 The next item of business is a statement by George Adam on Scottish Government response to the report of the Citizens' Assembly of Scotland. The minister will take questions at the end of his statement, so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on the minister for around 10 minutes, please. I am pleased to publish the Scottish Government response to doing politics differently. The report of the Citizens' Assembly of Scotland. That is a crucial step for both the Citizens' Assembly of Scotland and any plans for public participation in our democracy in the future. There will be no value of government in this Parliament to not demonstrate that we have heard and acted on the views and expressed by the people of Scotland through these processes. Before I speak about our response, I want to acknowledge once again the commitment, enthusiasm and energy that the members of the Citizens' Assembly have brought to their task. Their dedication can be clearly seen in the breadth and ambition of their ambition and recommendations, and I thank them all, all of the members of the assembly and many of the people who supported their work. The assembly worked through a unique period of time, beginning its work in October 2019, with a series of face-to-face events and finally completing its work online in December 2020. The willingness of members to stick with the assembly through the challenges of the pandemic, adapt to virtual working and to bring their experience of lockdown to the table, makes the vision and recommendations all the more important as we continue to live our restrictions and we plan to build back better. The assembly produced 10 vision statements and 60 wide-ranging recommendations directed to the Scottish Government and to the Parliament. Some of those recommendations call for detailed policy responses, while others address more fundamental questions around how decisions are taken and how politicians and government can be scrutinised and held to account. The vision of the Citizens' Assembly is long-term. To realise the scope of its ambition, we will require change beyond the term of this Parliament alone. While our response lays out our immediate commitments, we also acknowledge the scale of the challenge that the assembly has set us all. When the report of the Citizens' Assembly was debated in Parliament in February, the Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, Europe and External Affairs explained that there was not enough time before the election to give the report and its ambitious recommendations the full and detailed consideration that it deserves. Since then, the recommendations have informed party manifestos, the agreement between the Government and the Scottish Green Party and the programme for government and also the Covid recovery strategy and other important areas of policy. When we published a consultation in Scotland's first framework for tax in August, the consultation document set out the vision for tax put forward by the Citizens' Assembly for Scotland. The consultation response to specific recommendations from the assembly included to provide more information and accessible language about taxes, building on the manifesto commitments and with the agreement of the Scottish Green Party, the programme for government sets out the Government's commitment to participative democracy, including the Citizens' Assembly model. That is a long-term commitment and to build on the real successes of the Citizens' Assembly and the climate assembly that is reported to the Parliament in June to transform the way that people are involved in decision making in Scotland. Our ambition, echoing the ambitions of the assembly's recommendations, is for public participation processes in Scotland to be a permanent addition to the democratic process in Scotland. We have gathered together a group of experts and participants—it is easy for me to say, Presiding Officer—democracy for Scotland from the UK and around the world. That group is considered the real and practical actions that we need to deliver our commitments. For example, how to set the questions to be answered by a Citizens' Assembly. The group's work is being informed by research into the experience of Citizens' Assembly of Scotland so that we can capture and benefit from all the important development work and learning from the assembly. The expert working group is due to report in the next few weeks with recommendations on how to fulfil our commitments on future participation, not just Citizens' Assembly but other forms of participation, including at a local level. Our plans of deliberative engagement on sources of local government funding already include plans for participative work on both local and national level. Deliberative engagement can start locally in the National Citizens' Assembly. Our other specific commitment is a brand new Citizens' Assembly for under-16s. That will ensure that the generation that will grow up with the consequences of the decisions that we take now can be involved in making them. It also echoes the Assembly's concern with the issues that young people face today. As well as its recommendations on entrenching participation in our system, the Assembly raised some fundamental questions about the scope and structure of the democratic engagement in Scotland's formal governmental and parliamentary institutions. Not all of them make for comfortable reading for us in this Parliament or in Government. Specific recommendations include the conduct and integrity of politicians, the responsibility of MSPs to their constituents and the availability of accessibility and comprehensive information. Given