Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you, convener. It is great to be with you on the committee.

All my registered interests are online and available there. I am a small farmer. I say “small” because I do not have much left, but I do have sheep and a wee bit of arable land. I claim single-farm payment and less favoured area support. I will make sure that that information is updated as regularly as possible, but more can be seen online.

Good morning, minister.

I am not sure whether I can ask this question. I am conscious of the great public interest in the egg aspect of the regulations, but the avian influenza aspect is quite interesting, too. Am I allowed to ask you whether you have any assessment of what this season might bring? After all, last winter was not so bad, was it?

I get that. I was just wondering whether we were following or tracking what was happening across Europe or whatever. In the past, we have seen these things coming up—or, indeed, down, given that the flu has now been found within the Arctic circle.

That is fine. I just thought that, while we were talking about this, it might be good to inform the public of whether we thought that there was going to be a problem.

I thank the minister for attending the meeting. For clarity, I will pick up on the point about the SSIs, because six have been reported under the most serious reporting grounds. I have a slight concern about that, as more secondary legislation, particularly relating to framework bills, is being lodged. Are you confident that you are reviewing the process and that you can say, “Moving forward, we’ve got the processes in place that ensure that that number will drop over subsequent months”?

I read the Official Report of the 19 March committee meeting. Stuart McMillan asked the same question—about what the Government is doing to ensure that the quality of SSIs remains strong. The answer that you have given today is almost identical to the one that the minister gave on that day. There is no point in having the same answer every six months. Given the fact that there might be more secondary legislation—more SSIs—will you have some sort of review to check that the number will not increase further?

I am sure that you did.

A few weeks ago, we looked at the new Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill. There was quite a lot of debate around the table. One of the issues was that we wanted to ask a number of questions, but we could not get a reply to those questions because of the fast-tracked nature of the bill. When you are looking at bills that are being fast-tracked, what consideration do you give to secondary committees such as the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee and the Finance and Public Administration Committee and how they can effectively scrutinise and debate what is coming through?

I am quite excited because we have recently launched our inquiry into framework bills and Henry VIII legislation. I will not labour this, because I am looking forward to extended debate with you in the months to come, but do you believe that any of the bills that were announced in the recent programme for government could be considered to be framework bills?

Thank you. I guess that you are right. What is a framework bill, and to what extent does the Parliament need to have the ability to scrutinise something effectively? What about the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill or the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill? Those bills are both out. Do you not consider those to be framework bills?

You are right to point out that we have had the debate in the chamber, and I think that it is also the case that the expedited bill procedure is not used very often—I have not been here long enough to know, to be honest—but, as far as this committee is concerned, the issue is ensuring that we can effectively scrutinise things. The concern is that we might be introducing risk if we cannot look at the legal nature of this secondary legislation effectively by getting responses back and being able to consider matters with our legal advisers. In hindsight, do you think that you could have had further discussions with clerks and the committee on this matter, and do you think that there could be discussions to ensure that we are a part of the process in any future sped-up or rapid bill procedure?

Thank you.