 Good morning everyone and welcome you to the sixth meeting of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. I invite members to turn off their mobile phones please and today we have apologies from David Torrance, who is unable to attend the meeting this morning and he has submitted his apologies. In his place we have George Adam, who is attending the meeting as the substitute member I welcome George Adam to this committee today. I would now invite George Adam in accordance with section 3 of the code of conduct to declare any relevant interests. I do not have any relevant interests but I refer you to my declaratory interests in the Parliamentaries. Right, thanks very much George. Welcome. We now move to agenda item 2, which is about taking decisions in private and it is proposed that the committee hold item 7 in private. That will be an opportunity for the committee to discuss the evidence that is heard from Scottish Government officials who were with us today earlier in the meeting on the student loans regulations. Does the committee agree to consider item 7 in private? Agreed. Thanks very much. We will now move to item 3, which is the Education and Student Loan in Scotland amendment regulations 2016 consideration. I would like to welcome to the committee John Patterson, who is a divisional solicitor for food, children, education, health and social care in the Scottish Government's legal directorate. Good morning. I would also like to welcome Afsy Baricant, who is a solicitor for food, children, education, health and social care in the Scottish Government's legal directorate. Leah Fitzgerald, who is the policy manager and student support and participation team for the directorate for advanced learning and science in the Scottish Government. They are here today to answer the questions that we have on the Education and Student Loan in Scotland amendment regulations 2016. I am very warm welcome to our committee today. Thank you for taking the time to come and hopefully provide us with the information that we are seeking. I am going to start the first question, which is, can you please explain to the committee the chronology of events that led you to bring forward these regulations? The regulations begin with a letter that we received from the Equality and Human Rights Commission in November 2014, which asked whether the Scottish Government had considered its policy in its area, particularly in light of the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sets for Equality duty. Off the back of that letter, policy colleagues undertook a policy review which began with a quality impact assessment. I do not know whether, Leah, you want to say anything more about the timescales for the Equality Impact Assessment. The first part of the review that we undertook was the Equality Impact Assessment. From that, we took a number of options that we put to ministers. While that review was on-going, we had a notification that there was a judicial review. For part of the review process, we had the review and judicial review that were running in parallel. We came up with our recommendations for ministers, but, because of the judicial review, that affected the timing of the public announcement of the review. The review concluded at the end of 2015, and then the judicial review was heard in May 2016. I would like to talk a little bit about the Court of Sessions judgment, or really? That is probably something that I am in a better place to do. The judgment relates to a particular case of somebody who was over 55 and seeking to have a maintenance loan provided to them. The findings of the Court in that judgment are that the regulations as they currently stand were not compatible with ECHR insofar as they set a cut-off date—an age limit—of 55. We have considered that judgment and accepted the findings of the judgment. That said, there are some aspects of the reasoning in the judgment in relation to which we reserve our position. I think that perhaps an example of that might be helpful. The test to be applied in this type of case is a matter that was recently considered by the Supreme Court. At the Supreme Court, two of the justices of the Supreme Court felt that one test should be applied to that another test should be applied, and the final one did not express a view on which test. It is an aspect of the law that is still open to debate, given that the Supreme Court itself has not definitively ruled on it. However, the judgment stands because the Scottish Government has chosen not to challenge it, and so we are where we are. We move forward from that position. That is very helpful as a starting point. I am now going to invite Monica Lennon to bring forward the next question. As I understand it, the regulations are subject to the negative procedure that was made under powers conferred by the Education Scotland Act 1980. It is in your written response to the legal advisers' questions that the regulations are not a direct response to the court's judgment in relation to Hunter Feed, the student award agency for Scotland and the Scottish ministers case. However, the existence of that judgment gives rise to a need for remedial action to address the issue of incompatibility that the ECHR has identified. Accordingly, was any consideration given to using the remedial order process under the Convention Rights Compliance, Scotland Act 2001? It would always be the Scottish Government's practice to use the legislation that is appropriate to a particular subject matter where that is possible and only rely on a Convention Rights Compliance order where that is necessary. In the circumstances here, we are able, within the time limits that we have, to make legislation under the Education Scotland