and destitution, and one in five, one in five GISA sanctions are applied against disabled people. Now let's look at one aspect of the current regime, PIP. Mr Tonk things attempted to convince us that PIP was working well, so here's the reality for a current claimant this week. A person with motor neurone disease has been asked to undertake his PIP assessment, reassessment by questionnaire, over a year in advance of the date his current claim ends. Let's not forget that the prognosis for someone with motor neurone disease is 14 very short months. He received a questionnaire in February this year, when the award runs until May 2017, a whole 15 months away. 15 months, when you may only have 14 months left of your life, and much of that with decreasing quality and independence. Renewal forms usually go out between three and six months before the renewal date, so what's this all about? He's been asked on the questionnaire to state how his disability affects him now. Anybody who knows more about motor neurone disease will know that the rapid progression of it can change from day to day, but you progressively always get worse. The assessment would give a snapshot of the illness as it is now, and it would have little bearing on how the illness progresses or how it might be affecting him next May. Should he actually make it till then? That has caused stress and anxiety for this gentleman who could be given a lower award of PIP than he might actually require next year, so he would need to be reassessed again. That stress and anxiety could drop him off his confidence and, more importantly, the precious little time he has left. He was also made aware that he could be called up to face reassessment, not only the stress of all that, but reassessment. That gentleman contacted the motor neurone disease Scotland welfare and benefits officer, and after much towing and froing and stress and anxiety, he managed to resolve the situation just recently. Should he have needed to go through that whole process, I say, no, he shouldn't have. The stress that he's been through in trying to deal with the DWP and get a common sense approach to his renewal process has had an adverse impact on his life and is neither a fair nor dignified way to deal with people who have a terminal, progressive illness. Christina McKelvie, for the reasons that she's outlined in her speech, therefore supports the Scottish Conservatives in pressing the Scottish Government to transfer these powers to this Parliament as soon as possible. I think that the committee that dealt with the devolution of powers did that very well on their own. What we need is the budgets to transfer with them, so you take your part in the process, and I'll take my part in the process. I agree with motor neurone disease Scotland, who believes that people with the illness should be exempt from assessment, as used to happen under the incapacity benefit, which predated employment support allowance. I also agree with motor neurone disease Scotland that as long as a pip is in place, people with MND should receive a lifetime award of higher level pips so that they do not need to contend with their renewal process in the first place. I will host an MND exhibition next week. I suggest that Mr Tomkins and his colleagues will speak to the people who will be there and he'll maybe get a better picture. If we truly want to ensure that we put dignity and respect at the heart of this new system, we need to ensure as quickly as possible that we protect people with MND and other life-limiting disabilities from a culture of a system that does not treat them with dignity and respect. I believe that this Government has and will do that, and that with early talks, if people are affected, we will ensure that this Government will live up to that promise. I have the pleasure this week of attending Lanarkshire Careers Together, AGM, on Monday, where they had a fantastic event with only over 250 attendees, many of whom were carers from across the North Lanarkshire area. It is a fantastic organisation that is under the chair of Elizabeth Seaton, who has been a formidable, tireless and passionate campaigner for many years for carers, born out of her own caring responsibilities. It has been going since 2001, when it was formally constituted and has contributed hugely to the lives of carers in my area. It is a force for change. It has raised the profile of carers issues. It influences policy decisions at local level and also on a national level, and they really make a difference every day for carers in my area. We have a massive effort ahead in making this work. Increasing carers allowance by £600 a year, 18 per cent to them, will make a huge difference in the life of carers. I hugely welcome the initiative about young carers allowance, and I look forward to seeing the progress of that going forward. We have not done so much with the carers bill, the right to carers assessment being instituted in law, and looking at things at the 84-day rule, which will be abolished by the Government. However, we have a huge task ahead, and it will rely on working in conjunction with the UK Government. We still have issues that were discussed at the time of the bill that remain to be seen to work, such as local eligibility criteria, not leading to a postcode lottery of how that is developed in the future. I am fascinated by some of the contributions this afternoon. I can say that Marie Todd's contribution as a mental health professional has been absolutely wonderful to inform the whole chamber of those issues. Enable Scotland, in its submission, said that it feels that the specific medical assessment is rarely the best way to assess a claimant's disability and that, in fact, particularly unsuited to assessing those with learning disability, who can be particularly vulnerable to negative decisions in any process, which involves community-heating their disability. Benefit-specific medical assessments tend to produce a snapshot of a claimant's life rather than a long-term picture. How many conditions