 Welcome to the fourth meeting of session six of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. 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 eight and nine in private. It is a committee content to take items eight and nine in private. Moving to agenda item number two, today we have before us George Adam MSP, the Minister for Parliamentary Business, to give evidence regarding the work of the Scottish Government and how it relates to this committee. Mr Adam is accompanied by two officials at the moment who are all appearing remotely. We have Steve McGregor, the head of the parliament and legislation unit, and Susan Herbert, the head of the subordinate legislation team in the parliament and the legislation unit. We are hoping to be joined by Rachel Rainer, the deputy legislation coordinator in the Scottish Government's legal directorate. First, I welcome you all to the meeting and I would like to welcome the minister to his new role. The minister will be aware that the previous committee had an excellent work in relationship with the minister and certainly we are keen to ensure that it continues in this parliamentary session. I would like to ask the minister if he wishes to make any opening remarks. I thank you very much for asking me along here today. I too hope that we have a good work in relationship because it is important that I, as a minister of Parliament, have a good work in relation, particularly with this committee, because I am aware of the work that you do because I used to be on the committee myself, so I know how important it is to make the cogs of this place actually work. I congratulate you, convener, on your coming, convener, of the committee. We have known each other for a very long time, although we support rival teams in Renfrewshire and we can leave that argument for another day, but we have been friends for a very long time, so it is good to see you there as well. I would like to welcome everyone else who is new to the committee or those who are continuing on from their role in the past. The committee itself is important role in scrutinising all the legislation that goes through the building. In the past year, it has been particularly challenging for you. It has been a difficult year with all the legislation that has gone through, but there has been a full legislative programme and we are still addressing many of the challenges that we are dealing with with Covid. I recognise from the feedback from the committee that the Government has improved its processes. Policy notes now are more accessible. Outstanding commitments met huge improvement that will continue and improvement management of volumes of SSIs. Improvement of the number of SSIs reported. 13 per cent of the 396 SSIs laid in 2020-21, the majority in the last quarter. I am not complacent that we want to see further improvement with that as we continue. I provide clerks with forward look of SSIs to be laid in the following two weeks. I need to avoid where possible breaches of the 20-day laying period. I know that that is a thing that particularly vexes the committee. The ones that we have had recently have unfortunately been relatively unavoidable, but I am aware of the issue and I am aware that I want to try to get things better. However, what has happened recently has been systematic. Of the 25 breaches out of the 143 negative SSIs that were laid in last year, around 17 per cent in total, we are like that. It is not good enough, but we will try to move it better than that. I would like to ensure that the committee receives information on the volumes of legislation that comes to Parliament and can expect to receive from the Government on a regular basis. I welcome the views that the previous committee made in their legacy report on the consideration of the Scottish Law Commission bills. I am pleased to note that the announcement for the programme for government, the moveable transactions bill, will be a Scottish Law Commission bill. There will be other ones that we are committed to in the programme for government that will be part of that. I know that that is another major issue for the committee. I look forward to hearing the views of the committee and working with you in the future. I hope to have a similar relationship to the one that you had with my predecessor. I have known Mr Day for years and I find it difficult that people find him charming, but obviously you all had a good working relationship with him. I am quite happy to try and keep that going. If you did not, I will be quite happy to make it better. I will open up some questioning. The first one suggests that it is regarding a late SSI that came into the committee last night. It is on the agenda for this morning, which we will discuss later. It is the social security residence requirements of Afghanistan and Scotland regulations 2021. Clearly, the situation in Afghanistan is urgent and pressing. Certainly, as a committee, we would be keen to understand that are you anticipating any more instruments regarding Afghanistan in the weeks and months ahead? As you have already mentioned, it is a difficult situation and it is constantly moving, but I would not like to be doing a last-minute SSI like that to yourself unless it was completely necessary. In that case, I believe that it was. However, whenever possible, we will try to make sure that things get decided well in advance. Certainly, of all the Covid SSIs late in the past 18 months, how many separate SSIs are still alive and how many have been superseded or are no longer used? Off the top of my head, I could not get you that information right now, convener, but I could get it to you back in writing, no problem. Obviously, I am performing without a net here today as I have only got a couple of officials, so I can get that information to you, the committee, as soon as possible. In session 5, the committee regularly highlighted to ministers the quality of the drafting of secondary legislation and saw a general reduction of errors, which is