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I will go back to Professor de Londras to explore further the issue, which we touched on earlier, of the use of the made affirmative procedure. You covered that in detail in your written evidence and you are clearly critical of the overuse of the made affirmative procedure. From a practical point of view, how would you amend the bill that is in front of us in order to reduce the reliance on the made affirmative procedure, which is clearly an objective that you want to achieve?

Thank you. Professor McKenzie Skene, can we have your view on that?

Good morning. I want to raise a slightly different issue—that of electronic notification of bankruptcy documents. I note that the bill proposes to make permanent the temporary provisions in the coronavirus legislation that allow electronic notification rather than service in hard copy. Do the witnesses have any concerns about that being made permanent? Are there any practical implications to it?

Speaking from personal experience, like many of my MSP colleagues, I probably receive hundreds of electronic communications every day and people not infrequently say to me that they sent me an email that I did not receive because it went into the spam folder, was quarantined or, as sometimes happens, disappeared into the ether. How reliable is the system of electronic notification? Are there enough safeguards in the bill to protect people?

I might come back to you on the issue of process, but I ask the other witnesses on the panel for a view.

Thank you. That is very helpful.

Good morning to our witnesses. I suppose the key issue that the committee has to consider in relation to the bill is whether the measures that are before us are necessary and proportionate, or whether they represent ministerial overreach.

We have been presented with a lot of evidence from interested parties and from members of the public. A strong theme has come through regarding the issue of civil liberties, which I want to ask you about. The bill will allow the Scottish ministers to impose quite substantial restrictions on people’s activities, as we have seen over the past two years but on a permanent basis. There will be particular impacts in the area of health, where individuals can be required to

“submit to medical examination ... be detained in a hospital or other suitable establishment”,

or be forced to

“be kept in quarantine”.

What is your view on that? Does the bill strike an appropriate balance between the protection of public health and respect for civil liberties? How will the question of proportionality work through in practice?

Perhaps Professor de Londras can start.

Good morning. My first question is a neat follow-on from the question that the convener has just asked. We have now seen a move from the Scottish Government, announced by the First Minister on Tuesday, away from legal restrictions towards a situation where we are increasingly relying on personal responsibility and individuals complying with public health guidance. That is very much in tune with what has happened elsewhere in the United Kingdom. First, the Welsh Government announced that, then the Northern Irish Government, and the Prime Minister announced the same for England on Monday, albeit on slightly different timescales.

Is it now the assessment of the Scottish Government that the public are in a place where they will, in the main, comply with public health guidance without it being required to be set in law that they behave in a particular way?

I have time for one more question. This morning, I was looking at statistics from the Office for National Statistics that suggest that, although there is a downward trend for infections across the rest of the UK, that is not the case in Scotland. The latest figures seem to show that we have an infection rate in Scotland of one in 20, whereas it is one in 25 in England and one in 30 in Wales. That would seem to suggest that, despite the fact that we have had more legal restrictions in Scotland over the past few months in comparison with other parts of the UK, in particular England, that has not had a beneficial impact on the case rate.

As I am sure that you have seen, there was a study in the Financial Times two weeks ago that analysed the figures for the past six months. It suggested that, again, despite the fact that there were more restrictions in place in Scotland, including a requirement to wear face masks in certain settings, there was in fact no beneficial outcome. In fact, the Financial Times suggested that the rate of death in Scotland from coronavirus was higher than in the rest of the UK. Does that not suggest that the Scottish Government’s approach of having more restrictions has not delivered better outcomes than elsewhere?

I would love to pursue those issues further but I fear that we are out of time.

I will comment briefly, given the time and given that we have already rehearsed these arguments in the committee.

The draft regulations before us seek to extend the extraordinary and emergency powers for a period of six months. As I outlined earlier, I think that we are now in a place—as I think the Scottish Government has more or less conceded at this point—where, in future, we will increasingly rely on the good sense of people to follow public health guidance, rather than being required to act in particular ways by the law. I believe that the experience that we have had over the past two years shows that people respond very well to public health guidance. I suggest that it is not appropriate for the powers to be extended. I believe that we should test the good judgment of the Scottish people, who have thus far demonstrated in spades their willingness to comply with public health guidance. For those reasons, I oppose the motion that is before us.