Seòmar agus comataidhean

We are indeed.

We try to give you as much information—and to make sure that you get detail as far in advance—as possible. Sometimes that can be difficult, and there can be all kinds of challenges.

On whether there are instruments in the pipeline, nothing comes to mind at the moment, but if there is something, I will make sure that the committee gets detail of what they will get, when they will get it and how large a package it will turn out to be.

One of my officials will give you a full update. A great amount of work has been done by us, including my predecessor and the officials who have been involved, to get to the stage where we are now. You will remember that we were not in a good place in 2018 with regards to these kinds of issues. Things are a lot better now, and we are sitting here with just this one outstanding commitment.

Susan Herbert will give us an update.

No problem. We will do that, convener.

As a member of the committee, you will be aware that the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill has been introduced. At one point, I was calling it the unmoveable traction bill because it took us so long. I think that, the first time that I came to the committee, I said that we would be working towards it, but there was then a delay of about six months. However, it is a highly technical bill, and we had to get it into a good place to ensure that it was sorted. The Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill is also coming to the committee, so, on the whole, we have managed to keep the committee reasonably busy with Scottish Law Commission stuff.

With regard to how we go about taking on the work, there is a list of stuff—I do not think that “stuff” is a technical term; there is a list of potential bills—on which the Law Commission has produced work. As and when, we will look at what the priority is and what the Government needs to do to take that forward.

Susan, do you have anything to add to that?

I do not want to make a commitment today, but I am quite happy to take that issue away, have a look at it and write to the committee further down the line about whether we find that to be possible or, if not, why we cannot do it. Just give me some time to have a look at it.

On framework bills and the type of bill that we choose, there is no exact science. Nine times out of 10, it will be the traditional method, but on this occasion it is a framework bill because this is a more radical and new way of looking at an issue. It is such an important issue—we are talking about a national care service, which will touch so many people’s lives. It is important to ensure that we have that level of engagement.

This is a different way of thinking and a different way to look at how we design something, because scrutiny will come from this committee as the process goes forward. It will come from other committees, as well—the last that I heard was that there are about seven committees feeding into the process for the national care service bill. Once we get to the stage where we are pushing it forward, we will be pretty confident that we have something that is robust enough and that will deliver what people want. That is the most important thing for us.

With regard to the type of bill that we will use in future, it will depend on the circumstances. Do you think that I will be coming forward with hundreds of framework bills as of today? No, I will not; which bill we use will depend on the circumstances and how we can deliver the legislation to ensure that it can do what it needs to do. At the end of the day, it is not about us but delivering for people out there in the real world.

It really depends on—I am trying not to be political—

Yes. I could say that I can write to you after the summer recess, which could mean after this summer recess, or it could mean the one following that.

Yes, we are. I am laughing because I had to ask a couple of weeks ago who my counterpart is. We have been ensuring that we do that because we know how serious the situation is. We have been trying to reach a position where everyone is working together. Although there are policy differences, we are trying to make this work.