 Welcome to the 26th meeting in 2023 of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. I'd like to remind everyone present to please switch to mobile phones to silent. The first item of business is to decide whether to take items 6, 7, 8 and 9 in private, as the committee contented these items in private. Under agenda item number 2, we are taking evidence from George Adam MSP, the Minister for Parliamentary Business. This is one of our regular sessions with the minister on the Scottish Government's work relevant to this committee. The ministers are accompanied by three Scottish Government officials, Steve McGregor, the head of Parliament and legislation unit, Rachel Rainer, the deputy legislation coordinator and the Scottish Government legal directorate and Greg Walker, the retained EU law act management lead. I welcome you all to the meeting this morning. First of all, I meant that the attendee is not to worry about turning on the microphone because that would happen automatically via broadcasting. I'd like to invite the minister to make any opening remarks. Thank you, convener, and good morning to everyone in the committee. As a former member of the committee, I'm only too aware the importance of this committee in scrutinising legislation. When we met in February, we were preparing ourselves, both in the Scottish Government and in the Parliament, to deal with the measures in the UK Government's retained EU law bill, which we had anticipated would give rise to high volume of subordinate legislation. The final act means that the volumes will not reach the scale that we expected. Nonetheless, ministers need to be assured that the devolved provisions are appropriate and officials will continue to appraise the committee of expected future volumes to assist you in managing your own business. Whilst retained EU law implementation has not been as first expected, the Parliament continues to process a significant amount of legislation and I'd like to record my thanks to the committee and its officials for the constructive manner in which we continue to work with each other during extremely busy and challenging legislative programme. The Government continues to deliver on its commitment to deliver more Scottish law commission bills, and I'm pleased to note that this committee has been able to lead scrutiny on two bills this session so far with stage one of the trust and successions bill this week. My hope is that the bill continues and, as you know, our programme for government confirmed that the next Scottish law commission bills for introduction will be judicial factors and it is a Government's expectation that it will be suitable for allocation to this committee. We remain committed to continuing to reduce the backlog of published reports and, by the next parliamentary session, we should have addressed the backlog and be focused on recently published reports. As the committee knows, I take the quality of instruments that we lay very seriously and it is important that there are few errors as possible. Therefore, I am pleased in the last quarter that no instruments have been reported on serious grounds. I continue to value the close working relationship that I have sought to build with this committee and hope that that continues in the future. I look forward to hearing from everyone on the committee today and I'm happy to take any questions. Otherwise, I'll go now. Thank you very much, minister. Nice try. Just to open the session, as you are aware that the committee does a very good job and I'll say that on behalf of all colleagues with regards to the scrutiny of the SSIs and that the Scottish Government has certainly improved the quality of the drafting of the SSIs. As you are very much aware, minister, that we don't identify many issues with them, so clearly a lot of our work has been undertaken there. However, we still find some errors in the drafting of the SSIs. Can you tell the committee what work that you and your colleagues are doing just to ensure that the drafting errors are reduced? One of the things, as you quite rightly say, convener, is that we are in a good place where there hasn't been that many errors. On the whole, we don't just sit back and rest on our laurels. We need to continue to have that level of excellence and make sure that you get everything accurately. Constantly, how it works is that we tend to make sure that everybody that is involved in the process makes sure that everything is in the correct place in the position before it comes to yourself. It's important for us. I would much rather be in a position where you get everything accurately right from the beginning rather than it being an idea that there has been some kind of mistakes. Now and again, because things are so technical, there will be issues, but on the whole, we can attrive to make sure that that doesn't happen. On that, I will possibly bring in Rachel at this stage just to give you—just to put your mind at ease and tell you the exact process that we go through. From a SGLD perspective, tech quality assurance very seriously, and that's built into really two stages. Firstly, as part of the drafting process, so considering and discussing points and raising issues as they arise and dealing with them then. Secondly, once the instrument is prepared, there are checks of that instrument within the teams working on it, but then there's also a further check by a lawyer who's not been involved in it and who can bring that fresh pair of eyes to see things that maybe other people wouldn't. So, we think that does provide robust quality assurance process, but we are always looking at DPLRC reports, are the things we can learn, are there anything we need to put in place, do we need to update guidance to make sure that points are addressed. As you've seen, where issues do arise, there was a particular issue regarding a couple of social security instruments. A thorough lessons learned exercise has been carried out both by policy colleagues and also SGLD