Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 144
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 ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The lack of rolling out the remaining two Scottish Choices options (split payment between couples on Universal Credit, and removing the underoccupancy charge (Bedroom Tax) at source in Universal Credit) was identified by witnesses and in written evidence as issues that should be resolved as a priority. Citizens Advice Scotland’s written evidence notes that removing the underoccupancy charge at source would limit the need for its mitigation through Discretionary Housing Payments, thereby reducing complexity.355 However it notes that this will ‘require IT changes from DWP to ensure that if the charge is removed then people are not then affected by the Benefit Cap’.356 The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations noted that: ‘As split payments were originally meant to ensure 347 Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (WPS0017) 348 Q123 349 Q123 350 Q123 351 Q167 352 Q197 353 Q198 354 Q197 355 Citizen’s Advice Scotland (WPS0014) 356 Citizen’s Advice Scotland (WPS0014) 52 Welfare policy in Scotland that members of a household would be protected from financial abuse by a partner, this extremely low level of use must raise grave concern’,357 a point also raised in the Scottish Government’s written evidence.358
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".