Seòmar agus comataidhean

For absolute clarity, is there nothing that could be done to the section other than to remove it?

That is helpful.

Do you accept that the approach means that committee members cannot amend the legislation? When the detail is held back, the scope for amending legislation is limited.

Looking beyond the proposed bill on judicial factors, you will be aware that the Minister for Victims and Community Safety recently wrote to Lady Paton, the chair of the SLC, committing Scottish Government officials to undertake “detailed work” on the SLC’s report on an approved scheme for financial provision and cohabitation breakdown, its “Report on Aspects of Leases: Termination” and its “Report on Review of Contract Law: Formation, Interpretation, Remedies for Breach, and Penalty Clauses”. I understand what you have said to my colleague Jeremy Balfour about not being able to look too far into the future, but I would be interested to hear your view on whether those bills might come to the committee through the rest of the parliamentary session.

That is positive to hear because, although no one ever wants to create more work for themselves, those proposals cover important areas that are often overlooked by the Parliament.

That would be great. I appreciate what you say but, given some of the previous issues, we would also appreciate any background that you can provide on the work that the Scottish Government has done, as it is some time since the consultation on the proposal took place. It would be good to hear what has been going on in the background.

Is there still a firm commitment to introduce one bill in year 4 and one in year 5?

I want to push a bit more on framework bills. They give ministers and the Government increased flexibility, but Parliament loses something in the process. I know that there is always a trade-off between Parliament and Government—I accept that—but as an individual member of the Parliament I worry about my ability to influence the likes of the proposed agriculture bill on behalf of my constituents. If everything is in secondary legislation, the chance to lodge amendments, to have them voted on and to have a transparent debate and process is limited. That changes the nature of the debate and negotiation on a policy. One example is that the committee’s members—or a majority of the members of the committee—had the same view on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill. What is your reflection on that, as a parliamentarian?

That process clearly takes something away from my constituents. I do not want to get into the politics of it, but that will be the case for members from other parties, including Scottish National Party MPs in the UK Parliament.

There are parts of the country where people did not put their trust in the Government and, because of the decision to go down the framework bill route, their elected representatives in Parliament do not have the option of lodging amendments to show what the alternatives were, and to see the Parliament vote on them.

That is helpful. I will push back and say that you might have anticipated that the committee might ask about the proposed bill today. The SLC bills are not particularly controversial when you look at the headline subject but, although they are not politically controversial, there are a lot of considerations in them, as there are with any legislation. We want to be satisfied that the Government has done the work behind the scenes to ensure that the consultation on the original proposal is still relevant and up to date, because that will allow us to move much more quickly once the bill arrives.