Act. That is preferable to, for example, using the urgent procedure under the Convention Rights Compliance Act. Given that we had powers to make the necessary changes by using the Education Scotland Act, we did not give specific consideration to using the Convention Rights Compliance order because our first consideration would always be to use the legislation that is designed for dealing with a particular subject policy area, so in this case the Education Act. Does that make sense? Just to clarify then, was it considered? It would be a second stage of consideration if the Education Act did not allow us to make legislation within the timeframe necessary. I think it's fair to say that it was considered as a backup in the event that in the event that the court hadn't given us time to make an order. In that case, we would have had to use Convention Rights Compliance order using the urgent procedure, but that wasn't necessary. Initial consideration was given to it, but not a detailed consideration because we didn't get to a stage where it was something that we were likely to have to do. So it's still an option open to you? Yeah, it would still be an option open to the Government, yes. Anything further, you wish to add, Monica? Again, just to quickly clarify, I think that you, in your first response, said that it wasn't necessary, could you maybe just explain that a little more? Of course. When approaching any piece of legislation, any piece of secondary legislation, then we're looking at the powers that we have and depending on the particular policies to be delivered, there might be more than one option in terms of a power open to the Scottish ministers. For example, here, you would say that one option was to make an order under the Education Scotland Act, which is what we've done. Another option would have been a Convention Rights Compliance order. And in the initial consideration of that, the early consideration of that, then you'd be saying, well, what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Well, as well as whether you have legislation which is open to you in relation to a particular subject area, you'd also be looking at things like how long it will take for the process to be completed, whether there are any likely barriers to one approach or another, risks rather than definitive barriers. On that consideration, then, as I said before, the first, normally the first step will be to say, well, is there a legislative option within this policy area, i.e. can we use the act that relates to this particular policy area? It would only be in circumstances where you can't say, all right, we're really in territory to use something else. For example, if it's European law, then if we didn't have something in our domestic legislation which related to, say, food, then we would use the European Communities Act in order to make the legislation, because it gives us a general power to make legislation in that area. Likewise, here, when we were talking about human rights, then if we'd concluded that we didn't have a suitable power in the Education Act, then we would have gone on to look more closely at the Commission Rights Compliance Act as a vehicle for making the necessary legislation. Okay, thanks very much. That leads nicely into the next question, which I'm asking you. The judgment indicates that decisions as to how the incompatibility identified ought to be corrected must be left to the Scottish Parliament to be guided by the Scottish ministers. Can you explain why it's considered that bringing forward regulations subject to the negative procedure or, indeed, how regulations subject to the negative procedure affords the Parliament sufficient opportunity to be fully involved in the correction of the defect as required by the court? Why was the Parliament not consulted in advance of laying these regulations, given the existence of the judgment, which is quite specific, although I don't have it in front of me, but the nature of the judgment is that the Government guided by the Scottish ministers should take this through Parliament. Of all the instruments available, all the ways of bringing forward legislation, the negative instrument is the one that is least likely to involve Parliament. The first thing to say is that our intended approach here was disclosed to the court, and the court made no adverse comments in relation to it. In relation to the choice of procedure, it's not as much a choice of procedure here. The choice of procedure was made, and it was made some time ago when the relevant section in the Education Scotland act was enacted. At that point, the procedure in relation to that provision was set out. What we have alighted on is not a particular procedure but rather a particular power for ministers to make statutory provision. It so happens that that particular power in section 73F of the 1980 act is subject to the negative procedure. A measure has the capacity to interfere with convention rights. It must be established that it pursues a legitimate aim in the public interest. What legitimate aims do those regulations pursue? The EQIA states that the aim of the policy is part of a wider policy to prioritise support in the form of tuition fee grants, bursaries and living cost loans for students entering the labour market and ensuring that students taking out a loan have a reasonable chance to repay some or all of that loan prior to retirement. We would submit that that is the legitimate aim in that case. Paragraph 23 to 26 of the Government's written response to the legal advisers questions set out the objective basis for choosing an age limit of 60. Can you expand on those paragraphs and why is the choice of age 60 over any other age that is considered to strike