 the Delygated Powers and Law Reform Committee. I have received apologies from Paul Sweeney MSP. Before we move to the first item on the agenda, I would like to remind everyone present to switch their mobile phones to silent. The first item of business is to decide whether to take items 7, 8, 9 and 10 in private. Is the committee content to take these items in private? Moving to agenda item number two, we will be taking evidence on the work of the Scottish Law Commission and can I welcome Lady Payton, chair of the Commission, to the meeting. Lady Payton is accompanied by the commission's interim chief executive, Charles Garland. I know that the session five Delegated Powers on Law Reform committee built a very positive relationship with the commission. Indeed, in its handover report published in March the committee recommended that its successor committee takes the time to learn more about the commission's work in session 6 and also develop similar links. I hope that today might be the start of that work. I'd like to ask Lady Peyton if she wishes to make any opening remarks. Yes, thank you very much indeed, convener. We're delighted to be here in person. It's a wonderful change for us after the last 18 months when we've all been remote and virtual, but having said that, I'm pleased to report that the Scottish Law Commission has been faring quite well in the pandemic. It's partly because we focus on research and written reports and it's partly because we have quite good IT equipment, I'm glad to say. So the work of the commission has been carrying on despite Covid-19 and possibly finding it slightly easier to contact some stakeholders and some other law commissions, the Law Commission for England and Wales. As you know, we're an independent legal think tank doing research, giving advice to Scottish ministers about possible law reforms which are intended to simplify or modernise Scott's law and fill any gaps. As I think you heard from Charles at the business planning meeting, our present projects are cohabitation, heritable securities, homicide, leases, personal injury damages and, hopefully, tenement property and common repairs. What's happening there is that a Scottish Government reference is being adjusted between the Government and the commission. Then there are two projects with England and Wales, their automated vehicles and surrogacy. In our projects, obviously, we consult widely, we make recommendations but we're also keeping an eye on implementation. We really appreciated this committee's discussion with the Minister for Parliamentary Business during your session on 14 September of this year. It was so heartening to see questions about the 27 outstanding items of draft legislation and also questions about the Prescriptions Scotland Act 2018. Thank you very much for that interest. We're also delighted with the First Minister's programme, including moveable transactions as a bill. That's going to be of great assistance to make Scotland recover, as it were, from the pandemic. Another optimistic or two more optimistic features are the relaxed criteria for bills to come to this committee. We have to thank Andy Proudfoot, your clerk, and also our former chief executive, Malcolm McMillan, who was last seen absailing down a mountain in the sky. He has managed to triumph there. Should I mention the timetabling for the future, I think that you're going to try and keep spaces, or at least the Minister for Parliamentary Business, Mr Adam, is going to try and keep spaces for commission bills. We're grateful and thank you very much for all those changes, but apart from moveable transactions, could I mention again, and this is probably repetition for people like Graham, whom I've spoken to and also steered in the past, a high priority reform, funnily enough, is trust law reform. That reform is a must in our view. I wonder if I could just give you some of the evidence, but this is a small bit of the evidence that was heard at the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee in November of 2019. Gordon Lindhorst was the convener and our thanks to him for bringing that about, because practitioners and academics made a very powerful plea for trust law reform, and one witness said, quote, companies ask us where they should set up. Such companies might be considering whether it will be in Scotland, Berlin, California or London. The answer for most of those companies is that it will be easier for them in those other places because of the way that the law operates here. It's a bit like somebody saying, you haven't got fibre broadband, so why should I set up here? The witness went on to say, it is difficult to access finance in Scotland under the current law. Our current law puts off inward investment to Scotland. Finance companies look at Scotland's law and say, no, we're not touching that, close quotes. That was powerful evidence from people who really know, because they are having customers coming in and saying that we want to start a business. Admittedly, their focus was, at that time, on the need to be able to give security over movable property. Those are start-up businesses, SMEs, et cetera, that just don't have land. They don't have heritable items, which is the way that securities are generally created in Scotland, until we hope the movable transactions. The difficulty for start-up businesses is often that you have a keen young entrepreneur with good ideas, good presentation but no land or buildings. They've got, for example, intellectual property, software licences, trademarks, registered and unregistered designs and so on. That is the presentation that the witnesses at the committee were saying, it was heartbreaking to have to say to these people, because we don't have this facility, you have to go elsewhere. What a lot of people don't understand is that trust law reform actually goes hand-in-hand with movable transactions. Some people think of trusts as old-fashioned and Dickensian, but trust is a modern