Education Committee, 24 Jan 2007

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Official Report 324KB pdf

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Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Bill

We resume the meeting to consider a paper on our approach to stage 2 of the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Bill. It is slightly unusual to hold such a discussion, but in the light of the committee's stage 1 report and our previous discussions on the matter, I felt that it would be useful to consider various options on how to handle stage 2, now that we have completed our stage 1 consideration. The general principles were agreed to at stage 1, but in our report we made it clear that before we began stage 2 we wished to take further evidence on some of the issues that would be covered in secondary legislation and in guidance.

Before I discuss the options that are available, I should tell the committee that I had an informal discussion with the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People in which he apologised for the fact that the policy information that he had hoped to publish by now had been delayed slightly because of the illness of a key official, but he said that it should be with us within the next few days and that it would certainly be in the public domain by the end of the week, at the latest.

I propose three options for dealing with stage 2. Option 1 is the traditional route, whereby we simply consider amendments in the usual way. Option 2 is that we take oral evidence from the minister then, at the same meeting, move on to stage 2. Option 3 is that we take oral evidence from the minister and from other stakeholders before considering stage 2 amendments at the following meeting. Time limitations mean that we could probably hear from one panel comprising voluntary sector representatives and one panel comprising representatives of the statutory sector and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.

My recommendation is that we choose option 3, because it gives the committee the best chance of addressing the issues that we are still concerned about, but members are free to make known their views.

I strongly support what the convener has said. It is vital that we do everything we can to get the bill right, so we should be prepared to go the extra mile. Option 3 represents the most comprehensive and professional way of going about matters.

Option 3 is the only one that we can take, because the minister has given us nothing in writing. It is still up to the committee to decide whether the substance of what is proposed satisfies the requirements that we laid down at stage 1. As we said in our report, if we are not satisfied, we may want to wait to see the subordinate legislation. Option 3 will allow us to delay our decision on whether we are satisfied. If we are not satisfied, we can still decide not to proceed to stage 2. Option 3 is the most sensible way to proceed.

Does the committee agree?

Members indicated agreement.

I have missed the fact that committee meetings will be moved to Tuesday afternoons.

From the middle of February—

For how long?

Until the end of the session. The Executive has indicated that the Parliamentary Bureau will recommend that Wednesdays should become full plenary days so that the absurd amount of legislation that the Parliament still has to deal with in the final six weeks of the session can be completed. Unfortunately, that means that the committee will meet on Tuesday afternoons from 13 February.

I have a problem with attending on 13 February.

We will discuss that later.

I remind members that there will be no meeting next week, partly because we have no business and partly because, even if we had, we would not have been able to get into the committee rooms. The next meeting will be on 7 February.

Meeting closed at 13:20.