The Social Security (Cross-border Provision, Case Transfer and Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2025: scrutiny report

The Scottish Government is also using these draft Regulations to make some minor changes to the residence and presence conditions for various devolved benefits. These changes are required because of a new agreement between the UK and Gibraltar on the exportability of social security benefits¹The Social Security (Gibraltar) Order 2024 and a case before the Independent Monitoring Authority (IMA), which oversees compliance with the terms of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union.

Being a person to whom the UK’s new agreement with Gibraltar applies has now been added to the list of exemptions from the normal residence condition (being ordinarily resident in Scotland) for Child Disability Payment, Adult Disability Payment, Pension Age Disability Payment, Carer Support Payment, Young Carer Grant and Carer’s Allowance Supplement.²Draft Regulations 8(2), 8(3), 8(4) for Child Disability Payment, 9(2), 9(3) and 9(4) for Adult Disability Payment, 10(2), 10(3) and 10(4) for Carer Support Payment, 11(2), 11(3) and 11(4) for Pension Age Disability Payment, 3(4) for Carer’s Allowance Supplement and and 6(c) for Young Carer Grant. The agreement with Gibraltar is not relevant to Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance, as the benefit is closed to new applications, or to the devolved low income benefits, as they are not exportable.

The compliance case before the IMA concerned the ability of two groups of people to access best start foods: applicants to the European Union Settlement Scheme and family members of people with settled status who move to Scotland.³Independent Monitoring Authority for the Citizens’ Rights Agreements – The Welfare Foods (Best Start Foods) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2023 The draft Regulations amend both the Best Start Foods Regulations and the Best Start Grant Regulations to ensure that both groups are unambiguously entitled to the various payments if they meet the other conditions.⁴Draft Regulations 4(2) for Best Start Grants and 5(2) for Best Start Foods. The Scottish Government has told SCoSS that it does not believe anyone has been wrongly denied either Best Start Foods or Best Start Grant as a result of the previous wording, but that it accepts that “the legislation would benefit from clarification… to put the matter beyond doubt.” ⁵Scottish Government response to a question from SCoSS received 26 February 2025

While these amendments are likely to affect few people, they will help to ensure that the people concerned are able in practice to enjoy the social security rights they ought to have, in keeping with social security principle (b).⁶Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, Section 1, Principle (b): social security is itself a human right and essential to the realisation of other human rights.