Justice Committee, 23 Jun 2009

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Official Report 339KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Debt Arrangement Scheme (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2009 <br />(SSI 2009/234)

Item 2 is subordinate legislation. We will take evidence on the Debt Arrangement Scheme (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2009, which is an instrument that is subject to annulment. A motion to annul has been lodged by Robert Brown and will be dealt with under the next agenda item. For now, the committee is simply taking evidence in order to inform our consideration of that agenda item.

Members have before them the submissions that have been received in relation to the regulations, and the briefing paper from the Scottish Parliament information centre on options for debtors. I welcome the witnesses: Yvonne Gallacher, the chief executive of Money Advice Scotland; and Vida Gow, money advice co-ordinator with Citizens Advice Scotland.

We have received written submissions from the witnesses, and we will move straight to questions.

There has been some interaction with Money Advice Scotland and Citizens Advice Scotland about the Government's intention to lay the regulations before the Parliament. I cannot find the exact point in my papers, but it was suggested that there was a fair degree of agreement from your organisations about the direction of travel. Can you elaborate on the extent to which you were content—or otherwise—with the proposals when they were introduced?

There has been agreement; we certainly agree that the regulation that allows schemes to be set up for a single debt is a way forward. However, the minimum contribution of £100 is an issue. I have just come from a conference in Crieff, and I can tell you that creditors and advisers unanimously agree that that type of policy will not work. That proposal needs to be reconsidered and consulted on.

There is certainly a need for money advice. We realise that the gateway has not dealt with as many people as we anticipated or hoped, but we can consider alternative solutions. Indeed, given the current climate, what is happening with home owner support and the need for approved advisers, providing only the electronic gateway while not making money advice compulsory will lead people down the wrong path.

We were involved in some of the initial discussions about the changes. We welcome the idea that single debts will be allowed into the debt arrangement scheme, but, like Money Advice Scotland, we have considerable concerns about the restrictions that will be placed on the scheme with the minimum payment and the maximum term for repayment.

CAS research shows that there are already significant policy gaps with regard to citizens advice bureaux clients and that the regulations would expand those gaps and leave even more clients without a suitable option for going forward. We noted in our submission that a number of bureaux came forward to tell us what the impact would be on their clients if the regulations were implemented; three times as many bureaux have now come back to me on that. A large number of clients would not have been able to access the solution that they were offered if the regulations had already been in place.

Some of my colleagues have questions, but we might circumvent that process if you simply illustrate the issues that you have with the regulations. I hope that there will be a measure of agreement between you on that.

Basically, the issue is the exclusion of debtors. People who could pay up to £100 and for whom a protected trust deed is not an option will be taken out of the system. We should think back to why the policy arose in the first place. Home owners who are not necessarily middle class would be excluded under the policy. However, the minister spoke to us this morning and told us that he has revoked the regulations and that he will proceed with a consultation.

On the issue of consultation, as I was involved when the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Bill was being considered, I know that there was wide consultation and involvement with the money advice and voluntary sectors to try to achieve something that would meet needs. We have received several written submissions, including from the two organisations that are represented today and, without fail, they raise the lack of consultation as a problem. The Executive note on the regulations states that stakeholders, including Money Advice Scotland, Citizens Advice Scotland and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, were consulted during the review process. We are told that the Accountant in Bankruptcy

‘has consulted with the money advice sector in relation to the specific impact of these changes on debtors and money advisers.'

Were you consulted at that stage by the Accountant in Bankruptcy?

We have had on-going discussions with the Accountant in Bankruptcy, but the issue is the timing of the regulations—there was not sufficient time to examine them and we were not able to consult our sector or people in the credit and debt collection industries. As I said, at the conference that I attended, the delegates were concerned that they were not consulted on the issue in the way that they would expect.

To an extent, we are talking in a vacuum, as Ms Gallacher has indicated that the regulations have been revoked.

I am sure that you will have other things to say, convener, but I have a question for Ms Gow from Citizens Advice Scotland. Paragraph 24 of your written submission states that a better solution than that in the regulations that we thought that we were to discuss this morning would be the reform of protected trust deeds. Will you go into a little detail on why that would be better?

There has been some discussion of that at the debt action forum—I was not involved in that, but my colleague Susan McPhee was. There was discussion of the protection of the client's main residence while they receive debt relief.

Do you have anything to add, Ms Gallacher?

