Chamber and committees

I will answer your question as carefully and concisely as possible. We still believe that citizens assemblies are a way forward. Do we have financial constraints? Yes, we do. The level of citizens assembly participation that we were looking for will need £2.8 million to set up. That is challenging at this time, as you will be aware. When everyone in every portfolio and across portfolios is looking at their budgets, it is difficult.

Are we engaging with the public in other ways? That is why I asked a question in return. We are using other panels involving the public to ask the same questions and to engage at a smaller level. The enthusiasm is still there; the question is whether I can get the funding. Obviously, funding has moved and it will now be from the individual portfolio that is asking the question of the citizens assembly. We are looking at individual portfolios to deliver, and they are looking at that, but they also face challenges.

My opinion about citizens assemblies in general and how we go forward with them is that we should do what other nations have done and keep the questions pretty simple. The first two questions that we asked were wide-ranging: how do we save the planet and what is Scotland’s future? Those are big questions and it is difficult to find out what we could deliver from those reports. The Republic of Ireland used citizens assemblies to deal with questions that its politicians found difficult to discuss in their Parliament: they were able to use the public to push them forward. For example, a citizens assembly was used to discuss abortion. Assemblies provide an opportunity to really look at a subject.

We have committed to look at council tax and how local government is funded, and it would be interesting to hear what the public said when they got all the facts and figures in front of them. We politicians have kicked that question around for all the time that I have been in the Parliament and it would be an interesting subject for a citizens assembly. Our main issue, at this stage, is getting funding for the assemblies, but we are still engaging with the public through other means to answer such questions.

I take on board everything that you are saying. Listen—as I have said to the committee on numerous occasions, I do not have a monopoly of good ideas. If someone turns up with a idea that will make something better and will make it work in the way that it should work, that is fair enough—my officials and I will look at it.

However, the idea of a protocol makes me a bit nervous, because we are currently managing to make the process work, to a degree. It takes time; the UK Government would say to me, “Well, that’s the time it takes, so work around it.”

Are you talking about the likes of framework bills and how we go about deciding on them?

Ironically, Jeremy, you and I were on the Social Security Committee when the Social Security (Scotland) Bill went through Parliament. I do not remember the framework part of the bill being the biggest issue that we dealt with at that stage; it was more the policy part that we discussed. For me, the most important thing is not how a bill is presented, but how Parliament scrutinises the policy.

Yes, the fact that we still intend to do that was part of the one-to-one conversation that I had with the convener earlier. More likely than not, some of those SLC bills will come to the committee. That is a broad-brush comment.

As I have said previously, the situation is that we have to work with the UK Government. We have to consider its side of things and I have to work around its processes.

When I come along to the committee, I am often told that I must respect Parliament and give Parliament time to process the detail. It is quite funny that I have been trying to say something similar in some of my earlier answers today. It is a difficult balancing act for us to press the UK Government enough in saying that we need to know the detail, so that we can do what we need to do up here. It is the UK Government’s process, so it controls that.

The approach tends to be that officials talk to officials, and the discussions move up to ministerial level at times. I have not had such a meeting for a wee while, but I used to have meetings about various sections of the Scotland Act 1998 that we were dealing with.

In the first such meeting that I had with my UK counterpart, we said, “Listen—can we leave the politics at the door?” We were just talking about how both Parliaments can work together and deal with the issues. My counterpart agreed, because we needed to do that to make things happen.

The intention is to give my officials and UK Government officials the opportunity to have such conversations and move things forward. I do not know who is best to give more detail on that—is it Steven MacGregor?

Rather than ramble on, I will pass that over to Steven MacGregor.

You will appreciate that the SLC bill that I gave as an example, the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill, was another example of a proposal that had been around for some time. We have to ensure that we get ourselves into a suitable place when I come to the committee. I am wary of SLC bills, because the case of the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill was a perfect example of that need. This is not to say anything about my official, Mr MacGregor, but he told me that the bill was imminent and I took him at his word and said so in front of the committee.

You will understand, Mr Mundell, that I no longer want to commit myself to a particular date, having been through the process in that example. The reasons that you have given are among those why I want to get 100 per cent of the detail before I get back to you with how the proposed legislation on judicial factors looks.

I know that Mr Balfour will be in mourning after the mighty St Mirren beat his team on Saturday, but I am happy to answer the question.

Last week, I sent an outline of our expected legislative programme to the Parliamentary Bureau. That is caveated with the fact that anything can happen between what we are programming at the moment and what ends up being reality. We will use that outline at the bureau, and we have a strategic bureau meeting this week at which we will discuss how to go forward with the business programme.

On committees, as the convener will be aware, I tend to have one-to-ones with conveners to discuss the upcoming programme, what business there will be over the year and how we can deal with that. That includes discussing members’ bills—although that is not so much with your committee—and things such as that.

On whether I could get you further detail a lot sooner, the information is already out there with business managers in the bureau. However, the caveat is that that information is available for them only on a need-to-know basis, because, as we know, things can change in Parliament.

That happens even when I talk to your convener about Scottish Law Commission bills. A perfect example is the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill. At my first appearance before the committee, I said that that would be the first SLC bill, that it would be very good and that it would be coming imminently. The bill became known to me as the unmoveable transactions bill, because it was about six months or so before it came before you. There was difficulty before we could it bring it to the committee for you to deal with it properly.

I do not want to go down the rabbit hole of SLC bills at this stage, but I use that as an example of a time when, in all honesty, I sat here and said, “I can do that within that timescale,” but it did not turn out that way.

When we can get you further information, we will. My officials engage regularly with the committee’s clerks, and we are happy to continue that flexibility and keep that door open. However, I do not like to promise things that I cannot deliver, and in some cases I might find myself in that position if I were to give you a longer-term view.

I welcome you to the committee, Ms Villalba, as I think that this is the first time that I have seen you in it.

Officials from the Scottish Government and the UK Government meet each other regularly, and they have the opportunity to share information and ensure that we try to make things work. However, one of the things to be aware of is the fact that we are dealing with UK legislation a lot of the time or, because it comes from the UK Parliament, it is theirs to deal with.

We need to find a way—I am trying to make this point in a non-political way, because my job is basically about process and making everything work—for the UK Government to remember that we are here and that we have our processes that we need to deal with. We also need to ensure that there is communication between officials and between me and my ministerial counterparts.

We try to make that work, but it does not always work. If I were sitting here speaking from the UK Government’s perspective, I would say that we have a Parliament in Westminster and that we have to go through its processes. At the same time, the Scottish Government would say in response to that, “Well, yes, but, equally, this affects us, so we need to actually have the opportunity to have the time to go through our own processes as well.”

On the whole, we tend to work very well together, but there can be some hiccups along the way. There might be a situation in which the UK Government does not think that there is a Scottish element or something that affects the Scottish Government. It will be our officials who will say that we need to look at that, and there might be a bit of debate on the issue. Steven MacGregor can give some further detail on that.