to look at the quality assurance process across the piece, make sure that the suitable guidance for staff, both in developing policy as well as on the drafting side, and some of the outcome of that is that there's going to be secondary legislation, and some of the evidence sessions delivered for social security are on a regular basis, not just as a one-off, as a continuing process. OK, thank you. Just before I hand over to Mercedes-Benz Albus, so just on that particular process, do you have, for talking sake, maybe two or three years, maybe new people come into the department and then others move on? Yes, we have a learning and development programme for SSIs, both in terms of training new people and coaching them and supporting them in drafting, but also then providing refresher and on-going training for lawyers. As you've seen this year, the rule act has come in, that's going to make some changes, so we need to make sure everybody's aware of it. So, yes, it's a continuous process. OK, well thank you. Mercedes-Benz Albus. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. Following on the theme of scrutiny of instruments, I wanted to ask a question in relation to information sharing. The committee has recently considered and reported instruments which have been linked to UK-wide changes, such as instruments relating to public sector pension schemes, following the McLeod judgment and council tax reductions, following UK-wide changes to universal credit. So, I'd like to ask what processes are in place to monitor changes in the UK Parliament, and any processes to work with the UK Government to share information in those sorts of examples? Well, the answer to that, and I'm welcoming you to the committee, because I think it's the first thing I've seen you at this committee, Mr Alvar, but one of the things that we've found is, at official level, officials from the Scottish Government and the UK Government meet each other on a regular basis, and they've got that opportunity to be able to share information and ensure that we try and make things work. But one of the things that we need to be aware of is the fact that it is UK legislation a lot of the time that we're dealing with, or it's coming from the UK Parliament, so it is theirs to actually deal with. So we need to find a way that, A, and I'm trying to make this in a non-political point of view, because my job is basically the process of making everything work here, but, A, that they remember we're here and we equally have our processes that we need to actually deal with, and B, making sure that the communication between official level and myself at ministerial level with counterparts is there as well. We try to make that work, but it doesn't always work, and I think that part of the reason is because various... If I was sitting here from the UK Government's perspective, I'd be saying we've got a Parliament at Westminster that we have to go through their processes, and therefore, just like we were saying at the side, well, yes, but equally this affects us, so therefore we need to actually have the opportunity to have the time to go through our own processes as well. So on the whole, we tend to work very well together. Does that mean that there's actually some hiccups along the way? Yes, there can be, mainly because you're dealing with things that there might be a situation where they don't think that there is actually a Scottish element to it or something that affects the Scottish Government, and it will be our officials that will maybe say to them that we need to look at this, and then there might be a bit of debate on that issue as well. On the detail, I think, Stephen, possibly if you can maybe give some further detail on that as well. I would agree if everything the minister said there. We spend quite a lot of time at official level engaging with our counterparts in UK Government to make sure that they understand our needs in terms of understanding of what legislation is bringing forward and the Scottish Parliament's needs in terms of time scales for scrutiny for whether that's in relation to retained EU law, LCMs or Scottish statutory instruments. I think that in the specific case of the council tax regulations over the summer, I think that UK local authorities have got the ability to make changes midway through the year without legislation and we don't have that provision in Scotland. So there's some follow-up work taking place now to make sure that UK Government understands that. So they're making changes in the future. They'll let us know early enough that we're able to prepare our legislation and give the Scottish Parliament time to scrutinise it. Have on, okay? Add with regards to your experience with retained EU law. Thank you. As the minister alluded to in the opening statement, we're no longer looking at volumes of roll-act instruments, but nonetheless, the smaller number we're dealing with, five notifications have gone in for SI's. And the ones that we have intelligence to come are potentially in themselves challenging, so we rely very much on what is a UK legislative programme, what we're told about it. I can give the committee the assurance that there is probing and interrogation and checking of what we're being told, making sure that we get the full details. And so we do whatever we can to try and pre-empt what's coming. So perhaps an example of that is the whole concept of retained EU law is being renamed a simulated law under the roll-act. And so we're working on a Scottish statutory instrument, which will be laid in the coming weeks, potentially too, depending on how the drafting of that firms up the quality assurance process, which I'll refer to, but that really is to make sure that the devolved statute book is timelessly updated for that change, which is coming as a result of a UK act. There's other work along those lines on the goal, but certainly the retained EU law is up there as an on-going UK implementation programme that we have to tune into as best