could that apply to such has been mentioned by George Adam with the MS by MND, with people with chronic pain and mental health conditions? We really have to get that right and not continue doing the line where a snapshot defines a person's future and their economic condition. I can understand why the Tories want to draw a line under their history. If I was a Tory, I would want to draw a line under that history and forget about it too. Unfortunately, life is not like that. The language of shirkers and strivers that we have mentioned with Jan Lamont and other people this afternoon is not new, and I am old enough to remember Peter Lily's appalling address to the 1992 Conservative Party conference where he absolutely attacked the benefits system. I would like to say that I have a little list. It is a list of Tory austerity practices that this Scottish National Party Government will be rooting out, and they will not be missed. Repeater pestments of terminally ill patients should go, as the skype of the minister's revolving door of reassessment. The remote assessment centres, as I mentioned by my colleague Gillian Martin, absolutely make life so much more difficult for people. They are meaningless assessment criteria for conditions that have already been mentioned as well. Assessments that leave people leaving humiliated and threatened in their lives. Mandatory reconsideration before appeals can happen that just delay the whole process and put people into economic and emotional turmoil. Ignoring expert medical opinion, why on earth would we not listen to our GPs and the people that know patients and no clients better than anyone else? Oh yes, I have a little list, Presiding Officer, and I trust that this Scottish National Party Government will not miss a single one. During the last full five-year term of this Parliament, welfare-related issues rose up the agenda quickly. By the end of the last Parliament, they were right there near the very top. Much of the debate that happened during that five years was characterised by what can best be described as an unedifying scramble for the moral high ground, because it was an easy target with which to hit a Conservative Government. In the opening speeches in this debate, we heard once again how it was Conservative welfare reform that apparently drove this issue, yet the reality is that, if we look back, the welfare reform programme started before there was a Conservative Government. In fact, it was necessary going back a generation. The first great attempt to reform welfare actually happened when Frank Field was the welfare minister back in 2007. Perhaps we noticed on the graphs that that was the last time sanctions reached a peak. The reality is, however, that the Conservatives in this Parliament have done and continue to take a constructive and engaged approach. A number of speakers, Kevin Stewart, Johann Lamont and Claire Adamson have chosen to introduce what I could best describe as pejorative language in an attempt to denigrate the Conservatives and their position. However, I can assure you that they have not heard that language from us in this chamber, and they will not. It is a tribute to the work that has been done by people—no, I will not give way. It is a tribute to the work that has been done by people on this side of the chamber that we will not go down that road. It is other speakers who have to introduce that language in order to support their own arguments. The truth is that we have a different attitude, but we are the party that, in government—and yes, I will claim credit for what happened in Westminster—was the devolution of those powers over welfare for the disabled in the Scotland Bill to this Parliament. We have a tremendous opportunity, but there are dangers of which we must be aware. Over the last five years, we have seen the gradual transfer of some welfare powers. The welfare funds, for example, when the schemes were wound up and replaced by alternative schemes, there was a widespread view that those schemes had been abolished and the money was no longer available when, in fact, the schemes existed under a different form. When the money was still available, yet people were unaware of them. As we make changes, we must be careful not to change too quickly. There are good signs that the PIP is working, and we have heard today from a colleague Jeremy Balfour about his experience of that scheme. We have also heard that additional resources are moving in to a number of other areas, and although some in the chamber seek to portray those as cuts, the truth is that the money is increasing in many areas. We need to work together constructively, and I am delighted that so many people in this debate have sought to engage constructively. I hope that that is a change of direction and one that we can take forward. I agree with the statement that was made by Jeane Freeman at the very start of this debate, that we need a social security system that we can all be proud of and that, thanks to the decision to devolve powers over disability benefits, it can take a different path from the rest of the UK. That opportunity is one that we should grasp and one that, during this next five-year period of Government, we must have the courage to work together on. There are also those in this debate who have asked for further devolution of welfare responsibilities. Those who would like to see the devolution of pensions, for example, must actually start telling us how they might go about paying for their promises should they ever come to that conclusion. However, we must be courageous. We, on this side of the chamber, have new faces, we have new ideas, and we have new energy to take forward into this. I hope that this Government will show maturity, greater than that shown by some others and some of their backbenchers, by realising that there is an opportunity to put the past behind us and make things better for the people who require our support. I think that this debate is key to how we see ourselves as a society. It is a cliché to say that we judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable people, but just because it is a cliché does not mean that there is no truth in it. The current UK Government most certainly is not caring compassionately for our disabled neighbours, their friends and relatives, low-income families, the elderly, the vulnerable or the needy. 