 Felly, wrth gwrs, wrth gwrs, rydw i'n cael ei ddau i'w ffio'r 12 oes i'r ddechrau yn 2017 o fy nghydfawr yn cymdeithasol oedd yn cymdeithasol. Felly, rydw i'n cymdeithasol oedd y fawr yn rhagleniol i Alasyn Harris. Felly, rydw i'n cymdeithasol i agenda item 1, rwy'n ddych chi'n ddigon i'r ffobl a cymdeithasol i agenda item 6 o'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r dependidol, oedd o'r child poverty Scotland Bill, so does the committee agree to consider item 6 in private? Thank you, very agreed. The next item on our agenda is our third consideration of oral evidence on the contract third party rights Scotland Bill at stage 1. Today, we welcome Hewdon Das, the honorary vice president at the Scottish Arbitration Centre. Good morning, Mr Dundas. Thank you very much for taking the time to come today and give us evidence. I have the first question this morning, which is about common law to statutory footing, and the bill team and the Scottish law commission have indicated that case law is unlikely to develop quickly enough to deal with the problems identified in the law and that statutory rules are needed. Can you outline your own views on the need for statutory rules for contract third party rights? I had a quick look at Logan Henderson over the weekend and I see cases that are quoted back to 1861 relating to Ysgwysigd yn Thartiau, and in 21st century Scotland we genuinely do not want ancient case references still to apply because they were decided in a different world, a different legal circumstances and have little, often little to do with the modern world. In the run-up to the Arbitration Scotland Act 2010, we could go back to year 1208 in terms of case history. These ancient cases do little for Scotland's reputation as an international jurisdiction. Now is the time to do that. Thank you very much. I will now pass you over to Stuart who has got the next question. Stuart McMillan, please. Thank you, convener. Good morning, Mr Dynas. We understand that under the current law a third party would not be a party to an arbitration agreement unless that is expressly dealt with in the contract. Do you agree with that understanding and, if so, can you explain what the impact of that is on third parties? Well, first, yes, I do agree and it's as stated in Logan Henderson and has been in the position in Scott's law for centuries. The impact is that, stepping back a little, parties vented into an arbitration agreement so as to avoid the courts. That was their choice in making their contract and if circumstances then arise that a third party becomes entitled to certain rights under that contract and is not caught by the arbitration agreement, then there's a big loop hole in the system. So it's essential that, as the bill does, substantially brings in the third party under the arbitration agreement. And there's an important additional point here is that if a party, forget the third party bit, but if two parties have an arbitration agreement and one starts court proceedings, then under the arbitration Scotland Act, a complete defence to the litigation is to say, Mr Judge, your honour, my lord, here is the arbitration agreement and the judge is obliged to assist the litigation. So what is necessary is that substantially the same apply to the third party because it has inherited some rights under the contract and they were and are subject to the arbitration agreement. And this has particular significance if one is dealing with foreign parties because courts worldwide are obliged to refuse to accept litigation system in this country, stay in England and other language elsewhere. A foreign court is obliged to stay or assist the litigation in the face of an arbitration agreement. So you can imagine a third party from, let's say, Kazakhstan wanders off to the Kazakh courts on a matter which is purely Scots because it acquired some rights as a third party under a contract. So effectively by tying the foreign party into the arbitration agreement then on a worldwide basis they cannot litigate. The SLC has suggested that it's beneficial to have all disputes arising from a contract decided in one forum. Do you agree with this view and so can you explain what sort of advantages this approach would actually offer? The worst case scenario and let me give you a little example in year 2001, I think, an oil tanker crashed into a jetty of an oil refinery in southern Italy. The contract between the oil company and the refinery company included a London arbitration agreement. The Italian insurers paid out $26 million by way of damage to the jetty and commenced legal proceedings in a district court in southern Italy in breach of the arbitration agreement. Now their argument is that under Italian law the insurer does not become party to the arbitration agreement. In English law it is quite clear that through a process called subrogation the insurer steps into the shoes of the Asherwood. Both regard the rights, that is to sue the oil company for damaging the jetty, but also the obligations, that's to say, to comply with the arbitration agreement. That's a disaster scenario where there is parallel arbitration in London and litigation in southern Italy. The arbitration in London finished ages ago. The arbitration in southern Italy, the case was filed in 2002, 15 years later. There has been no single substantive hearing. It's that parallel dispute resolution is what has to be avoided. It's time consuming, it's immensely expensive and there's a serious risk of completely contradictory outcomes. There's a case in the early 20s in Scotland where the judge is quoted as saying, if the parties have agreed to arbitrate, then to arbitration they shall go. That's a fundamental principle. Will this new piece of legislation cover all these eventualities? I'm not persuaded that it covers the Italian