we can and handle as best we can. And in those early notifications, certainly, a number we're in on time. Others we weren't able to, for reasons explained in the notification, because it is just so challenging to get that full and timely information. And we have to make sure the updates we're giving to committees are credible. Thank you for those answers. If I can follow up on that. I'd be interested to hear a little bit more, if you can, on the specific processes you have in terms of monitoring. Are you in the position that you're having to wait for the UK Government to notify you when things are being laid, or do you have channels through which you can monitor and follow the progress of work before you receive the formal notification? And is there anything that you feel can be done to improve those processes so that we can avoid those rush changes that we've seen in the past? To be perfectly honest with the answer, it's a bit of both. We have officials working together all the time, as I've already said. You also have the fact that when the UK Government do make the announcement and they do go forward with it, as I've already said, it is their legislation, so we just need to make sure that we're making them aware of the Scottish element to it all. Could things be better? There's always room for improvement in absolutely everything in life, so yes, could we probably find a way to work in a way where we can make things a lot more smoother, but because of the technical aspects of a lot of this, it can become quite difficult. The number of notes that I've seen flying back and forward between both Governments, I can see what these people end up having to deal with on a day-to-day basis with regards to things that haven't been thought of that could have a problem. Obviously somebody is drafting something down in the UK Government, they are thinking purely from their perspective on how they are going to push things forward, and they may perceive that there is no kick-on to us up here. One of the things that you do end up seeing is that the officials up in the Scottish Government will say, well, that's not the case, and then there might be a wee bit of time of debate, a wee bit of torn and thrown as to who is actually correcting that scenario, but it's back to the accuracy of how we can provide that information to the committee and to the Parliament to the best of our ability, but I'll bring in Stephen again if he just wants to add something to that as well. Yeah, just briefly. I mean, there's two main challenges of communication. So we operate in the centre of the Scottish Government, and we've got some counterparts who operate in the centre of the UK Government on a sort of programme level, and I think retained EU law would be a good example of our request to them to give us a programme overview of what they think is coming over the next three to six months. But individual portfolios are also in touch with UK departments to understand within that overall programme instruments of specific interest to them. So there is quite a lot of information sharing back and forth at official level. We do occasionally run into issues. I think the council tax example of the summer is an example of that, where there probably is a little bit more work we can do to avoid that happening again in the future, and as I said, there is engagement taking place in the UK Government understands that we don't have the same in-year flexibility that they do. Thank you. When you say there's a little bit more work to be done to avoid that taking place, what kind of work are you envisioning, what kind of improvements or changes do you see as necessary? I think it's partly educational. So, you know, Scottish Government officials engaging with their UK counterparts, so UK understands the legislative framework up here, the time that's required for us to process any changes that they make when we need to make consequences to changes up here in the Scottish Parliament, most cases that will be enough to help us avoid mistakes happening again. If we didn't think it was, then we would escalate to ministerial level so that discussion could take place at that, between ministers. Thank you very much. Thank you. Jeremy. Minister, good morning to your team. Thank you for coming along this morning. I wonder if I can just move us on. Your officials provide the committee and subject committees with a helpful weekly update of instruments to expand to be laid in the following two weeks. I wonder if I yourself or your officials could indicate the anticipated volume of SSIs likely to be laid between now and maybe Christmas and who are likely to be the lead committees. If you can't provide that today, perhaps you could drop a note to us. Basically, I know Mr Balfour is in mourning after the mighty St Martin Beaties team in Saturday there, but I'm quite happy to answer the question. Basically, we sent a review to... Last week, I sent an outline of what the legislative programme when we expect everything to be to the Parliamentary Bureau. Now, that's all caveated, one for the reason that anything can happen in-between time to make sure that we know between what we're programming at the moment and what ends up actually being reality. We've got a strategic bureau this week, where, effectively, we'll talk with other members of the bureau to discuss how we go forward with that business programme, as it is. With committees, I tend to, as your convener, be aware. I tend to have one-to-ones with the conveners with discussing the upcoming programme, what you have for the year and how we can deal with that. That includes not so much in your committee, but in other committees when we're talking to discuss members' bills and things like that. On the whole, it's just trying to... If I was able to try and get you further detail a lot sooner, it would be... It's already out there with your business managers within the bureau, as it is. But, at the end of the day, that's caveated, and there needs