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Will the committee get a good heads-up if anything is coming down the track?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I have a few quick questions on procedural matters. In the initial LCM, there was a recommendation to refuse consent for elements of the bill. I think that I am right in saying that that issue has now been resolved and that the bill has been amended satisfactorily in the UK Parliament, but I would like some clarification on that. If that means that there is now no reserved position, is it the Government’s recommendation to just proceed with consent?

That brings me to my second question, which is about the first supplementary memorandum, LCM-S6-57a. Paragraph 11 refers to a divergence of views in relation to whether an element of the bill is reserved or not. That might be felt to be a moot point, because even though there is a difference of view on whether the element that relates to internet services is reserved, the recommendation is still that we would consent. I will, however, ask a quick question. Is there a difference of opinion on what is reserved and not reserved in any other elements of the legislation, particularly with regard to further supplementary memoranda that might be required?

You referred to the possibility of a subsequent supplementary LCM. This might be an unfair question, because it is a great imponderable, as these things are outwith the Parliament’s control, but can you foresee circumstances in which more than one additional LCM might be required?

I also have a follow-up question, which I will get out of the way now. Has the interaction between your officials and UK Government officials been positive? Are you getting good engagement? Are there any challenges?

My only interest that might be relevant to the work of the committee is my membership of Amnesty International.

My questions relate more to the context in which we should consider the regulations, which are clearly at the draft stage—we will come to the specifics in due course. We have found at least one person who can testify to this point, as Mr Kerr said that, at the time of the bill’s passage, he thought that this should be included in primary legislation, and I recall that some constituents who got in touch with me at the time of the bill’s passage suggested something similar. My first question, therefore, is whether we should bear that in mind as part of the context. Yes, we took the approach that we could do it through secondary legislation, but at the time of the bill’s passage there was a cohort that said that we should do this.

I clearly understand your wider point about the misogyny bill but, given that the Parliament legislated for the provision that enabled the Government to bring forward the order, do you think that it is important that we consider it on its own merits, irrespective of whether such a bill comes forward?

Having recently been involved in the legislative agenda, I can certainly testify to the challenges around progressing additional primary legislation between now and the end of the parliamentary session.

A potential misogyny bill is clearly not possible in this session, but you referred to filling the gap. We will probably get more into this when we consider the regulations in more detail down the line, but could you perhaps speak a little bit more about what the SSI means in practical terms and how it fills the gap? I understand that this might be difficult to answer, but what types of incident will be captured by the law that are not, as it stands, and how prevalent are such incidents?

Indeed.

In as much as we have made the change, yes, I am satisfied. That is the first thing—we have made the change to enable this.

As for the point about the practical experience of people who engage with the process of casting their vote, we often have to rely on the feedback of those who administer elections in the first instance. However, what that leads us back to is that, if an issue is raised as an area of concern, we must engage with that wider cohort of people—in this instance, again, young people—to try to understand the problem, how we can resolve it and how we can do better. Inevitably—this will be true of any election—if you encounter any problems, you will have to rely on those who administer elections in the first instance to flag up what those problems might be.

Of course. Reflecting back on the legislation itself, we put in a specific requirement for the Electoral Commission to engage in an awareness-raising campaign on how people cast their vote in local government elections, because we know that there can often be confusion in that respect and that that manifests itself in some communities more than in others. Indeed, it was Bob Doris who flagged that up. That is another example of our being informed by someone who has raised an issue that they have identified in their community.

I take the point: when it comes to those who do not cast their vote, how can we understand better what the impediment has been? Sometimes, we can identify it readily; incidentally, that is one of the reasons for the Government not supporting the use of some form of identification for people to cast their votes. That was one of the very issues that we flagged. If there are other issues, we will have to do our best to try to understand what they might be, and that will happen only if there is constant engagement. Again, in the case of young people, that will mean relying on and engaging with organisations that represent and have the most direct contact with them; they will be able to facilitate a conversation with young people, some of whom might not have cast their vote, and who will tell us the reason why.