Seòmar agus comataidhean

The minister who is taking forward the bill wrote to the committee on 16 November. In relation to section 5 and some other sections, there was a suggestion that it might be possible to narrow the scope of the changes so that they are possible only at the recommendation of certain bodies.

In terms of more specific detail on what amendments might look like, we heard from the Faculty of Advocates and the Law Society that there were no amendments in relation to section 5 that would make it acceptable. If there were further amendments to the bill, would that alleviate your concerns?

Should section 5, for example, be able to be changed only by primary legislation?

I want to ask about the proposed powers for ministers in relation to the guarantee fund in schedule 1, paragraph 6. The Law Society suggested that the consultation requirement should be paired with a requirement to publish the outcome of that consultation. Does the Scottish Government have a view on that?

Can you provide more clarity on how the Lord President’s consent provision would work in practice? What would that look like? How would stakeholders and the Parliament follow that process?

I feel that it is a bit unfair to keep pushing an official, so I will stop there.

You will recognise that it is hard for the committee, or for individual members of the committee, to come to a view on the scope of that Lord President’s consent provision, which will now run through a substantive part of the bill, without knowing how it will work in practice or what the process would look like. How would we know what discussions had taken place around that? How would stakeholders know if there were concerns about the proposals? Will the regulations be introduced to Parliament before consent is sought, or will consent be sought before the regulations come to Parliament? Will there be ministerial-level discussions with the Lord President before Parliament knows about it? How will the process actually work?

I do not want to be confrontational, but it appears that you are doubling down on the same strategy of making the Lord President’s consent central to the provisions. Last week, we heard from the two biggest legal stakeholders outwith the judiciary, who said that they were deeply uncomfortable with that, that it would undermine confidence in the rule of law and that the powers were too broad. Those are pretty serious concerns. They were saying that that approach would embarrass Scotland around the world and that there were concerns from the Commonwealth Lawyers Association. They did not just have light concerns.

You have come today to tell us that you are just continuing with that approach and adding in a few quite minor safeguards. That makes me concerned that the Government does not really understand the strength of feeling in the legal profession.

I will leave it there, convener.

Would you recognise that what is proposed in the bill is a significant expansion of that? The mechanism in the current statute is a one-off, whereas the one that is proposed in the bill runs right through the topics that the bill covers. The range of provisions to which the mechanism applies and their potential reach are far wider than in previous legislation. Is that fair?

Do you not think that the consent procedure is too fundamental for us to have got to this point in the process and still not be able to give a relatively high-level explanation of how it would work?