Agenda item 3 is on the correspondence that we have received from the Deputy Minister for Justice, Hugh Henry, about the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Bill. The letter indicates that the Executive is to lodge an amendment at stage 3 that will remove from the bill schedule 1, together with the related power. The committee will remember that we were concerned about that Henry VIII power being subject to the negative procedure. The Executive will look at the "relevant offence". Instead of listing particular sexual offences—or using that phrase—the Executive will look more generally at a sexual offence, which will make the whole thing easier for the procurator fiscal to interpret.
I agree that we should welcome the correspondence and I am sure that the committee does welcome it. It looks as if the proposed amendment will make the bill workable and that it addresses some legal concerns. However, we have not seen the text of the amendment and we would want to flag up that fact. We also do not know that the amendment will be accepted, but if the text of the amendment deals with the matter in the way in which the minister has described, the committee will argue for the amendment to be accepted, assuming that it is appropriate for members of this committee to do that.
We will not be reporting to the lead committee because of the timing. We will have to be alert to when the amendment comes up in the stage 3 debate in the chamber.
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