Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have looked through the meeting papers and the Official Report of our meeting on Tuesday 7 December and have considered the experience that we have all had over the past nearly 20 months.

Would it be fair to say that experience has shown that Governments cannot legislate for every eventuality, whether in primary or secondary legislation? There have been a number of complications and challenges for parliamentarians when we have attempted to undertake our work.

I will come back to that in a moment. Professor Tierney, do you want to add to that?

Yes.

We have lost sound again, Professor Tierney.

Colleagues have made a number of points there, for which I thank them.

First, does the committee wish to report that it is not content with the explanation that the Scottish Government has provided for a breach of the requirement in section 28(2) of the 2010 act? As the committee has done previously, I emphasise that the Scottish Government should normally comply with laying requirements to facilitate timely parliamentary scrutiny of such important policy choices.

Secondly, does the committee agree to highlight to the lead committee the correspondence that has been received from the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research?

Finally, does the committee wish to highlight concerns about the speed of change in policy to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans, who is responsible for prison reform and policy, and to the Minister for Drugs Policy?

Is the committee content with the regulations?

No member has indicated that they are not content or that they wish to speak, so we are agreed.

An issue has been raised on the draft regulations, which are made as part of a wider legislative framework for the administration of social security assistance in Scotland provided for by the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018. Section 97(9) of that act includes a requirement on Scottish ministers at the time of laying the instrument to lay a response to the Scottish Commission on Social Security’s report on the proposals for the regulations or a statement explaining why ministers consider it appropriate to lay the draft instrument before the commission has submitted its report on the proposals for the regulations.

One set of amendments in this instrument was not reported on by the commission prior to the instrument being laid. A statement under section 97(9)(b) of the 2018 act was sent to the Social Justice and Social Security Committee on 1 December but the statement was not laid until 3 December. In a written response to a question from the committee, which can be found in the public papers for this meeting, the Scottish Government has apologised for that administrative oversight.

Does the committee agree to report the instrument on the general reporting ground in respect of a failure to lay the necessary statement when laying the draft instrument on 29 November 2021 as required under section 97(9)(b) of the 2018 act?

Although the committee might wish to welcome the Scottish Government’s apology for the administrative oversight and to acknowledge that it related only to one set of minor technical amendments and was corrected within four days, it was still a clear breach of the laying requirements. Does the committee also wish to write to the Minister for Parliamentary Business, highlighting its desire for all instruments to be laid correctly?

No member has indicated that they are not content or that they wish to speak, so we are agreed.

Also under this agenda item is another set of draft regulations, on which no points have been raised.

I will comment on one thing before I hand over to Graham Simpson. Last week, Dr Fox indicated to the committee that this type of debate has been going on since the early 1930s. It is obviously not a new debate, and it is clear that nobody has managed to reach a successful outcome since that time. I would imagine that, even if a successful outcome had been found at some point in the past or were to be found, different events will happen and different solutions will be required for them, too.

I will come back on that point, Sir Jonathan. There are three devolved Parliaments in the UK as well as the UK Parliament. I do not have a specific example, but if the UK Government brought in a made affirmative instrument to change travel restrictions to make things harder or easier, but the devolved Administrations decided not to and to keep separate arrangements, I am sure that there would be political discourse challenging the devolved Administrations on why they were not following suit and keeping the arrangements as tightly drawn as possible to enable a four-nations approach on the issue. Do you agree?

We have lost your sound, Professor Tierney.