a proportionate balance between the various interests that are involved? I will pass that to my colleague Leah in a moment. From a legal perspective, the point that I would like to make is that the case law is clear that bright line rules such as an age limit of 80 or an age limit of 40 are legitimate and can be justified. In that context, it is recognised that the Government has to set a limit at some point when establishing systems. On the face, it appears that somebody who is 60 can obtain a maintenance loan. Somebody who is 61 can't, and maybe there is only a short time difference between their birthdays. That approach has been afforded legitimacy by the courts. With that, I will pass it to Leah in a moment. When we undertook the review, we looked at a number of options, keeping the age cap at 55 or increasing it. We looked at the evidence. Student loans are paid back only when they are in employment. To have a reasonable chance of the loan being paid back, we have to be satisfied that people will be in employment for a period of time. When you look at the labour market stats, for example, only 8.2 per cent of people are in employment over the age of 65, but when you look at the income bracket and the age bracket below that, 50 to 64 is 68.6 per cent who are in employment. We looked at things such as the labour stats. We looked at the change in the landscape, acknowledging that the increase in the state pension age and the retirement age meant that people were working longer. We also had to balance that out, because if you take out a student loan when you are 18, you will be paying that back for 35 years. If you take it out the older you are, the less time you have to pay it back, so it has to be fair for everybody. There were also issues raised when the policy was looked at a few years ago, with regard to the interaction between the state pension and student loans, and there were concerns raised by the DWP that this would be double funding if people were in receipt of loans in state pensions. We looked at what the position was in the rest of the UK. It was a number of factors that informed each of the options that we put up to ministers, and 60 was the one that was decided upon. To play devil's advocate, I will go back to your point there regarding the length of time to repay. To increase it to 60, that would then cut down the opportunity for somebody to get into labour market and then repay. Why was the 55 considered to be no longer acceptable? When the 55 was set and that was back in 1999, it was a very different landscape. It is quite clear that with the state pension age it is increasing and it is due to continue to increase, so it will be reviewed every five years. The fact that the labour market stats over the years are showing that more and more people are remaining in employment. It was seen as an appropriate time to increase it to acknowledge those factors, but it was also done on the proviso that this policy would continue to be reviewed so that there is commitment made that it will be looked at again as part of a student support review that will be starting shortly. That was something that the quality impact said that it has to continue to be reviewed to ensure that it is still an appropriate age. The family convener Lady Scott and her judgment contended that she was not satisfied that there was no less intrusive measure than a blanket cut-off available. Given that the approach that you have taken in these regulations again applies a blanket cut-off date by reference to a person's age, why do you believe that this approach does not unjustifiably discriminate in terms of a right to education and where alternative approaches to the one set set out in these regulations are considered? It is worth noting that both Wales and Northern Ireland have an age limit of 60, which implies that they could not identify a suitable alternative. England has a markedly different system with means-tested bursary full-time students over 60, but, again, their system has a change at 60. In terms of what Lady Scott said in her judgment, she recognised the legitimacy of having a cut-off. She said at paragraph 55, that a cut-off or a blanket rule that interferes with convention rights may well be reasonable, for example when an objective base is shown that it will reduce the overall impact on resources, but the cut-off shown which gives rise to the discriminatory effect on the petitioner must be rationally connected to the aim or objective and be a proportionate way of achieving it. Lines drawn are still required to be examined as to whether they are proportionate and such examination is not to substitute the court's drawing of the line but to assess whether where it has been drawn is justified. A cut-off in the base of age is not justifiable unless it can be shown to be rationally connected to the legitimate aim of the decision maker or regulations involved. If we can just reverse that final sentence, it would say that a cut-off on the basis of age is justifiable if it can be shown to be rationally connected to the legitimate aim of the decision maker or regulations involved. How is it rationally justifiable when also in Lady Scott's judgment she said that manifestly without the age of 55 was without reasonable foundation? That's pretty strong words for it. How then is the age of 60 with foundation? The age of 60 is with foundation because when you look at the aim, the aim is not simply to provide student support at any cost. The aim is to provide student support in a sustainable way. One of the considerations in relation to a maintenance loan that has been provided is whether that maintenance loan is part of whatever will be repaid. In the context of somebody who is younger, there