Chamber and committees

Yes, I can tell you that. First of all, it is good to see you, too—I am delighted to be here.

We expect to lay 57 SSIs between now and the summer recess. There will be 19 affirmative instruments, 27 negative, nine laid with no procedure and two affirmative orders in council, which require approval at a meeting of the Privy Council with the King present as well.

On the committee volumes, there will be 11 for the Finance and Public Administration Committee, nine of which will fall in this month. The Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee will have nine; the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee and the Social Justice and Social Security Committee will have seven each; and the Education, Children and Young People Committee will have six. I think that there is nothing unexpected there—those are the committees that ordinarily have to deal with the most instruments. All the other committees will have fewer than five, at present—I should, of course, say that these things are always subject to change.

Of specific interest to this committee, there will be one for this committee, which will probably be towards the summer recess.

We will certainly endeavour to do so. There will be some instruments that might be longer than others.

This may be an issue that one of the committee members was going to follow up with me, but I am aware that there was a particular issue with one instrument. That goes back to the point about an instrument being withdrawn and relaid. A particularly lengthy set of regulations went to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, and the committee had concerns about the time that was available to it to consider that instrument.

Following that experience and after discussion with officials, at my request, my officials have reviewed and updated the guidance for SSIs to emphasise the absolute need for the people with policy responsibility for any SSI to engage with the relevant subject committee as early as possible if there are to be regulations of significance. Clearly, we want to ensure that the relevant committee can build that into its programme and understand that it will have to set aside time for that.

We have also implemented an initial level of triage for bids for SSIs that are lengthy or complex. That is an internal process, through which we can ensure that the instrument is in the right place and that it absolutely needs to be one lengthy instrument. There might be another means of handling the issue, such as breaking it down into more than one instrument. That would not necessarily reduce workload for the committee overall, but it might make the process more manageable. That will enable my officials, who have overall responsibility for ensuring that the programme of legislation moves forward—but not direct policy responsibility—to re-emphasise the need for such engagement with the relevant committee. That is a practical example of having learned from experience to make sure that we refine and improve our processes going forward.

I have made the point that there are some complexities involved relating to interactions with other subordinate legislation and the other demands on those who are involved in the process across a range of other activities. That is the challenge that we face.

There is a commitment to refer one in each parliamentary year, so yes. We will make it clear in due course what that might be, but, essentially, we intend to meet the agreement that we have with the committee.

Certainly—just let me get to the right part of my briefing papers.

Inevitably, some LCMs will come to the Scottish Parliament arising out of the UK Government’s programme. As to what those might be, that is something that we would flag in the usual fashion.

We have given some indication of legislation that we anticipate might require an LCM in due course, including the proposed railways bill, the Artificial Intelligence (Regulation) Bill, the Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill—a private member’s bill, which I am involved in responding to on our side—the Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill and various other bills. Any LCMs that might be lodged in connection with those bills would be dealt with in the usual way, and we would certainly let the committee know as quickly as possible if any were to trigger the specific interests of this committee. That said, looking down the list, I cannot see any that would require the specific, detailed consideration of this committee; I think that they would all be more for subject committees to consider.

Again, that is a matter of on-going discussion with the UK Government. I understand that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has written to your committee on the issue, and both Administrations are aware of the Scottish Parliament’s desire to have a scrutiny role with regard to those matters. I am also desirous of that, where that is sensible and proportionate to do so. I have made a commitment that we will continue to press that case with the UK Government. I have already made the point that I am looking to meet my counterpart in the Scotland Office, Kirsty McNeill, and I will make that point to her as well.

I am sorry, I should add that I am happy to write in due course with more details about when more lengthy SSIs will be laid.

I do not have any significant opening remarks, convener, other than to thank you for the opportunity to be with you once again. Douglas Kerr, Steven MacGregor and I are very happy do our best to answer any questions that the committee has, and, if required, we are also happy to follow things up in writing.

The committee could do that now. I am aware that the committee has looked at the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, and—if I am correct—when discussing the bill, the committee made an assessment that it could fall into that category. The Government disagrees with that.

On your point about the Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill, I was not for a moment suggesting that the bill suddenly became a framework bill by process of further deliberation and amendments. However, if we accept your hypothesis, if a bill that was not determined to be framework legislation at the outset, when it was introduced, proceeded to have lots of secondary legislation-making powers added to it as it progressed through Parliament, and it was suddenly felt that it had become a framework bill, what would that mean in terms of guidance and our processes?

I understand that a cynical point of view would hold that such guidance would not be helpful to the Government because it would restrict and confine the manner in which we could draft bills—I have to concede that—but the question gets to the heart of the point that I am trying to make: what would be the utility of having defined what a framework bill might be? In this instance, I am not convinced that it would be helpful to the Parliament either, so to get to the nub of the issue, what is the specific concern, and what would be the purpose of having a strict definition of what constitutes a framework bill? That is not yet clear to me.

Broadly speaking, no, because the parameters of how any form of secondary legislation should be utilised is set out in the bill, so, in that sense, I am do not have concerns about its misuse. If such a concern was to emerge, the executive is accountable to the legislature, and the Parliament could determine to have a look at that piece of legislation and change it through primary legislation. I am not aware that there is substantial concern around that.

More broadly, subordinate legislation is so called because it is subordinate in terms of the process used to pass it, but it is not—if I could say it in a euphemistic sense—subordinate in terms of making law. The law has the same effect and it still has to come to the Parliament. The Parliament retains the ability to either pass or reject subordinate legislation in its affirmative form or Parliament can pass a motion to annul statutory instruments in their negative form. Therefore, it is not as though it creates broad sweeping powers for the Government, with no recourse to the Parliament.