to be no basis with them because things can change. As we know, things can change as the Parliament goes through. By the time we... Even when I'm talking to your convener and we're talking about some of the SLC bills in fact, I'll give you a perfect example. Moveable transactions. I came here to committee in my first appearance and said that that was going to be your first SLC bill. It was going to be very good. It was going to come imminently. Moveable transactions became known to me as unmovable transactions bill because it was about six months or so before you actually got it and there was some difficulty to get it to a stage where we could bring it forward for the committee to do it properly. I only use that as an example not to go down the rabbit hole of SLC bills at this stage, but I only use that as an example of a time where I'm in all honesty sitting here saying I can do that within that timescale and it doesn't become that way. Yes, when we can get you further information we will engage regularly with your clerks and the committee as well. My officials and the officials of this committee are quite happy to do that and keep that flexibility open and that door open so that we can continue with that. For me, to be able to give you anything long, a lot further term would be... I don't like to promise things that I can't deliver and there might be a case where I might find myself in some cases in that position. That is helpful. Thank you, minister. I suppose the answer to this may be no but if I can just piece you a wee bit harder particularly on larger and more complex SSIs obviously committees need as much notice because they are perhaps come as a large package of instruments and need more scrutiny. Do you know if any such instruments are likely to come forward or in the pipeline for saving a few months? If that tended to happen I would probably have the conversation with your convener when I have that one-to-one and from memory I'm trying to remember, I don't think there was anything of any significance for this committee coming up in the not too distant future because I remember actually I always used the lines of the legislation that's coming through, kidding on every day that they're going to get all the legislation or the SSIs as well but on the whole I don't see anything for this committee so I can guarantee you that at this stage that's going from memory I'll just confirm with Stephen that that is indeed the case. The volumes at the moment are reasonable I don't think we've got any really significant bits of legislation coming through the pipeline or really significant packages but if there was we would be engaging with the clerks early I think over the years that's something we've got better at understanding that the committee will want to understand packages of legislation so we know which instruments are linked together and if the instruments are particularly large then we understand that the committee's legal advisers will need time to properly scrutinise them so we do take all of that into account when we're planning. I think there might be one large UKSI which needs to be laid in the Scottish Parliament in the next few weeks I think there's one which is 90 pages which is a UKSI but it's an actual one that needs to be laid in this Parliament rather than an SI notification I think that's the one I can think of I'm just going to come in is that the one that Mr Walker was talking about earlier on? No, no, this is something different Thanks Thank you I'll leave it at that moment Okay, thank you Bill Kidd Minister of predecessor committee welcome the Scottish Government's work in meeting almost all of its historic commitments by the end of the last parliamentary session the longest standing commitment that still exists is now the Scotland Act 1998 specification of functions and transfer of property order 2019 if all in your last appearance in the committee you confirmed and in fact in your preamble you confirmed that discussions including on this between the Scottish and UK Governments any update on this specific matter that you can give us to ensure that it meets the commitment please Rather than ramble on Mr Kidd I'll just pass on to Stephen at this stage Again I think we've got better at dealing with historical commitments I remember being at this committee a number of years ago we had quite a large volume of outstanding commitments to try that down to what is now I think four or five this one is the longest commitment we rely on the UK Government to help us identify an appropriate Scotland Act or a vehicle to get it done we've not yet managed to do that but it's certainly something we're continuing to discuss with them and once we're able to identify a vehicle we'll be happy to update the committee at that time It's possible just to ask if there's why without going too deep into it is it specific about this one? It's there's an option essential I think whether to do a stand-alone instrument to deal with this issue or to do it as part of a wider instrument that's coming forward and I think everybody's preference would be to try to sweep it up as part of a wider instrument and that's what we're trying to look for if we can then I think we'll be in the territory of doing a stand-alone instrument to fix it That's very fair Thank you very much for that Thank you To move on and ask about primary legislation As minister will be aware the recent programme for government committee to introduce a bill on judicial factors which would be based on a Scottish law commission report given part of the committee's remittance to look at certain bills which are based on reports from the SLC can you give the committee an indication of what your current thinking is on the timescales of the bill and whether in your view it meets the SLC criteria? Currently I've got no further detail on that at this stage I can get back to the committee when as soon as we possibly can with the deep further detail on that That would be grateful I