is a longer period for repayment in the context of somebody who is over 60. There is a short period of repayment up until state pension age. Now, state pension age needs not necessarily be the point at which somebody stops working. Nevertheless, as people get older, less people work, and other people who do work, less of them earn more than £17,000 more than £17,000 in £55,000, which is the point at which you start to repay the maintenance loan. Probably relevant here in understanding how the outer house could reach that conclusion in relation to an age limit of 55, and how the Scottish Government can reach a different conclusion in relation to an age limit of 60, pointing out that the outer house did not have before it all of the material that the Scottish Government has considered in assessing the age limit of 60. The outer house commented in its judgment that there is no evidence available as to the intention behind that particular cut-off, so this was the cut-off of 55. It did not have the equality impact assessment before it that the Scottish Government has considered. One second. The equality impact assessment is with regard to 55-year-olds, is it not, rather than 60-year-olds? That is correct. The equality impact assessment was— How is that relevant? It is relevant, the Scottish Government considers, because the equality impact assessment has been made for two different ages, but it is rolled into one. It was looking at the equality implications of having an age limit. Throughout the equality impact assessment, it refers to an upper age limit of 55 or above. Some of the conclusions that it comes to are capable of encapsulating a higher age limit. Indeed, the equality implications of a higher age limit are lesser, we would consider, because it increases access to a student who is— With someone who is well over 60, I would say that my rights in terms of equalities are just as important to me as I get older than when I am younger. Indeed. I think that the Scottish Government would agree with that view. Sorry, I did not mean to stop you when you were in mid-flow explaining how the equality impact assessment, which is carried out specifically for 55-year-olds, is relevant to the evidence that you are now saying that you are providing as part of the evidence for a cut-off age of 60. It is connected with the point that the outer house did not have before all of the evidence that the Scottish Government had before it. Part of the reason for that is that the outer house was specifically considering the legitimacy of the age limit of 55 in the context of that particular in petitioners circumstances. Indeed, the outer house stated that it did not find it helpful to consider a document containing financial modelling, which was carried out after the petitioner herself was denied a student loan. There was some analysis that was done that the outer house did not find relevant to its conclusions, but that analysis that the Scottish Government considered to take a farer view of the proportionality and the justification of an age limit of 60. Was the Scottish Government prevented then from giving evidence to the court of session that might otherwise have changed their view and might have otherwise allowed them to come to a different view? It does sound a little to me as if you are in denial. That is not the case. I do not mean to imply that the court prevented the Scottish Government from offering its evidence. It simply did not find that evidence to be relevant. That is what courts do. Why is it relevant now then? Perhaps I can clarify. The court did not find the financial modelling relevant to that particular case. I cannot say definitively why it did not find financial modelling, which had been prepared after the determination in relation to what Ms Hunter had been made to be helpful. It might be implied that what the court was saying was that the Government was not entitled to rely on information that it prepared after the event in relation to that particular person. That information and the information in the equality impact assessment, neither of which the equality impact assessment was not available to the court at all, but both those pieces of information were available to the Government when it reached its decision in relation to that regulation and both were taken into account. I suppose that a major concern is that, if human rights are being breached at 55, then we need, before we can proceed as a committee to welcome this piece of legislation, a real understanding, a real justification as to how you feel that this proposed new order instrument is ECHR compatible, given the foregoing. At the moment, I am still struggling to see how, or if you have demonstrated that the cut-off age of 60 will be acceptable to a further court challenge. You have cited the fact that, in England, Wales and Ireland, age of 60 is as it is, but it has not been subject to legal challenge either. What we are seeking to avoid is another petition of the quarter session, notwithstanding the cut-off age having been moved to 60, but that again being found to not be compliant, as I am sure you understand, but not yet happy with the explanation that you have given us. Perhaps I can take things back a little bit and explore, first of all, the relevant test. There are two potential tests here. The first is whether the measure that is taken by the Scottish Government and passed through the Parliament is manifestly without reasonable foundation. The other test is whether, weighing all the relevant factors, the measure adopted achieves a fair or proportionate balance between the public interest being promoted and the other interests involved. As I mentioned earlier, the Supreme Court has considered