100,000 Scottish disabled people have lost out as a result of ideologically driven cuts to disability benefits. Hundreds of thousands of low-income families across the UK, many of them working families but poor as a result of low pay and wage restraint, have been affected by cuts to housing and tax credits. There is a big list of social security cuts that have been introduced by Cameron and Osborne since 2010. Child trust funds have abolished and England EMA abolished, working and child tax credits reduced, health and pregnancy grant gone, housing benefits cuts, child benefit frozen and ended for some claimants, council tax benefits cuts, DLA replaced by PIP, saving £1 billion a year and, of course, the grotesque bedroom tax. The list goes on and on and on. Over 40 benefits cut, all benefits for lone parents, the disabled and families affecting the poorest, the most needy people in our communities most. What I find offensive about all of that is the relish and glee with which it has been done. Time after time, Osborne has announced his latest budgetary assault on the welfare state. We have witnessed Tory MPs cheering and braining as they condemn another family to the food bank, another young person to a future devoid of hope and opportunity, or another disabled person who is stripped of the mobility car that is linked to the outside world. I find it truly sickening to see a Prime Minister and a Chancellor in a Cabinet of millionaires with an estimated combined wealth of £100 million cut in their own taxes and those of their friends in the corporate world whilst at the same time removing the safety net from those in most need of their help. Presiding Officer, this Parliament was not established to be a conveyor belt for bad policy no matter where and from whom it emanates. In the last Parliament, a Labour member's bill in the bedroom tax forced the Government to act. That shows what we can do when there is the political will to act. With the new powers coming over a number of areas of social security, we have the opportunity to do things very different. Having sat in the welfare reform committee in the last session, I think that there is a large majority in this Parliament that supports the creation of a more humane, fairer, supportive social security system that is designed to help people into employment and to support those who, for whatever reason, are unable to work to support them in their lives and to get away from a system based on suspicion, a system based on the language that Johann Lamont mentioned, of strivers and skyvers, based on a set of political beliefs that sees the state in some particular kind of tyrannical enemy of freedom. That is how the Tories see it. According to that philosophy, the welfare state is a barrier to the operation of the free market. It intervenes in the economy and the labour market, attempts to universalise life chances and, having forbid, redistributes wealth. It is that ethos that has underpinned the Tory attack on the social security system. The Tory motion and the Tory speakers today have not acknowledged the untold misery that they have inflicted upon people. Two and a half thousand people have died after being declared fit for work, not a word of remorse from Mr Tomkins or how would we ever expect a word of remorse from Mr Johnson? Let us build a different system, one that supports the army of carers who look after their family and friends. Let us not celebrate the fact that we will increase carers allowance to GISA. That will hardly have people living a life of luxury. That should be the minimum that we are providing. We should be looking to move on much further as the system develops. Let us see a system that allows disabled people to live fulfilling independent lives, helped not hindered by the system and a system that provides a safety net so that any of us who require it can be helped by it. We have the chance to do that and it will be a test for all of us who claim to be progressive whether we want to take that chance or not. Thank you very much, Mr Finlay. I call Ben Macpherson and then we move to winding up speeches. In carers week, I would also like to take this opportunity to express my thanks and deep admiration for carers across Scotland, and in particular to those in my constituency from the work of the north-west carer centre in the north of the city to cornerstones in your corner initiative supporting young adult carers in north-east Edinburgh. Furthermore, I would also like to pay tribute to the remarkable third sector organisations across Scotland who are working day in, day out to help to mitigate the negative impacts of UK government welfare reform. Organisations such as the Citizens Advice Bureau in Leith, which I visited on Monday, or the Grant and Information Centre in my constituency. Behind the wording of the Government motion, there is a fundamental question, a question focused on how we can support the weakest members of our society better through different, wiser and more compassionate choices than the current UK Government, where and when this Parliament has the power. Presiding Officer, when it comes to assisting those who need our assistance most, last week Adam Tomkins made the valid point that while Westminster sets the floor with new powers in this Parliament, we will soon have some opportunity, in Mr Tomkins' words, to raise the ceiling. However, the challenge for us here in Scotland that Mr Tomkins did not mention is not just how we improve our social security system but also how we do so with only 15 per cent of social security powers and how do we make progress from a financial and policy position with the floor that Westminster sets to use Adam Tomkins' analogy is