Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Recommendation 129
Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland
Published 23 Jun 2021
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)
Whilst the economy is in the midst of recovering from the covid-19 pandemic, and with the jobs market in great difficulty and 490,000 people (as of March 2021) in Scotland claiming Universal Credit, based on the overwhelming evidence from witnesses, now is not the right time to sanction claimants should they fail to meet their claimant commitment. We recommend pausing sanctioning of claimants for at least the rest of 2021 with immediate effect. However, we welcome the assurances from the DWP that the claimant commitment will take into account local and national public health guidelines. We recommend that the DWP continue this position until all restrictions ease across the entire UK. 318 The Poverty Alliance (WPS0018) 319 Q101 320 Q101 321 Q101 322 Q101 323 House of Lords, Universal Credit isn’t working: proposals for reform, Second Report of the Select Committee on Economics Affairs, Session 2019–21, HL 105, Para 129 324 House of Lords, Universal Credit isn’t working: proposals for reform, Second Report of the Select Committee on Economics Affairs, Session 2019–21, HL 105, Government response, October 2020 48 Welfare policy in Scotland 7 Universal Credit Scottish Choices
From: Scottish Affairs Committee, Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland (HC 55), 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".