recent events in the Westminster Parliament, the importance of integrity in our political representatives can hardly be overstated. Those challenges should be of concern to everyone in this Parliament and in Government. We will be working with Parliament and seek cross-party involvement to address those challenges. A further immediate impact of the Assembly on engagement and participation in Government was the experience of the plans to recover from the pandemic. The Assembly reflects members' experience of the spring of 2020. In our response, we set out the importance of public engagement to developing the Covid recovery strategy. The strategy highlights the work of the Assembly in reflecting the concerns of members who are representatives of the wider public as they consider the issues arising from Covid, even as they were unfolding. In my statement today, I have highlighted the recommendations of the Assembly on participation and the Government's plans to progress these. In many ways, those are the heart of the Assembly's report. Its work is the evidence of the potential importance of greater systematic engagement with representative selection of the people of Scotland. However, the response that we are publishing today goes much further than that and wider than those recommendations. It sets out how the Government is acting. A range of specific policy areas that are identified by the Assembly, building on the commitments that were made in our election manifesto earlier this year, are now set in the programme for government and the Covid recovery strategy and elsewhere. Not all of our plans are identical to the recommendations, but the themes that are identified by the Assembly and many of the detailed recommendations are reflected in the Government's priority for this Parliament. Some of the recommendations are beyond the current powers of the Scottish Parliament and the Government itself. The Assembly has made some specific proposals for additional responsibilities to allow us to fulfil their vision. However, as I said earlier, that response can only be the start of a long-term vision set out by the Assembly for the Transformative Change for Scottish Politics, which will go beyond the programme for government and indeed this Parliament, embedding deliberative democracy in our decision-making process, ensuring trust and transparency in our institutions, hearing the voices of the people of Scotland and demonstrating that we are acting on their views are all very important in this process. Those are the challenges and the legacies of the Citizens Assembly of Scotland to us all here today. I am optimistic that all of us in this Parliament can share something of that vision for a stronger, more inclusive democracy that shines through the report of the Citizens Assembly. I hope that we can work together to ensure that we act on the recommendations of the Citizens Assembly of Scotland that aspire to fulfil that ambition and vision, and that we look in the words of the Assembly to do politics differently. The minister will now take part in a participatory Q&A session on issues raised in his statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for that. I invite members who wish to participate to press the request-to-speaks buttons now or as soon as possible. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank the minister for advance state of his statement. I also take this opportunity to thank the Assembly members for the power of work that they have put into the Assembly and this report. A key theme running throughout the report is the recommendation. People want to see decisions taken as close to local communities and people as possible. There seems to be a disconnect in the Scottish Government about that and how we do politics differently. COSLA, for example, has called Scottish Government plans for a national care service an attack on localism, which is potentially being an end for anything other than central control of services in Scotland. How does the minister match that with his statement that he has just given today? I will say that we have taken on board absolutely everything that was put forward by the Systems Assembly of Scotland. In my speech, I mentioned that there would be need for decision making at a local level. However, one of the most important things that we have to see as we go through the process is that we deliver the services that the people of Scotland want and the representatives of the Assembly do. I believe that if we continue down that route, and just to put the members' mind at ease, we find a way to work with local, locally and on a national level, we can solve many of the issues that the member has brought up. I thank the minister for advance sight of his statement. I commend the work of the Citizens Assembly and the many progressive ideas that it has put forward for creating a fairer and more equal Scotland. They are important proposals that deserve to be acted upon. What would the minister regard as the biggest change in government policy in response to the report? Can the minister also confirm that this will be an annual report going forward and statement to ensure that we can measure progress on this work? It does not go to waste. For example, the report calls for capping on private sector rents. When will the government deliver on this? How also will the government use its existing procurement powers to extend the living wage? Finally, one of the report's other recommendations was to increase accountability of those elected. Would the minister therefore agree that if we are serious about doing politics differently and better than MSPs should