 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the third meeting of session 6 of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. Before we move on to the first item of the agenda, I would like to remind everyone present to switch the mobile phones to silent. The first item of business is to decide whether to take items 6 and 7 in private, as the committee can tell to take items 6 and 7 in private. The next item of business is consideration of an instrument subject to the made affirmative procedure. No points have been raised on SSI 2021-290. It is the committee content with this instrument. Under agenda item number three, we are considering instruments subject to the affirmative procedure. No points have been raised on the following draft instruments. Scotland Regulations 2021 and Social Security Advocacy Service Standards Scotland Amendment Regulations 2021. It is the committee content with these instruments. Under the next agenda item, we are considering instruments subject to the negative procedure. No points have been raised on SSIs 2021-280, 282, 288, 289, 292, 293. Thanks, convener. I'll just come in on regulation 292 if that's okay. And this is the town and country planning miscellaneous temporary modifications coronavirus Scotland regulations. And there's a particular aspect to this that I just want to query. As you'll be aware, under the coronavirus legislation, the requirement to hold public consultation events on potential building developments was suspended. So, in other words, you didn't need to hold them anymore. And this regulation continues that suspension until 31 March next year. Given that we are now allowed to attend all sorts of events, concerts, football matches, et cetera, weddings, I would simply query why anyone should be allowed not to hold a public consultation event. I don't think that we've had any explanation for that. So I think that as a committee we should write to the Government asking for an explanation. We could also write to the lead committee, which I think in this case would be the local government committee. I think that there's a related regulation, which comes up later 291, so we could perhaps include that in the letter. Thank you, Mr Simpson. In addition to that point, my experience of dealing with planning applications locally has been that online consultations have become more of a feature. In many cases, the online facility has increased participation in consultations in relation to planning, just because of the physical logistics of attending are much more straightforward. It might be another opportunity to request that whether there's been a study done about the effectiveness of that procedure, perhaps having online facilities as well as physical facilities might be a good thing to look at as well, whether they've reviewed the effectiveness of how those provisions have been undertaken so far. Thank you. Any other points? I think that certainly the point that you raised, Mr Simpson, regarding 292 and subsequently 291, I think that it's worthwhile for us as a committee to write to the relevant committees. I think that certainly the point that Mr Sweeney raised regarding the effectiveness of what's happened thus far is a worthwhile point, too. I think that it's worthwhile to write to the Scottish Government just to ask for further clarification and further explanation on those points. So, notwithstanding, there's a committee content with these instruments. The committee may never less wish to highlight that no policy note was included with SSI 221 280. It is accepted practice that, in order to assist Parliament's consideration of an SSI, a policy note should normally be prepared for every SSI. Also on SSI 221 293, the committee may wish to highlight that the Scottish Government has rectified four minor formatting and typographical points raised by the session 5 committee when it considered the principle order SSI 221 98 in March of this year. Is the committee content to highlight those points in its report on today's instruments? Under agenda item 5, we are considering instruments not subject to any parliamentary procedure. No points have been raised on SSIs 221 291 295, notwithstanding the points 291 that we just discussed. Is the committee content with those instruments? Thank you. I will close the meeting and move the committee into private. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Mr Simpson. Yeah, so we're not quite in private, convener. I apologise for that. I just want to raise an issue. We know as MSPs that we're going to be having a debate around vaccine passports. I don't actually know what we're debating yet because we've not seen any details. All I've got to go on is, frankly, what the First Minister announced last week and what I've read in the press. We'll have a debate, we'll have a vote, and at some point I would imagine that for something as significant as this, there would be regulations laid. My view is that there's a process issue here. A lot of the coronavirus legislation has been used, has gone through under the made affirmative procedure, so it comes into force, the law comes into force and then Parliament has a look at it. A lot of planning has clearly gone into this. The First Minister said last week that if MSPs prove it, she would like it to come in at the end of this month. I think that there is time to do what I would describe as proper scrutiny. I would argue that the regulations should be laid before they come into force, so we use a different process, not the made affirmative procedure. Given the lack of clarity around all this, the committee could be writing to the Government to ask what their plans are. Not the plans in detail, that's for a policy committee to scrutinise, but how they plan to proceed with this and what process they plan to use. I think that we could also flag that up to the Covid committee, which I think would be the main policy committee. Those are the points that I wanted to raise. Thank you, Mr Simpson. We would all agree that we live in different times as compared to normal political times that we have had pre-Covid. There will be a debate on Thursday, so policy matters will be highlighted in that debate. Your suggestion to write to the Government just to ask about the process is worth well suggesting. With the committee's approval, I'd be quite content for that to happen, for us to get that explanation as the DPLR committee. Your point about writing to the relevant committee, I think that that's a worthwhile suggestion, too, with the committee's approval. I move the committee into private.