something that you touched upon in your opening comments. The Government has clearly been under pressure to bring forward legislation quickly to respond to the coronavirus. Certainly, in terms of your own thoughts about that, what are you planning to do to ensure that the quality of SSIs remains high? I think that, as you have already said, convener, it is important that we have a clarity in the legislation. I know that there have been times over the past year when there have been difficulties with definitions on various things, and sometimes such things can be unavoidable, whether it is in the political debate itself or whether it is in the legal realms themselves. We have tried all the time to ensure that we get legislation that is clear and that we are able to understand it. It is extremely important that, on every occasion, I do that, I try to bring it as clearly as possible. There have been a couple of issues that have happened over the definition of concepts, as I have already said, which have caused some confusion. I have no simple solution to that issue. There is no simple solution, but it is something that, as minister, I will strive to try to make everything as clear as possible. I am a great believer in the simpler you make everything, the easier we are all going to get on. I am a predecessor of the committee. I welcome the Scottish Government's work in meeting almost all the historic commitments by the end of the last parliamentary session. Some of those historic commitments go back more than one parliamentary session, as you will be aware. What is the Scottish Government doing to ensure that it meets its commitments swiftly in this session to ensure that the problem does not resurface? Are you talking about the 28-day issue? No, it is that there are a number of instruments where there have been issues, or technical issues, with them. The quality of SSIs again then? Yes, yes. I will do not most to make sure that you do get the information. It is inevitable that, with the sheer volume of what is done, that mistakes are made, people are human, things do not go wrong, but we will try to make sure that we have a process that you get as accurately as possible of any SSIs that are laid in front of you. Thank you very much, convener. I welcome your comments at the start about the relationship that you want with the committee. When I was convener, I had a good relationship with Graham Day. You will be horrified to hear that. I know how working one was at easy. Also, as predecessor, Joe FitzPatrick, I found them both very good to work with. When they appeared at the committee, we had a very cordial relationship, and they knew what the committee's requirements were. That said, we had some correspondence with you last week around the vaccine passport debate and the proposal from the Scottish Government to introduce the requirement for vaccine certification at certain events. You have seen our annual report from the last session where we expressed some, shall we say, concern over the number of made affirmative regulations that we are going through. For anyone who is watching, that is where the Government brings in a law without it being scrutinised by the Parliament. The scrutiny comes later. Most Parliamentarians would accept that there has been a need for that during Covid, but there has been a large number of that. We wrote to you, as you know, around about this proposal for vaccine passports. That might not be the term that you use, but that is the term that I use. We know what we are talking about. You wrote back to us on 9 September. It was quite a quick turnaround. You, in your letter, essentially said that, if there were to be regulations and there would have to be regulations if that was to come in, your view is that that made affirmative procedure should still apply. Despite there being weeks to prepare for this, I am asking you here, is that still your position? I do not have the same view on the made affirmative scenario as you do. It still offers a level of scrutiny through this committee with regards to that. As I kept saying, Mr Simpson, parliamentary scrutiny and accountability are extremely important. I agree that, wherever possible, we should give Parliament the chance to scrutinise the regulations before they come into effect. However, there needs to be some form of balance between parliamentary scrutiny and the need to maximise Minister's ability to finalise those decisions as close to the relevant time to account for the fact that situations change at the moment rapidly. They were living in unprecedented times and, over the past 18 months, there have been times where Government has had to deal with things rapidly. There are a number of moving parts in the decision-making process, as well as all the emerging data that we are currently receiving. There are a number of issues that are being worked through in the design and operation of the scheme, including how medical exemptions could be considered. As I put in my letter to the committee, there is an urgent need for this measure to be implemented to provide an additional layer protection and a limited set of higher risk settings. In all honesty, I want to work with the committee on the issue, but with some of the Covid regulations, as has been the case over the past 18 months, I cannot make any guarantees that we will not be using the made affirmative process, which I have said in an answer to one of your colleagues, Mr Stewart, when he asked a question in Parliament a couple of weeks ago. That sounds like there might be some movement so that you might not necessarily use the made affirmative procedure. I can guarantee one way or the other. I think that there will be a good chance that it will be made affirmative in some of those regulations as they come forward. As I said in the past, where possible, I will try to work with the committee in a way that will be acceptable to yourself. However, on many of the issues where there is a timescale and we need to deliver something, there