which of those two tests would apply in this kind of case and has not reached a conclusion. We would submit that the test, although the measure is manifestly without reasonable foundation, is the appropriate test. Nevertheless, I will take you through the other closer test on the basis that gives a closer scrutiny. The first question is whether the education student loans, Scotland Dement Regulations, have a legitimate aim. As it is described to you, the aim of those regulations is to ensure that it is prioritised support in the form of tuition fees, grants, bursaries and living cost loans for students entering the labour market and ensuring that students taking out a loan have a reasonable chance to repay some or all of that loan prior to retirement, and the latter part of that is very much about the sustainability of the scheme. Is that a legitimate aim? We would submit that it is a legitimate aim to have a scheme that is sustainable that you can carry on from year to year. The next question is whether the measure is rationally connected to that objective of prioritising support for students entering the labour market and ensuring that students taking out a loan have a reasonable chance to repay it prior to stopping work. Again, we would submit that it is because of the fact that it sets a cap on the eligibility for student maintenance loans of 60. It does have a rational connection with ensuring that the system is sustainable by helping to ensure that loans are repaid and whole or in part. As I mentioned before, once people stop being part of the PEYE system, once they stop being employed, the maintenance loan repayments are no longer collected. The next question could or less and true to the measure have been used with that unacceptably compromising achievement of the objective. As I mentioned before, Wales and Northern Ireland have apparently found no suitable alternative. I understand that we have identified no alternative that we thought was suitable and which would not unacceptably compromise achievement of the objective, achievement of having a sustainable system. Does the measure strike a fair balance? Given the wider considerations about the affordability of the student finance system and the decision of the Government to focus on providing free tuition for first-degree students that benefits those of all ages, having an aged cap, is proportionate and justifiable, a balance has to be achieved. If you look at the alternative, an alternative would be to have no age limit, for example, but that would clearly cost more. It would also put somebody who is 25 and entering college in a very different position in terms of repayment to somebody who is 75. That might be thought to not strike a fair balance in relation to the person who is 25 who will have to pay for the system, as opposed to the person who is 75 who won't. I hope that that further explanation is useful to you. It is very helpful. Monica Lennon. Thank you. I just wanted to pick up on one point. We are going back to the judgment and we have to make that connection between the legitimate aim of the decision maker, in this case the Scottish Government. A couple of times we have heard today that I suppose that the test is to deliver student support in a sustainable way. The word sustainable can mean different things to different people. Given that that definition is so key to what we are looking at today, could you say a little bit more about what exactly the Scottish Government means when it talks about delivering student support in a sustainable way? Yes, I think that's why it's more for my colleagues and me. What we mean by sustainable is that it has to be something that's fair and affordable in the medium to long term. Student loans have what's called the RAB charge. They have a cost involved to them. At the moment it's about 31 per cent. For every £100 of student loan that is loaned out it costs the Government about £31. We don't ever get the full amount back so we have to make sure that when we are loaning out money we are getting a reasonable amount of loan back so that we can continue to carry on the system year after year. That's one of the considerations when we look at something that is sustainable in the long term. Is the amount of loan that is being paid out going to get sufficient amount of loan back? The less loan that students pay back, the higher the cost of the Government to loan that money out initially. In terms of the test that is applied to gauge if someone has the ability to pay back, is that purely in relation to how many years they may have in the labour market? Is it based on that projection alone? Student loans are deducted from income so you have to be earning over a certain amount of money because it's a pay-y system. You have to be satisfied that somebody is going to be not only working for a reasonable amount of years to pay some of that back but working at a reasonable income level to pay back student loan. Last question, we heard earlier that no suitable alternatives were identified or there were alternatives but they were considered to be unsuitable. Can we maybe hear a little bit about what those alternatives were? There have been other models of student loan before that. Prior to 929 there was a mortgage-style loan that was paid back based on people paying fixed amounts of money. We moved to the system because it was believed to be a fairer system to students. The system that all students pay, so you would really have two options if you wanted to do something different. For older people you would either have to have two systems running in parallel, which could potentially have equality issues if you had people of a certain age paying back loans in a certain way and older