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Jillian Gibson, I see you nodding. Do you want to come in?

Dr Scott, you were obviously joking when you said that you would take a red pen to the bill, but what I hear from what you have described—I do not want to put words in your mouth—is that you are perhaps concerned that, in talking about what amendments are possible, there is a risk that they might be too superficial.

I am new to the committee, but, given what I have heard, it is almost as though consideration of the rights of victims has been completely removed from the process. Does the bill need to be completely turned on its head so that it has a rapier-like focus on victims throughout? That would be a much more substantive change than some potentially gentle amendments at stage 2. I would like you to flesh out your statement about a red pen a bit more.

Okay—thank you.

Good morning. Thank you for all the information that you have given so far. The session has brought out the considerable uncertainty about and complexity of what we are doing.

As the convener has pointed out, an FM should show the margins of uncertainty for any estimate. I often search for key words to get a picture. There is not any particular disclaimer of uncertainty but, if you search for the word “range” and look at the ranges, you will see that the ranges are vast in the estimates. Some of the figures for regulation range from £30,000 to £200,000. Basically, the bigger the range, the higher the uncertainty and the less accurate the estimate. I want to get your sense of that from a confidence point of view. A lot of information has come out this morning but, in addition to what you have already said, are there any particular areas where the range of estimate expressing uncertainty is so utterly huge as to be worth not very much at all?

Charlie Devine, you smiled at me, so you can go first.

I have probably made my point about the vast ranges. Both Charlie Devine and Jim Jack alluded to behavioural changes, and that is the element of uncertainty in the bill.

I want to pick up on something that my colleague John Mason asked about earlier. He used the terminology “good” and “bad”, but I am going to make it a little more academic and ask how much confidence you have in the estimates on a scale of zero to 10, where zero is no confidence and 10 is high confidence. I think that I can fairly reflect that you have expressed considerable uncertainty about what they mean for you, so this is not meant to be about apportioning blame; I am just trying to reflect where we are in the process. What number would each of you give for the FM where zero is “nul points”, literally, and 10 is a high degree of confidence?

Is that a four, then, to be specific?

Exactly—that is why I am asking for a number.

You have led me on to my final question. In an ideal world, where would we go from here, recognising all the evidence that you have given this morning? In relation to co-design, which the convener mentioned earlier, what would you ideally like to happen to get to something that will up those scores, whereby we can all have more confidence in the FM?

I fully accept the different points that you have made about uncertainty, the complexity of this work and the role of councils. Fundamentally, do we need a continued exercise of co-design and the production of an updated FM, or are you happy for the extra work to slip under secondary legislation? If you had a choice, which approach would you choose and why?

That is an option.

Do you have a final comment, Jim?