insurer case, but that's something that is still possible to achieve. My understanding of Scots law in this area is that it's not as clear as it is in England. Would you like to develop that scene in terms of this bill? We have had discussions with others about the clarity of the new English legislation since 1999 or even the direct. It's been suggested by others that this is perhaps a more subtle piece of legislation. Would you care to pass a comment on that? In England, the law, insurance law, including the principal subrogation dates back to the Marine Insurance Act 1906 and probably beyond that. I can't remember what its predecessor was. In England, the 1999 act had no need to address this area because it was already well covered in insurance-statute dating back nearly a century. We don't have the equivalent of the Marine Insurance Act 1906, so we don't have the statutory certainty that the insurer becomes party to the arbitration agreement if it has paid out on the claim from the assured. It might be possible that we get there through application of common law principles, but my reading and my colleague's reading is that it is not clear, but it would be possible to do so, I think, within this bill in a few lines. It's not a difficult principle. So, a welcome step in the right direction then at the very least? Yes. If I must say that the bill is almost there, I think a little bit of fine-tuning, we could dot all the i's, cross all the t's and tie up all the loose ends and loopholes. Have you specific suggestions in that regard that you've made to us already, or that you would like to meet us now or subsequently? My colleague and I have been delighted to come up with a proposal for some drafting, but my understanding is that procedure has it that the principles are put forward through your good selves to the parliamentary draughtsman and that he or she comes up with a drafting. So, we're happy to make a suggestion as to drafting, equally happy to leave the principle for the parliamentary draughtsman to address. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. It's certainly you're absolutely correct, Mr Dundas, in terms of about this particular stage of the bill, but I know certainly in previous committees where I've been a member that there have been similar organisations have submitted suggestions and suggested wording for either for new amendments or amendments to existing clauses. So, I think that it certainly would be advantageous certainly for the committee consideration for the next stage, at both stage 2 and stage 3, if yourself and others. We are to do that. We'll be happy to oblige and, as an aside, I recognise some of the drafting of the arbitration Scotland Act 2010, as it's very familiar to me for a reason, you can guess. Okay. Thank you, sir. Monica Lennon, now please your question. Thank you. Good morning, Mr Dundas. In your written submission, you explained that the bill's provisions will give advantages to business trading across the UK, as it will bring Scots law closer to English law. I see you also explained that this could be beneficial in relation to family law matters. Can you expand on these points, please? I really can't. I'm not a family lawyer, but there is now in both England and Scotland a development of arbitration in family law. Historically, arbitrators like me have been excluded from it, along with matrimonial and all those sort of areas, but with family law arbitration gaining ground both north and south of the board, it seemed self-evident to me that the equivalent legislation should be very closely in step. Okay. In terms of business trading across the UK, you said that there were advantages in that regard. Well, advantages to harmony. In a related context, there was a case some years ago where the English law of limitations was six years, Scots law is five, and the claims were not lodged until the sixth year. The question was who had jurisdiction, the English or the Scottish courts. If the Scottish courts, the claims were time barred, if English, they were still valid, and it would be unfortunate in the present context if we tripped up on a difference in principle between English and Scottish legislation with such a very high volume of common trade. Okay, that's useful clarification. May I just, as some around the table may be aware, the arbitration Scotland Act was largely not completely derived from the 1996 arbitration act applicable in England for exactly the same reason that, apart from some significant improvements we made in 2009-2010, the legislation is substantially similar, giving, as your question said, businesses trading both sides of the, well, not going to say, River Tweed, but trading both sides of the border the advantage of a substantially common legislative environment, and in the same regard, as you may have heard, the adjudicatory process for construction is virtually identical north and south of the border because it's the same legislation applies in both. Do you think that the bill will benefit arbitration in Scotland more generally? Will it make it more likely for Scottish arbitration rules to be used in contracts? It's possible, but the circumstances we're looking at with third parties suddenly appear acquire rights under the contract and therefore acquire rights to arbitration or obligations to arbitrate. These are relatively rare in practice and given that the volume of Scottish arbitration is still, it's growing but it's still relatively small, I would say in the immediate future it's unlikely there'll be any visible outcome in that regard, but the key is less that we're going to have an explosion of third-party arbitration cases to keep the arbitration centre busy. To me that's less of the point, the point is to close off the uncertainties of the old Juice-Questitum 30 year rule and replace it with a statutory framework to prevent strange things happening in the future. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Can I just go back to the sort of impact of the proposals and the the SLC suggests in its written evidence that the new rules won't cover all eventualities and recommends that arbitration clauses should expressly deal with third-party disputes. Do you agree with that view? Yes. If, as I was head of legal for a well-known Scottish oil company, if we were in circumstances that involve a potential third party right then self-evidently and the same in other areas of the contract, we would have drafted appropriately. In the circumstance it would be not quite negligent but nearly to import a standard arbitration agreement from a different contract between two parties imported into a contract with a potential role for a third party. In that case then, is there not an argument that there is no need for statutory rules? I think Mr Jam, there is a need because of the uncertainties and the antiquity of the existing common law of Juice-Questitum territory. As I said a few minutes ago, I get very uncomfortable when I see a reference to a case in the first two digits of 1.8. The operation of section 92 and 93. We understand that section 92 is meant to allow disputes about the third party right arising from a contract to do that with by-arbitration. Could you outline how a section will work in practice and give examples of the type of disputes that it might cover? The examples given in the leading textbook on the common law are curious ones in that they are ones that in my experience at least rarely happen in practice but I can imagine the circumstances where I come from the oil business that oil field construction contracts, you might have at least a three-way relationship between the oil company, the construction company and the construction company's subcontractors and a small point of clarification but the oil industry is substantially exempt from the adjudication process that arrives in onshore construction industry so that's I think a major way that this might apply which it doesn't at the moment. As I think you may have heard from Mr Connell QC, substantially all construction disputes these days are covered by the adjudication process under the 1996 Housing Grants Act but it's perhaps relevant to bear in mind that the adjudicatory process in that legislation is of to provide a temporary decision binding until it's superseded by litigation or arbitration and in those instances the arbitration provisions of the current bill will potentially kick in to deal with the arbitration that flows out of an adjudication. Could you also outline how you envisage the section 9.3 where work and practice where a dispute relates to non-contractual rights? The difficulty can be that where the rights between the two parties are solely contractual a difficulty can be for example if a delictual matter arises and that could also apply if there's a third party involved in the network and that's one area where I think this could be of potential benefit. Any other questions? Yes, thank you, convener. Draftings have been touched on a little bit earlier. Both yourself and the faculty of advocates indicate that the drafting in section 9 of the bill is not ideal. Can you expand on what the drafting problems are and maybe see how the drafting might be improved? My understanding is that my colleague, who unfortunately couldn't join me today, was substantially involved in drafting that part of the faculty's response. The difference boils down to that section 1 of the act is looking at the substantive rights of the parties whereas section 9 is, in the faculty's view, with which we agree, getting slightly confused as between the substantive rights of the parties and the procedural rights and the drafting changes that the faculty have proposed eliminate that distinction. So substantive rights are dealt with through the bill itself and on into section 9, too. The procedural rights are covered by section 9 III as a separate matter but they are not otherwise covered in the bill. The other small observation, if I may, is that the faculty's proposal, in my view, substantially simplifies the drafting. As you can see, it involves some deletions but, having reprinted it yesterday with the deletions made, I think that it becomes a lot clearer as well as more accurately recording the principles that the Scottish Law Commission reached. Do you have any other comments to make on the faculty's written evidence and its suggestions? I have re-rated it last night and again this morning and, although I must confess, I haven't paid intense attention to the rest of the bill on rereading the faculty's submissions. I think that they look very strong and one of their comments, which has been taken into account, is that the previous draft of the bill that we commented on last year, or the faculty commented on in October, didn't completely close off the old common law of Ysgwysetum Teretio and I think it's section 12, if I may just check. Section 12 now expressly abolishes the old and antiquated common law in that area so at least that excellent suggestion by the faculty has been commendably taken on board and removes the uncertainty and, as an aside, on 1 January this year the equivalent abolishment took place in relation to arbitration in Scotland, again, removing the possible application of ancient law. Okay. Thank you very much. Stuart McMillan, for the next question please, if you would. Thank you. Certainly. In your written evidence you explained that the bill complies with article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights on the right to a fair trial as it gives third parties a choice of using arbitration. Would you like to expand on this or do you have any further