think we'd also given some of the previous issues just to appreciate any background you know Adam appreciating what you're seeing in terms of today that you could provide on the work the Scottish government has done given that at some time the consultation on that publication took place and just to hear what's been going on with the in the background You'll appreciate that the SLC bill that I've made a moveable transaction was another example of one that had been there for some time and we have to make sure we get ourselves into a place when I'm coming to committee I'm actually quite wary about these things because that's a perfect example when I was sitting there with not to say anything about my official Mr McGregor who told me that moveable transactions was imminent you know and I took him to his world and said it's in front of committee so you'll understand Mr Mundell when I'm a bit I no longer want to commit myself to a stage having been through the process in this example and I just want for the very reasons that you've explained is one of the reasons I want to get the detail 100% and get back to you what that actually is and how that looks I would push back a little bit and say that you might have anticipated that the committee might ask about the bill today all these bills are not particularly controversial when you start looking at them at the headline subject but clearly with any legislation whilst they're not politically controversial there are a lot of considerations within them and we'd want to be satisfied in that work behind the scenes to make sure the kind of consultation around the original proposal is still relevant and up to date because it will allow us to move much quicker into the whole run. That's part of the reason Mr Mundell where I don't want to say something that I've not got the full detail for you at this stage because I feel that that would set hairs running and as you say it's not a highly political bill but I just want to make sure this is right because my job is about process and I've got to make sure that I'm not the one that gets the process wrong. The final question that I wanted to ask was looking beyond that bill and we're aware that the Minister for Victims and Community Safety recently wrote to Lady Payton chair of the SLC committee in the Scottish Government official to undertake detailed work on the following SLC reports the report on an approved scheme for financial provision on cohabitation breakdown the report on aspects of leases termination and the report on the review of contract law and understand what you've said to my colleague Jeremy Balfour about not being able to look too far into the future but we'd just be interested to hear your view on whether you think those bills would be the sort of thing that might come to this committee through the rest of this session. I'll just rather than repeat myself and previously I'll get Stephen to maybe add something to this as well. The Scottish Government gave a commitment a number of years ago to try and bring forward one bill in each of its legislative programmes which should be suitable for the referral to this committee. The minister said we think that judicial factors will fit into that category this year and the Scottish Government's not yet agreed the content of its year 4 and year 5 legislative programmes but certainly those bills which you've mentioned are candidates for them and we think that at least two of them would probably be suitable for referral to this committee. There's still that firm commitment back to the minister rather than yourself but there's still that firm commitment to bring forward one in years 4 and 5. Yes, that's part of the conversation I had with the convener when we had the one-to-one. Elyron was the fact that we still intend to do that and more likely than not some of those LCLC bills will come to yourselves. Again, that's with a very broad brush. No, that's positive to hear because we'll know whenever we want to create more work for them. These are important areas that are often overlooked by the Parliament. I think that you bring up an important point. At my time in this committee we never had any legislation to do and it was always really strange coming from other committees where you had a legislative programme to deal with and I think that it's quite good for this committee because of its remit to get its teeth into bills like this which are very technical in aspects on who better to do it than the members of this committee because everything that you deal with day in, day out is highly technical. OK, well, thank you. Minister, you'll be aware that I've raised the issue regarding section 104 orders in the past and raised it at a campaigners group with the First Minister and obviously very much aware of the situation regarding Mable Towns Action Scotland Bill and also the Trust and Succession of Scotland Bill at stage 1 on Thursday. Can you set out to the committee what the current processes are between the Scottish and UK Governments to obtain and also implement a section 104 order? Basically, we have the situation that we've got to work with the UK Government as I've stated previously. Again, it's coming from their side of things as well so I've got to work around their processes and it's quite funny because when I come along to see yourselves I'm often told that I must respect Parliament and give Parliament time to process the detail and that's what I've been trying to say with some of the answers earlier on as well that becomes a difficult balancing act for us to actually get to a stage where we push the UK Government enough to actually say we need to get the detail and we need to know what it is so that we can actually do the same with ourselves up here and it's their process and they have the ones that are in control of that. On the whole, it tends to be again officials will talk to officials there will be times where it will move up to ministerial level as well not at a meeting for a wee while