Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Recommendation 18
Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland
Published 23 Jun 2021
Paragraph 111
Addressed to Scotland Office
Scottish Affairs Committee Welfare policy in Scotland All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We recommend that the UK Government closely review the issue of making permanent the £20 uplift in the run up to the expiration of this policy at the end of September 2021, whilst also taking into account the significant financial costs such a change would impose. We also recommend that the UK Government should again review whether 6 Welfare policy in Scotland this uplift should be extended and back-dated to legacy benefit recipients so that they do not lose out on this increase in benefits through no fault of their own due to which benefit they receive. We note that similar recommendations were made by the Work and Pensions Select Committee, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee and the Social Security Advisory Committee within the last year.
From: Scottish Affairs Committee, Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland (HC 55), paragraph 111, 23 June 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 19 November 2021 (deadline 23 August 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The UK Government "notes the Committee's recommendations" and responds to each in turn, accepting little of the report's welfare-policy proposals and referring several to the Scottish Government.
- On the £20 uplift and legacy benefits, it states "There was never any plan to extend the uplift to legacy benefits."
- On work allowances, it states it "has no plans to extend the work allowance to single adults".
- On Help to Claim funding, it "considers the existing resource to be sufficient", and says DWP agreed to fund Citizens Advice Scotland for another year, "up to 31 March 2022".
- On data sharing and Recommendations 2, 7 and 8, it says each data request "must be examined" by DWP as Data Controller, and treats several recommendations as "for the Scottish Government".