comments you'd like to make? Well, very briefly, article 6 gives parties to civil disputes the absolute right, or what appears to be an absolute right, to have their dispute determined by independent and impartial tribunal in public. Now, arbitration is in private and the European Court of Justice has repeatedly accepted that some parts of article 6 can be delegated from by the parties by agreement and the right to a public hearing is part of that, but the right to an independent and impartial tribunal is at the moment, and I can't imagine that'll change, it cannot be delegated from, I'll just imagine, the parties agree to go to a completely biased one-sided tribunal, you can't have that in any form of dispute resolution. So, within that, but that's where the parties have voluntarily agreed to an arbitration agreement and there can be problems where parties are forced into arbitration by the application of statute and there are cases in the European Court where that has been tested as it's reasonably common, for example in the medical professions, the dental professions and some teaching professions around the EU, the dispute between the individual and his professional association goes to arbitration as a matter of statute and those cases, of course, difficulty, and we have certain statutory arbitrations here in Scotland, Agricultural Holdings Act is one of those where they have their own scheme and it may be that the ECJ might object to those at a future date. So, the idea in the present circumstance of a party becoming party to an arbitration agreement is, on the face of it, consistent with the application of article six and in particular the derogation already permitted by the European Court of Justice. So, to put that in maybe an example form, if parties A and B are engaging in a contract and party C is to have some rights under that contract, then if A and B are agreeing an arbitration agreement then to me in principle it's self-evident that party C that might benefit from the contract should also be subject to that arbitration agreement and if party C, for example, will not countenance arbitration then it's open to question whether it should be permitted at all to acquire any rights under the contract if it's not prepared to follow the dispute resolution provisions in that contract. To go back to the insurance example, where an English insurer or an English law insurer steps into the shoes of the assured in the same with your motor claims. You get rear-ended by a truck out on the A90M90, your insurer pays you out, your insurer can then go and see you at the road haulage company and they become subject to any arbitration agreement. Okay, thank you. In terms of human rights and the complex day of our agricultural law and the arbitration process therein and our difficulty in being ECHR compliant in the past here with our legislation, are there any other bear traps that you see that we should be avoiding in that field? None of those I know of and I know my colleague has researched very closely the areas in the Scots law where there are statutory arbitrations and he's the expert, not me, on ECHR and he's comfortable that there are no bear traps that we can see. But as we well know, you can never entirely predict what the ECJ will do and I mentioned the Italian tankers case. The English court issued an anti-suit injunction against the Italian insurers to prevent them engaging in litigation in Italy and that anti-suit injunction got struck down by the ECJ who, in my view, misunderstood it completely but it became a cause celeb for a while and still is in academic circles. But I think to imagine the various areas where statutory arbitration takes place to imagine, I say, I guess it's possible that an individual or a company would go all the way to the ECJ on the point but neither my colleague nor I see any visible risk in this regard but all things are possible. You would have thought that up until 1995 you would have thought that those wanted by foreign police for questioning in relation with mass murder you would have thought it automatic that we deport them but the ECJ in 1996 decided that we cannot. So again one of those results whether or not you agree with that but it was certainly a major surprise not just in the UK but around Europe that killers in that instance cannot be deported. Right, thank you. Anybody else go to any questions in that regard? I'll just take you briefly on to adjudication if I may in construction contracts and as you already alluded to Craig Connell indicated that the arguments for allowing third parties to use arbitration may also apply to adjudication used in the construction sector. What's your view on this and is this in your view something worth exploring further? There might be benefit I'm not sure what it is but I don't think it needs to be explored and just to recap what I said a few minutes ago that adjudication provides an interim decision in a very short space of time designed to move cash down the food chain of employer, contractor, subcontractor and so on but adjudicators decisions are interim only until superseded in arbitration or in litigation and then this bill will kick in at the arbitration stage. In practice more than 90 percent of adjudicators decisions stop there and do not proceed but that's by agreement of the parties to accept the adjudicators decision and not take it on to arbitration and in that context I see no need for the present bill to address adjudication at all in the same way that suppose the parties instead of going to adjudication just settle the dispute anyway well then we're not even looking at the bill whatsoever so if after the adjudication is complete and the parties accept the adjudicators decision the outcome there is effectively largely for the purposes of the bill it's largely as though they