people doing it. To have a system that is fair to all people and to be sustainable and to also be something that is not too onerous to administer because student loans are repaid by students and are collected by a student loan company and are collected by HMRC. Any changing system would have implications for HMRC and the student loan company. It is also fair to say that student loans are not the only part of the support package, so if you are over 60 you will not be eligible for a student loan but you can still get free tuition, bursary, discretionary funds, additional living cost grants. That is only a part of the student support package. When you are looking at the loans you also have to look at the rest of the support package and there is other support out there for people of that age. You have explained to some extent the process of consideration that led you to conclude that the cut-off for eligibility to apply for student loans should be set at 60. It is noted that there was no consultation to inform those regulations, but was any consultation undertaken as part of the equality impact assessment? Yes, we consulted with a number of stakeholders including age concern, the NUS and other charities concerned with older people. Do you feel that that was satisfactory to come to your conclusion for the cut-off? Yes, the EQI showed that, following discussions with those groups, there was little to no evidence to suggest that this had been an issue. Both age concern and the NUS had never been raised by them as a concern by any of their members and it was not something that they had on their radar as an issue. Okay, thank you. I would just like to ask about the equality impact assessment. The fact that you said earlier on that it was in tandem with the court of session ruling, is that correct? Was that at the same timeline? Quality impact assessment was carried out before the judicial review, so the quality impact was the first part of the review. The review was carried on in tandem with the judicial review. That was based on the previous policy, which was the 55 cut-off date, which the court of session found discriminatory then? It took 55 as a starting point to say that it was legitimate to have an age cap. As the age cap at that time was 55, that was what it looked at, but it went wider than the age cap of 55 and made references throughout to the fact that a higher age cap would help with equalities. As you read through it, you can see that what is applicable to 55 is also applicable as you go up through the age cap. The equality impact assessment, you said that it happened just before the court's ruling, so there was no way that the court could actually get access to that information? It's not something that was before the court, that's correct. Do you believe that it would have had any impact on the court's ruling? Who knows what the court of session is going to say? Absolutely. What are the impacts, do you believe, of the court's ruling on the quality impact assessments? I think that what the court of session made clear was that it didn't feel that there was a strong evidential basis for the age of 55. When 55 was brought in, there was no quality impact assessments, and one had not been carried out since that date. We now have a quality impact assessment, and we now have up-to-date evidence, so we have answered that part of it. The quality impact has now been carried out. As I said, it didn't pick up any particular issues with having an age cap, so we think that having an age cap of 60 is a fair reflection of the quality impact assessment. A practical question. In the real world, it's very difficult for somebody 55, 60 to try and get a mortgage for a 20-25 year. Is that not a similar idea that you're basically looking for a way for the loan to be repaid? Yes, we are. That is something that will be monitored as this goes through. What is the impact of it, and what is the cost, and how much are we getting repaid? I think that that gets in the rub of it. You've talked about the importance of sustainability to the Scottish Government in terms of repayment. As a lay person, I don't know how important the sustainability element is. It's important to any Government that they have ability to carry on the scheme, but how important is it to people in terms of their human rights? If sustainability is denying those who might otherwise apply for such a grant or loan, and in so doing denying them their human rights, I wonder how interested, to be frank, the courts would be in whether it's sustainable or not, if fundamentally their human rights are still being denied. Accepting that the legitimate aim is to provide a sustainable system, as I would submit a court would be likely to do, you wouldn't get the stage of denying somebody their human rights because their human rights would be being respected, but, at the same time, they would not necessarily be eligible for a maintenance loan. To take an example going the other way, if you look at the free bus path scheme, which applies to the over-60s, it's not an infringement of my human rights that I don't have. It's just something that my human rights don't extend to providing it to me. Final question from me. In terms of sustainability, I'm not sure if you will have an answer for this, but in terms of the 55 and 60 age, what are the financial implications or what is the financial difference to the student loans company and to the Scottish Government in terms of the two different ages? I should say that it's a very hard thing to predict because we know the number of students who are in full-time higher education at the moment that fall within that age group, but we don't know what their household incomes are and the loan is, to some