 Welch i'r ddweud o'i 30th ymlaen, ac yn 2018, o'r ddeliadau Pawn i'r Ffwrdd Cymru, a ddyfodol i'r ffwrdd y ddalig yn y ffianfyrdd. Byddwn ymlaen i'r ffianfyrdd yn y prifoedd. Mae'r ddeliadau 5 ar ffianfyrdd. Mae'n gweithio'r ddeliadau, ac mae'n gweithio i'r ffianfyrdd o'r ddeliadau ffianfyrdd a'r ffianfyrdd. Gendro item 2, consideration of the work of the committee during the parliamentary year 2017-18. We have before us today Graham Day, Minister for Parliamentary Business and Veterans. The minister is accompanied by Stephen McGregor of the Parliament and Legislation Unit, Luke McBrattney of the Constitution and UK Relations Division, and Paul Kaquette of the Scottish Government Legal Directorate. You are all very welcome. Thanks for coming. Minister, I understand that you have some opening remarks. Thank you. With your indulgence, convener, I will keep it brief. The last time I appeared before you, I think I said that the committee had a hugely important role in scrutinising the delegated powers that ministers and others are to be given through new acts and scrutinising the use of existing powers. I very much remain of that view. I think that you carry out a very important duty for the Parliament and you carry out rigorously, which is as it should be. I think that the importance of the work that the DPRR committee does will become increasingly apparent as we get further into the legislative preparations for Brexit. With regard to today's principal topic, the sixth annual report of the committee, I welcome the fact that the report highlights the improvements that were made by the Government across a number of areas in the last reporting years. I was particularly pleased that the committee had reported that the quality of instruments from the Government has continued to improve. The report is reflective of the fact that the standard of legislation brought forward is generally high. However, I absolutely accept that there is always room for improvement and I intend to deliver on that wherever possible, taking account of the views of yourselves and the other committees of the Parliament. As the report recognises, this Parliament year will be challenging. With the legislative implications of Brexit remaining on queer, I am certain that it is going to require even better planning, quality assurance and explanation of the Government's SSI programme. That is a challenge that myself and the Cabinet Secretary, Mike Russell, are tackling jointly. I give the commitment that my officials will continue to work closely with the committee clerks and the Parliament to ensure that there is an accurate and up-to-date flow of information on the expected number of SSIs stemming from the European Union with all that. I can also assure the committee that it is a priority of mine that the standard of all instruments that come before Parliament continues to be as high as possible. I am sure that my officials would vouch for that. I do not want to get any more time, convener. I am here to answer your questions. Your officials were smiling nervously, as you said, minister, but thanks for that. Those comments are appreciated. As you say, we welcome the overall improvement in the quality of secondary legislation, but we were disappointed to see the number of instruments drawn to the attention of the Parliament under the three most significant reporting grounds that had increased. Will you predate your appointment? Will you tell us what you are doing to address that? I absolutely take that point on board and whether they predate my appointment or not, I am responsible for them and I am here to answer to them. There is quite a lot of work going on. Work that was put in place by my predecessor, Joe Fitzpatrick, in which I am ensuring continues. It might be useful to bring Paul Coquett in to detail some of that around the impact of Brexit. You wrote to me in the third quarter of the report in the year to congratulate the Government for the lowest level of instruments reported on since the production of the quarterly reports began, which was obviously a positive. We have a comprehensive and on-going training programme for drafters, and there are bus checks put in place at each point in the process. Ideally, we would not have mistakes being made, but we are all human. It happens. We are trying to drive those down as much as we can, but it is important that, not just yourselves but other committees, when they spot something that is an issue, they draw it to our attention. Can you bring Paul in here to talk to what we are doing around the Brexit instance? It is worth saying a little bit about the work that the committee knows that we do already in terms of quality assurance and the processes that we have in place. From my perspective, it is important to recognise that that comes in two categories, one of which are the technical and process steps that we have to support the quality of instruments, but there is, endorsing what the minister said, very much an intention from the legal director to ensure that we maintain a relationship with the committee and with the legal advisers to the committee that recognises the value of the scrutiny that is given and a respect for a relationship that creates a culture of which we are willing to respond to areas where, if things go wrong, there is an acceptance that we do better and make sure that we get it right for the future. You mentioned some examples of where reporting grounds have occurred. It is certainly something of very much importance from my perspective in cases where things do go wrong and where we accept that there is scope for improvement. That is something that is a wake-up call to us as much as anyone in recognising the importance of trying to ensure the maximum quality of the instruments. There are cultural aspects of what we do in trying to ensure that we aspire