be banned from having paid directorships? Going further, we have only fair and reasonable exemptions that MSPs should be prohibited from having any second job. There were numerous questions there. I will try and answer as many of them as I possibly can. However, one of the things that I would say about doing things differently for ourselves, and the main question that you asked at the very beginning, Mr Bibby, was the fact that what is the main difference? I would say that the main difference would be the agreement between ourselves and the Scottish Green Party, between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Green Party, because what comes across all the time when we are dealing with members of the public is the fact that they want the political parties to work together in order to create the greater good for everyone else in our society. On the whole, I would say that that is probably the best example of it. With regard to very many of the other issues as we move forward, we obviously need to make sure that all the members of the organisation and the citizens assembly are listened to, and their ideas are included. I think that I made it perfectly clear within my actual statement that we are willing to do that and the differences that they have made throughout Government. It is not just a case, Mr Bibby, of how it has changed a specific policy or has it created a different bill. It has found a different way for Government to make sure that we can deliver what the public has asked us to do, and that might be through various other processes and other bills as well. One of the issues that came up was how politicians act and how politicians engage with the world and what they do is one of the uncomfortable things of the whole debate that the citizens assembly of Scotland had, and it is one that we should all take very seriously as we have debates when we move forward in the future. Michelle Thomson, to be followed by Donald Cameron. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I add my voice of thanks to those who participated in the citizens assembly. I would be interested to hear how the Scottish Government plans to feedback on going progress to them after all their hard work. I am not with interests that 62 per cent of participants strongly agree that the Scottish Parliament should legislate for an independent specialist body with responsibility for finding evaders and avoiders of tax and with power to recover tax due. That clearly demonstrates that people in Scotland share the pecuniary values for which Scotland is well known internationally. However, can the minister advise if the contributors were aware that it is Westminster that is set and perpetuated the regulatory environment where, regrettably, tax can be avoided in this way and that this kind of initiative can only apply to the small percentage of tax that the Scottish Parliament controls? The Scottish Government believes that everyone should pay a fair share of tax and support strong measures to tackle tax avoidance and evasion. Wherever we have the power to do so, that principle sits at the heart of our tax-paying policy making. That is why the Scottish Government's principle of good tax policy includes enforcement. On the member's question about getting feedback, we have been in touch with the convener and a network of members of the assembly to let them know about the response. I hope to meet members myself in the near future. The final report details the cost of the citizens assembly to date. What is the budget of upcoming assemblies and how much does the Scottish Government plan to spend on them throughout the term of this Parliament? I believe that, when we are looking at what I have already put out in my speech, how much would it cost us not to engage with the people of Scotland in a process like this? For me, that is the most important point. However, I have already established a participatory democracy working group, which brings together experts from Scotland, UK and international organisations to make recommendations on how we can make participation routine and effective. Bear in mind that we already have those people enforcing the original set-up costs that we had beforehand because we were setting up the new process. As time moves on, I believe that we will have a situation in which that will be a lot easier for us to work with. The working group will make its recommendations for governance, for future citizens assembly and questions that are set out from those assemblies. Decisions about the next citizens assembly will be made after the group has reported to us. The most important thing for me in this whole process is that we need to encourage that to continue and ensure that it is actually more important that we do engage with the people of Scotland and make sure that we can continue down this route. The citizens assembly recommends that, in order to overcome the challenges of poverty, the Scottish Government and Parliament should raise the minimum wage for young people aged 16 to 24 to a national living wage. What work is currently being undertaken with the UK Government to ensure that the Scottish Government has the powers to raise the minimum wage for young people? The national minimum wage, including the national minimum wage for apprentices, is a reserved matter for the UK Government, so the rates that are set out by the UK Government and the Scottish Government have no remit over those rates. We are fully committed to promoting fair work practices throughout Scotland, and we will continue to press the UK Government for the full set of powers around employment law to allow us to fully deliver