tool crucial for making Scotland an attractive place for business and investment. A former chair of the Scottish Law Commission identified three crucial areas to make Scotland's economy attractive to outside. First was the legal writings, counterparts and delivery Scotland Act 2015. That is important because of electronic signatures and so on, remote sort of dealings. We are so grateful that that was passed before the pandemic. Secondly, the second vital item is movable transactions. This is securities over movables, and that is now, hopefully, being addressed in the legislative programme. The third item that the chair identified, which was around about 2012, is trusts. The commission does recommend a complete overhaul of this 100-year-old legislation, the Trust Scotland Act 1921, regrettably in a time when, if you think about it, it means that there were percussive type writers, there was no electronic communication, the idea of having remote contracts and so on just didn't cross anybody's mind and it was very much more looking towards the deed boxes and the private trusts. Nowadays, trusts are in everything, NHS, tenements and common repairs, pension funds, commercial land with snagging work, partnership properties held in trust, church elders hold funds and trust. It permeates Scottish society and the people that are experts in trusts are absolutely adamant that we need to sharpen up the machinery. Just before handing back to the convener, I hope that I haven't abused my five minutes, but I would just like to add what we're thinking of doing in the future. We're very keen to join England and Wales in their research into digital assets. That is a cutting edge, again, of commercial law, probably, involving electronic trading documents, smart contracts, cryptocurrency and blockchain. We are very keen to move jointly forward with the LCEW, again with a view to making Scotland great post-pandemic. On that note, convener, I thank you again for this opportunity and I hand back to you. Thank you very much, Lady Payton. You mentioned quite a lot there and I'm quite sure that colleagues, when we have the private session, we will no doubt discuss the trust law reform that I suggested, but no doubt some colleagues may have some questions, too. Before I do some questions, you touched upon the tenement repairs work and I know that it's something that Graham Simpson was very much involved with in the last session of Parliament. I was a member of the group that Graham convened. Can you provide just a bit of information about where that work is at the moment, please? We understand that there has been an approach from Scottish Government to the commission, hoping for agreement about what the parameters of the research should be. As far as we are aware, Professor McCarthy is dealing with that. Our revised version of the reference has been sent back to Scottish Government and I believe that that's where it is just now, but perhaps if Charles has any more up-to-date information, do you have any? That's exactly my understanding. We are in the process of revising, as Lady Payton said, the reference, just to make sure that we know exactly how what we will be asked to do will fit into, undoubtedly, a wider package. The commission is in its second half of its tenth programme of law reform. How is the work progressing and has the pandemic caused you to change any of your plans? I know that you discussed a few months ago, Lady Payton, with the kit that is available to the Scottish Law Commission. Do you seem to indicate that there hasn't really been much of a hindrance through Covid? I would say that it hasn't hindered our business, if you could put it that way, as much as some other entertainment business, leisure and recreation and so on. They have been in taxi drivers, completely stymied by the Covid-19, but because we are all used to working at desks and computers and also reaching out to stakeholders electronically, because I can tell you, for example, cohabitation, it managed to put out its discussion paper. It was just before the pandemic, I think it was. There was a whole lot of roadshows and meetings and seminars lined up where the commissioner was going to go round the country. That, of course, came to an abrupt end, but I am happy to say that those roadshows and seminars were then arranged electronically. The consultation with stakeholders proceeded appropriately, and then a policy paper was put together. Now they are moving towards the report to the Scottish ministers with a draft bill. That is causing a lot of exchange of views and so on, but it is still done by virtual meetings and electronically. Cohabitation is absolutely on target. Heritable securities, that is mortgages and so on, has not been held back by anything to do with Covid-19, but rather by the discovery of a very rich aspect of mortgages, which is, I think, when you take a security on securities. It is called securitisation. It seems to involve millions and millions of pounds, so the net result of finding this area of what most people do not think of when they think of mortgages has been that they will need a third paper. I suppose that there has been a slight hold-up in heritable securities, but not because of Covid. Humaside was positively accelerated by Covid because we had to work discontinuously at home. I was the lead commissioner there and I had the benefit of very good legal assistance. I am not sure if you are aware of this aspect of the commission that we have legal assistants who come in from the university, they are graduates and they stay for a year. They are all absolutely excellent, so it happened in that particular period that one had a very expert criminal, he defined himself as a criminal law geek, so there you are, that was his own definition. The result was, with the electronic communication, I would get an email first thing in the morning, which was surely there is something useful I could be doing. That is nine o'clock in the morning, so