are times. We had a debate last week in Parliament with regard to Covid certification and there was a vote in Parliament as well. We have already had one level of scrutiny within the Parliament as is. We had a two-hour debate about something that we knew precious little of. We certainly did not know the details and that is where scrutiny comes in. I know that you know that, so I do not think that that debate counts as scrutiny. The scrutiny would come when you tell people, tell Parliament what it is that you are proposing to do, if indeed you proceed with it. You mentioned in your letter, and I will just read it out. You say, I absolutely accept that the made affirmative procedure must only be used when the test for using it is set out in schedule 19 of the coronavirus act 2020 is met. If we have a look at schedule 19 of the coronavirus act 2020, paragraph 1.1 says, Scottish ministers may, by regulations, make provision for the purpose of preventing, protecting against, controlling or providing a public health response to the incidents or spread of infection or contamination in Scotland. That gives you the power to do all that stuff, but there are some checks on that, also contained in the act. One of which is under 4A, where it says, regulations under paragraph 1.1, which I have just read out to you, may not include provision enabling the imposition of a special restriction or requirement unless, so that could include vaccine passports, unless the regulations are made in response to a serious and imminent threat to public health, so it has to be both serious and imminent, or imposition of the restriction or requirement is expressed to be contingent on their being such a threat at the time when it is imposed. My point to you would be, given that the First Minister announced her intention to bring in vaccine passports a couple of weeks ago and that they would not actually come in until the start of October, that does not meet those tests in my view. That is not serious and imminent. That is when she announced it. It was not serious and imminent. If we go on to the second point, that there being such a threat at the time when it is imposed, we cannot possibly know what the threat is in a couple of weeks' time. That is why I would argue that you should not be using this procedure, you should be allowing prior scrutiny of whatever it is that you are proposing so that we get this right. Again, Mr Simpson, we are here to the difference in interpretation. From my own point of view, I would say that the situation and the key groups that we are trying to ensure are vaccinated through because of the Covid certification is important and serious that we do. There is a health scale there as well. My interpretation would be the opposite of what you have just said, because those key groups that we need to be vaccinated and the whole idea of the Covid certification is to ensure that those key groups are indeed vaccinated and safe. We will have to strongly disagree with each other on that. My interpretation of that act, which gives the powers to do things, is that you have not met those tests, but we are clearly not going to agree on that. Start for us, both. I am sure that we can improve as we go along. I think that others might wish to come in at this point, convener. Mr Huy, thank you convener and welcome minister. Given that, if you go down the route that appears likely, it may be the last opportunity that we have to question the Government in detail on the application and the operation of the scheme. Just for the public who might be watching, could you say what specific data an individual will have to disclose in order to apply for a Covid passport? The data will be the data that you have already got on NHS Scotland with regard to your double vaccination. That will be it. It is a QR code that, effectively, there will be no data going backwards and forwards. It will just be the equivalent of a green tick as in you have double vaccinated. Will that include a photograph? As far as I will need to get back to you in that one, but I would not think so, but I would need to double check that one for you. Given that then that QR code and the data will be read by a third-party device, that is right. It will be the bouncer or the person in the doors. Am I correct? That is my understanding. The best way to explain it would be very similar to modern football matches. My interpretation of it would be that, effectively, there is a QR code when you go through your ticket and you put it through the turnstile and you get accessibility. There are hand-held devices that are available to do that. The information when you are doing that is already technology, it is already used on a regular basis. When that happens at a football game, nobody's data goes transfer and over other than what is held by the, if it is a season ticket with a club itself. That is about gaining entry to a match, but, obviously, that is a requirement to buy a ticket. In those circumstances, I am the bouncer and you are seeking to come into my nightclub. How can I confirm that you are who you say you are and that you are the person who has the double vaccine? What appears on my screen to give me that assurance? It will be your QR code, and your QR code will be secure and so much that you will be the one that will be there. I know that Mr Simpson said that he managed to gerrymander a QR code last week, but I do not believe that that would be the case. It would be the case that you would have your own one. It is very similar to, again, we all have been using QR codes to a certain degree with regard to checking into hospitality venues at the moment, where the detail that is going over there is the fact that George Adam has appeared at this pub or restaurant at this time. You are appearing in the pub and you are simply recording the fact that you have been there. What I am wanting to know is how does that bouncer know that you are who you say you are and that you have the double vaccine? What specifically appears