The final item is consideration of a draft response to the Subordinate Legislation Committee's inquiry on the regulatory framework in Scotland. As the clerk's briefing paper says, we made a submission to the inquiry and the Subordinate Legislation Committee has produced a draft report, on which it has invited comments. Our response concentrates on the recommendations that arose from our original comments. Are members content to submit the response to the Subordinate Legislation Committee?
Towards the end of the draft response, it is suggested that
Although there is a subordinate legislation tracking service, which is operated by Subordinate Legislation Committee clerks, it is difficult for those clerks to know which instruments would particularly interest the Finance Committee. Conversely, it would be difficult for Finance Committee clerks to identify from the reams of subordinate legislation that are published in the business bulletin the instruments that merit particular consideration by the Finance Committee. The Executive bill team would be aware of the Finance Committee's concerns about a bill and would know what subordinate legislation would be produced. We therefore thought that in practice it would be easier for the bill team to alert the committee to relevant instruments.
I presume that the bill team would reflect on comments that this committee had made in response to the financial memorandum.
As is suggested in the draft response, if the committee indicated in its report on a bill that it wanted to consider the subordinate legislation that arose from the act, we would alert the bill team to that, so that it could flag up to us any instruments that were laid.
As long as there are checks and balances in the system, the approach seems to be acceptable.
The system will not be entirely foolproof, but we will try to make it as foolproof as possible.
Meeting closed at 12:48.