agreed a settlement themselves so I do not see why the bill should be engaged and I can think of I'd have to have a little time to think about it but I can imagine potentially significant complications if the bill was at this stage suddenly to be expanded to bring in adjudication that's it just to summarise that it is not necessary it is potentially confusing right thank you very much I'm slightly out on a limb here but at the beginning you said it implied essentially that the Italian tanker scenario was almost a way of delaying a decision perhaps for financial reasons there's no opportunities with the process contained here in being open to abuse or being abused or being used for advantage as far as you can see maybe that's not even a reasonable question extremely reasonable question mr convener the essence of modern arbitration as captured in the arbitration scotland act is that the arbitrator has not only the right but the obligation to take control of the process move the case on to a speedy conclusion and I fairly recently did a case out in Singapore where the final award in the case between a an EU company and a far eastern company the final award was issued 94 days after I was appointed whereas litigation in the Italian insurance tankers case it's not really the fault of the insurers in this regard it's the systemic weaknesses in the Italian courts that after 15 years they still have not had a substantive hearing that's the way life is in italy 20 years for a first instance decision 30 to 40 years for a supreme court decision is the norm i appreciate that's not the case here in scotland and it certainly isn't in england either courts in both are far more efficient and so we don't have to worry but the key point is that once the third party is hooked into the arbitration it's then up to the arbitrator to run the case in a time efficient and cost efficient manner and in that regard perhaps I could just point out to one of the significant differences between the English and Scottish legislation in arbitration in that in england the arbitrator creates the procedure but the parties can agree anything else at any time so the part arbitrator for example orders a statement of claim within 30 days statement of defence within a further 30 the parties can agree to say one year plus one year or five years plus five years in scotland once rule 28 is engaged the arbitrator is in control and the parties do not have the right to engage in delaying tactics and the principle here if I may suggest and the reason that arbitrators have to take on their responsibilities is if you for example go to your dentist who is going to put a filling in your teeth or do something you're entitled to rely and do rely on the professional skills of your dentist or your cardiac surgeon or your liver transplant surgeon you do not may I suggest expect to tell him or her how to do the business so in arbitration what the arbitration scotland act is saying it applies here to the arbitrator is master of procedure so back to your question mr conrina that it requires robust energetic and fairly aggressive arbitrators to make sure that delaying tactics and the like do not derail the arbitration and to give one obvious example of that I'm aware of examples where colleagues keep on extending time for parties to do something sections 31 and 38 of the act arbitration scotland act that is give the arbitrator some pretty fierce powers to deal with delaying tactics or non-replies does that also refer to crofting law I have to confess mr conrina I'm not a no expert on crofting law me neither I know that in the village in the west of scotland where I come from we had no word in the gaelic language at that time quite expressing the urgency of maniana right thank you mr millen please thank you can be on it just it's on a separate issue okay just in terms of the the bill that's been presented and notwithstanding your comments earlier that you thought the bill was fine just some tweaking do you think that this bill would actually make scots law more competitive and international market when it comes to dealing with this particular type of issue I think we have to be clear there are two separate things here one is the substantive law of the contract and the second is the law of the arbitration in scotland I don't have the latest edition but in scotland the principal textbook on contract is about that thick about three four centimeters the equivalent book in england is on a on a wafer thin paper it's something like five times the length and in england every sentence in the book has a footnote and every footnote is a judicial decision and the tremendous appeal of english contract law on a worldwide basis is there is such an enormous level of detail that almost all not quite all almost all questions that might arise in a commercial relationship have an answer and this is why for example 85 percent of world grain trade is traded on english law contracts giving london arbitration and 60 percent of the cases in the high court in england in this area are between two parties from countries that do not speak english now scots law does not have that level of precision in terms of contract law and i would however enthusiastic i might be about scotland i would be reluctant to advise a foreign party to use scots laws the substantive law of a commercial contract in preference to english or new york or monitor other us laws because of the lesser volume of detail okay so i think to perhaps to summarize uh i i am not persuaded that this change will significantly or even uh at all alter any outside party's view of scots law no thank you just for the evidence of doubt or you do nonetheless welcome this piece of legislation absolutely yes if only i mean for me the big winner is the new section 12 where we have extinguished uh and uh