towards as high standard as possible. In terms of what is done procedurally, as the committee knows, we have systems in place to ensure that the drafters of individual instruments are supported within their own divisions. We have a process whereby there is a checking process called styling that has an overarching view across the directorate to ensure consistent quality and standards and our responsiveness to points made by the committee previously and systems of quality control involving senior lawyers doing checks of instruments before they come to the Parliament. That is of particular importance right now because we have been in the fortunate position and have been able to have some additional new staff have come into the directorate in the course of the last year, most, if not all, are now in place, but they are all new to the Government and additional steps have been taken and are necessary to be taken to assist in the induction of these new members of staff to ensure that they are supported and understand the procedures and processes that we apply in relation to these instruments. Part of the steps that we are taking is our SSI drafting manual, which was relaunched within the directorate in August of this year. That is all part of the support that is given to new members of staff coming in. We are looking at the particular peaks to try to smooth out across divisions of where some areas of activity within the legal directorate have a higher degree of Brexit-related demand than others. We are looking at ways in which we can identify resources to step in and provide that additional drafting resource to meet the requirements to lay instruments in time for proper scrutiny. That involves people who are identified as being skilled and autonomous drafters. They may not necessarily have expertise in the areas concerned, so we are taking some steps to make sure that they are trained in order to understand the context of what they are doing and to work closely with their solicitors to ensure that we can maintain that quality of instrument. That has been a key priority for us in ensuring that the standard of outputs with internal checks are in place. It will be a challenge for us in the period ahead because of the number of instruments that are coming, but we are certainly ensuring, as far as we can, that we can maintain quality and ensure that people are tooled up effectively to deliver as needs be. I thank you for that comprehensive answer. I encourage you to do anything—I know that this is something that you feel strongly about, minister—to ensure that legislation is clear and understandable to the end-user—the layman, if you like. Yes, that is the answer to that. It might not always appear so, but I absolutely get that point. I think that the approach that we have been planning to adopt will be rolled out from the start of 2019, which is a simple two-paragraph covering note to come with any of the instruments to give an understanding right at the outset of what the instrument seeks to achieve. That is taken on board some of the valid criticisms that came forward from the convener's group. That should become apparent in the opening months of next year. The committee was pleased to know that the relatively few commitments are outstanding from the period covered by our report, but there are some historic commitments outstanding from previous parliamentary years. That was raised with your predecessor, and there was an assurance that the Government would report back to the committee on its plans to reduce that figure, but we have yet to receive such an appraisal. Can you give us an update today? I can, and apologies if you have not had that already. The situation is that we are on the case, and, as you know, we undertake, for the most part, to find an opportunity when an opportunity arises to correct anything that needs to be addressed. The intention of the Government is to address all of the current commitments by the end of this parliamentary session and to address as many as possible any new commitments that may arise. I will write back to you formally in response to your annual report, and I will include in there as much of an update as I can as to the timings of when we intend to address these. Some of them we have dates, i.e. in the early weeks of 2019. There are a number of instruments that we aim to address, and a number of outstanding commitments that we aim to address. Then those others were still trying to identify a suitable opportunity to amend, but we are very much on the case. What I will do is I will write back to you in response to the annual report. However, if it is useful, convener, we will look to provide regular updates to the committee. I am just saying that to the officials this morning. I think that it might be helpful if, as we know, we are going to be taking some action, we appraise the committee of that going forward, if you would like that. I think that that would be very useful. Of course, some of those commitments you may feel that it is not necessary to correct the legislation any more, so if that is the case, you could let us know. Absolutely. What progress has been made since you gave evidence to us in September about the quality of accompanying documents? At this point, I just want to show you an SSI that came to us. Have you got that? It is on the Housing, Scotland Act, tolerable standard extension of criteria order. This came to the committee last week. There is nothing to concern this committee, but there may be questions for the lead committee. If you look at the SSIs very short, maybe that is a good thing. Policy note is also extremely short, and I think that there are a number of questions that any member of the lead committee would want to drill down into. I think that it is probably not detailed enough. Given that it is quite an important piece of