Concern for handover of benefit powers

Scotland’s social security minister has voiced “concern and worry” over the prospect of delays to the historic handover of new welfare powers to Holyrood.

Jeane Freeman said the UK Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has already gone back on an agreement to give Scotland the power to axe the “bedroom tax” next year. She warned that the devolution of benefits must not “slip down the list” after the delay was blamed on “other priorities” by the Westminster department.

Holyrood is to take control of 11 benefits as part of the post-referendum deal on new powers, accounting for about 15 per cent of welfare spending.

The bedroom tax is already mitigated in Scotland through funding provided to local councils. But a deal had been reached to hand control over it to Holyrood by 2019, Ms Freeman said. The DWP revealed in a recent letter to Scottish ministers that this will not happen until 2020.

She said: “The letter that put the bedroom tax abolition back a year is a matter of concern and worry and that simply means that we need to up our efforts to be saying to the DWP to say, ‘We have our plans, you know what they are – we need to know that your plans to devolve those benefits to us continue to match ours in terms of the timings’,” she said.