the result was an acceleration, I would say, and productivity in the homicide field. Then leases. We had a new commissioner coming in, David Bartas, a member of the bar, and he took certain views about termination of leases, irritancy and so on, and whether we should be dealing with certain aspects. I suppose that you could say that because of a change of staff, that perhaps held up leases a little bit, but it is now at the stage of a discussion, no, not a discussion paper or report, and a draft bill, and that is going to be discussed on 18 October, so I would say good progress there. In personal injury damages, again perhaps a change of staff has caused a slight hicap, that was a project manager change, but the paper is now virtually complete and contains very important points, for example, whether, when somebody has been injured, your next door neighbour helps you out, you know, with bathing, dressing, doing gardening and generally looking after you, whether that next door neighbour is entitled to claim damages at present, it's just restricted to relatives, so this is a very, we feel it's a very important point for 21st century Scotland. There's also a rather sad point arising from plural plaques, because you may remember plural plaques was made an injury by a Scottish bill, which is excellent, because although plural plaques don't produce obvious symptoms, there's something nobody wants, it's a sort of precursor of other things that might be terrible, but unfortunately the time bar problem has arisen in that, when we deal with this in chapter 4 of the paper, it's something nobody foresaw, tonsons who deal with a lot of respiratory problems and asbestosis, nobody foresaw this. What happens is that if a doctor just mentions that you've got plural plaques and he's telling you also you've got COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, et cetera, well the person goes off thinking, my goodness, I must do something about my chronic, my COPD, but they don't pay too much attention to the plural plaques and then the years pass and they're perfectly fine up to a point dealing with maybe COPD and bronchitis and then they get to 15 years later and get mesothelioma and they're time barred because it's three years from the time you were told you had plural plaques, so everybody agrees that that is unfair, pursuers and defenders came together on that, which was quite extraordinary. So no progress is being made and as for the two joint projects with England and Wales, England is very strong on automated vehicles, I think they have a lot of pressure groups there and they are strong on surrogacy as well and they also have pressure groups there, so they sweep Scotland along with them, if I could put it that way. So no, we haven't been held back too much. Okay, no thank you for that Lady Paton and do you plan to narrow down any of the work that you are undertaking? Not at present, no, no. I mean we have this five year programme as you know where everything set out and it's agreed with the Government and at present no narrowing is considered, no. Thank you very much. Grym Simpson. Well thanks, convener. Lady Paton, you've pretty much covered everything. Oh well. Which is great. Not the bilberry bee, if I may say so. Oh well, good piece of research. Absolutely. I'm still the champion for the bilberry bee. I know, I know, I'm very impressed. And unlike last time we met, I have actually seen one now or several over the summer, so that's good. Yes, that is good. I'll ask you more about that another time. Yes, well you can certainly do that. A very enjoyable day hunting for the bilberry bumblebee in Persia. But we'll talk about your work. I was going to ask how you've been getting on since you became the sort of lead commissioner, but I think you've answered that. You've answered how you've been dealing with the pandemic, so I don't really need to go into that. We, as the committee in the last session, prior to your appointment visited your offices hosted by Lord Pentland. I found that really useful and we got to meet, I think it was all the commissioners at the time were there, so I wondered if that's something you would consider hosting again. Yes indeed, yes. Now that is something we would like to do, but presumably when Covid has settled down a bit more, we should also warn you that there are plans to move us from our present 140 cosley side, but we won't be moving until the end of next year. We could, if Covid settles down, we'll be able to invite you back to 140 cosley side, which is a certain, I don't know what to do, some critic charm because of its brutalist concrete presentation. Not quite as wonderful as this building, but it's an interesting building nevertheless, but I think what is happening is that the whole court estate is being reassessed, leases are not being renewed, premises are being closed down, and people are being moved about a bit, so we will move about in a year's time I think, but we hope to have a, that would be very nice if you could come and visit us again at 140. Charles will have noted that. Well, wherever it is, I found it was useful just to hear more in depth about your work and to actually speak to the individual commissioners because they've all got their own specialities, of course. They all have different backgrounds, so I found that really useful and I think all the committee did. Really the questions that I was going to ask would have been covered, but if I can go back to that particular area of interest of mine, which the convener mentioned, which is tenement repairs, and as the convener mentioned, I chaired a working group and the recommendations that stem from that have led to you being contacted. So for me it's a personal priority and I just wonder if you can give us any kind of idea for timescale if you were to take this on when would work start, how long do you anticipate it taking? Right, well I don't know if Charles has better place, but all we can see is that as a