but I used to have meetings with regards to all of the various sections of the Scotland Act that we used to deal with and I remember having that meeting with my counterpart in the past we just leave the politics at the door because we are just talking about the function of how both Parliaments can work together and deal with it and my counterpart agreed with that because that's what we need to do in order to try and make this happen and it's to give my officials and the UK Government officials the opportunity to have these conversations and to move that forward as well I don't know who would be best to give more detail on that would it be yourself Stephen? We engage quite regularly weekly as it happens to discuss Scotland Act orders which are currently in the programme and which might be coming up UK Government's got its own rules of thumb about how long these things take to develop we know what they are so we take those into account when we're developing our programme we also make clear to the UK Government where we've got a particular timing need to get legislation implemented so they can take that into account occasionally where it's absolute essential to speed up UK Government to do that and that engagement will continue to make sure that we let them know what we need as quickly as possible So certainly thank you for that with the section 104 orders one of the things that I suggested in the past could there be some type of protocol put in place between both Scottish and UK Government to try to assist with these because with the moveover transactions bill in particular, I'll say now act we now have an up-to-date act apart from a section so that old legislation is still being utilised by practitioners in Scotland and just by we have some feedback any practitioners have spoken to and speak very highly of the moveover transactions act and are using it on a daily basis so it does clearly show that the SLC work does really benefit the legal process in Scotland but in terms of the section 104 orders have you had any dialogue with UK Government to try to formulate some type of makers in a process whereby when a section 104 order is required that it's going to be a lot shorter as compared to the longer drawn out process that we currently have because ultimately this is about making better law so practitioners can utilise that to benefit the country I had a fair idea you'd probably ask this question from the point of view because of everything you've stated there the problem I have with it is that be careful what you wish for it may complicate matters even more and make things more difficult for us I might be proven wrong in that but my opinion is that this may make things a lot more difficult than what they currently are depending on what that protocol was to do it and I go back to the fact that this is basically coming from the UK Government as well so it's coming from their perspective we would equally be quite defensive if we are as a Government and as a Parliament quite defensive when it's our own stuff that our legislation is going through or our own work that we are doing so I do try at times to consider how things work for those that are in the other place because it's not all no matter how much I think it is but the world doesn't revolve around me and I am not that important in the whole scheme of things and I think it is important that we give them their space to be able to do what they have to do as well at times that could be challenging for us all but I really think we'd have to be very careful with the idea of having some form of protocol maybe our protocol is not the right avenue to look at but even if there's some type of a set of guidelines just to try to help to speed the process up because I think that from memory it was put to us that we could potentially look up to well over a year a year and a half for the section 104 order to actually be dealt with now it's clear that it's not having a negative impact upon the practitioner but at the same time it is still having the aspect of an older part of legislation is still being utilised for that specific element in comparison to the new legislation which people are very much welcome No, I take on board everything you're saying and I'm not looking listen if, as I've said to this committee on numerous occasions I don't believe I've got a monopoly on good ideas if someone comes up with an idea that makes something better the way it should work then fair enough my officials will look at that but the idea of a protocol still makes me a bit nervous because we are still currently managing to make it work to a certain degree just now and it takes the time, the UK Government would say to me well that's the time it takes so work around it OK Thank you that last up Jeremy Balfour Thank you again I wonder if you can just move on slightly I wonder what consideration does the Scottish Government take into account when deciding to delegate a power or not in a bill and to satisfy itself that's the appropriate way to do it so I just wonder how do you work that one out Are you talking about the framework bill and how you go about it well basically I'm not power mad and I'm not making every bill a framework bill that's coming to Parliament you've heard it here exclusively first from myself but the situation we have is there are certain times where that flexibility helps the bill and gives us the option to be able to deal with that further down the line and be able to deal with stakeholders to help co-design certain bills as well we are not routinely going down to that stage to actually decide that we're going to have framework bills but it's mainly there for us to offer the flexibility that we can have I don't know if Stephen wants to add anything to that as well I'm going to pass on to Rachel In each bill we consider the powers on a case by case basis can we justify the power as well as being able to justify it internally we know that we will need to be able to justify it to the