Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 145
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 Scottish Government told us that they believe the roll out of the two further Scottish Choices options is being delayed because the DWP is not prioritising this work in the devolution programme. The Cabinet Secretary explained that she accepts that the ‘devolution programme is but one of the aspects that the DWP works on’359 but that the Scottish Government would have preferred to see ‘much faster movement’360 on the two further Scottish Choices options. The Cabinet Secretary went on to highlight that the Scottish Government ‘cannot influence overall welfare policy’361 on reserved benefits such as Universal Credit and that if the DWP ‘doesn’t like what we [Scottish Government] would like to do it does not have to implement our intended solutions’.362 The Cabinet Secretary even went as far as suggesting that the split payment Scottish Choice may not be realised at all because the DWP do not wish to implement this choice.363
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".