steadily falling, cut by cut and year by year. Presiding Officer, the circumstances facing the most vulnerable in our society are, of course, difficult and challenging. The role of government should surely be to assist them, not to judge. It should surely be to support, not to distress. It is for those reasons that I believe in the Scottish Government's commitment, outlined by the minister, to create a social security system with dignity and respect at its heart, to use new powers to make a meaningful difference, and I particularly support the Scottish Government's proposals to ensure that disability benefits are not means-tested and that, instead, their assessments are fair and transparent. At the moment, the UK Government's cuts to disability benefits are often unfair, and they have caused unnecessary and unacceptable stress and financial hardship. For example, as Sandra White alluded to, 98 per cent of relevant respondents to a survey by Sam H revealed that the mental health of service users had suffered due to welfare reform. To use another example, Inclusion Scotland's research has revealed that 45 per cent of disabled people with mobility vehicles are losing their cars on transfer to PIP. Presiding Officer, I make those points not just based on reporting and analysis, but also on the experience of many of my constituents—constituents who have contacted me since I was elected in states of unnecessary distress, discomfort and genuine suffering, particularly due to the assessment process for PIP. For example, one constituent wrote to me recently about being transferred from DLA to PIP with a significant reduction in their award for mobility. She wrote, "...this has turned my life upside down. I'm now at the point where I have to go to appeal and, quite honestly, I'm not sure how much fight I have left. This has just floared me. It's like having my legs taken away. Help." Presiding Officer, this and other concerns in similar words that I'm sure other members have received since being elected are upsetting accounts. What's more upsetting is that they are just some of many similar stories throughout those affected across Scotland. The current UK Government's approach to social security has too often caused instances of injustice, it has lacked generosity and it has been frequently mean-spirited. That is why this Parliament must and will make different and better choices with the social security powers coming to this institution, as outlined by the minister earlier. I welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to dignity, fairness and respect in disability benefits and I look forward to the positive change that lies ahead. Thank you very much, Mr McPherson. Now we will move to winding-up speeches. Pauline McNeill for Labour. Six minutes are there abouts. Presiding Officer, carers week, as we recognise the selfness and necessary role that carers play in society, but more importantly, to show the action that we can take in this Parliament. As the minister, Jeane Freeman, says, the goal to have a life alongside caring, I think, is where we need to be. I think that it is testament to the hard work of the carers groups that carers have a high priority for this Parliament in its agenda. As we know, carers week also reminds us that without carers, our society simply could not function and that any one of us may be called upon to be carers at any point in our lives. The main purpose of the motion for debate is to ensure dignity and respect in our social security system, which should be the heart of a fairer Scotland. Adam Tompkins says that no one, no party should have a monopoly to bring that to the table, and I agree. It is the ground on which the new Scottish social security system should be founded, as Benwick Ferson and others have said, to take it in a new direction. However, there is anger out there and in here about the fact that aspects of our welfare system to date have not given people and disabled people in particular a dignified life. In fact, I, as a citizen, felt that, from 2012, on the back of the austerity measures, I had never actually felt so angry, as I did watching the reforms and cuts to benefits and the powerless. However, it was not simply just that it was an attack on the living standards by a reduction in benefits and allowances, but the very system itself, as others have alluded to, has left many vulnerable people in despair, and Marie Todd made an excellent speech where she said that it gave people no say in determining their own destiny and, in some ways, that is worse than a financial cut—that feeling that you can do nothing. In some other societies around the world, it is those conditions that have led to revolution on the overthrow of Governments. In many ways, too, perhaps we have the opportunity to have our own quiet revolution to change what has been, to some extent, an inhumane system. Christina McKelvie rightly quotes an excellent brief by Inclusion Scotland, where she says that disabled people have been robbed of their dignity. There are many stark figures in there, the one in five figures that Christina quotes about job seekers allowing sanctions against disabled people is really quite shocking. There is nothing dignified about some aspects of our current system, as Neil Findlay talks about. Work capability assessments and the so-called appeal system, where has it not occurred to the person who designed that system that, if you then have to wait for the very benefit that you have applied for, how are you meant to live in the weeks in between? Sixty per cent of employment support allowance sanctions are against claimants with mental and behavioural disorders, I certainly will. Does the member recognise that the employment and support allowance was introduced not by the Conservatives but by the last Labour Government, and indeed it was the last Labour Government that signed the contract with ATOS to undertake the work capability assessments? The criteria change and Mr Tomkins and also Mr Johnson might get to the point where you are the