Seòmar agus comataidhean

Rather than ramble on, I will pass that over to Steven MacGregor.

Yes, the fact that we still intend to do that was part of the one-to-one conversation that I had with the convener earlier. More likely than not, some of those SLC bills will come to the committee. That is a broad-brush comment.

As I have said previously, the situation is that we have to work with the UK Government. We have to consider its side of things and I have to work around its processes.

When I come along to the committee, I am often told that I must respect Parliament and give Parliament time to process the detail. It is quite funny that I have been trying to say something similar in some of my earlier answers today. It is a difficult balancing act for us to press the UK Government enough in saying that we need to know the detail, so that we can do what we need to do up here. It is the UK Government’s process, so it controls that.

The approach tends to be that officials talk to officials, and the discussions move up to ministerial level at times. I have not had such a meeting for a wee while, but I used to have meetings about various sections of the Scotland Act 1998 that we were dealing with.

In the first such meeting that I had with my UK counterpart, we said, “Listen—can we leave the politics at the door?” We were just talking about how both Parliaments can work together and deal with the issues. My counterpart agreed, because we needed to do that to make things happen.

The intention is to give my officials and UK Government officials the opportunity to have such conversations and move things forward. I do not know who is best to give more detail on that—is it Steven MacGregor?

I take on board everything that you are saying. Listen—as I have said to the committee on numerous occasions, I do not have a monopoly of good ideas. If someone turns up with a idea that will make something better and will make it work in the way that it should work, that is fair enough—my officials and I will look at it.

However, the idea of a protocol makes me a bit nervous, because we are currently managing to make the process work, to a degree. It takes time; the UK Government would say to me, “Well, that’s the time it takes, so work around it.”

Are you talking about the likes of framework bills and how we go about deciding on them?

Ironically, Jeremy, you and I were on the Social Security Committee when the Social Security (Scotland) Bill went through Parliament. I do not remember the framework part of the bill being the biggest issue that we dealt with at that stage; it was more the policy part that we discussed. For me, the most important thing is not how a bill is presented, but how Parliament scrutinises the policy.

Thank you, convener, and good morning to everyone.

As a former member of the committee, I am only too aware of its importance 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 United Kingdom Government’s Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. We anticipated that they would give rise to a high volume of subordinate legislation. The final version of the legislation in the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 means that the volumes will not reach the scale that we expected. Nonetheless, ministers need to be assured that devolved provisions are appropriate, and officials will continue to apprise the committee of expected future volumes in order to assist you in managing your business.

Although retained European Union law implementation has not been as expected, the Parliament continues to process a significant amount of legislation. I record my thanks to the committee and its officials for the constructive manner in which we continue to work with each other in what is an extremely busy and challenging legislative programme.

The Government continues to deliver on its commitment to deliver more Scottish Law Commission bills. I am pleased to note that the committee has been able to lead scrutiny of two bills so far in the current session, including the Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill, the stage 1 debate on which will be held this week. I hope that that will continue. As you know, our programme for government confirms that the next Scottish Law Commission bill for introduction will be the judicial factors bill, and the Government expects that it will be suitable for allocation to this committee.

We remain committed to continuing to reduce the backlog of published reports. 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 the instruments that we lay very seriously. It is important that there are as few errors as possible. I am therefore pleased to note that, in the past quarter, no instruments have been reported on serious grounds.

I continue to value the close working relationship that I have sought to build with the committee, and I hope that it continues in the future. I look forward to hearing from everyone on the committee today, and I am happy to take any questions. Otherwise, I will go now.

Greig Walker might have something to add from his experience of retained EU law.

I have no further detail on that. I can come back to the committee with further detail as soon as we have it.

If that were likely to happen, I would probably say so in my one-to-one conversation with the committee convener. From memory, I do not think that there is anything of significance coming up for the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, although I always use the line—kidding on—that the committee is going to get all the legislation that is coming through and the full number of SSIs. On the whole, I do not see anything for this committee. I think that I can guarantee that at this stage, but I will confirm with Steven MacGregor that that is indeed the case.