legislation, it would affect people in their own homes, home owners having to put in smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, and there is just a level of detail that I feel is lacking there. We can go too far one way of oversimplifying, but at some point the lead committee is going to have to consider this. I think that what is there is not enough. We will take that away. I just had the strong attention in the last few minutes. I understand the point that you are making. If you are agreeable, we will take that away and look into it and come back to the committee. Obviously, the lead committee will raise any concerns that they have, but I do take the point and we can look at that. You are right that there is a balance to be struck here between responding to some of the asks of the parliamentary committees and perhaps going too far. If that is okay, we will come back to you in detail. With regard to your initial question, we very much have revised our internal guidance to emphasise the need to provide accessible summaries and policy notes. Alongside that, we have also undertaken a sampling process for ourselves. We have been looking at instruments to see whether, upon reflection, they do what they should do or they are simply enough explained. That has thrown up some good learning for us. We will continue to develop that because it is clearly an approach that is paying dividends. I could offer examples, but where we have gotten to is that we recognise that we can do better and that is what we are aspiring to do. Those checking processes will hopefully help to get us there. I would not say that we are welcome, but we are open to committees such as yourselves to come to us and to show us examples of where we could do things differently today. We will take that on board. Okay. That is also appreciated. I will move on to Alison Harris. Good morning. What steps does the Government take when it receives notification of minor points from the committee? I recognise that the committee has highlighted an increase in the number of instruments that contain, from your perspective, minor points at issue, when some of those can be typos that do not invalidate the legislation in any way. The very short answer is that we take that on board and we look to improve. In terms of getting a very detailed answer of what that looks like in practice, I will move on to Paul. It depends on the impact of those minor points. Assessment is clearly made of the extent to which the points that arise are such where it creates a legal doubt or creates a real ambiguity and there is a lack of clarity. In those circumstances, it is something that we will look to address sooner rather later. It goes back a little bit into the issue but the commitments for correcting instruments and the balance that is stuck there between not wanting to clog up the committee or the statute book with relatively minor amendments where there is not regarded as being any kind of real ambiguity as that is arising. However, if there are questions of where things are real worries about whether something creates an ambiguity or is wrong, that will be addressed sooner rather than later. I appreciate that the minor points do not affect the validity of the instruments, but 84 instruments that were laid by the Scottish Government over the reporting period contained minor points. That is a 22 of an increase over the previous reporting period. I think that it is important that the Government takes steps to ensure that the minor points are addressed. That is perhaps where the checking process can be improved upon. I think that human nature is such that when you have shaped a document and you continue to read it and read it and check it yourself, you tend to see what you think is on the page rather than what is actually there. I think that there is a lesson for us in how we go about the checking process. I absolutely give the commitment that we are aspiring to do better in that regard. I would also like to ask that, while the committee has noted that some of the bills currently being considered by the Parliament have contained a high number of delegated powers, the planning bill and transport bill. There are over 100 delegated powers between them. The committee aims to ensure that the scrutiny of delegated powers balances the need to give the Government legislative flexibility while providing accountability and transparency in the exercise of those powers. Given the high numbers of delegated powers in some bills, how does the Government strike a balance between the flexibility, accountability and transparency when preparing legislation? What are the key factors in deciding if a delegated power is to be included in the bill? I do not think that there is a specific trend on the part of the Government towards bills with a high number of delegated powers. I recognise the criticism that is made. I do not think that there is a trend there. I guess that a number of things come into play. Practical application would be one of how the bills are delivered. Of course, it may well be the case that you have bills with a high number of amendments being brought by members of the committees that lead to delegated powers being brought into play. That is not to excuse us over the concerns that you are expressing. I think that the key thing here is that a bill that contains a sizable number of delegated powers is not a blank check for the Government, because the secondary legislation will come back to the committees and will be scrutinised in detail. There is the opportunity to bring ministers in front of the committees to explore that. I think that the parliamentary process is sufficiently robust to allow for those checks and balances. On the part of the Government, we can engage in a way with committees at the outset. Perhaps a good example would be the social security