Subordinate Legislation Committee
Meeting date: Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Official Report
296KB pdf
Welfare Reform (Further Provision) (Scotland) Bill: After Stage 1
Agenda item 4 is consideration of the Scottish Government’s response to the committee’s report on the bill.
Members will have seen the response to the committee’s recommendations from the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy. There is a proposal in briefing paper SL/S4/12/16/4 to write to the cabinet secretary to clarify the reasoning behind two of the committee’s recommendations and to seek a specific response in advance of stage 3.
On reflection, I wonder whether we need to respond to the cabinet secretary. To be fair to her, she has given us the Government’s considered response. We would merely be repeating ourselves. Given that the issues are well understood and have been reflected on by the Government, and that the convener of the Welfare Reform Committee, Michael McMahon, is with us and is well aware of the issues, I confess that my instinct is to wonder whether we need to write again. The issue is out there and people know about it.
That is a fair point, convener.
It appears that the Government is trying to have its cake and eat it. We are in uncharted territory with this bill—it came about because a legislative consent motion was rejected, which we have never done before. We had to forego the normal consultation period. We had to seek a suspension of standing orders to allow the committee to meet outwith our normal meeting times, including Thursday lunch times. We are meeting tomorrow, when we normally meet on a Tuesday, because of the foreshortened timescale for stage 2.
Many precedents are being set that we have accepted and we have worked closely with the Government to try to get the bill in place. However, the Government’s response to the points raised by this committee—and by outside organisations, to be fair—is that it wants to carry on as normal now that the bill has been established.
To get the bill in place we have had to do all sorts of things outside normal procedure, but now we are expected to follow normal procedure. That concerns me. We have not had the bill consultation that we normally have. There will be a consultation over the summer, which is not the normal way we do things. The subordinate legislation will be in the autumn—we do not know what it will be like or how it will be impacted by technical data from the Department for Work and Pensions that is still outstanding.
It concerns me that the Scottish Government is saying on the one hand, “Please treat this differently because we are in difficult circumstances,” but on the other hand is saying, “Thereafter let’s just get back to normal and let us judge things by the normal standards”. I do not think that that was the tenor of the discussion that we had at the outset of the process.
To add to Michael McMahon’s point, it appears to me that the Government’s response has also been to take more and broader powers as a result of the uncertainty that the Welfare Reform Committee has had to deal with. There does not appear to be a time limit on those broader powers. Once the legislation is in place, are those powers any longer required? I am not sure that they are.
My take on the cabinet secretary’s response is that as long as Westminster has the opportunity to amend what it is doing, we may need to respond. Surely you would not want to have to try to find a place in the legislative programme to be able to respond—whenever that might be needed and whatever the hue of the Government.
Although I accept what Michael McMahon and John Scott are saying, I am not sure how relevant it is to the issue. We asked the cabinet secretary, and she responded. If we send her the same letter, we will get the same response, so I do not think that there is any benefit in doing so. Given that time seems to be an issue, why would we add another layer to the process?
To be fair, the cabinet secretary says:
“I will further consider your recommendation”
on the final points. I think that the Welfare Reform Committee will see that at stage 2, and we will collectively see that at stage 3.
We understand that there is an issue: it is on the record in this committee and in the Welfare Reform Committee. However, I am struggling to see that we will add anything to the process by submitting another piece of paper and asking someone else to reply. I am comfortable about leaving the issue with the subject committee.
I agree with your position, convener. I have said what I have said for the record, but I think that the comments from you and James Dornan are absolutely right. I see no purpose in pursuing the issue in this committee any longer. We have the response; it is either accepted or not, but it is the response.
I take it that there will be a formal acknowledgement of the letter—the clerk is nodding—but that we will not write again if we are happy that that is the response that we have received. That is probably appropriate on the timescale.
Members indicated agreement.