Protected trust deed reform is certainly needed, but it is not a panacea and would not sort the problem with the debt arrangement scheme. We need to consider the issue globally and not look at just one solution. It is unfair even to consider that the people under the £100 limit that is in the regulations that we are considering could go into protected trust deeds, as that would not be an option for many of those people, particularly if they are home owners. Both our organisations have presented worrying evidence on the number of people who would be excluded.

So you want a more holistic approach through which we consider the issue in the round.

Yes—and that approach should include money advice. Creditors, debtors and money advisers are all agreed that that is the methodology that is required. We need an holistic approach that will help people to decide what to do, whether the solution is a protected trust deed, the debt arrangement scheme or whatever. We must consider how we can expand the gateway, but retain within it the money advice. Otherwise, people will end up with improper solutions, which will create difficulties for them further down the line.

I would always agree that it is better to work in co-operation.

I agree with the convener that we are working in a bit of a vacuum, so I will just run quickly through the questions that I had, on which the witnesses might want to comment.

Is it appropriate for people to be given decades-long terms of repayment, particularly given the age of some who are involved in the scheme? For example, I believe that some pensioners were given repayment periods of up to 40 years.

On the issue of exclusion, will the witnesses comment on the fact that debt advice is not available in some areas, which means that many people are geographically excluded? Information that we received last week suggests that we have only 12 active money advisers in Scotland, so large parts of the country are excluded from the scheme.

On compulsory money advice, although I agree that people should seek out experienced money advisers for debt advice, is it appropriate that such advice should be compulsory? For example, if I was in debt and wanted to repay that through the debt arrangement scheme, I might have no wish to seek advice from either of the organisations that are represented here today because I felt that I had enough intelligence to read the available information and to make a decision based on my experience and on what was best for me and my family. Why should I be forced to go to an organisation to seek advice? Could I not take a decision myself? Is it not slightly condescending to say that everybody must go to a money advice organisation?

Only 12 approved money advisers regularly submit debt payment plans under the scheme, but a large number of advisers submit debt payment plans less regularly. That might be due to their client base. Although advisers in certain areas submit plans more regularly, many more than 12 advisers are submitting applications—

I am sorry to interrupt, but Moray has no approved adviser in 2009. Is it not the case that people in Moray are excluded from the scheme?

Some areas in Scotland currently have no approved adviser. We would certainly welcome anything that could be done to open up the scheme to as many people as possible. I believe that the debt arrangement scheme is a good scheme, so I would like it to be accessible to as many clients as possible. We should look at all the different ways in which we can do that. I agree that the best solution is for people to access money advice, but I am aware that some people are currently restricted in that regard. We would like as many people as possible to be able to access the scheme.

Would not one way of doing that be to remove the compulsory element?

Perhaps the requirement for an approved adviser could be removed. There have been discussions about allowing all money advisers to be involved in the scheme.

I also asked about the length of the terms of repayment.

That is a difficult issue. Some programmes appear to have very long terms of repayment. As an approved adviser for four years, I dealt with some cases in which the debt payment plan looked, on the face of it, to be very long term because of the time period that I had agreed with my client. I had one client who agreed to make payments for five years, then retire and sell the property to repay the debts in full. That client's initial debt payment plan looked very long term, but all the creditors, as well as the Accountant in Bankruptcy, were made aware that the payments would be made only for the first five years. That would have looked like a very long plan because those extra details were not included in the statistics.

With regard to what Vida Gow said about the length of programmes, under the current arrangements, creditors are quite prepared to accept anything because, at the moment, they are not lending very much and their activities are focused on debt collection. Obviously, the debt arrangement scheme will bring a lot of money back. It is true that the system needs to be modified, particularly with regard to the point that was made about access. However, in one way or another, people usually find their way to an approved adviser—I have personally assisted someone in such circumstances.

We need to think about flexibility and ways of being innovative in our approach. When the project was set up, we raised the issue of the risks around not having advisers in every area. Of course we do not want there to be a postcode lottery in Scotland. We want people to get advice. That is also what you and the creditors want. It is unfair to say that there are no advisers in an area because, although there might not be any approved advisers, there are usually systems to which people can refer and through which people can be passed on to approved advisers. We need to think about having peripatetic advisers who are flexible enough to go into areas where there are no approved advisers.

There are issues that need to be addressed, but we are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Everyone agrees that money advice is pivotal to the situation that we are discussing—that was the view of the delegates at the conference yesterday. I understand the point about money advice being perceived as being condescending. However, from their experience, money advisers and creditors know that money advice works. With respect to other systems, it is possible that people who go online to look for solutions—as is perhaps being done in England and Wales—could end up with the wrong solutions. That might result in their bankruptcy, which is not what anyone wants.