people from that side of the chamber who want to come and have some consensus about this debate. I think that there is much for you to defend here, because there are huge financial losses, and I did not hear one word from the Tory benches about the thousands of people who will lose out in the transfer to PIP. Inclusion Scotland said that 47 per cent of DLA claimants with awards on the higher-rate mobility will lose their entitlement to the enhanced rate when they are reassessed. What do you have to say about the 45 per cent of disabled people with mobility vehicles who are losing their cars? I do think that we need to have a discussion with ministers and the new social security committee about the transitional arrangements. By the time that we have the powers, a lot of those transfers will have taken place. Johann Lamont makes a crucial point in this debate, which is perhaps the greater scandal about not enough action for overcoming the barriers to disabled people coming into employment. The figures that she quotes on modern apprenticeships are a scandal and something that this Parliament needs to address. I think that that would be real progress if we could make progress here in giving dignity and respect. Achieving your full potential should be a phrase that means something to every single person. Alison Johnstone talks about the new powers that we get at a crucial time. We have a chance to design a new system that will put that dignity back. I do think that we can work cross-party to achieve that in this Parliament and will show that it has the powers that it can do something with. Thank you very much, Ms McNeill. I call Annie Wells to solve the Conservatives' eight minutes up to eight minutes, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Firstly, I would like to congratulate Jeane Freeman on her appointment today and also on her maiden speech, which was very good, and also that of Jeremy Balfour. I am glad to have the opportunity to close the debate today as a new welfare reform and a quality spokesperson for the Scottish Conservative Party. I would like to add my thanks and support for the carers week as well, which is currently taking place up and down the country, and to make a personal thank you to the many carers who provide an invaluable service to families and communities in Scotland. I am very proud of the Scottish Conservatives' manifesto pledge to bring carers allowance in line with job-takers allowance. I move that by supporting over 60,000 carers in Scotland, and I welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to implement the proposal. With £1.5 billion worth of spending being devolved to the Scottish Parliament, that is the entirety of the disability living allowance or personal independence allowance in full. I want to point out now in the hands of the Scottish Government to ensure that it is responsible for delivering the new system of disability benefits. As I said in the debate last week, it is clear that, with those new powers, blaming the UK Government is no longer appropriate or indeed acceptable. The devolution of those powers to Scotland allows us all to have a rigorous discussion about how we support some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Again, part of the reason why the issue is so important is that, if we do not design Scotland's social security system properly, we will be letting down the most vulnerable in our society. As Adam Tomkins pointed out in his speech, we want to see our social security system with some basic principles at its heart. It should primarily support the most vulnerable in our society, it should be flexible and personalised, and it should give those who can and want to work the opportunities and support to do just that. We should start this process with a positive outlook on how we should not imply things that are untrue about the current system. For example, the disability benefits are currently means tested under the UK Government. Creating this confusion is not helpful for anyone and serves only to score political points. As Jeremy Balfour pointed out in his speech, while there are problems, PIP, in its essence, is a constructive system and it is a marked improvement over the DLA. As Adam Tomkins points out, benefits related to the additional costs of disability have been increased every year. Constructive innovation is what we are asking for, not a complete upheaval. Any social security system worth its all should serve to support the most vulnerable in society. If an individual is unable to work, then it is fundamentally important that our social security system is able to support them in a fair, dignified and respectful manner at all times. I believe that it is necessary to make the measure to ensure that our social security system is personalised, responsive and flexible. It is, of course, important that the needs of the individual should always be borne in mind. An effective and efficient social security system should be able to respond to differing and often complex personal circumstances. We should do our best to ensure that the administrative burden of our social security system is not overly burdensome. Similarly, we should be mindful that Scotland's social security system does not simply involve a revolving door of assessments and paperwork, as well as making us better use of medical evidence and information sharing. We, too, want innovation. As Liam Kerr pointed out, the Scottish Conservatives have our own vision, and we almost look to the future. I also welcome Maurice Corry's insight. Will the member accept that, in the context where we have 15 per cent of the benefit powers devolved to us and 85 per cent remain at Westminster, the reality is not that we are looking to the past but that we are looking to the present and that, if the member really does want assistance for those who want to go into employment, she and her colleagues will turn to the UK Government of which she is so proud and remind them not to cut benefits and support to long-term unemployed and people with