Chamber and committees

I am not asking you to do it today, but are you willing to share with the committee not necessarily specific proposals but, from the reports that are sitting there, a group that you think might be achievable in this session of the Parliament or that you consider to be the top of the priority list?

That is a point of consensus, and I share that sentiment, but I have one final question on the technical aspect. Some members of the committee were concerned that there is a lower threshold for parliamentary scrutiny of secondary legislation. Do you accept that there is a danger in a busy Parliament that secondary legislation gets less scrutiny than primary legislation?

During stage 1 of the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill, we got a bit of kickback from some witnesses and stakeholders, who said that they were concerned about bits of the bill and had not been asked about it. It is all there in the Official Report and was covered in the stage 1 debate. My question is not specifically about that bill, but will you give an assurance that, when SLC bills are introduced in future, the Government will do its bit to scope out any political risks associated with a bill generating public interest?

To be fair to Mr Arthur, he has been very helpful and engaged proactively with the committee on that individual example. I just wanted to get assurance that the Government is doing its bit to ensure that stakeholders are squared off on SLC bills. I am getting that assurance from you.

I am interested in asking, first, about Scottish Law Commission bills. The committee has been scrutinising two of them recently, but there was a suggestion in the 2021 programme for government that the Government wanted to implement a number of other SLC reports in this session. Are you able to enlighten the committee on the pipeline and timescale for the introduction of those bills and how the Government goes about prioritising the different reports?

I am going to move on to touch briefly on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill, on which the committee has just reported to the lead committee. I do not want to get into the politics of or a spat on the bill itself. I am more interested in hearing the Government’s thinking on the concept of bringing to the Parliament framework bills that contain a large number of delegated powers. In this specific example, and as a former member of the committee, you can understand the challenge that the committee is faced with when a delegated powers memorandum cannot specifically say how the delegated powers would be used. Do you recognise that challenge?

Do you, as the Minister for Parliamentary Business, feel that framework bills that rely heavily on secondary legislation give the Parliament as a whole enough opportunity to be part of a co-design process? Why should that process prevent the inclusion of more detail in primary legislation? We did not really get to the bottom of that.

To push you a wee bit harder, do you have a target for this session to get through the backlog? The bills are usually highly technical. They come to the committee because, although they are not necessarily easy pieces of legislation, they are not politically contentious.

We have picked up a little bit of frustration from the SLC that there are a number of well-thought-out suggestions for how to improve law. We also heard from stakeholders how the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill would make a big difference to how they go about their daily business. It is easy for SLC bills to fall down the Government’s and Parliament’s priority lists, because there are other things that are politically more exciting. I am trying to get a commitment from you that the SLC’s proposals are being considered seriously and that the committee will be kept busy in future.

I have sat through far too many debates and speeches from members on the Government benches in which it has been suggested that all aspects of welfare policy and its delivery are easy, that there are no difficult decisions to be made and that more money must be found. As my colleague Jeremy Balfour and other members have already said, who can forget the promises that were made to the people of Scotland back in 2016?

We were led to believe that, if only those powers were in the hands of SNP ministers, all would be well. As is so often the case from this nationalist Government, the reality does not even come close to matching the rhetoric, and today’s tone, whether from the minister or from SNP back benchers, shows exactly what the problem is. Rather than admit that they have failed, they tell us that everything is still all right, that there is no problem and that people should just be patient.

I am not going to take an intervention: as the minister’s own back benchers have shown, four minutes is very tight.

The Government is not delivering a radical departure from the culture and practices of the DWP, a point well made by Pam Duncan-Glancy, whom I might otherwise disagree with. There is a mismatch between rhetoric and reality. At best, we have seen more of the same, under a different logo; at worst, we have seen completely avoidable delays. Real people are being let down by a Government that is more interested in grabbing the headlines with flagship policies than delivering in a real and meaningful way.

Today’s debate is an example of that. A Government minister or a Government that is serious about having a grown-up debate would have sought to work across Parliament to give a reasonable amount of time for the programme business case to be tested and scrutinised. Today comes from the same, SNP knows best until it doesn’t, approach that I have already touched on. The Government does not want to be questioned and it believes in its own hype. If the shoe was on the other foot and the same practices came from the UK Government, I can guarantee that SNP members would not be so accepting, nor would they believe the excuses, especially those about data.

There are many areas of concern. Perhaps the minister can, in his closing speech, start by explaining to me and my constituents where the SNP will find the £760 million needed by 2026 to fund its welfare policies. Audit Scotland is right to sound alarm bells and many of my constituents will see that as the inevitable consequence of the SNP’s failure to be honest with people about the cost of its welfare policies or about who will end up funding them. We all want to see support for those who need it most, but we cannot pretend that funds are unlimited.

It would also be good to hear the minister’s thoughts about the rising running costs of Social Security Scotland. Where will that end? Does he really believe that the organisation is providing value for money?

People across Scotland deserve a Government that makes good on its promises. They expect a Government that is, at the very least, willing to hold its hands up and admit that things have not gone as well as it hoped. They want a Government that not only believes in dignity and fairness and speaks up for those ideals in this chamber but lives up to them in practice.

At present, we cannot say with any confidence that that is what we have. Instead, we have a Scottish Government that brushes off concerns and makes excuses. After years of hiding behind the DWP, the Government itself has been found wanting. It has massively underdelivered, while at the same time, it has overspent.