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This is certainly the process that will be in place. With every benefit, we have a system of support to ensure that we analyse what happens in real time with real people as they go through the process, and that will be an important part of how we can evaluate how big any challenges for individuals are. If there is evidence of issues, we will not be talking theoretically but will be talking about the actual impact as people have gone through the process, so we would certainly go back to the DWP with that evidence, because this is not the position that I want to be in. However, at this point, the DWP’s position is the DWP’s position, so we have to get on with making the best that we can of the situation. I can reassure the committee that we have the process in place to see what is happening on the ground with clients as they go through the process.

Indeed. That takes me to my next point, which is the very important part that child poverty delivery plans play. Social security is only one aspect of assisting people with poverty; the others are about ensuring well-paid employment and allowing people to take part in education and training.

There are different ways of dealing with poverty. Social security is a very important one, and some of the evidence that has come to the committee and others shows that it is making an impact. However, we can tackle poverty in other ways. That is why there are several legs to the child poverty delivery plan stool: employment is one of them, and the way into employment through education is clearly very important, too. It ties into the wider opportunity costs that we have in Government.

I am happy to provide further information about eligibility for two-year-olds. It is not to do with being out of work per se. The terminology that was used—

Yes. The eligibility criteria are about providing families who would benefit from additional support for those young people—

That is because we know that one of the important aspects of childcare and other services is preventative spend. Creating generational change in young people’s lives is about the impact that we can make in the earliest years. That was the reason for the term “vulnerable two-year-olds”. We now talk about “eligible two-year-olds” in relation to early learning and childcare, but that type of preventative spend is an important part of our work to improve our longer-term rates and make systemic change in relation to poverty.

As I said in my opening remarks, we recognise that, by 2029-30, additional investment is projected to be around 3.5 per cent of the total Scottish Government resource budget. That is an increase of less than 1 per cent compared with the current year, but it is still an increase.

I think that it is a mark of success if those who are eligible for a benefit are supported to get it and no longer feel any stigma in getting what they are entitled to. One of the reasons why expenditure on benefits, and particularly adult disability payment, is going up to a greater extent here than it is in the rest of the UK is that, as the Fiscal Commission and others have pointed out, people are being supported through that process. There is analysis to ensure that, if they are eligible, they will get it and, if they are not eligible, they will not get it, but the process is a supportive one, and people are now coming forward who, because of the stigma, did not come forward under the previous system.

I am happy to go into a lot more detail on this, and I am sure that David Wallace will be, too. However, as I said at the start of this session, it is factually incorrect to say that the Scottish Government is not moving forward with any analysis of, and then action on, the historical debt that was built up with the benefits administered by the Department for Work and Pensions. We can spend as much time as you like going through this, Mr Hoy, because I am content that we have a robust process for dealing with fraud, as David Wallace has laid out, as well as a process that ensures that what we do with overpayments is robust but fair.

I go back to my point that the legislative basis for the Scottish child payment is for recipients to be in receipt of universal credit. I have not seen evidence that would suggest that universal credit is given to people who are not in poverty or that it is somehow a profligate measure that allows people to live with great expanse. Indeed, all the work that is done by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Institute for Public Policy Research and others suggests that people who receive universal credit lack the ability to get the basic essentials of life. That is why we have called on the UK Government to deliver an essentials guarantee. We have to be very cautious about talking about people who are in receipt of universal credit as if they are living in a profligate and expansive financial context. The evidence, not just from the Government but from others, is that they are not.

The work that is being done by Professor Bauld is exceptionally important because, now that we have had what is still a relatively small number of years of devolved social security, we are continuing to build on the impact of that system on child poverty or on the support for disabled people and their carers. Those aspects are looked at.

One of the other areas that we are keen to look at touches on the point that the convener made at the start about the impact on poverty levels of policy A compared to policy B. There is that which gets children and the family out of poverty immediately compared to a policy that will help that family to get out of poverty in the longer term, such as in five or 10 years. Things are never black and white, and it is not an easy comparison to make, but that is the type of work that we are doing to look at how many children are lifted out of poverty not just by social security policy but by changes to childcare and employability. There is also the additional layer of complexity of not working in silos, because a change to childcare might not make a difference unless we also ensure that there are supportive employability measures to go alongside it.

We are therefore taking a multilayered approach to that work as we develop the next delivery plan for tackling child poverty at the same time as we are going through our budget and spending review processes. Those two processes, for finance and tackling child poverty, need to be interlinked right across the Government as we do that forecasting. That is difficult, particularly when we look at longer-term impacts, but it is necessary when we are looking at policy choices.