Chamber and committees

We have been having the same debate since the first time I sat in front of the committee, and the same was probably happening before I became Minister for Parliamentary Business.

Again, we come back to situations in which the UK Government believes that a piece of legislation that it has made has no Scottish element, but my officials say that there is, so there will be a bit of to-ing and fro-ing. The other problem is that we receive the information an hour—if we are lucky—before the press release on the bill is sent out. That is quite challenging for us, because we have to get officials to say whether there is going to be an LCM and, if there is, whether we are going to be for it or against it. We have to make a case for the decision and we have to justify it.

It takes time for us to do that. If we got information a wee bit more quickly, things would be a lot easier for the Government, and we could give Parliament more time to scrutinise legislation. I remind everyone that the King’s speech is just around the corner; we do not know what will be in it, so there could be more such situations.

UK Government and Scottish Government officials talk to each other all the time and try to make things work. I have asked officials about this; I have heard members’ arguments and what you all say about LCMs, so I have been asking whether things have been like this since devolution began. I have been told that it has always been an issue, but that it happened less in the past. It seems to have become more prevalent now.

Why are we not being told the information sooner? Why are things being left until the last minute? Why, with some of the legislation that is being scrutinised, is there a belief that there is no Scottish element to it? Sometimes our officials have discussions with UK officials who tell us that legislation will not affect us in any way, shape or form; that argument can go on for quite a while.

I am not sure whether there might be a political element creeping in from Westminster, but we are trying to do all that we can at official level and at ministerial level. I assure members that, when I talk to my counterparts, I am trying to make sure that we make the process work a lot more easily. However, for some reason we seem still to be getting things an hour before the press release goes out.

You bring up an important point. In my time on the committee, we never had any legislation to do, which was always strange coming from other committees that had legislative programmes to deal with.

Because of its remit, it is good for the committee to get its teeth into such bills, which are technical. Who better to do it than the members of the DPLR Committee? Everything that you deal with, day in and day, out is highly technical.

Convener, I had a fair idea that you would ask that question, because of everything that you have described. The problem is that you have to be careful what you wish for. That approach might complicate matters even more and make things more difficult for us. I might be proved wrong, but my opinion is that a protocol might make things a lot more difficult than they currently are—although that would depend on the protocol.

I go back to the fact that we are dealing with the UK Government’s perspective; this Government and Parliament are, equally, quite defensive about our stuff—our legislation and the work that we are doing. I try to consider how things work for people in that other place, because no matter how much I might think it does, the world does not revolve around me and I am not that important, in the scheme of things.

It is important to give the UK Government space to do what it has to do. At times, that can be challenging for us all, but we have to be careful about the idea of having a protocol.

First and foremost—just so that the committee is aware—I am not power mad, and I am not making every bill that comes to Parliament a framework bill. You heard it here, exclusively—first, from myself.

The situation that we have is that there are certain times when flexibility helps the bill and gives us the option to deal with things further down the line—for example, to co-design bills with stakeholders. On the whole, however, we are not routinely going down the route of deciding that we are going to have a framework bill; the option is there mainly to offer us flexibility.

I do not know whether Steven MacGregor wants to add anything to that.

I will bring in Rachel Rayner or Steven MacGregor.

I recognise and understand the debate that is happening in Parliament. What I am trying to say is that we need to be able to deliver what we want to deliver, through the bill. It is not a case of taking anything away from the Parliament.

We are continuing with the work that we have done up until now, which has made sure that a limited number of errors are made in the first place. As I said, however, we are always willing to engage with anyone else. If the committee has anything to offer us or to talk to us about, we can look at that.

On the whole, most of the drafting has been good and has ensured that we have been able to bring legislation forward in the right way. We would be happy to look at anything else that could be added but, on the whole, it is simply a case of ensuring that we continue to provide the committee and the Parliament with the most accurate SSIs and instruments that we can.

Just to compare and contrast, there have been 96 SSIs since September, if you think that 61 SSIs is a lot and we are giving you quite a bit of work.

We are indeed.

We try to give you as much information—and to make sure that you get detail as far in advance—as possible. Sometimes that can be difficult, and there can be all kinds of challenges.

On whether there are instruments in the pipeline, nothing comes to mind at the moment, but if there is something, I will make sure that the committee gets detail of what they will get, when they will get it and how large a package it will turn out to be.