extent, being tested. We don't know how many people who are part-time students may decide to go full-time if additional support was made available or people who are not considering going into education would decide to go into education. We can only come up with a rough prediction based on what we know at the moment. We are looking at the overall student population and basically saying if there was no difference between the number of students who entered higher age cap and how much could it potentially be if a lot more people in that age band decided to enter it. The modelling that we've done suggested that raising the age cap could cost between 0.7 million and 16.5 million, and the difference in those figures takes into account the potential household incomes of the students and the number of students who could potentially enter education at full-time level. Given that there is a declining demand as people get older, have you considered no age cap at all but, nonetheless, a liability would still remain with us? What is that? Is that just not a sensible question to be asked? If you had no age cap at all, you would be loaning out money to people that you knew would not be in a position to potentially pay that back. That speaks to the qualities for younger people, because the qualities are obviously across all ages. It's not just about being equal to older people. I think that there would be a risk that people who were entering education at 18, knowing that they were having to pay that back, would say, wait a minute, if you're 80, you're de facto getting a bursary and this isn't fair because you're being treated differently from me in practice. It's an interesting point and I can see why others have found it difficult to come to terms with. Unless any other colleagues have anything further to add, I thank you very much for taking the time and the trouble to come and talk to us today. We're very grateful for what you've told us and thank you for your help. Thanks very much. I'll just pause briefly to allow our guests to leave. We're moving now to agenda item four, which is consideration of instruments subject to affirmative procedure. No points have been raised by our legal advisers on the following affirmative instruments, the draft Scottish local government elections amendment number two, order 2016 or the draft maximum number of judges Scotland order 2016 or the draft sheriff court simple procedure limits on award of expenses order 2016 is the committee content with these instruments. Agenda item five is the consideration of instruments subject to negative procedure. The first instrument is the acquisition of land rate of interest after entry Scotland amendment regulations 2016 SSI 2016-258. The regulations were laid before Parliament on the 8th of September and come into force on the 30th of September 2016. They do not respect the requirement that at least 28 days should allow between the laying of an instrument that is subject to the negative procedure and the coming into force of that instrument. As regards its interests in the Scottish Government's decision to proceed in this manner, the committee may wish to find the failure to comply with section 28 to be acceptable in the circumstances. The reasons for doing so are outlined by the Scottish Government planning and architecture division in the letter to the presiding officer of the 8th of September 2016 supplemented by a written response to the committee. Does the committee wish to draw the regulation to the attention of the Parliament under reporting ground G as the instrument fails to comply with the requirements of section 28-2 of the interpretation and legislative reform Scotland act 2010? Oh, right. My clerk has just pointed out to me that I should have said, do we find the Government's fears to comply to be acceptable in the circumstances and of course that is what we were doing. So thank you for that agreement and thank you for pointing out the error of my ways. So we now move to the other instruments on our agenda, subject to negative procedure. No points have been raised by our legal advisers on the following instruments, the Food, Hygiene Scotland amendment regulation 2016, SSI 2016-260, or smoke control areas exempted fireplaces Scotland revocation order 2016, SSI 2016-292, or the smoke control areas authorised fuels Scotland revocation regulations 2016, SSI 2016-293, is the committee content with these instruments. Agenda item 6 is the consideration of instruments not subject to any parliamentary procedure. There are a number of instruments before us today giving effect to proposals by the local government boundary commission for Scotland in 25 local government areas. No points have been raised by our legal advisers on these instruments. The first of these instruments is the Aberdeen city electoral arrangements order SSI 2016-265. The other councils for which there are instruments on this matter in alphabetical order are Aberdeenshire, Angus, Clackmannanshire, Dumfries and Galloway, City of Edinburgh, East Ayrshire, East in Bartonshire, East Lothian, East Renfrewshire, Folkirk, Thaith, Glasgow City, Highland, Inverclyde, Midlothian, Murray, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Perthyn-Gynros, Renfrewshire, South Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire, Stirling and West in Bartonshire. There is one other instrument on which no points have been raised by our legal advisers, and that is the Courts Reform Scotland Act 2014, commencement number seven, Transitional and Saving Provisions Order 2016, SSI 2016-291C26. Is the committee content with these many instruments? Many thanks. That concludes the committee's public business for today, and we will now move into private session.