our fair work ambitions. The Scottish Government has encouraged the abolition of the apprentice rate and a move towards the real living wage of 9.50 per hour for all workers. Minister, there are excellent suggestions from the citizens assembly on young people, on participation, apprenticeship pay and housing. How does the minister envisage the newly announced youth citizens assembly working with the Scottish youth parliament? Having highlighted that apprenticeships are vital for young people, can you say how you are going to use Scottish Government powers of procurement and contracting to ensure that apprentices are paid the fair wage? Can you answer Neil Bibby's question about the Scottish Government's date for introducing private rent controls? With regard to the first question about how we would engage with other youth organisations, I would assume that we would make sure that there would be engagement throughout the level so that we got that instrument. With regard to how the actual assembly would work, it is just a case of that we need to ensure that we listen to the young people of Scotland to ensure that they will be the ones that will be delivering living with many of the decisions that we make here in the future. With regard to the rent control stuff, I could possibly get to Mr Bibby and to Ms Boyack at a later date as well. Can the minister further expand on how the recommendations in the report relate to the work that the Scottish Government is already undertaking to reduce poverty? Members will appreciate that there is a complex range of issues that lead to poverty and inform the policies that the Government has in place to address them. In fact, some of the debate within the system assembly of Scotland shows you the complexity of that. In order to be part of the programme for government, the Covid recovery strategy set out a range of measures that we are taking to address those issues and identified by the assembly, including a strong social security system that treats people with dignity and respect, a national mission to eradicate child poverty and a new homeless together fund of £50 million over this Parliament. The Government welcomes the strong support and recommendations of the assembly to give help to those in our society who needs it most. I warmly congratulate and welcome the work of the citizens assembly. I think that it is incumbent on all the parties in the chamber to reflect on the challenge to do politics differently. I wish the young people's assembly that comes out of this well. I hope that they are given a proper platform to do good work unencumbered by the constitutional skirmishes of this chamber. In action 33 of the citizens assembly recommended permanent mental health support liaison officers in every school in Scotland. I could not see a response to that in the report that the cabinet secretary has just introduced. Can I ask the Government whether it plans to do this? I thank the member for the promotion to the cabinet secretary. I seem to have gone through the ranks quite quickly here today. I have one statement and I am a cabsech already, but many of the recommendations that I have said during my statement have been taken on board and will be worked through by the Government. A lot of it, in the case of the one in particular that you are talking about, will be something that will be looked at along with other recommendations to see how we take it further forward from then. I am quite happy to talk with the member on how we take that forward at a later date as well. One of the key weaknesses in participatory democracy is the lack of information about what will happen after the process and unclear assurances about how recommendations will be implemented. That will be particularly important to retain the trust and enthusiasm of young people as we go forward. Can the minister outline how we can ensure that people who participate in assemblies and other processes are clear about how their recommendations will be taken forward? I think that Ms Mackay hits the nail on the head on this issue. This is the important part of how we take this forward, because there is no point in us as a Government going through this whole process and ensuring that the recommendations made by the individuals on the assemblies do not get taken. If I can assure the member by saying that we are committed to having further assemblies in the future and to continue to use it as a process so that we can develop policy and move forward with knowing that we are dealing with the issues that the public wants. Any assures that I can give is that this is here to stay and it is not something that is going to go away. In addition to citizens assemblies, can the minister outline how the Scottish Government is creating space for genuine public involvement in decision making? The Government is committed to promoting not only citizens assemblies but other forms of democracy engagement, such as citizens juries, many publics and people's panels. Later this year, an expert group will report with recommendations to ministers on institutionalising inclusive participation democracy across Scotland's democratic processes, including the future governance and questions that are setting for citizens assembly. The working group will bring together those that we have already spoken about, of the experts from Scotland, England, the UK and international organisations, to propose recommendations on making this routine ineffective. They will include identifying methods of governance for delivering credible trustworthy democratic processes. Last week was Book Week Scotland, so the Scottish Government's additional