on his screen, because it could not be a green tech, because then I could take your phone and go with it? What specifically appears on his screen to give or her screen to give them the assurance that you are who you say you are and that you have been double vaccinated? What I will do, Mr Hoy, is that I will take away the actual question, the detail of what you have got, and I will get you a more detailed answer so that I can put your mind at rest with regards to this, anyway. I will bring this back to the committee, if that is okay. Okay, fine. By this stage, probably ministers should be aware of how the system functions, but we will leave that. On the back of that question, have you in any way assessed that the system that you are about to introduce is compliant with GDPR legislation? I would assume that it would be to comply with GDPR. I think that we probably need more than an assumption at this stage. Well, I think that you would be just being a bit of a rascals there, Mr Hoy, because I think that the Government would not do anything illegal. Okay, thank you. I just want to follow up on that, because I am a football fan like you. If I go to a football match, I show somebody at the gate my QR code, he or she scans it into their personal mobile phone, which is what it will be. That is what the Government said last week. On their personal mobile phone, my concern is that my name, address and date of birth could show up on that person's personal mobile phone. That, to me, is a breach of my data. Again, I would say my answer to Mr Hoy. The Government will not do anything that will breach any law or GDPR. Would you accept that that would be a breach of my data? It is a nonsense question with a great respect, Mr Simpson, because I do not believe that you are going to end up in a situation where I could walk out in the street and get knocked down by a bus, but then again I might not get knocked down by that bus. I might cross the road safely. I think that you are just speculating just to leave it too much there. Speculating, because we do not actually know, but you have said you will write to us with the details. I will move on, convener, if that is okay. On another item that you mentioned earlier, which is the need for clarity when you lay instruments, we had a very interesting discussion at committee recently about what constitutes dancing, because you will recall that if you are dancing in a nightclub, and of course we have not got a proper definition of a nightclub yet, let alone dancing, but if you are dancing you do not have to wear a mask, but there was no clear definition of what dancing actually is. The Government came back to us and said that if it is a form of exercise, it will fall under that description, in which case, as Craig Hoy mentioned at the same meeting, you could be dancing in a supermarket aisle and take your mask off. That is why there is a need for clarity. I wonder if you have defined what is meant by dancing yet? At the end of the day, we all know what dancing is and what dancing is going to a nightclub. I know that you and Mr Kidd had quite a discussion about what constitutes dancing. I have seen Mr Kidd dance myself, and that is something that defies a definition in itself. At the end of the day, I think that when people are going to a nightclub and then they go on to the dance floor and they start doing whatever they do, many of our age is known as dad dancing, but effectively when they do go on to that dance floor, that constitutes some dancing on the floor there and they would take their masks off. We are dancing in the head of a pin with regard to this one. There is actually a need for clarity, which I agree that we need to be clear at all times, but at the same time, we have to use a bit of common sense when we are talking about a lot of that. Most of the young people who will be going to the dancing—that was a very wedgy term that I used there—would understand what constitutes dancing. I do not think that you could do it in a shop. I do not think that you could just get your mask off and start dancing in the middle of a store. That was the problem with the way the law was framed, and that is why we raised it. We are joking about it, but it is a serious matter that, when we write law, it needs to make sense and it needs to be understood and there should not be a loophole. As I said, there is common sense, which is that if someone takes a mask off in the middle of a Tesco and has a wee dance to them, I do not think that it constitutes the same as dancing in a nightclub. I will move on to my final question for now. We have highlighted—again, this is something that you mentioned earlier on—that we are not persuaded by some of the reasoning provided by the Scottish Government for breaching the 28-day rule for negative instruments. Can you expand on what work you are doing to ensure that such breaches are only made when absolutely necessary? Mr Simpson, I spend most of my life reminding my colleagues of various regulations such as the 28-day period. It is serious, and I tell them how it should be avoided at all costs, because, if I am honest with you, Mr Simpson, I do not want to become into committee to you for something that is, effectively, should just be natural for us to do it within the timelines. I find it irritating to myself, but there are times when it has been unavoidable. We will probably agree to differ whether that was unavoidable or not, but there are times when that is unavoidable. However, I agree with the need for us to get better and to continue getting better with that approach for the 28-day breaches, because, for me, it is a process, and we should just do the process. Thank you very much, convener. Minister, I can ask a couple of questions about secondary legislation stemming from the UK's withdrawal from the EU. Prior to the UK leaving the EU, the previous minister, as has been mentioned, regularly updated the committee and, on a number of occasions, talked about the volume of secondary legislation