commission we are enthusiastic as well because I think the difficulties experienced with common repairs are massive. They really are and they're well they're worse in Edinburgh for example than in Glasgow. Glasgow with its factors and hacking and partisan etc managed to grasp the nettle, identify a common repair, get it done and then bill all the individuals and if necessary litigate if nobody pays, but I'm afraid in Edinburgh it's a bad situation because there's nobody in charge in many buildings so residents, well for example an owner in a building had something like 13 people to chase up and that is a huge number and an awful lot of work and also there can be people who are very difficult as you know. So we are keen, all we can say is that it's gone back to the Scottish Government for final adjustment because it's very important to set down the parameters, the definition, the limits of what the research is otherwise everybody's speaking across purposes. So what we'll do, we undertake to speak to Professor McCarthy to perhaps get in touch with the contact who has sent us the reference and just see what position we're in and then we could possibly let your clerk know what's what the latest is. I really appreciate that. No one I can understand that and me too I would appreciate it. I should say that I personally am in the middle of a common repair and it is very very tricky yes with one of the owners mainly based in Singapore and that doesn't help. Yeah not uncommon, not uncommon. You've spelled out the difficulties and I just think to get reform in this area would help thousands of people across Scotland. You're right. Not just Edinburgh and Glasgow but through it. There's mainly Edinburgh and Glasgow but it could be anywhere in Scotland frankly. So I'm pleased to hear that and I'd be grateful if we were kept informed of that. Convener, I don't really have anything else to ask. May jump in later, we'll see how it goes. Thank you. Good morning Lady Patent and thank you for your very clear and full opening remarks which I think may have taken some of my questions as well. However, for the record I've got one and perhaps a supplementary to it. Given how outdated the present framework is, you've obviously welcomed the recent Scottish Government announcement that a moveable transactions bill will be brought forward in the coming year. While the bill is obviously yet to be introduced and of course it will only be at that point when we find out which committee will become the lead committee. Could you give us a short summary of why you consider these reforms so important and also just in respect of the remarks that you said in relation to trust law? Is there some degree of risk that the benefits from this legislation could be perhaps underachieved if we don't simultaneously or contemporaneously look at trust law? No, I think to be absolutely frank if you deal with moveable transactions and you're not given trust law at the same time it will be fine because moveable transactions will give you about 50 to 60 per cent more capacity in Scottish business than it has at present. What was really frustrating to a lot of the witnesses who spoke at that evidential hearing was that they were either having to tell people to not try in Scotland because it's too difficult and complex and you have to make all sorts of special arrangements to work around the problem or they would say, no doubt, to the customer, well we can do our best for you but we will have to do these work rounds. This is because the moveable transactions bill isn't going forward and in a way for a lawyer to do a work round is money making if you follow me. One of the hurtful accusations at the evidential hearing was a suggestion by one of the members of the committee that the moveable transactions bill was simply a device, a plot to earn lawyers more money. Yes, well they were very hurt because in fact if the moveable transactions bill goes ahead they're doing themselves out of the work round fees. So no, I would say focus on moveable transactions, we're hoping it will come to your committee because I think what remains in the sort of relaxed criteria is that it shouldn't be controversial. Yes, well I have not come across anybody who is against the content of the bill. There was a bit of a delay meeting with the Minister of Community Safety, Minister for Community Safety. There was a mention of the cost of two registers that have to be set up, £500,000 each I think it is, but they will be self-financing once they get going and as I suggested perhaps rationally to the Minister a million pounds is a drop in the ocean compared with let's say the charms construction or maybe even the child abuse inquiry. So once these registers are set up admittedly 500,000 each I think is roughly what the budget is they will be self-financing through various mechanisms fees charged to customers or whatever not to high fee but just enough to keep it going and apart from the two registers the only opposition seemed to be lack of parliamentary time. So I think this is an uncontroversial much needed bill which resulted in a lot of press, I mean I have the press here sort of headed why are Scots firms still awaiting legal reform? That was one and letters saying you know if I and here we are here's another I don't want to be boring about this but Holyrood must find time to keep Scots law relevant by implementing the thought you know so I haven't seen any any word against the proposal and so I think it will be uncontroversial and probably a bit black letter loyge but you've got the expertise in Dr Andrew Steven and Hamish Patrick and all these other people who are knowledgeable. So could I just add one more more over 50s working for themselves? Well that means you know somebody has to go to the bank and say I've got a great idea here's my business it's going to be a an SM here whatever let's get going and you can't get going you know so I think to be quite frank you can work well on the