funding for libraries is welcome, but that funding will have to be spent by the end of the financial year. Even after the funding, 16 libraries still remain closed indefinitely after Covid, with library campaigners branding the move a short-term fix. What thoughts have the Scottish Government had about a long-term solution to the issue of library funding? I'm a bit confused on how much that is specific to the issue that I'm discussing here. It's one of the recommendations, yes, on the fact of the libraries themselves, but at the end of the day, what we have to do is we need to obviously ensure that local Governments still have their opportunity to make decisions locally. As a former councillor, I'm only too well aware of the difficulties and challenges that councillors face, particularly this time of year, but our situation that we have with regard to budgets that go to local authority unfortunately is in a situation where, as the Scottish Government budget is cut by Westminster, there are obviously challenges created from that. That's what gives us the problems that we're dealing with in that situation. Of course, some of the recommendations that were made by the citizens assemblies actually showed that they wanted us to have more powers within this Parliament in order to create that better future that they all want. Maybe that's part of the process and maybe that's what we should be looking at with the citizens assembly Scotland. Does the minister support the recommendations that this Parliament should have the ability to create a fairer tax system for citizens, raise income from key industries such as tourism, food, drink and energy and create our own immigration system that works for Scotland? Isn't it time for the Tory Government to listen to this constructive democratic report and do the right thing? Otherwise, even more people will realise that the best future for Scotland is an independent country. My answer to that would be a resounding yes to all of the above. It's unfortunate that the current approach that the UK Government is to constrain and undermine rather than enhance devolution. This has been a problem that we have had in recent time as well. It's a problem that's going to go throughout this institution over the coming months with the aggressive attitudes from the Westminster Government towards devolution in general. It's a conversation that I have with my Welsh counterpart on a regular basis as well as they feel with it. On answering that question to the member, I would say yes because we live in difficult times. I think that the member should listen to this as the fact that one of the things that on part of doing politics different was the fact that they questioned the morality and integrity of many of us in this chamber and other chambers. Therefore, we should all take a long hard look at ourselves and see how we should take politics forward and do things differently. That concludes the ministerial statement, the Scottish Government response to the report of the Citizens Assembly of Scotland. The next item of business is a committee announcement, and I call Stuart McMillan, convener of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, on an inquiry into the use of made affirmative procedure during the coronavirus pandemic. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Members will know that for the past 20 months many of the public health measures used to try and protect the people of Scotland from the full impact of the coronavirus have been made using secondary legislation. Many of those measures have been brought into law using the made affirmative procedure. That allows the Scottish Government to bring changes into force immediately. While this chamber needs to approve the changes within 28 days for the regulations to stay in force, the law will often have been altered weeks earlier. Prior to the pandemic, the made affirmative procedure for laying SSIs was relatively rare, really single digit figures per annum. Since March 2020, we have considered well over 100. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has recognised the need to use the procedure during the pandemic. That has allowed the Government to respond quickly to challenges presented by the coronavirus, which has been ever-changing. We have also said that bringing substantial changes into force immediately before any parliamentary scrutiny should only be used when essential and should not become standard practice, particularly when time would allow the affirmative procedure to be used. The committee is therefore holding a short inquiry to ensure that the made affirmative procedure continues to be used appropriately and only when necessary. We hope that that work might be of benefit to this chamber as we seek to inform members' consideration of the made affirmative procedure in future legislation. We also want to ensure that there is an appropriate balance between flexibility for the Scottish Government in responding to an emergency situation, whatever that may be, while still ensuring appropriate parliamentary scrutiny and oversight. Our inquiry is due to conclude in early February, and we hope to have the opportunity to highlight our recommendations in the chamber then. In the meantime, if members or indeed committees wish to provide any comments on their use, we would welcome any input prior to the Christmas recess. Thank you, Mr McMillan. It is now time to move on to the next item of business. There are no questions to be put as a result of today's business, and that concludes decision time. We will now move on to members' business. I ask members to leave the chamber to do so quietly.