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Certainly, when it came to scrutiny of the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill, I vividly remember the conversation that I had with the committee clerk about whether we should be scrutinising the bill at all at stage 1, because there was nothing to scrutinise. It was so framework that it just set out delegating powers to Scottish ministers, and more time absolutely needed to be spent on it at stage 2 or, indeed, a year on when looking at the secondary legislation. Maybe the Parliament needs to spend less time on initial bill scrutiny, with a shorter and lighter process, and spend more time on a more in-depth exercise when it comes to the secondary legislation. That is how the good food nation legislation will ultimately pan out. Also, with the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill, the bulk of the policy delivery and the bulk of the funding allocation will happen a year on from when the Parliament passed the bill in the first place.

Maybe we need to rejig how Parliament keeps pace with the ever-increasing number of these so-called framework bills.

Certainly. We believe that there should be a statutory requirement for stakeholder engagement and co-design at the earliest stage. Your first point was that the Government might be frightened to do all that work on a bill if the Parliament could reject it. I do not think that the answer to that is to produce a draft bill at stage 1 that is so bland and empty that the Parliament is concerned about what powers will be delegated to Scottish ministers in the future. Those powers would not come under the scrutiny that they would get as part of stage 1.

When it comes to stakeholder engagement and co-design, the Parliament’s expectations of the Government must be clear. As I said in my earlier response, some of that co-design and stakeholder engagement has not been as extensive as it might have been. It seemed to focus on certain groups of stakeholders and not on stakeholders in general, which has led to issues around transparency and the argument that, despite the efforts, there was still a vacuum of information in relation to the Government’s direction of travel in the framework bill.

Certainly. Our committee believes that there is a need for more information and time for scrutiny of secondary legislation when powers are planned to be introduced.

My point about having more time for parliamentary scrutiny is based on the current 40-day timescale. It derives from legislation from the 1940s, and one could argue that that has not kept pace with the changes that have been made to primary legislation. As we have discussed already, as primary legislation has changed to reflect the need to be more flexible and adaptable in order to keep up with the social and technological advances and changes that we see in society, there needs to be a change in the secondary legislation, too, and I do not think that that is there at the moment. You could argue that it is probably not fit for purpose.

One of the big issues for our committee is getting information in advance on how secondary legislation will be laid, so that the committee is able to plan and prepare for that. For example, as a result of the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024, we will be dealing with significant amounts of secondary legislation in the autumn, perhaps, but we are not very clear about how that will come forward.

Another example might be the instruments relating to deer management. I think that there were 96 recommendations requiring a number of instruments, but unless we see a package of such instruments, it will be very difficult for the committee to decide whether each individual instrument is proportionate and will deliver on the policy outcomes that the Government wishes to see. Therefore, there is an issue with how the Government plans to lay such Scottish statutory instruments, and whether it is as a package.

We also need better support for parliamentary scrutiny. SSIs are the only items of business for a subject committee that are not routinely reviewed by the Scottish Parliament information centre. We get advice from SPICe on and legal support for EU exit-related and UK statutory instruments; however, we get more support for UK subordinate legislation than we do for Scottish legislation, and I believe that that needs to be reviewed, given the additional volume of such instruments that we are likely to see.

I agree 100 per cent with what we have just heard. The Rural Affairs and Islands Committee dealt with a large volume of Brexit legislation. It is our job to make sure that nothing slips through but, ultimately, there are time pressures on the committee. The UK and Scottish Government often agreed, but that did not mean to say that the technical changes that we were discussing did not have an impact that the Parliament needed to be aware of. A sifting process and an independent overview of whether amendments or SIs are technical or otherwise, as Mike Hedges suggests, is important. I agree with the previous two witnesses and would repeat what they have said.

It is important to put on the record that the committee appreciates that things have changed. With technology and the speed of change, we are in a different world now, so it is important that legislation is flexible and adaptable. However, the overriding concern is about the challenges for scrutiny, particularly as framework bills, in effect, legislate to delegate powers to the Scottish ministers and others, without Parliament being able to understand what those powers are.

That gives cause for concern, for example, over the costs that might arise due to a lack of detail in a bill. Take the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill. There is a budget of £660 million for support. However, there is an information void in the bill on the purpose of the funding and on how it will be allocated, and there is a lack of clear policy outcomes.

We also had issues with the licensing scheme in the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill. Some people believe that the licensing scheme has gone beyond the spirit of the legislation. However, as the previous witness said, secondary legislation is still the law. Ultimately, we are allowing laws to be made at a level where the Parliament has little or no involvement.

I agree with the latter. With the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill, we had a vacuum of information on policy. The Government had done some stakeholder engagement—or, if you like, co-design—but the outcomes of those discussions were not clear and were not in the public domain, so there was a void in the information. Also, only selected organisations played a role in that co-design. There needs to be wider consideration involving all stakeholders and potentially some sort of legislative process, to ensure that consultation and co-design are far reaching and do not focus only on certain groups. That was certainly an issue with the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill.

I am not sure that we should get too concerned about the definition of a framework bill, because it ignores the real issue, which is the need for effective scrutiny of the Government and the powers that are delegated to Scottish ministers. We are discussing whether a bill is defined as a framework bill, but the issue is that, if there are going to be more framework bills, however they are defined, the way in which the Parliament scrutinises legislation must keep pace. I am not sure that it is doing that at the moment.

When policies are introduced after stage 1 of a bill, the committees have not had clear oversight of the objectives or policy outcomes, and the Finance and Public Administration Committee is concerned that it is almost impossible to create a financial memorandum because we do not know the policy outcomes. For example, the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill had four overriding but wide objectives that were so wide-ranging that they were less than helpful, and it was difficult to cost those objectives and the policies that might deliver them.

We should not, therefore, get too tied up in defining what a framework bill is or is not. We need to spend more time on improving the way in which the Parliament scrutinises legislation, no matter how it is defined.

I can answer the question very simply. We have had only one Henry VIII power to consider in session 6, so we have not taken a view on the issue generally. However, I absolutely agree with Jonathan Jones. One thing that we discussed was about the Government explaining its approach to identifying how instruments are to be treated by the Parliament—whether the affirmative or the negative procedure should be used and how it came to that conclusion. Ideally, that would be done early, to give the committee an opportunity to comment on the appropriateness of that approach.

We certainly discussed that, particularly in relation to the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill and the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill, which will have significant numbers of instruments under them. The committee felt that it was important for us to understand why the Government was taking the approach that it was taking. Some instruments will need a very light touch—they will be technical in nature and will not need much scrutiny—but others will be different. The Government’s and the Parliament’s views on that approach might differ, and we would like to be able to explore why that is the case.

We need to be aware that parliamentary procedures need to keep pace with the changing way that primary legislation is introduced. Right now, I do not think that the situation is ideal, so I welcome the committee’s oversight and I hope that we can get to a better approach.

I know that one or two people want to come in on the back of that response, but we will probably touch on the issue again a bit later on.

We will move on to theme 2, on economic outcomes, with a question from Ariane Burgess.