movable transactions the trust law it would be good to get that sorted out but it's not essential although they do they do dovetail to some extent. You've covered the next question from relation to to controversy time I'm taking it that you don't think it's controversial so therefore it is absolutely fine for this committee to be yes that's my view committee if of course that doesn't matter everybody doesn't I'll take your guidance on that I'm sure but if obviously if this committee was appointed as the lead on the bill we'd no doubt be looking to invite the lead on the work at the commission to appear before the committee and I'm assuming that's something that you'd be happy to do but well me not you personally or I would think for the black letter expertise I mean I'd be happy to come along but for the absolute but for the commission generally well I mean I think you would probably want people like Professor Gretton or George yes Professor George Gretton or Dr Andrew Stephen or Hamish Patrick or Bruce Wood I just mentioned all these people because they would be delighted to give assistance yeah excellent and just one final question if I may which is something that perhaps Paul Sweeney may have raised if he was here you were saying that one of the obstacles is parliamentary time and one of the things that we discussed I think with Mr Garland prior to this would be the capacity or the encouragement that could be given for members in this parliament to bring forward commission bills so that obviously that doesn't put pressure on the government parliamentary schedule yes is that something you would be open to examining this is a private members bill yeah yes we we are definitely open to that but we just feel that there is more authority more drive more clout as it were if the Scottish government says this must happen yeah private members bills the Scottish parliaments be congratulated because of the accessibility of legislation to average people much more accessible than in Westminster so it's to be commended and there have been wonderful results for example I think safety belts wearing seat belts in school buses was a private members bill and I think there has been assistance from an MP in the damages front although I don't think it actually emerges as an act but I think the commission feels that there's more authority more drive more a sort of stamp of approval if the Scottish government says this should go ahead and I'm also interested in your suggestion that it would resolve parliamentary time because I'm not sure if it's a private members but does it does it help with parliamentary time because yeah I mean this was a suggestion made by Paul Sweeney who's unfortunately not here today my view is a lot a lot of the stuff you're working on is quite technical and the process of taking through a member's bill it really needs to be a simple idea because if the government doesn't take it on it's very a very time consuming be none of us really want to get bogged down in something that could be extremely technical and really only lawyers understand so for me the sort of work that you're doing is should be taken on by government and not individual members unless it's really simple it's also grindingly slow I mean you get you get frustrated members who try to take forward members bills also get frustrated yeah so just my my view craig is that you know I think I think it's is better than government takes it on the members I think that's a very good point about the simplicity of the idea that has to be there everybody understood seatbelts and school buses not everybody is going to understand the movable transactions thing and it won't have how can I put immediate appeal across parliament you know has to be spelled out so I agree with tend to agree with you yeah okay okay bill yep and thank you very much to Lady Peyton and Mr Galland actually for being here because this is something that gives us some background as has just been discussed actually on some very complex ideas but explaining them in a way that are as much more understandable for the benefit of people who are looking for simplicity thank you Mr Simpson anyway I know but it's great that you're here but going back to the list of Scottish law commission reports which the Scottish government is reported to be looking to be able to legislate on for this parliamentary session. Do you have any view on the order in which these reports should be taken forward? Well let me just certainly the trust the trust lawful and I would actually think that that would exhaust the goodwill of the government you know what I mean by saying well we've we've taken on trusts the other matter is what cohabitation is possibly a very real life one and my personal preference is also for damages for personal injury I think having mentioned these I would say that's more than enough to keep keep matters you know busy I see there are judicial factors that's on the list isn't it yes well that to me is perhaps slightly lower down everybody seems to be managing all right even though the law could do with improvement although there are some rather awkward situations that have arisen so you see the trouble is one votes for just about every topic because this situation that has been drawn to my attention to do with curator bony's or it could have been a power of attorney but these all fall under judicial factors someone was granted a power of attorney or a yes I think it was a power of attorney and unfortunately then went and cleaned out this 80 year old lady's bank account and went abroad so I think that has to be looked at so you see I'm already contradicting myself by saying judicial factors might be worth a look yeah so I can't really put them in any I would say trust law reform is the top yeah right okay well thank you I'm I did notice that you mentioned cohabitation and damages for personal injury because those will be areas which people will feel might affect them or at all of these effects