Parliament and that it will be scrutinised by the Parliament including by yourselves and there will need to be a good reason for it there can be different reasons for different powers but we consider each one on a case by case basis rather than having a particular preference to take powers on that coming to philosophical do you think there's been a change both within Scottish Government and Westminster to use framework bills more often than say 20, 30 years ago and if so is that a deliberate policy decision or is it just something that has evolved over time? I can't really talk about 20 or 30 years ago because I think I was in primary school at least 30 years ago anyway but no I'm lying actually I'm forgetting I'm getting older but basically I can't talk for the past but now it's exactly what Rachel said it's done by a case by case basis it's where we can make the justification as to the reason why we're doing this and why we see it as important and in many cases it is to try and design especially when it's a bill that would possibly actually stakeholders need to have a really important part of the role as the bill as well but in other cases it might be that added flexibility that we need to be able to deliver what we want to deliver but on the whole it's not our go-to-place it's not our original idea to try and create a bill it's to automatically go to a framework bill OK, then just to come right up to the future in regard to the programme of government that was announced just a few weeks ago what balance has been taken in regard to what we just talked about a provision of bills that are about to come forward OK, so it's Rachel again after Stephen this time I'll be a start I mean, I think out of the programme that's been announced I mean, I can't think of any I can't think of a significant number of bills that we can class this framework potentially agriculture for the flexibility is required for the future to enable the powers to be used but justification will be given for why we think that's the case in terms of trends and the last question I mean, I would agree with the minister I don't think there's been any trend really over the last 10 to 20 years for more framework bills we look at all these things internally before they come to the Scottish Parliament perhaps with things like social security where there's been new powers that sort of topic has lined itself more to the requirement for framework type bills but again where that's been required I think the Scottish Government understands why it was appropriate I don't remember the framework part of the bill being the biggest issue that we were dealing with at that stage but it was more the actual policy part of the way we had the discussion on and for me that's the most important thing it's not actually how the bill is presented it's how it's been it's how it's been it's how it's been it's how it's been it's also how the bill is presented it's how this place in the Parliament actually scrutinises the policy part of it as well Social Security legislation in the UK Parliament has been framework based for 30 years so that again is not a new trend that is something that is the way Social Security legislation has developed to allow for flexibility to meet changing circumstances deal with things as they arise I'll leave it there I wanted to push a bit further on the framework's point I think obviously it gives ministers and the Government increased flexibility but the Parliament also loses something in the process and I know there's always a trade-off between the Parliament and the Government but as an individual member of the Parliament when I see the likes of the new agricultural bill coming forward I do worry about my ability to influence it on behalf of my constituents because clearly if everything is in secondary legislation the chance to actually put down amendments and have them voted on and have a transparent debate in process is quite limited and it also I think changes the nature of the kind of debate and negotiation around what apple policy looks like and that's just one example the committee or a majority of members of the committee had the same view in relation to the national care service and I would just ask you what your reflection on that is as a parliamentarian yourself No, well you've worked with yourself, Ms Mundhale, since 2016 you're not exactly quiet when it comes to stating your opinion and I think that's the whole point of Parliament in itself when you can express the opinion you just expressed there which is effectively you think I would still go back to the fact that there's always this debate with framework bills where effectively some see it as a power grab by the Government itself and others see it as what we see it as a way of just being getting the flexibility in designing service, social security being an example of that designer service for stakeholders to make sure you deliver for what you set out to do in that policy with agriculture I would assume that that would be a case of working again with the stakeholders there as well to make sure there's no point in having an agriculture bill when you've not had full engagement and there's some element of design with the bill itself as well and given the flexibility to be able to make sure it works because at the end of the day in agriculture you'll probably know more about this Mr Mundell and me but it affects people's livelihoods and how they go about their business as well so I would say that it still gives us the framework I understand you do recognise the point of legislation when the details help back I recognise that debate that's happening in Parliament and I understand that but what I'm trying to say is that at the end of the day it's actually about delivery or from my point of view it's about being able to deliver what we actually wanted to do in the bill and it's not a case of taking anything away from Parliament I understand that It takes something away from my constituents clearly not to get