disabilities who want to be unemployed and stop trying to believe and make us believe that somehow we are the backward-looking ones and you are forward-looking, far from the truth. There is top-up benefits that this Government will have control over as well, so I think that we need to work together. That is what I am trying to say here. We work together in this chamber to deliver the best for the people of Scotland. We should be mindful that Scotland's social security—no, I have done that. For instance, with the integration of health and social care, we should explore whether attendance rounds and DLA and PIP should be part of a similarly integrated system, either by devolving further control to local authorities' health boards or to the new health and social care partnerships. Indeed, on that subject, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has said that full devolution of the disability and carers benefits to Scottish local authorities could be used to develop more rounded personal budgets to enhance health and wellbeing and improve personal independence. That option could allow a more localised, personalised and flexible disability benefit system. I instinctively believe that the decisions are best taken as close to those who are affected as possible. Such innovations could result in not only a more effective social security system but a fairer and more engaged one as well, one that focuses on looking at people as individuals rather than just focusing on physical abilities. In short, we should work to ensure that people are supported to achieve personal independence holistically. That, again, brings me to an important point. In striving for dignity and personal independence for disabled people, we should always strive to help those who can and want to work into employment. It is also the case that, for an individual to be supported to find work and for that individual to be working and contributing to society, it is surely also a dignified and fair outcome. I welcome Joanne Lamont's comments during her speech about supporting the people who are getting into work and keeping them in work. When thinking about fairness in relation to people who have a disability, I would ask, is it fair that the employment rates for disabled people are currently 43 per cent lower than that of those who are not classes disabled? Of course it is not, and it is clear to me that we need to do more to help those who are looking for work, whether it is in terms of developing skills and boosting confidence or a more practical support and advice. It is vital that the support is ready and available for those people who are looking for work. Many disabled people can work and want to work and need some support to get into work. I am wholeheartedly committed to ensuring that all disabled people who want to work have the opportunity and support the need to get and keep a job. The words dignity and respect to me imply empowerment and opportunity as much as protection and security. In short, we have two core aims when it comes to the disability benefits system. We want to be supportive of those who cannot work and we want to be effective at helping those who want to work. Again, I welcome, in line with her own policy, the proposed plan to increase the carers' irons. I want to start by congratulating Jeremy Balfour on his maiden speech. I listened to it with interest, particularly the parts about his experience as a serving member of the tribunal. I just hope that the Tories have had the good sense to place him on the Social Security Committee. I want to start by talking about mental health and mental illness. It has been a feature of this debate today. Sandra White has spoken about it and Marie Todd very powerfully has spoken about the impact of hopelessness and what that does to people's mental health. The mental health issues have also been a thread throughout many of the debates that we have had over the past few weeks as we have began this new parliamentary session, not least thanks to Alex Cole-Hamilton. As a consequence, I have been recalling the words of my old social work boss who was trying to support and comfort me as a newly qualified mental health officer when a young woman that I had been working with had later went on to commit suicide. I remember him saying, Angela, that mental illness is sometimes terminal. What he meant is that mental illness, such as physical illness, can be life-limiting and at times fatal, but with mental illness it can be invisible. There are people who are going about their daily life, going about their business in our community day by day, week by week, and we do not see or understand the invisible turmoil and torment that they go through as a result of a wide range of mental health issues. I mention this because for anyone who works with or for people with vulnerabilities or difficulties of any description, and for those of us who are charged with the responsibility to design, build, provide and to provide a new service such as the Scottish Social Security Agency, the largest-scale project in the history of this Parliament. That is where I agree with Mark Griffin. We will have to have the insight, understanding and the humility to know how hard we are all going to have to work to get this right and to get it right from the start, because dignity, fairness and respect will be built in with the bricks of the new agency. Johann Lamont was right that this has to be more than war and words, and we will proceed in that spirit of co-production, working with those with the lived experience of the benefit system, and we will at all times think about how it feels when the person doing the assessment wants to examine their stomach when the problem is that they cannot get up out of their bed in the morning for due to crying constantly due to depression, or how it feels when you read a report written about you and you are described as it. We should not underestimate the value and how we will need to ensure that the culture and the correct values are at the heart of