Do you accept that people who have got themselves into such a mess in the first place really should be pointed in the direction of money advice before they try to get out of it?

A succinct answer to that is that it depends on the circumstances. Obviously, we all want people to come for advice once they see the problems starting to emerge. However, more and more people who are unemployed or are about to lose their jobs are thinking about their situation and seeking advice. The advisers are overwhelmed at the moment.

Creditors certainly recommend that clients come for money advice. They want clients to be given all the options. They want to be sure that the clients' incomes have been maximised, that they are making appropriate choices and that they are going forward with a programme that is affordable and includes an offer of payment.

The papers that I have seen suggest that the vast majority of the creditors are what I might describe as commercial banks. Is that the case?

Yes. The banks are concerned about this issue because, obviously, they want to get their money back. Local authorities feature quite highly as well, however.

After banks and local authorities, who makes up the next biggest class of creditor?

I think that there is a mixture. I know from information that the AIB published that, after the main banks—including credit card companies—and local authorities, there is a drop off in scale, and the other creditors are made up of catalogue companies, home credit companies and so on.

The scheme is intended as a diligence stop, among other things, that would allow people to organise their affairs. Therefore, provided that creditors are getting a flow of money that they would not feasibly be able to get hold of by some other method, there is no particular reason why a programme should not go on for longer than the recommended period, is there? It is in the interests of the creditor and the debtor that there should be a regularised arrangement for payment, even if the payment is a bit less than it might be in an ideal world.

Under the debt arrangement scheme, the creditor gets full payment, which is why programmes are extended. The creditor will get its money back.

What has changed since the legislation was first on the statute book is that the interest charges have been removed. In other words, anyone who completes a programme will have paid back every penny but will not have to pay the interest.

Clearly, something is wrong with the money advice system, as we are not getting through the numbers that were anticipated when the legislation was passed. From the evidence that we have had about the patchiness of the service around the country, it is clear that some issues are inhibiting the full use of the scheme.

I picked up from CAS that there are issues with the procedures for approving and using money advisers that we need to tackle. Do you agree that, for some reason, the system is too tricky procedurally? Are there issues that we should be tackling in order to encourage further use of the scheme?

Money advisers would welcome a change in the procedure so that there were fewer forms and less bureaucracy. However, money advisers and the credit industry still feel that money advice is pivotal.

There is flexibility around certification and approval, which I explained in my submission, but MAS—and CAS, I believe—would be happier if people were not put through an approval system, because there are already checks and balances in place. I hope that that will be consulted on.

On home owner support, people are looking to money advisers for information about such support to help them through very difficult situations.

To summarise that, you support the simplification of the scheme, with the reduction in the number of forms and so on. Is the online element helpful?

It is helpful, but it must not be the only entry point. We want money advice to be pivotal.

To pick up on Stewart Maxwell's point, do you want money advice to be required in every case? I entirely accept that it is usually highly desirable, but there might be a case in which it is not necessary, particularly if there is a shortfall in the number of money advisers and a three-month time gap, which is mentioned in one of the papers. Perhaps there needs to be a number of options. Have you any thoughts about how the system might be better organised?

I think that people must be made to get advice even if they think that they do not need it. You have to trust us when we say that even the most sophisticated consumers, when faced with a complex debt situation, become stressed. They might normally be able to deal with complex situations, but, because of the pressure that they are under—perhaps they are being hounded or whatever—they find it difficult to cope, and they welcome intervention. That intervention is always client led, which means that the client is always able to say, ‘You've helped me to come this far, but that is enough.'

Money advice needs to be there for them, because it will help them through the particular processes that are important. For example, they might not have thought about whether they are entitled to benefits or have payment protection insurance that they could take advantage of. Money advice is about considering the overall picture and creating a structure that will bring about a result.

Money advisers' time will be freed up by some of the changes to the administration of the scheme, which takes up a huge amount of their time at the moment. If they have more time, they will be able to see more clients.

Is there not a risk in maintaining the compulsory element? At the moment, one of the problems is that, no matter how advisable it is to go to money advice, there are people who will not do that and will, instead, simply seek out private loan companies and so on, which might be much worse for them. The element of compulsion might make them go into those private schemes, because it seems easier than seeking money advice.

