Chamber and committees

To be perfectly honest with you, it is a bit of both. We have officials working together all the time, as I have already said, but there is also the fact that, when the UK Government makes an announcement and goes forward with legislation, it is its legislation. We just need to make sure that we make the UK Government aware of the Scottish element.

Could things be better? There is always room for improvement in absolutely everything in life so, yes, we probably could find a way to work that would make things run more smoothly. However, because of the technical aspects of a lot of this, that can be quite difficult. From the number of notes that I have seen flying back and forward between the two Governments, I can see that people end up having to deal daily with things that had not been thought of and which could cause a problem.

Obviously, if someone is drafting something in the UK Government, they think purely from their perspective about how they are going to push things forward, and they may perceive that there is no kick-on to us in Scotland. We see officials in the Scottish Government saying that that is not the case, and there might be a wee bit of debate—a wee bit of to-ing and fro-ing on who is correct in that scenario.

That brings us back to accuracy and how we can provide information to the committee and the Parliament to the best of our ability. I will bring in Steven MacGregor again to add to that.

Part of the reason why I do not want to say something when I do not have the full detail for the committee is because that would set hares running. As you say, it is not a highly political bill, but I want to ensure that the it is right because my job is about process and I have to ensure that I am not the one who gets the process wrong.

Thank you, convener, and good morning to everyone.

As a former member of the committee, I am only too aware of its importance in scrutinising legislation.

When we met in February, we were preparing ourselves, both in the Scottish Government and in the Parliament, to deal with the measures in the United Kingdom Government’s Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. We anticipated that they would give rise to a high volume of subordinate legislation. The final version of the legislation in the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 means that the volumes will not reach the scale that we expected. Nonetheless, ministers need to be assured that devolved provisions are appropriate, and officials will continue to apprise the committee of expected future volumes in order to assist you in managing your business.

Although retained European Union law implementation has not been as expected, the Parliament continues to process a significant amount of legislation. I record my thanks to the committee and its officials for the constructive manner in which we continue to work with each other in what is an extremely busy and challenging legislative programme.

The Government continues to deliver on its commitment to deliver more Scottish Law Commission bills. I am pleased to note that the committee has been able to lead scrutiny of two bills so far in the current session, including the Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill, the stage 1 debate on which will be held this week. I hope that that will continue. As you know, our programme for government confirms that the next Scottish Law Commission bill for introduction will be the judicial factors bill, and the Government expects that it will be suitable for allocation to this committee.

We remain committed to continuing to reduce the backlog of published reports. By the next parliamentary session, we should have addressed the backlog and be focused on recently published reports.

As the committee knows, I take the quality of the instruments that we lay very seriously. It is important that there are as few errors as possible. I am therefore pleased to note that, in the past quarter, no instruments have been reported on serious grounds.

I continue to value the close working relationship that I have sought to build with the committee, and I hope that it continues in the future. I look forward to hearing from everyone on the committee today, and I am happy to take any questions. Otherwise, I will go now.

Greig Walker might have something to add from his experience of retained EU law.

I have no further detail on that. I can come back to the committee with further detail as soon as we have it.

If that were likely to happen, I would probably say so in my one-to-one conversation with the committee convener. From memory, I do not think that there is anything of significance coming up for the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, although I always use the line—kidding on—that the committee is going to get all the legislation that is coming through and the full number of SSIs. On the whole, I do not see anything for this committee. I think that I can guarantee that at this stage, but I will confirm with Steven MacGregor that that is indeed the case.

Rather than repeat myself, I will get Steven MacGregor to add to that.

I cannot really talk about the situation 20 or 30 years ago, because I was in primary school—at least I was 30 years ago, anyway. No—I am lying, actually. I forget that I am getting older.

I cannot speak to the past, but the situation now is exactly as Rachel Rayner has said. Decisions are made case by case, so that we can justify the reasons why we take an approach and why we see it as being important. In many cases, that might be because stakeholders need to play an important part in the bill; in other cases, it might give us the added flexibility that we need in order to deliver what we want to deliver.

On the whole, however, using a framework bill is not our go-to place; our idea in creating a bill is not automatically to make it a framework bill.

Having worked with you since 2016, I know that you are not exactly quiet when it comes to stating your opinion. The whole point of Parliament is that members can express opinions such as the one that you just expressed. I go back to the fact that there is always the same debate with framework bills: some people see them as a power grab by the Government and some people see them as a way to create, with stakeholders, flexibility in the design of a service—social security being an example—to ensure that we deliver what we set out to do in the policy.

I assume that we would work with stakeholders on the proposed agriculture bill. There is no point in an agriculture bill without there having been full stakeholder engagement or an element of co-design. We will need to create flexibility to ensure that the bill works, because—you will know this better than I do, Mr Mundell—it will affect people’s livelihoods and how they go about their business. It will still give us the framework, and I understand—

At the end of the day, Mr Mundell, you have given your point of view. I do not necessarily agree with it and I have already stated how I believe the bill should go forward.

This is an on-going debate. The good news is that, as I said when I answered Mr Balfour’s question, we are not doing the same thing all the time. It is not our go-to to say, “There’s a framework bill; let’s just hang everything on that.” We do not do that; we work bill by bill. If I can assure you on any point, it would be that that is how we look at it.

I take on board your opinion and I might discuss it with my officials but, on the whole, we try to make sure that Parliament has as much scope as possible to scrutinise legislation.