 Y Llywodraeth Cymru i gyllidol amdano i diolch gwaith yn 2015 ar y byd yDAG. Rhyw yma i gael'r fforddau a'r ystyriedriau ar os y byddwn risgau ar gyfer rhofforddiadau, mae gyda inventedlau FFIA Cymru i gyllidol ar gyfer y byddwn risgau ar gyfer y byddwn risgau ar gyfer y byddwn risgau ar gyfer y byd. Mae cymrydio'r gallu gweld gyda'r ei meddyliedol i'r pwysig a'r hyn neutral, The issue before the committee is whether it is content that no consultation exercise has been carried out to inform the Parliament's consideration as to whether this draft instrument should be approved. By way of recap, section 1344 of the Public Services Reform Scotland Act 2010 provides that part 2 of the act will cease to have effect on 1 August 2015 unless it is continued for a further period of five years by order. The purpose of this draft order is to continue the effect of these provisions for another five years. Part 2 allows the Scottish Minister to make orders to add, remove or change the functions of public bodies to improve efficiency, effectiveness and economy, and to remove burdens resulting from legislation. Powers allow significant restructuring of public functions to be achieved through subordinate legislation rather than primary legislation. As members will recall, when these powers were proposed, they were considered controversial and a sunset clause with an option of renewal was agreed by the Parliament to ameliate some of these concerns. The committee may wish to note that no consultation has been undertaken on the draft order and that accompanying policy note offers no justification for not having done so. The Scottish Government consultation good practice guidance states that the decision to consult will be informed by the history of the policy area, the issue under consideration, the existence of any parliamentary EU obligations to consult and the stage of the policy legislative process. The purpose of public consultation on proposed instruments is intended to inform the parliamentary scrutiny of the proposals. This is particularly relevant to instruments in which the Parliament is being asked to approve. The committee may therefore consider that the Scottish Government's view that this instrument did not require public consultation merits further inquiry given the direction by the good practice guidance to take into account the history of the policy area and the questions previously raised as the appropriateness of the use of subordinate legislation for this purpose. With that recap, do you members have any comments or observations, please? Thank you. Yes, I do and I am particularly concerned about this. Given the controversy that was surrounding it some five years ago, we are not looking at it again. I am particularly concerned at the Government's response to our inquiry as to why we are not looking at this again, whether there has not been a consultation and notwithstanding their own advice that they apparently have ignored. If there is a change in policy here, it is the de facto change in policy that we now decide when and when not we are going to, as it were, adopt our own guidance. I am particularly concerned about the tone of the response and, wherein it says that it is for Parliament to decide whether the part should remain in force, and we do not believe that stakeholders were likely to have any particular views on the issue of continuation. It is now that the Government decides that stakeholders apparently are not likely to have a view. I find that very unattractive, almost dangerous, and I think that this must be looked at much more closely. I know that we are going to come on to where we are going to look at that, but it is certainly given the controversy that there was around this. It would be entirely reasonable and indeed appropriate that we have to look at how this has worked in practice over the last five years. That is not a big ask. I think that we should perhaps put this in perspective that this is a continuation of an existing policy, albeit that the Government perhaps should be invited to look at the processes. More fundamentally, the changes in policy that are enabled through the continuation of the powers that are addressed by this order are, of course, expressed through secondary legislation, which comes before Parliament in the normal way. I think that this is slightly unusual. I think that John, while making a proper point, might be over-egging the pudding a bit. I do not think that we should ignore it, but I am not going to take quite—I am going to be more measured, I think, in the way that I respond to that. John. I do share some of the concerns that John Scott has expressed. I think that we have a very minimalist answer so far. I think that, at some stage, it would be good to have an official or an appropriate Government minister explaining it to either this committee or the finance committee and being subject to a few questions just to understand the thinking behind it. I totally agree with John Mason and John Scott. Right. In which case, I think from the chair, I plainly cannot ignore all those comments. One way forward on this would be to invite the finance committee to ask those very questions. The Minister Cabinet Secretary, I think, plus his officials will, because this is an affirmative order, have to go and press it with them. A very obvious line forward would be for us to write to the committee and, as a matter of courtesy, to the Government expressing our concerns, as you just said, and inviting that committee to ask questions of the Cabinet Secretary and his officials at the time when they consider it. I think that that probably has some merit rather than trying to get officials here. I am not quite sure on the timescales, but perhaps the more important point is that officials are going to say to us the same things that they have already written down. I am not sure that I am expecting anything different to emerge, so that may not be valuable. I think that that is my suggestion to the committee. How does that feel? I would agree entirely. I think that what we are really wanting is a justification for this change in approach. Is this going to be the approach that will be taken in future, or is it optional, as to when one consults or not, because there appears to be a change in approach there? I am concerned about that. Any other thoughts on that? If you are comfortable with that general approach, then the only other thing that I am going to suggest is that we probably should report this on the general ground simply because it would be rather strange if we did what we just suggested, but not actually report it. I am going to suggest then that we do precisely that. We report it on the general ground that it seems to be a strange and unusual process, is that the words I should be using? Here come the official words for the official report. I suggest that the committee reports the draft instruments under the general ground for having failed to meet expectations in terms of consultation. That is, I think, the phraseology please. Otherwise, we will write to them and the government in the terms that the committee has just suggested. I think that that takes us through that item. Agender item number two then is instrument subject to negative procedure. No points have been raised by our legal advisers on the outer hebrides landing of crabs and lobsters, order 2015, SSI 2015-183, nor on the waste meaning of hazardous waste and European waste catalogue, miscellaneous amendments, Scotland regulations 2015, SSI 2015-188, pardon me, is the committee content with these instruments please. Thank you. Agender item three, instruments not subject to any parliamentary procedure. No points have been raised by our legal advisers on the bovine viral diarrhea, Scotland amendment, order 2015, SSI 2015-186, is the committee content with that please. Thank you. Agender item four, the smoking prohibition children and motor vehicle Scotland bill, purpose of this item is for the committee to consider the delegated powers in the bill at stage one. The schedule to the bill sets out a scheme under which a fixed penalty may be applied for as an alternative to a prosecution under the criminal law. Paragraph eight confers powers on Scottish ministers to make regulations about the application of the proceeds of fixed penalties, the keeping of accounts and preparation and publication about statements of account relating to the proceeds. The proposed parliamentary procedure is the affirmative procedure, given the power relates to the use of public resources. The committee may consider that justification for attaching the affirmative procedure a power of sound when it applied to regulations concerning how the proceeds may be defrayed. However, insofar as the power relates to the administrative matter of keeping accounts, the committee may take the view that it would be an effective use of parliamentary retirement to require this power to be subject to the negative procedure. Does the committee wish to recommend that the negative procedure would provide a more appropriate form of scrutiny with regard to the administrative matters in paragraph 8b? Is the committee otherwise content with this power please? Is the committee content with the other powers in the bill on the associated procedure? Thank you. At which point I think I can close the meeting with the knowledge that the next meeting will be next Tuesday. Thank you.