Of course there is a risk that people will go to private debt management programmes. However, many money advisers are dealing with the casualties of the very companies that you are talking about. When people are in debt, they certainly do not need to pay more money to get out of it again.

In England and Wales, debt relief orders require approved intermediaries, so a precedent for that has already been set.

We are grateful for your attendance. You might feel that, to an extent, it has been unnecessary, but I assure you that it has not. The committee has learned a lot about debt arrangement, and we could certainly have been doing with that knowledge.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—

We come to our second panel. We have with us Fergus Ewing, the Minister for Community Safety, who is accompanied by Sharon Bell, head of the policy development branch with the Accountant in Bankruptcy.

Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee. Initially, the invitation was to debate a motion to annul the regulations, but I assume that that debate will not go ahead given that, this morning, I signed the revocation of the regulations. It might be useful if I explained how we arrived at this situation.

That would indeed be useful.

We have had fairly extensive engagement and discussion with a variety of stakeholders over a long period, starting last August. That was a result of a generally recognised desire to improve the debt arrangement scheme and to increase access to the DAS and debt payment programmes, which are the mechanism for making the DAS work. The engagement began on 21 August in a joint workshop with creditors and the money advice sector to discuss the DAS. Ministerial discussions took place last December, which Mr Maxwell will remember, and further discussions took place with various parties. That led to an announcement by me on 13 January 2009 at a conference at which there was full representation of stakeholders from the sectors with which the committee has been in touch of late. At that meeting on 13 January, I announced that we believed that it was necessary to change the DAS and that we planned to do so in July.

Since then, as members would expect, there have been meetings between the Government—mostly involving my officials—and the various parties that are involved, including the money advice forum, Provident Personal Credit, the bankruptcy and diligence implementation board, MAS and CAS. In tandem with that, as members will know, a debt action forum has been set up and has had seven meetings. The forum is considering the issue of debt in the round, but particularly how we respond to the problems that are thrown up by the recession, especially for those who lose their job as a result of the recession and through no fault of their own. Those people might well be faced with debt problems for the first time in their life, having worked for decades and then suddenly received a P45. We felt that we should examine debt law with a view to finding out whether more needs to be done. That has been done in the debt action forum, the report of which I believe has now been published.

It has been published today.

In tandem with that, we identified that, because the DAS was introduced in 2004, it was time to consider how it was performing and, in particular, how it was accessed and how many people had access to it. In 2007, there were about 260 DPPs, although more than 90,000 people sought advice from citizens advice bureaux. As Citizens Advice Scotland would acknowledge, one might expect that about 10 per cent of people who seek debt advice would be able to repay their debt and would therefore go for the vehicle of the DAS rather than a debt relief scheme of protected trust deed or bankruptcy. However, 10 per cent of 90,000 is 9,000, whereas 260 is one third of 1 per cent of 90,000.

The evidence that the committee received earlier from Vida Gow and Yvonne Gallacher was, as the convener said, useful for the committee to get a handle on and a better understanding of the DAS. Some of the questioning from committee members brought out the acknowledged need to broaden access to the DAS. One route of doing so is the internet. Mr Maxwell highlighted the kind of individuals who might want to do it themselves and who are capable of doing so. That point is undoubtedly reasonable, but we must ensure that those who are not familiar or comfortable with the internet can make paper applications. I understand that Mr Brown and Mr Butler raised that issue in an informal meeting. In addition, other money advisers or professional advisers such as solicitors and insolvency practitioners could be given a role that is not currently afforded to them. The Accountant in Bankruptcy, which is an agency of Government, has shown itself to be highly efficient in successfully administering the low-income, low-assets bankruptcy scheme, which involved 9,425 awards in the year 2008-09. There is therefore broad agreement on the objectives.

I will move swiftly on to events last week. Last Wednesday and Friday, the Government first saw the written representations that the committee has received. Yesterday, I met officials to discuss the submissions for the first time, once we had had an opportunity to analyse them. It is fair to say that we need to carry out further analysis. I therefore decided this morning, in the light of the submissions from stakeholders, some of whom we heard from this morning—although there are others from whom we have not heard—that the wisest, most appropriate and sensible action would be to have as a matter of urgency, and I hope in the next few weeks, a series of further discussions and engagements with the earlier witnesses and other stakeholders to discuss the issues that they have raised with regard to a threshold and a time limit.

We have not had a formal consultation process. Therefore, in tandem with those discussions, and given the concerns that have been raised, the complexities of the issues and the interaction of the DAS with protected trust deeds, bankruptcy and general advice, it would be appropriate to have a formal consultation in the summer on how to improve the DAS.