bill, in which Ms Freeman was heavily engaged with the committee. That is a bill that will have a lot of secondary legislation attached to it, but we have it into a satisfactory space. I think that there is a piece of work to be done there between the Government and the committees working through that at the very early stages. If there are specific concerns about individual bills, I am happy to hear about those and to explore those. Do you ever look at a bill like the two that Alison Harris mentioned? That is quite a lot. There are quite a lot of delegated powers. Maybe we should trim things down a bit. It comes down, as I said to you, about practical application. The whole point of legislation is to implement it in a sensible way. I do not have any sense that colleagues are desperate for delegated powers. It is just how the legislation develops. If the committee has specific concerns around trends, I am happy to explore those with them. Thank you. Good morning, Minister. I have some questions, the first batch of questions, regarding Brexit, I am afraid. Is it regarding the consent notifications under the SI protocol? How many consent notifications have been sent to the Parliament and how many are still to come? The up-to-date figure is that today we have had 56 notifications covering 91 SI's that have been sent to the Scottish Parliament. The Parliament has agreed to the Scottish Government consenting to 75 SI's. Although the numbers continue to fluctuate, there may have fluctuated since I walked in here, the way things are going, there remains approximately 32 notifications covering 45 SI's. That is very helpful. Can you provide an indication as to when the last of the notifications might actually be sent? That is not to pass the buck, but we are largely in the hands of the UK Government in regard to some of that. The UK SI programme is managed and run by the Cabinet Office and the Department for Exiting the EU, as you are aware. That means that we are not entirely in control of the weighing dates. There are regular discussions with the Cabinet Office and Dexu, and Stephen in particular is heavily involved in that. Perhaps I will bring him in in a minute to update you on that. There are fortnightly meetings to discuss forthcoming SI's. At this stage, we anticipate that we are currently in the peak period for the notifications. I think that 20 SI's were approved by the committee last week. We are ballpark halfway through the programme. We think that the volume of notifications will begin to take tail off, although we still anticipate that there will be notifications in January and potentially beyond that. Obviously, we will keep the DPLRC and individual committees updated through the monthly letters that I provide for you and through on-going discussions with your officials in addition to that. However, if it helps, I will bring Stephen in to provide some more detail. We work as closely as we can with the UK Government to understand what their overall SI programme looks like and where instruments with devolved implications fit into that. We are at a little bit of an advantage because of SI protocol requirement for 28 days notification. That means that 28 days ahead of UK laying an instrument, we have to start that process and we get an earlier look at what they are planning to do. They understand the requirement around that very well and they know that the Scottish Parliament needs the time to scrutinise those instruments and offer its views. They are actively trying to avoid laying lots of instruments in February and March, but it is inevitable that there will be a small number and we are just trying to understand what that might look like. Obviously, the minister is writing to all committees on a monthly basis to set out what the future profile looks like and we will keep doing that as best we can. There are a couple of areas there. I will touch upon the 28 days, first of all, just regarding that particular issue. We all understand the 28 days period, but there may well be occasions where it is not always possible to deal with that by the case. How will the Government work with the committee to ensure that the act still has sufficient time to consider notifications if the timetable is constrained? That is a fair point. We obviously had higher aspire to adhere to the 28 day rule, not always in our control. I think that all told we have, of the 91 notifications that we have sent, 74 of those have had the 28 days. There have been a few instances where regrettably the 28 day period has not been possible. The simple answer is that we are working as hard as we can with the UK Government to ensure that they are aware of the 28 day requirement under the protocol process and we will do whatever we can to try and mitigate instances where that is not possible to have the 28 days. We are writing out to committees as soon as we possibly can to advise them a bit about the position we find ourselves in. It is not that we are comfortable with breaching the 28 days in the protocol, it is just that it is where we are. You mentioned a minute ago, Minister, regarding the monthly updates to the committees. That certainly has been very helpful in terms of the committee work programmes and the other work that the committees have got to undertake. When you are writing out to the committees, do you supply the expected timetables to the committees as well regarding that particular SIs to go their way? I should say just by way of a final point in your last question, we are actually doing a piece of work as well. We are profiling the remaining notifications to see if we anticipate there is any issue there to give committees an early heads-up. In terms of the monthly updates, we provide as much information as it is possible to do. Is it as detailed in all regards as we would want to know? There are some