that is required to fix any legislator deficiencies that stem from the withdrawal from the EU. In terms of legislation arising from the UK leaving the EU, can you provide an estimate of the number of SSIs that is required to be laid under the European Union withdrawal act to deal with the consequences of the withdrawal? In general terms, I expect the EU exit-related SSIs to remain relatively low compared to what they were at the peak, because Mr Simpson and the convener will be aware that there was a period in which that was literally all that you were dealing with. I expect about 18 Scottish EU exit-related SSIs to open until the end of December, but that could be subject to change. Since 2019, we have laid 74 Scottish EU exit-related SSIs. I can expect to see further Scottish EU exit-related SSIs during 2022, but there will not be anywhere near the number that we have had in the past. There should be a reduction in the number. Scent notifications for UK SSIs are only considered by subject committees. How many SSI notifications will you estimate will be sent to the Parliament under SSI protocol 2 between now and the end of this year? Probably about 22 will remain UK notifications before the end of this year. I will just answer your question very quickly. I will, thank you. Is that a slow down as well then? Yes, in general, compared to the previous committee, the two members that have been here previously will know that the general volume of SSIs relate to you when it was going through. I suppose that we are just trying to get a feel for what the forward workload is going to be and be able to anticipate as best possible future SSIs in relation to non-Covid aspects of legislation. How will the Scottish Government prioritise non-Covid instruments to ensure that the necessary SSIs are still laid and scrutinised by the Parliament in a timely manner? We continue aim to analyse and prioritise the legislative programme, taking into account the Scottish Government's legal and policy capacity and parliamentary scrutiny capacity. That has helped us to avoid having to continue to stop and start the legislative programme to avoid peaks and troughs. As you will be aware, we tend to, in general, with SSIs, not to try to put too many through the system at the one time in order to make sure that it can balance itself out over the period, because this committee would be extremely busy if we just did it all in the one time. I suppose that one aspect of the dynamic that we consider is packages of SSIs and groupings in relation to specific bills that have passed. There have been significant pieces of legislation that have passed in recent years, such as the Social Security Act 2018 and the Transport Scotland Act 2019, and they have a significant number of delegative powers because they are quite complex pieces of legislation, obviously. It would be useful for this committee in order to plan its forward workload, as well as the relevant subject matter committees, to be given advanced notice, given that those are just two examples. Do you know if there are any sets of instruments in the pipeline and are you able to keep us updated on that progress, given that those are particularly landmark pieces of legislation? Mr Sweeney, I know about this because you recently brought this up with my officials at the, or all of you did, the committee did at the recent business planning session that you had. I am happy to take an undertaking that is part of our profile on future legislation. We will seek to identify significant packages of bill implementation and SSIs. I can also provide some information today, just to answer your question. A package of seven SSIs to implement redress for survivors, Historic Child Abuse and Care Act split over September to November. Implementation of the Civil Partnership Act 2020 will be three SSIs in October and three in November. Implementation of the Disclosure Scotland Act 2020 will be two SSIs in November, with more to follow. Implementation of the Forensic Medical Services will begin in January. I am keen to make sure that this is a perfect example of that. I was already aware that you had an issue with that, and my officials were able to come to me and give me that detail so that I could bring it to you, so it goes back to what I was saying earlier on. The more we can have an open and frank discussion, the more things I can deal with and be able to give you the information that you need. I mentioned two specific items of legislation. You mentioned a series of bills that have now become acts and delegated powers have been drawn down. In relation to the Social Security and Transport Acts, particularly because there are significant pieces of legislation, will you be able to give a commitment that you will go back to your civil servants and ask them to consider when that might be coming forward and right to the committee to indicate when that is likely to be happening? I am quite happy to do that and try to give you the detail. That would be great. I appreciate it. Your predecessor tended to write to the subject committees at regular intervals to highlight the volume of SSIs that would be anticipated to fall within a period of time, within six months to 12 months period. Do you intend to continue that practice? Yes, I do, because I do not want to see Graham Day ever getting better of me. Thank you, Mr Swinney. Thanks again, convener. Just following up on that, when we had a private meeting with your officials, we did ask about the area of questioning that Mr Swinney has just covered, and we specifically asked if the Government could provide us with a list of outstanding regulations that flow from acts that have been passed. I am not sure that we have seen that. Mr Swinney mentioned the Transport Act, but there have been a number of others, including the Planning Act. I think that there is still some outstanding stuff there, so I think that it would be useful to have that list if we could have it. What I will do is to get my officials to make