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Aye, I would say that it is the same thinking. This goes back to what I said earlier on about being able to have that kind of working relationship with colleagues in Westminster. It becomes difficult when you cannot pick up a phone and say something as simple as, “We are having difficulty with—insert name of bill,” or “What are you trying to achieve with—insert name of bill,” so that we can understand it. When we cannot do that, we end up with a situation where it is just purely emails and letters going backwards and forwards to one another. That makes things a bit difficult for us.

When we are making a decision, we think about how it affects the Scottish Government and, nine times out of 10, the Scottish Government will want to put an SSI down to say that it is the Scottish Parliament that is legislating on the issue. I think it is only right that we would look to do that because, regardless of which political party is in government in Scotland, we do not want to live in a place where the UK Government is legislating too much on devolved matters.

That is a difficult question for us to answer here and now. Trying to unpick EU laws that have been part of our legislative structure since 1972 is quite a difficult task; it is one that officials in both Westminster and the Scottish Government are looking at. We are trying to find a way. We are constantly looking at how that will affect us and at what we can do to deal with it. It is difficult for me to say at this stage what the impact will be. We need a balance between finding a way to make that work so that we can still have full scrutiny and ending up in a position where everything that we do is about EU retained law.

Our officials are in constant communication with their counterparts in the UK Government. They are trying to find that out, which is very difficult. I was three years old in 1972. I know I do not look that age, Ms Mochan, but that is not yesterday. We are in a difficult and time-consuming situation. Officials on both sides are aware of the task and are trying to find solutions to ensure that we can retain EU law up here, although the UK Government has other ideas.

Thank you.

Good morning, convener and committee members. This is the first opportunity that I have had to welcome Oliver Mundell and Carol Mochan to the committee. As a previous member of the committee, I know very well the important part that it plays in scrutinising all legislation.

We have had a close working relationship since I became the Minister for Parliamentary Business, and I hope that that continues to be the case. When we met in June, I reflected on the fact that the first year of this parliamentary session was very challenging, and the challenges have continued with the cost of living crisis and the situation in Ukraine. As I did in June, I record my thanks to the committee, its officials and the Parliament for the constructive way in which they have worked with the Government over an extremely busy and challenging time.

The remainder of year 2—and, indeed, year 3—will be no less challenging, particularly given the measures that are contained in the United Kingdom Government’s Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.

We continue to bring a significant amount of legislation to the Parliament. Since September, we have considered six bills, 96 Scottish statutory instruments, eight legislative consent memorandums and 11 UK statutory instruments.

The committee will note that there has been a reduction in the number of SSIs that have been laid by the Government. There is no specific reason for that, but I am delighted to note that, in this quarter, no instruments have been reported on serious grounds. As the committee knows, I take the quality of the instruments that we lay very seriously, and it is important that there are as few errors as possible.

Government and Parliament officials have been working on a protocol for expedited affirmative instruments following the concerns that arose from the use of the made affirmative procedure during the pandemic and from the committee’s inquiry. That work is on-going and is near completion.

When we met in June, I committed to undertake a strategic review of the data and information that the Government currently provides to Parliament. It is worth reminding ourselves of what the Government currently provides; namely, a forward look, every week, of SSIs to be laid in the following two weeks, weekly updates on UK SIs, a fortnightly update on LCMs and a monthly update on bills. That is a substantial amount of data, and it is complemented by regular meetings between officials, and indeed by the meetings that I offer to committee conveners.

My officials have been considering carefully the data and information that we provide to the Parliament and will engage shortly with the committee clerks to seek their input. As ever, it is vital that we work together to ensure that we are providing information and data that is helpful and of value not only to this committee but to the Parliament as a whole.

I look forward to hearing from the committee.

As a rule, we obviously do not want to be having problems with delayed implementation of legislation or 28-day breaches. However, it can be challenging out there for a number of reasons, and there may be situations where we have those problems. All that I can do is assure the committee that I, as the minister, ensure that we try to keep everything within the proper way of doing business. That does not always happen—we are only human and there can be difficulties.

There are also difficulties with regard to information that we might receive from other legislative bodies such as Westminster and from the UK Government, whereby we get to see detail only at the very last minute.

We try to get everything to you in a timeous manner, but it can prove quite challenging.

I will bring in Susan Herbert to see whether she has something to add.

We will come back to the committee about those instruments. On the whole, generally speaking, we try to get these things worked out within the correct time.

Yes, they did. We worked particularly closely with Welsh colleagues on other things, but yes, they also had those experiences in relation to the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, and things have been difficult.

I am happy to make a commitment that we look at it and engage with the committee to see where we are with everything.

Tom Arthur is the minister who will know about the detail of the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill. On the whole, we generally try to engage with as many stakeholders as possible on any bill. The last thing that the Government needs is a stakeholder coming to us further down the line when we are drafting legislation and telling us that the proposed legislation will make things really difficult for them or that something will not work the way in which we want it to work. It is only right that a Government should engage with all the stakeholders and make sure that it gets the information that it needs. If there is an issue with that, I am happy to talk to Mr Arthur about that detail and take it from there.