instances where a committee in some of its work streams will get very detailed information, so it may get dates, and in other parts of it, it does not get the dates. It is simply that we do not have them. It depends very much on what is coming forward from the UK Government departments. That is not to say or to suggest that there is any deliberate policy in the part of the UK Government departments to be difficult. It is simply where we are at. They face the same challenges as we do. In some instances, there is a fair bit of detail and others do not so much. However, I would give the committee an assurance that whatever we have, we provide, because that is the open approach that we have been trying to take. That is a situation in which we are all going to have to pull together to get the Parliament through the consequences of Brexit. I am a final question. I think that you answered a similar one, but I just want to clarify. In terms of the SSIs that are due to be laid under the EU withdrawal act before 20 March, did you say that it was at 34 or something the other round? Just let me double-check that, so I am not misleading you. 36, I think, is the number. Do you want to expand on that, Stephen? 36 are exor-related SSIs, which we currently anticipate laying for the Parliament for the end of March 2019. We currently think that most of them will be laid in January and February. We are looking at that very carefully to avoid any peaks arising with that overall number, and we are also having regard to the convention last lane dates and standing order. We have viewed, given the Parliament, as much time as we possibly can to scrutinise instruments when they come forward. At present, we anticipate that 25 will meet the convention and 11 would meet the standing order requirements. I just ask—you said that there are a number of cases where that 28 days hasn't been met. What's been the worst example of that? I think that we had possibly the food standards, one of the ones that was written to health and sport committee. I think that it was single figure days initially, but we managed to push back on the UK Government around that. Without wishing to go into a lot of detail about it, there have been cases where the UK Government planned to lay SSIs, which we would have given the UK Scottish Parliament less than 28 days, and we managed to work with them to get them to change their laying profile to make sure that the Scottish Parliament does get 28 days, and we'll continue to do that in all cases that we possibly can. We've not had a case where a lead committee has struggled to deal with it. I think that, except in that health and sport example in relation to the food standards, I think that in virtually all cases the committee will have had as much time as it feels it's needed to, and if they've not, then they've certainly come to us and told us that, and we'll work with the UK Government to do what we can to make sure that the time is available. Really? Okay. Alison, I think that I'll applauded Mary. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. As with consent notifications, do relevant subject committees know the number of instruments that they are likely to be considering? The monthly updates provide the information as we go along. I have to say that from month to month it can vary, and I think that committees have accepted that. I said earlier that we give them as much information as we possibly can. There's no holding out. Okay, okay. I understand from a previous response that 36 instruments will be laid before the end of March 2019 to deal with a no-deal scenario. When might the remaining SSIs that are required under the withdrawal act be laid, and do you have any idea of how many there will be? This is Luke's area of expertise, so I'll pass to him. I've talked to the committee in the past about the principles that the Scottish Government is applying to the prioritisation exercise. The 36 SSIs represent the Scottish Government's judgment on the areas of law that it is essential to fix. In advance of March 2019, it is the Government's policy that it will address all areas. This is not about doing some and not others. It's about the order in which everything is done, and there's a necessary process of prioritisation being applied to that. In the event, it is obviously unclear at the moment precisely the timetable to which we'll be working, but on the assumption that we're working to a March 2019 timetable, the remainder of the corrections will be done as soon as possible after March 2019. But you have no idea of the number, no? Not at the moment because our focus has been on making the essential corrections required to that timetable. In the event of perhaps an implementation period being agreed and further time being provided to make the necessary preparations for EU exit, we'll be able to come back to the committee with our changed planning assumptions. Yeah, that'd be helpful. Thank you. Well, could I just ask you that in the event of a transition period or an implementation period, if that was to be agreed as part of any of the withdrawal agreement with the EU, has the Scottish Government made many estimates in this instance of what the impact would have on any timings or volume of EU exit instruments? Is that similar? The effect of the agreement of an implementation period in the first place would be to move the relevant date by which corrections required to be made from March 2019 to December 2020. In the absence of an agreement for a framework for a future relationship, the actual number and content of those corrections wouldn't necessarily change. The first thing would change that we would have more time for it at least until December 2020. The March 2019 date is not only the default position for EU exit, it's the only concrete position that we have at the moment that we can work