someone antiquated and not entirely fit for purpose common law and we're replacing it with clear and precise or maybe they could be made more precise but clear and modern statutory revisions consistent with as the Scottish law commission has shown consistent with the laws of many other jurisdictions so if for nothing else for that alone this piece of legislation is is i think very strongly to be commended and applauded right well any colleagues get any further questions mr Dundas and if we haven't just remains for me to to thank you very much mr Dundas for coming to us today and giving us the benefit of your self-evident wisdom and expertise in this area particularly at arbitration we are very grateful to you we have covered a lot of ground i know but if there are matters that you consider on reflection that you might wish to add to what you've said or areas that you think we might have not asked you about that you would wish to comment on on your way home more subsequently or through the night then do of course come back to us we'd be very pleased to hear from you well i've undertaken to provide some suggestions in relation to the italian tankers case which i will do i'm not sure my colleague quite sees it the same way that i do but i was very close to people involved in that case hence it's a particular interest okay well could i just close on i was introduced at the beginning as vice president of the Scottish arbitration centre which is entirely correct but the views i've expressed this morning are those on behalf of myself and David Bartosh as the co-authors of the the book so that i assume the Scottish arbitration centre has been consulted and made its own representations but i said i in this instance i speak for the authors of the book not for the arbitration centre i would very would strongly doubt that anything i've said would cause any difficulty or difference with the arbitration centre but as an advocate would say i am not instructed by them well nonetheless thank you for that disclaimer and we are very grateful to you for your evidence this morning sir thank you thank you and if if the committee has any further questions arising out of what i've said of course we'll be delighted to assist because we we would like to make a contribution and would like to assist in this and in other related legislation many thanks okay i'll just suspend this meeting briefly for one second till I witness to leave shall we move swiftly on and move now to agenda item three which is instrument subject to affirmative procedure and the first instrument for consideration is the draft registration of social workers and social service workers in care services scotland amendment regulations 2017 is the committee content with this instrument thank you agenda item four is instrument subject to negative procedure and the instrument for consideration is the damages personal injury scotland order 2017 ssi 2017 number 96 the order was laid before parliament on 27 march and came into force on the 28 march 2017 the instrument does not respect the requirement that at least 28 days should elaps between the laying of an instrument which is subject to the negative procedure and the coming into force of that instrument accordingly does the committee agree to draw the order to the attention of the parliament under reporting ground j you do agree yes thank you very much the instrument however fails to comply with the requirements of section 282 of the interpretation and legislative reform scotland act 2010 so does the committee agree to find the failure to comply with section 282 to be acceptable in the circumstances as outlined in correspondence from the Scottish government contained within our papers thank you the next instrument for consideration is bankruptcy fees scotland revocation regulations 2017 ssi 2017 number 97 the regulations were made and laid before the parliament on the 27 march 2017 and came into force on the 28 march they also do not respect the requirement that at least 28 days should elaps between the laying of an instrument which is subject to the negative procedure and the coming into force of that instrument accordingly does the committee agree to draw the instrument to the attention of parliament under reporting ground j as there has been a failure to lay the instrument in accordance with section 282 of the interpretation and legislative reform scotland act 2010 thank you does the committee also agree to find the failure to comply with section 282 to be acceptable in the circumstances as outlined in correspondence from the Scottish government contained within our papers thank you no points have been raised by our legal services on the remaining instruments subject to negative procedure namely the regulation of care social service workers scotland amendment order 2017 ssi 2017 number 95 or common agricultural direct payments etc common agricultural policy forgive me direct payments etc scotland amendment regulations 2017 ssi 2017 number 98 so is the committee content with these instruments content i'm not certain if i should have declared an interest at that point but i would probably well advise to do so in as much as i am affected as a former by the common agricultural policy direct payments schemes agenda item 5 instruments not subject to any parliamentary procedure the abusive behaviour and sexual harm scotland act 2016 commencement number one and transitional provision regulations 2017 ssi 2017 number 93 or the carers scotland act 2016 commencement number one regulations 2017 ssi 2017 number 94 or the criminal justice scotland act 2016 commencement order number four transitional transit rate and saving provisions order 2017 ssi 2017 number 99 so is the committee content with these instruments thank you we'll now move the meeting into private if i may and we will go