this new agency. Mr Tomkins spoke about timescales and made no mistake about it. Yes, we want these new powers as soon as is practical. Indeed, we wanted more powers and we want to be making different choices, but our number one priority, our number one responsibility has to be the safe and secure transfer. That means that we have to work as part of the joint ministerial working group on welfare to ensure that the powers and resources are transferred appropriately. I hope that Mr Tomkins is relieved that I received his letter and that an acknowledgement was sent to him yesterday, but I can tell him that the joint ministerial working group on welfare will, for the first time after the election, meet next week. I have had constructive discussions both with David Mundell and Stephen Crabb, but I have to emphasise the practicalities here. Focs rely on their benefits, and we will not be gestured or bullied into unrealistic timescales despite our eagerness. We have to get this right. I am very grateful to Angela Constance for giving way. Can the cabinet secretary give even a hint of a suggestion as to the sort of timetable in terms of actual months and years when we can expect these powers to be transferred to this parliament? As Mr Tomkins acknowledged in his letter to me, the implementation dates for welfare will be agreed by the joint ministerial working group on welfare. He also knows that this Government will be undertaking, over the summer months, a pre-legislative consultation on the new Scottish Social Security Agency. We are proceeding with a wealth of work. It is detailed work. We will proceed as fast as we can, but with great care and cautious, because we will not compromise this getting it right because people depend on us and they depend on receiving the right benefit at the right time for the right amount. I can turn my attention just briefly to the Conservative motion. Many members have picked up on the fact that the Conservatives have completed some of the issues in and around disability with employment and how that covertly feeds into a nasty narrative that is about the deserving and undeserving poor. We have to remember that we do not have all the powers in terms of supporting people into work. I regret that deeply, and we will ensure that we use the powers that we have to maximum impact. It would be remiss of me not to reiterate that, before employment services were devolved, they received a whopping 87 per cent cut before the powers and resources were transferred. We have to question the Conservatives on some of their practices, because now 100 per cent of the welfare state remains with them. When we get the new powers, we will indeed have 15 per cent. We have to question how losing your motability vehicle helps you to get to work, and that makes a sham of their claim to be ambitious about reducing the disability employment gap, or how does it help people making them fight for what should be theirs by right? How does that increase their confidence and insist them into the workplace? Presiding Officer, we will continue to oppose all attacks to social security for disabled people from the UK Government. It is imperative that expenditure is protected, not just for the benefits that are to be devolved to Scotland, but for those benefits that will remain reserved. That includes ESA. We have heard Tories today appeal against those unwarranted attacks on Westminster. Like Pauline McNeill, what about the unwarranted attacks on the poor? I have not heard any Tory member today stand up for the poorest in our society. We have to remember that £6 billion has been taken from welfare expenditure in Scotland, and £1 billion of that is from our children. We have heard today an appeal for consensus. If Mr Tomkins thinks that he can come to this chamber and appeal for consensus when they are cutting £30 a week for employment support agency, or to defend a sanction system that is not fit for purpose to quote an infamous Tory, he can get on his bike. If they were really serious about consensus, they would be voting with the far more progressive voices on a range of benches tonight. They would be voting against the £12 billion of cuts that have still to come, and the £12 billion of cuts on top of the £21 billion already taken out of welfare, the length and breadth of the UK. Finally, I know that Tories like to vote no, so why do they vote with us tonight? Vote no, stand up to Westminster and, along with the rest of the chamber, vote no to welfare cuts. That concludes our debate on dignity, fairness and respect and disability benefits. The next item of business is decision time, to which we now come. There are three questions to be put as a result of today's business, and I wish to remind members that if the amendment in the name of Adam Tomkins is agreed, the amendment in the name of Mark Griffin falls. The first question is that amendment 374.2, in the name of Adam Tomkins, which seeks to amend motion 374 in the name of Angela Constance on dignity, fairness and respect and disability benefits, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There should be a vote, members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote is as follows. Yes, 29, no, 88, and there were no abstentions, the amendment is therefore not agreed. The next question is that amendment 374.3, in the name of Mark Griffin, which seeks to amend motion 374 in the name of Angela Constance, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We shall therefore move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote is as follows. Yes, 88, no, 29, there were no abstentions, the amendment is therefore agreed. The next question is that amendment 374, in the name of Angela Constance, as amended, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There should be a vote, members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote is as follows. Yes, 88, no, 29, there were no abstentions, the motion as amended is therefore agreed. That concludes decision time and I now close this meeting of parliament.