towards. In advance of a meaningful vote withdrawal agreement legislation being laid, that continues to be the assumption that the Government is working to. Thank you, I appreciate that. Mary. Thank you. The number of SSIs laid since September has been down on previous years. Are any SSIs being held up or delayed to allow resources to be deployed to deal with the Brexit instruments? The simple answer is no, not at the moment. It's not being held back as a consequence of Brexit as things stand, but you appreciate that we need to keep resources in all of our legislation programmes as best we can. That has to be reviewed. Where any prioritisation becomes necessary, the key considerations for us would be the public interest, but we would also take account of the impact on the committees. The committees have a work programme, and often it has to dovetail quite closely, so any decisions that we took that would impact to them, we would engage with the committees on as well. Okay. Do you have any concerns that a reduction in SSIs is not directly connected to Brexit might lead to deficiencies in other areas of legislation? No, because where we have to bring SSIs in, we will, so I don't anticipate a problem with that regard. I appreciate your regular update committee on the number of SSIs to be laid. Do you have any indication of how many domestic SSIs are expected to be laid by the end of June 2019? The current anticipation is that around 150 non-Brexit SSIs, domestic SSIs, will be laid before the next summer recess in 2019. Inevitibwyd, certain types of SSIs need to come forward at specific times. For example, to tie in with the start of the financial year would be an example of that, but over that 150 we are not anticipating, because I imagine this would be one of your other concerns, any spike as such over the next six months. We continue to keep that under review, but we are trying to manage that in a way that does not lead to a situation in which there is a deluge of SSIs coming to particular committees. We are trying to avoid that if at all possible. I was a committee convener in a previous life. I understand the challenges. Do you have any comment on the way in which the secondary legislation programme is managed and the steps that are taken to balance the number of SSIs that are laid each week? There are a number of factors that have come in to play. Obviously, available resource to draft the SSIs. We have a programme across Government, because it is not just seen in the context of portfolio silos. The decision to bring forward the SSIs is obviously set within the individual portfolio and the ministers. We keep under close review the number of projected instruments and whether packages of instruments need to be managed in certain ways. As I said earlier, we are avoiding spikes if we can. What I have been doing over the last few months is talking to colleagues across Government about how we develop better information about the medium to long-term domestic SSI plans. That is feeding in to the letters that are going to the committees. There has always been dialogue between officials and clerks to committees. That has not changed in principle. I hope that the committees would agree that we have improved that flow of information to a system. I think that everybody recognises that this is a fluid position across the board. I have to say that the Parliament as a whole has been responding superbly to the challenges that have been put in front of it. In response to an earlier question, you spoke about the additional resource that has been taken on to deal with all of the Brexit SSIs. Is there any other additional resource being deployed to deal with all of the instruments that are expected over the coming months? I should say that we have been fortunate within the legal directorate to have been able to recruit some resource over the past year, not all of which was designed around Brexit. I should say that there were other drivers that led to that resource being taken on, but what we have done is looked at other areas where there are people who have got the skills and experience who could assist. One of those areas is in work in relation to the Scottish Law Commission, where some of the lawyers who are on secondment from the Scottish Government and who have the skills have been able to be deployed in starting at this stage in some of that drafting work. That is done with the agreement of the chair of the Law Commission in such a way as could assist the smoothing of the process from our perspective, but also ideally from the perspective of scrutiny as well so that things can come in a more measured way to you. We are doing that in such a way that minimises the impact, as far as we can, on the on-going work of the Law Commission, but we know—and it is one of the strengths of the Government legal service—that opportunities arise for lawyers not just to work in mainstream legal work but to get opportunities to work elsewhere in the Government, including places such as the Law Commission. It is times like this when we have had to be imaginative in looking at utilising the resource over what is now, in fact, a fairly short but intense period, and that has been crucial in some of the decisions that we have made in recognising that, by doing such things, we can minimise the impact in time periods and, therefore, ensure that as much essential work of organisations such as the Law Commission can continue. Okay, thank you. That was very helpful. Thank you. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Minister. I think that all told us that four lawyers and the CEO are assisting through to the end of March. To the end of March, that is correct. Thank you. That was very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Well, you mentioned the Law Commission, Mr Cackette, and that's very handy, because that's our next line of questioning, is about the Law Commission, and it follows a visit that the committee made to the Law Commission, so Tom Arthur's got a few questions. