Portfolio Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at 12:51 pm on 23 January 2025.
Stephen Kerr
Conservative
12:51,
23 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to mitigate against future increases to Social Security Scotland’s overall spend on benefits. (S6O-04248)
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Scottish National Party
Social security is an investment in the people of Scotland. All Governments should be encouraging more people to take up the benefits that they are entitled to. The Scottish Government is investing around £6.9 billion in social security benefits in 2025-26, and that is projected to increase to £8.7 billion in 2029-30. The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that finances remain on a sustainable trajectory and we will publish our next medium-term financial strategy later this year, alongside a fiscal sustainability delivery plan.
Stephen Kerr
Conservative
That is 14 per cent of next year’s budget being spent on social security. As the Cabinet secretary says, that will rise to £8.7 billion in 2029. By the way, that is £1 million an hour. Although the First Minister claims, rightly, that the solution to poverty is good work and warm homes, the SNP seems to celebrate that increase. It should focus on reducing dependency by growing the economy and expanding the workforce. It should be aiming to cut the benefits bill, not planning to increase it exponentially. What will the cabinet secretary do to focus on tackling worklessness and helping benefit claimants to get back to work?
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Scottish National Party
I think that we have just heard some of that stigmatising language in the chamber this afternoon. [ Interruption .] When we talk about “dependency”—
Stephen Kerr
Conservative
That is ridiculous. [Interruption.]
Liam McArthur
Liberal Democrat
Cabinet secretary, will you resume your seat for a second? I will not tolerate barracking across the chamber. We had that at First Minister’s Question Time and we are not going to have it during portfolio questions. We are going to listen to the questions and to the cabinet secretary responding to them.
Stephen Kerr
Conservative
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I apologise for shouting across the chamber, but I hope that you will understand that calling work a stigma is ridiculous.
Liam McArthur
Liberal Democrat
That is not a point of order. You are denying people the opportunity to come in with supplementary questions, because we are tied up with this nonsense. I ask the Cabinet secretary to resume answering the question, and we will then move on.
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Scottish National Party
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
Through social security, the Scottish Government invests in low-income families, disabled people and carers. I am not sure which part of the “dependency” Mr Kerr believes that we need to get rid of—whether it is disabled people, carers or those on low incomes—but I am disappointed that he would suggest that dependency is an issue.
Mr Kerr is potentially unaware of the many people who are already in work but still receive benefits due to the inadequate low pay that they receive. He is also probably unaware of the fact that the vast Majority of the increase in expenditure on social security is covered by block grant adjustments because UK forecasts are increasing, particularly in relation to disabled people.
A lot of the increase in Scottish Government expenditure is due to the fact that we mitigate the worst excesses of his party when it was in power. Disappointingly, not only will we have to continue to do so, but we will have to expand that mitigation due to the processes that we now have to put in place to mitigate the decisions of the current UK Government.
Paul O'Kane
Labour
The Cabinet secretary and I have discussed in committee our changing demographics, the demand-led nature of social security and the fact that it is vital that social security operates flexibly, with efficient systems to reduce waste. We need to be sure that spending on information technology systems, overpayments and errors is as minimal as possible in order to free up money for the funding that goes into our constituents’ pockets. Given that, how does the cabinet secretary respond to recent reports that overpayments of £1.1 million in just three months were written off as official errors by Social Security Scotland? What action is she taking alongside the agency to make sure that we focus on reducing that waste and fraud in order to protect social security claimants?
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Scottish National Party
I thank Mr O’Kane for his question, because that is one of the areas in which we have to challenge ourselves to continue to do better. Part of the area that we need to work on is our reliance on the material that comes from the DWP. For example, are errors made because people are not due universal credit but are told that they are, so they receive the Scottish child payment?
There is integration between the two systems, which means that we have to check for official error at every stage. We also check that for benefits that are only in Social Security Scotland’s remit. The member raised an important point about the need to continue to challenge such errors, which is why there is continuous improvement and investment in Social Security Scotland’s digital systems to reduce the number of manual workarounds and to improve the IT systems. That work continues.
On the whole, the expenditure related to how Social Security Scotland administers social security compares well with the cost to the DWP. It does not cost more for Social Security Scotland to deliver the benefits, but it delivers them in a more humane fashion.
Question Time is an opportunity for MPs and Members of the House of Lords to ask Government Ministers questions. These questions are asked in the Chamber itself and are known as Oral Questions. Members may also put down Written Questions. In the House of Commons, Question Time takes place for an hour on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays after Prayers. The different Government Departments answer questions according to a rota and the questions asked must relate to the responsibilities of the Government Department concerned. In the House of Lords up to four questions may be asked of the Government at the beginning of each day's business. They are known as 'starred questions' because they are marked with a star on the Order Paper. Questions may also be asked at the end of each day's business and these may include a short debate. They are known as 'unstarred questions' and are less frequent. Questions in both Houses must be written down in advance and put on the agenda and both Houses have methods for selecting the questions that will be asked. Further information can be obtained from factsheet P1 at the UK Parliament site.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
Question Time is an opportunity for MPs and Members of the House of Lords to ask Government Ministers questions. These questions are asked in the Chamber itself and are known as Oral Questions. Members may also put down Written Questions. In the House of Commons, Question Time takes place for an hour on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays after Prayers. The different Government Departments answer questions according to a rota and the questions asked must relate to the responsibilities of the Government Department concerned. In the House of Lords up to four questions may be asked of the Government at the beginning of each day's business. They are known as 'starred questions' because they are marked with a star on the Order Paper. Questions may also be asked at the end of each day's business and these may include a short debate. They are known as 'unstarred questions' and are less frequent. Questions in both Houses must be written down in advance and put on the agenda and both Houses have methods for selecting the questions that will be asked. Further information can be obtained from factsheet P1 at the UK Parliament site.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.