effectors all those will feel as if they're more personal and something which people generally in the population when they hear about what's going through the Scottish Parliament will feel as if that's actually talking to them or and I think that's very important so yeah so I'm glad you pointed those out that's really well is there any unimplemented commission reports from the slc which you consider maybe should even take high take priority over those that are highlighted by the Scottish Government have you got anything any particular hobby horses that you would like to be doing for no I have to say just exactly what I've said this morning so I haven't got a part from personal injuries damages that's perhaps a slight personal hobby horse but apart from that no no right okay so you think the ones that are coming forward are strong enough and good enough for us yeah okay and where were the slc and yourselves involved in the Scottish Government discussions on its programme of implementation of your reports definitely on the progress of implementation I mean rather than putting together the programme in advance well both actually then yes well certainly for making the programme in advance there's a lot of consultation with Scottish Government because people what happens is and next year we'll be doing this for our 11th programme we ask everybody to comment you know members of the public lawyers MPs everybody practitioners and people send in contributions what they would like reformed or looked at and then they're collated and discussed with Scottish Government to some extent usually our sponsors for example it'd be well it'd be Jill Clark and Alison Mason in the civil side and maybe Philip Lamont on the criminal side and soundings are taken about what would be useful because obviously Scottish Government are doing their own research into various topics and then together a programme is formed and it's approved by the Scottish ministers and then it's set down for five years so we will be doing that work next year working towards our 11th programme with a lot of consultation with Scottish Government I may say that there's a lot of communication because for example Scottish Government has been researching interstate succession and that is causing a lot of difficulty you know considerable difficulty and they're thinking of making a reference to the commission for some aspects of that so that's the interplay. That's interesting thank you very much no thank you very much for that thank you it's clear. Thank you Bill. Do we have any further questions for Lady Peyton and Mr Garland? No okay with that Lady Peyton and Mr Garland I'd like to thank you both for coming to the committee today and taking the questions from committee members and certainly the evidence that you have provided today has been very helpful and I'm sure that the committee if we do have any further questions we will write to you with those particular questions. Well thank you very much we've been very grateful for this opportunity. No problem thank you and with that I will briefly suspend this session to allow the witnesses to leave. Thank you very much. Under agenda item number three we're considering instruments subject to the made affirmative procedure no issues have been raised on SSIs 2021 328 and 329 is the committee content with these instruments thank you under agenda item number four we're considering an instrument subject to the affirmative procedure no points have been raised on the draft redress for survivors historical child embracing care exceptions to eligibility scotland regulations 2021 is the committee content with this instrument under agenda item number five we're considering instrument subject to the negative procedure no points have been raised on SSI 2021 317 is the committee content with this instrument under agenda item number six we're considering instruments not subject to any parliamentary procedure an issue has been raised on SSI 2021 314 which is the local electoral administration and registration services scotland act 2006 commencement number six and transitional provision order 2021 this instrument brings into force section 17 and schedule one of the local electoral administration and registration services scotland act 2006 it forms part of a package of elections the SSIs laid before the parliament earlier this month in correspondence the committee asked the scottish government why section 17 and schedule one of the 2006 act are now only being commenced 15 years after the act was passed the scottish government replied to say that there was an apparent admission in section 17 of the 2006 act at the time it was enacted in so far as it did not commence the accounting period for election expenses when an individual became a candidate this has been connected by article 34 of the Scottish local government elections amendment order 2021 which this committee considered last week this in turn enables section 17 of the 2006 act to be brought into force by the current instrument a copy of the Scottish government's full response can be read in paper three for this meeting which is available on the committee's website the response also indicates that steps to rectify the submission were not given priority despite there having been various local government elections since 2006 given that this submission and the delay in resolving it are members content to report the instrument under reporting ground g on the basis that it has been made by what appears to be an unusual or unexpected use of the commencement powers conferred by the parent statute also does the committee wish to highlight the scottish government's response as to why the delay in rectifying the submission occurred to the lead committee so that it may consider whether the explanation is satisfactory from a policy perspective no points have been raised on SSIs 2021 316 and 324 as a committee content with these instruments yes thank you i will now move the committee into private