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning, Minister, and to Minister's officials. We have discussed a great deal about SSIs and inevitably Brexit, but one of the key pieces of work that this committee has undertaken in recent months is the prescription bill, which is, of course, an SLC bill. I was just wondering if Minister could share his thoughts on why there was no SLC bills included in this year's programme for government, and if there was any particular reasoning or thought behind this. Okay, there's a range of factors that come in to be taken into account in developing the annual legislative programme. In the context of the SLC, it does remain our intention to include one bill per legislative programme that should be appropriate for referral to this committee. We thought that there were no suitable bills at an appropriate state of readiness, and which the Government was confident would meet the criteria for referral to the committee for inclusion in the year 3 legislative programme. That's essentially where we were. We're still working with the SLC to identify and prepare appropriate bills. There are potential candidates in the pipe when one of those would be judicial factors, so there is something potentially coming. No decisions have been taken by the Cabinet on the content of the next legislative programme, but I'm happy to update the committee in due course on delivery plans for SLC bills. I think that that's as pro-as much as I can say on that at the moment. If I appreciate that answer, Minister, it was a very interesting point that you picked up on, which is about criteria. Does the criteria for SLC bills in terms of referral to this committee act as a barrier to the Government introducing any SLC bills? I don't think that I would necessarily use the word barrier, but I think that there's a willingness in our part along with the committee to perhaps revisit the criteria for referral to DPRRC. It is restrictive, and I guess from our point of view, if you're interested in pursuing the idea to examine this, then we could submit our respective officials to work together to explore it further and report back on how we could change this for the next session. I appreciate that, Minister. You had mentioned in an earlier answer that it was a Government's intent normally to bring forward one SLC bill per legislative programme. Has there been any consideration for the potential of moving one area of law reform to be included in an SLC bill? The committee's raised this before, and we have looked at it. I think it's difficult to sequence that in the right way in terms of getting the law commission's reports done at the same time to enable us to take forward two or more topics in the same bill and sometimes to get topics that are related together that might fit into the same bill. It goes back to the minister's point about if we're looking at ways to potentially increase the rate of implementation in order to get more bills referred to DPRRC to look at them, then looking again at the criteria might help with that. Thank you very much. One final question. We have discussed SSIs, SLC bills, and consolidation bills also fall within the remit of this committee, which are much rarer. Has there any consideration been given to any consolidation bills or any plans within this session to bring forward any consolidation bills? Again, this is near it's kept under review. I think that at the present time, in terms of delivering domestic priorities, Brexit priorities, although there are potential candidates for consolidation, they have to take their place in the queue in terms of prioritisation. I don't know if you're aware of any particular candidates within SGLZ. That's nothing that I'm aware of, I have to say. Thank you very much. That's very helpful. Just mopping up on some of that. When we visited the SLC, they made us aware that there are a number of reports going back a number of years that they've produced, which have gone nowhere. It was obviously a frustration for them that they've done a lot of work, and nothing's happened to it. Is there any intention to revisit some of this so that we can be brought forward as legislation or not, at least let them know? I think that, right at the outset of our discussions, you indicated that a lot of this predates my time as minister. That certainly does. Can I undertake to take that away and have a look at it and write back to the committee in detail? Yes, that would be useful. We can probably assist. We can send you a list of reports outstanding. Absolutely. I will have a look at that for you. That would get you started. Just so that you're aware, we've written to the law commission because they were asking about the criteria for bills and whether the committee's remit could be expanded. I've written to them as convener. I'll share any correspondence with you. I guess we can take it from there, because you've previously agreed to look at this. We're open to dialogue with the committee to see how this could be done better in the future. Okay. Any further questions? Okay. Can I thank you very much for your time? It's been another useful session, minister, and I'll suspend the meeting briefly. Gender item three, instruments not subject to any parliamentary procedure. No points have been raised on SSI 2018368. Is the committee content with this? Agender item four, health and care staffing Scotland bill. Is consideration of the Scottish Government's response to the lead committee's report on the health and care staffing Scotland bill. Are there any questions on that? No. Do we just wish to know the response in that case? Yes. Okay. I'll move the meeting into private session.