a troll of what is coming up and what is available, and I will share with you what I can at this stage. I will make sure that I have all the details correct and that there is nothing that can be taken the wrong way. Just on that point, minister, it might be useful in the intervening period, to write to the committee on a quarterly basis, to keep the committee updated on what is coming down the line over the next quarter. I will look into that for us and see what we can do. I will move on to discuss the Scottish law commission. The committee works very closely with the law commission as do you, but there has been a long-standing frustration from them and us—particularly them, I would imagine—about the amount of work that they have done, the amount of reports that they have done that have just stacked up and have not resulted in legislation. In fact, they have provided us with a list. I think that there is about 18 Scottish law commission reports dating from 2006, which have not ended up as legislation. That covers things from electoral law to level crossings. There is all kinds of very serious work going on here, so they are very frustrated. We were very frustrated, and certainly in the last session, we worked with the Parliament to put in a set of protocols that could allow this committee to take on more bills if they were presented. That would help the Parliament to get stuff through. In the programme for government, you said that you wanted to do something on moveable transactions. When do you see legislation on that being introduced? Do you see there being a bill that meets the criteria that might be considered by this committee? On the Scottish law commission stuff, all your work in the legacy paper that you did last time has been listened to by government and has been taken on board, because I know that it has been an open sore for this committee for a wee while and the Scottish law commission as well. The moveable transaction will probably be, I would suggest, coming to this committee when we go forward with that. The programme for government announced quite a few SLC bills this year. I would like to use that as an example, Mr Simpson, of listening. I think that this is a good news story. We have listened to what the committee has said and we have implemented it through the programme for government. The moveable transactions, I will probably get the dates somewhere, but I will make sure that I get them accurately to you. I will get that back to the committee at a later date. I think that the trust law was the other one. The trust law, title conditions, contract law and judicial factors. You anticipate them all coming this year? Probably within the next 12 months. Within the session of Parliament? I do not know the actual dates. I think that it would be useful for the committee to have something from yourself about which SLC reports you anticipate bringing forward and which you do not. Then we know what we are working with. I will give you the list of what we are actually doing and take it from there. I think that just to make anyone watching aware that the letter that has been referenced has now been published on the committee webpage this morning. If anyone is interested, they will be able to find the letter there. Certainly, just to make everyone aware, I think that the letter genuine was extremely useful and the discussion that we had prior to the committee coming back in this session was also extremely useful. There is a particular element of the work of the SLC, which is certainly useful for people to understand. From 1965 to December 2020, of the 190 reports published by the SLC, 158, that is 83 per cent, have either been implemented in whole or in part. Five, that is 3 per cent, have been superseded. The point that Mr Simpson was raising was that 27, which is 14 per cent, have not been implemented at all. The wider clarity of the role of the SLC and the work that the SLC undertake is just that it is important for people to be aware of that. Regarding the Prescription Scotland Act 2018, that is yet to be commenced and the Scottish Government has consulted on the draft commencement regulations for the act last year. When does the Scottish Government intend to lay those regulations? I do not have that level of detail with me today, so I am quite happy to get that back to you, to talk to officials and get that back to you as well. Just two brief questions, if I may minister. From the bills highlighted in the programme for government, do you anticipate that any of them will have significant delegated powers? Do you think that it might be useful to highlight those to the committee at this time? All the bills that we have announced in the programme for government will be interesting obviously in their own way, but at the moment none of those bills seem to fit into the category of what is referred to as framework bills. However, I am happy to give the undertaking to keep that under review and come back to the committees should that position change and ensure that we have an open dialogue that basically no surprises from yourself. In terms of specific powers on individual bills, I think that it is too early to say at this point, but I am happy again to keep that under review and get back to you. A number of previous Covid-related bills have been considered in a very short timeframe, and that is perfectly understandable. However, for the expected coronavirus compensation for self-isolation bill, do you see this providing the committee with sufficient time to scrutinise any proposed delegated powers? I think that inevitably with legislation connected to Covid, the laws might need to progress everything quickly. However, in relation to the compensation for self-isolation bill, I do not expect that it will require to an emergency timetable, and I expect this committee to have significant time to scrutinise any delegated powers in it. The colleagues have any other questions for the minister? Thank you, chair. I was keen to bring you back to the