I am sorry for the length of the explanation—although I did not include all the details. I thought that it was only fair to explain to the committee why we intimated the revocation of the regulations only this morning. We have been working within short time limits. I hope that members will understand that we acted as quickly as possible following receipt of the documents, which I understand was on Wednesday and Friday of last week. The decision that we took this morning was made in the confident belief that the meetings that I will arrange—most of which I hope to attend personally—will lead to a measure of consensus that will allow us to come back with what I suspect will be a revised proposal in the autumn to achieve the objectives that are, by and large, shared by the majority of stakeholders.

Knowing you, Mr Ewing, I would expect nothing less. However, I must express my concern about the way in which the matter has been handled. Not only was there scant consultation—which inevitably was going to cause problems somewhere down the line—but we had a situation whereby last week the committee had to arrange a special session. I am most grateful to you for facilitating your officials' attendance at that, but it took up time. It was obvious from members' research into the matter that there were difficulties. Members, individually and collectively, have spent a lot of time examining the situation.

The committee has been sitting since 10 to 9 this morning, but we would not have sat so long if we had anticipated that the matter would be dealt with. A member of your party—a substitute member of the committee—has been put to considerable inconvenience. You will understand my irritation at that, particularly given the fact that you revoked the regulations while the committee was sitting.

You made a number of arguable points, which we will no doubt debate with interest on a constructive basis, in the fullness of time. However, I put it to you that the matter has been dealt with in a most unhappy manner. Although I do not for a moment think that any discourtesy was intended, you will appreciate that a lot of unnecessary work has devolved to the committee at a time when it is coping with the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill, which is enormously complex.

I entirely take those comments on board. Certainly, no discourtesy was intended and I regret that some members have been put to inconvenience. Apart from that, I sought to give in my opening remarks a candid and full explanation of where we are. I found this morning's evidence session with the two previous witnesses to be very useful and I think that it will help to inform the way ahead.

Do members have any other comments?

How long will the formal consultation last? I take it that the consultation period will be telescoped over the summer, but I hope that the consultation will be as widespread and comprehensive as possible.

Certainly, we want to consult as quickly as possible, but we also need to ensure that a wide range of stakeholders are involved and have the full opportunity to respond. I hope that the consultation can quickly commence over the summer. I have not yet determined how long the consultation period should be. Over the hot summer months, in tandem with the consultation, I intend to engage personally with stakeholders—including those who were not represented here today—to discuss some of the issues that we heard about this morning.

I thank the minister for agreeing to the consultation, which is a valid and proper way forward. Will he assure us that the consultation will also look at the number of approved money advisers? As he will have heard, the Accountant in Bankruptcy's written submission states that only 12 approved advisers regularly submit debt payment programmes under the scheme. That is quite a big issue—linked to the patchiness of advice across the country and the lack of take-up—that we need to get right. Perhaps the current requirements involve too much bureaucracy, or perhaps there is another underlying explanation. I hope that the consultation will consider not only the technical aspects but the wider issue of how the scheme can meet the objective of providing a reasonable diligence stopper by opening up repayment arrangements to rather more people than seems to have been achieved—even with the nudge of the change in interest payments—since the scheme came into effect.

I can give Robert Brown a clear assurance that those matters will be raised both in the meetings that I have alluded to, which I hope will be arranged to take place over the next few weeks, and in the consultation. Plainly, it is important to consider what elements of money advice should be available, whether that advice should be mandatory and whether it should be mandatory in the different circumstances of the DAS, protected trust deeds, bankruptcy and other possible routes for coping with debt through either repayment or debt relief. Plainly, that important issue, which was raised this morning, will be looked at in the consultation and will form part of our discussions.

You said in your opening remarks that there had been extensive engagement with stakeholders since August. I am sure that you agree that we are in this position because although the engagement with stakeholders might have been extensive, their views and input were obviously not taken fully into account when the statutory instrument was made. That concerns me. I hope that your department and the Accountant in Bankruptcy will learn from that.

The Executive note that accompanies the regulations indicates that the views of stakeholders, including Money Advice Scotland and Citizens Advice Scotland, were all taken into account and incorporated in the review, and that the Accountant in Bankruptcy consulted the money advice sector on the specific impact of the changes. However, that is clearly not the case. I am concerned that a document that committee members rely on to be 100 per cent correct does not, in my opinion, tell the full facts. That is probably more of a comment than a question.