into the politics but it'll be the same for other members from different parties and the same for your MPs or MPs who represent the SNP in the UK Parliament and you can go round it's not that point but there are parts of the country where people didn't put their trust in the Government and their elected representatives in this Parliament because of the decision to go down the framework route don't have the option to make amendments and to show to show people what the alternatives were and to see the Parliament as a whole vote on those At the end of the day you've made your point of view I don't necessarily agree with your point of view because I've already stated how I believe the bill goes forward it's an on-going debate we'll have the good news is when I answered Mr Balfour's question it's not something we're doing all the time it's not a go-to place for a motion work bill let's just hang everything on that we don't do that it's on a bill by bill basis and if I can assure you in any point of view that that is how we look at it I take on board your opinion and I'll maybe have a discussion with my officials with regards to that but on the whole we try to make sure that there's as much scope for the Scottish Parliament to scrutinise legislation as possible Minister, there's been an increase in the frequency of LCMs and supplementary LCMs coming to the committee and there's often a fairly tight turnaround in terms of time for consideration The committee notes that timings of LCMs are influenced by a number of factors including some outwith the power of the Scottish Government to allow greater parliamentary scrutiny of those LCMs Could you, for example, ask or push for supplementary LCMs to be lodged sooner after amendments are lodged so that we've got more time to Yeah, this is always an on-going debate that we've had I think since the first day I sat in front of this committee and it probably was happening before I became Minister for Parliamentary Business Again, we're back to the situation where the UK Government will do a peaceful legislation they'll believe that there isn't a Scottish element to it, officials may say well, my side may say there is a Scottish element to it there'll be a bit of doing and throwing at that stage but the other problem we have is we're receiving the LCMs literally if lucky an hour before the actual press release goes out regarding a bill and that makes it quite challenging for us because we've got to then get officials in order to justify whether there is going to be an LCM or there's not going to be an LCM or the LCM will be for it or we're going to be against it we've got to make that and we've got to have a case and justification for that now that takes time for us to do it if we've got our information quicker then it would be a lot easier for us to do that to give the Parliament more time in order to scrutinise the legislation as well and I remind everybody that the king's speech is just round the corner so we could end up with a situation who knows what's going to be in that as well so there could be more of that but official level again we have officials with UK Government Scottish Government talking to each other all the time about that work I've asked officials because I've got to the stage where I hear your arguments I hear what you're all saying with regards to LCMs and I keep asking has this always been like this has this always been the case since devolution began and I've been told to a lesser degree in the past but it was always an issue but to a lesser degree it seems to have become more prevalent now why there's a belief that there isn't a Scottish element to some of the things sometimes we'll have discussions officials will have discussions at official level where they'll say they'll quite blankly say this does not affect you in any shape or form and that argument could go on for quite a while as well while they're trying to discuss that so I don't know if it's a political element possibly creeping in from Westminster I'm not sure but at official level we can and at ministerial level can assure you that when I talk to my counterparts I'm trying to make sure that we make this work a lot easier but for some reason we seem to literally be getting things an hour before the press release goes out well that's helpful for us to know thank you very much indeed okay thank you do members have any other questions for the minister and his team no okay okay minister I'd like to thank you your colleagues for coming to the committee this morning and with that if there are any particular points that we might have a discussion later on any points we may write to you but with that I will suspend the meeting to allow the minister and his team to leave thank you under agenda item number three we're considering seven instruments subject to the affirmative procedure no points have been raised on the following draft instruments the relayed, legal aid and advice and assistance miscellaneous amendment Scotland number four regulations 2023 the transport Scotland act 2019 amendment regulations 2023 the relayed, carers assistance carers support payment Scotland regulations 2023 the international organisations the amenities and privileges Scotland amendment number two order 2023 the coronavirus recovery and reform Scotland act 2022 extension and expiry of temporary justice measures regulations 2023 and the greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme amendment number two order 2023 is the committee content with these instruments under agenda item number four we're considering three instruments subject to the negative procedure no points have been raised on SSIs 2023 249 and 258 and SI 2023 995 is the committee content with these instruments under agenda item number five we're considering an instrument not subject to any parliamentary procedure no points have been raised on SSIs 2023 262 is the committee content with this instrument thank you and with that I'll move the committee into private