correspondence from Charles Garland at the Scottish Law Commission, which was an interesting session that we held with the gentlemen, particularly in relation to the 27 items of draft legislation that are shovel-ready, if you like. Would it be possible for yourself to perhaps commission a review of those 27 items and assess the opportunities that the Government can bring forward in a timely manner? Or, as the committee mentioned, they could be sponsored by members through the NGBU as members' bills, and perhaps use that as an alternative route to achieving that. There is a national interest in having that body of work carried forward as quickly as possible, so it might be useful to do a sort of assessment at this point of that archive of material and see what opportunities there are. If that can be written in the form of writing to this committee perhaps just to see what the Government's view is on those 27 items, that would be quite a useful exercise, I think. We could probably come back with the position on that to you with the detail. Just to continue about the letter of the SLC, the stuff that they mentioned about trust law, to use that as an example, I understand that the Minister for Community Safety will shortly write to Lady Payton on that bill, so we will be able to take that one forward. I think that it is reasonable for the committee to further reference the SLC's trust law report in the programme for government. On the whole, what I am trying to say—I am going round about circles here—is that I am taking on board seriously and that we need to find a way. As Minister for Parliamentary Business, I am not too keen on too many members' business about what the bill is kicking about because I am trying to manage the five-year programme, as we speak. If I can find a way to manage some of the SLC commitments that we have made and I will look at some of the other stuff, then we will do what we can. As the convener has already stated, the numbers are not as bad over the period, although there are still some that are always left. Thank you, minister. Any other questions, colleagues? Just for the public record, Lady Payton from the SLC will be in the committee in two weeks' time. With that, minister, I thank you and your officials for the evidence that you provided. I know that there are one or two action points from yourself, but there might be some other questions from the committee when we have our discussion later. We might want to write to you on that, so there might be some further correspondence coming from the committee. I am happy to have this open dialogue and make sure that we can get a lot of the work that we will be doing together is stuff that we should be able to get the process right and do it. I certainly look forward to working with you and your officials in the term ahead. I do not know about my officials right enough, because they have all been here the other day. They are virtual somewhere. With that, I will suspend the meeting and we will reconvene in a few moments. Thank you very much, minister. The next item of business is consideration of instruments subject to the made affirmative procedure. An issue has been raised on health protection, coronavirus, international travel, Scotland amendment number 17, regulations 2021, SSI 2021-301. Regulation 4B inserts a new paragraph 9 into regulation 5F of the international travel regulations. Paragraph 9 provides for the definition of private provider in respect of Covid-19 day 2 and day 8 test providers. As company drafted paragraph 9B, it refers to private day 2 and day 2 test providers and this should refer to private day 2 and day 8 test providers. The Scottish Government advised that this would be rectified in a forthcoming amending instrument. SSI 2021-307 was laid before the Parliament on Friday 10 September and includes provision of rectifying this error. This instrument will be considered by the committee in due course. Are members content to report the instrument under the general reporting ground due to a typographical error in regulation 4B of the instrument, whilst at the same time noting that the Scottish Government has since rectified the error? Thank you. No points have been raised on SSI 2021-299. It is the committee content with this instrument. Under agenda item number 4, we are considering instruments subject to the affirmative procedure. No points have been raised on the following draft instruments. The animal welfare licensing of activities involving animals Scotland amendment regulations 2021, the redress for survivors historical child abuse in care Scotland act 2021, forum and content of waiver etc regulations 2021 and the forestry exemptions Scotland amendment regulations 2021. It is a committee content with these instruments. SSI was laid by the Scottish Government very late in the day yesterday. It is the draft social security residence requirements Afghanistan Scotland regulations 2021. The department for work and pensions is introducing regulations to allow those evacuated from Afghanistan to have immediate access to social security assistance where they enter the UK. SSI has been laid to ensure parity of access to benefits for which Scottish ministers have responsibility. The Scottish Government is seeking to have those changes come into force tomorrow. While in the very limited time available, no points have been raised on the instrument, I reserve the right for the committee to look at the instrument again next week should any issues subsequently be found. We could then write to the Scottish Government to highlight those. We are taking all that into account as the committee content with this instrument. Under the next agenda item, we are considering an instrument subject to the negative procedure. No points have been raised on SSIs 2021, 3 and 0, 2. Is the committee content with this instrument? Under agenda item number 6, we are considering instruments not subject to any parliamentary procedure. No points have been raised on SSIs 2021, 291 and 295.