Among the stakeholders whom we have consulted—in addition to those represented at the committee this morning—and engaged with at a series of workshops are HMRC, North Ayrshire Council, Eversheds, the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation, Lloyds TSB, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Highland Council, Dumfries and Galloway Council, Glasgow City Council, South Lanarkshire Council, Argyll and Bute Council, Fife Council, Edinburgh Napier University, the Law Society of Scotland and the Scottish Government legal directorate. Plainly, we have found from time to time in government that securing agreement from everybody on everything is challenging and difficult. However, I was reassured by the witnesses' positive comments this morning that the proposal to open the DAS to those with a single debt is a good idea that would get support, and that the proposal to transfer the administration of the DAS to the Accountant in Bankruptcy would free up the time of citizen advice bureaux and Money Advice Scotland so that they could get on with helping people rather than dealing with bureaucracy. We also heard this morning that an online application process—subject to caveats, which we will need to explore—would be welcome.

The two main issues that are in dispute, which the meeting has helped us to focus on, are the threshold and the length of period. I am bound to reflect that the original regulations in 2004 did not envisage that there would be a period longer than 10 years. The policy intent was that a fair and reasonable period would be five years, with a case-by-case review of up to 10 years. It was not expected that debt payment programmes would last longer than 10 years—far less was it expected that they would extend for 40 years. Clearly, the idea of paying 10p or 20p a month is ludicrous. We must consider carefully the idea of having a threshold, but the meeting has allowed us to focus clearly on the issues on which there is disagreement. That indicates the way ahead. Our approach is that we will have further discussions—festina lente, and it is good to talk.

Is it still good to talk, Mrs Craigie?

It is still good to talk—I love talking.

I make the point that, had discussions on the Government's intentions taken place before the statutory instrument was printed, we would not be in this situation. The good suggestions of all the organisations, which you have highlighted, would have been taken into account, the improvements to the scheme would be going ahead successfully and we would not have had the current delay. I hope that everyone has learned from this mistake.

I say to Cathie Craigie—ita vero.

Not having had the benefit of a classical education, I think that most of us are in the dark.

As there are no further questions, I thank Mr Ewing and Ms Bell for their attendance—unnecessary as it might have been—and suspend the committee briefly while witnesses and anyone else who feels like doing so leaves.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—

Item 3 would have involved formal consideration of the motion to annul the instrument. However, as the instrument has been revoked, this item is redundant.

Convener, I take your point to the minister about the committee not knowing about the situation. We are maturing as a Parliament. There should have been a way to inform you about what was going to happen. The time of today's witnesses could have been better used. The same could be said of those who will have to attend at a later date when we consider the matter again. Although we had a wee question-and-answer session, it was not necessary. We could simply have decided not to deal with the matter because the instrument had been revoked.

The situation has been handled badly. I believe that the minister said that he was aware of the issue last Wednesday and Friday. I am sure that you could have been informed, convener, so that we had more notice.

Your point is well made.

In fairness to the minister, I think that he said he first got sight of the written evidence on Wednesday and Friday.

Wednesday and Friday last week.

Yes. However, every week we receive written evidence from people who disagree with something or other. I doubt that there is anything that any committee deals with that someone does not disagree with. The fact that somebody writes to disagree with something does not necessarily mean that a minister will immediately revoke an instrument.

It is fair to say that it was reasonable to have discussions on the matter yesterday, as the minister indicated he had done. It is, of course, unfortunate that the timescale was so short, and what has happened this morning is also unfortunate. However, it is a little unfair to suggest that a decision could have been taken last week on the basis of a couple of written submissions that turned up on Wednesday and Friday. To suggest otherwise is a little disingenuous.

I disagree with you, Stewart.

Without raking over the coals, it is, to say the least, unfortunate that literally at the last moment I was passed a note to say what was likely to happen. As Cathie Craigie says, the witnesses could have been told that they did not need to attend.

Anyway, we have dealt with the matter and we should move on.

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Civil Legal Aid (Scotland) (Fees) Amendment Regulations 2009<br />(SSI 2009/203)

The next item, which is consideration of a negative instrument, is somewhat less controversial and should not take us terribly long.

The Subordinate Legislation Committee drew the instrument to the attention of Parliament on the ground that the parent act contains no authority for the instrument to have retrospective effect. The Government considers that the instrument is intra vires.

As members have no comments, are we content to note the instrument?

Members indicated agreement.

Meeting continued in private until 13:00.