I thank the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, for his amendment. With this Bill we are moving into a new world of two parallel systems, and it is absolutely the responsibility of both the UK Government and the Scottish Government to ensure that there is a seamless transition from the current situation to that new world and that there are no cracks for people to fall between. We have an important duty in that regard. There is very much a common interest in the UK Government and the Scottish Government working together.
The Government are very sympathetic to the intent behind the amendment but we argue that it is unnecessary because there are existing arrangements in place. However, I agree with the noble Lord on the principle of co-operation, and there is a good level of intergovernmental co-operation in this space already.
The first example of that is the joint ministerial group on welfare, which was proposed by the Prime Minister to the First Minister when they first met after she was elected to her post in November 2014. This body is jointly chaired by the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities & Pensioners’ Rights. Its membership includes not just Scotland Office and Scottish Government Ministers, but is also attended by DWP and Treasury Ministers as required and their Scottish equivalents: for example, the Finance Secretary and the Cabinet Secretary for Fair Work, Skills & Training.
Since February 2015, the ministerial group on welfare has met four times and its agenda covered very practical issues that one would expect as a part of inter-governmental co-operation: information sharing, policy issues, operational and transitional issues and, crucially, dispute resolution. To give some examples, two issues that were resolved through this mechanism were the Work Programme contract extensions and the facilitation of the early introduction of UC flexibilities.