³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

That is really helpful. Thank you.

As members have no further questions, we move to the formal consideration of the motion. I invite Jackie Baillie to speak to and move motion S6M-16130.

Mr Burgess has indicated that he wishes to come in.

I totally agree with what Kenneth Gibson suggests about having a legislative requirement for proper co-design to be set out prior to stage 1. There should also be a requirement for the Government to respond to the stage 1 report, because that is key to answering some of the questions about the direction of travel that the Government wishes to follow in terms of policy and what the outcomes of the bill will be. The Government’s response at stage 1 is critical to our understanding of the scope of a framework bill.

As I said earlier, probably less time should be spent on scrutinising primary legislation, but it would be useful to get a clearer indication of when secondary legislation will be introduced and how it will be delivered.

Plans are made under legislation, but they are not necessarily subject to the approval of the Parliament and there is not much consistency on the requirement for that approval. For example, for the good food nation plan, the draft will be laid for 60 days, with no requirement for parliamentary approval; for the climate change plan, the draft will be laid for 120 days, with no requirement for approval; for the islands plan, it will be laid for 40 days, with no requirement for approval.

For the rural support plan, which is critical and which puts the meat on the bones of the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill, there is no requirement for the draft to be laid in the Parliament—despite the fact that it sets out how the ministers will deliver agricultural support. The budget for that plan is £660 million and there is no requirement for the Parliament to approve that. There needs to be further investigation of how the Parliament can scrutinise at that level. The plan puts the meat on the bones of the bill, so it needs to have parliamentary oversight.

Given the pressures on parliamentary time, it may be an idea—it is certainly something that my committee has considered—for there to be a statutory requirement for Scottish ministers to publish a report that evaluates the impact of delegated powers and, ultimately, the impact of laid documents, focusing on areas in which the committee thinks that there was a lack of scrutiny.

Recently, we considered an SSI that included provision on the period of time that legislation would stay in place before being reviewed. The only thing that was called into question was the date at which the policy would end, but, to address our concerns, the Government would have had to withdraw the SSI or the committee or the Parliament would have had to vote it down, which would not have been a good use of parliamentary time. If there was a way that the issue could have been addressed, the SSI could still have been passed, without the need for annulling it and for another SSI to be introduced. Therefore, there is a case for having an effective way to amend secondary legislation, particularly given the volume that we are likely to see.

I echo much of what Kenny Gibson has suggested. We have dealt with four framework bills: the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill; the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill; the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill; and the Wildlife and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill. Although they could all be described as framework bills, they are all slightly different. For example, much of the detail that was not in the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill or the Wildlife and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill surrounds licensing schemes and guidance, which have either been difficult for the committee to scrutinise, or it does not have a place to do so.

Kenny Gibson mentioned bill design. It is difficult if all the important policies are not in the bill when it is first introduced to the committee. For example, important policies, such as the barring of snares and additional powers to the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals did not appear in the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill when it was first introduced. With regard to the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill, there was no proposal for a food commissioner, which was ultimately part of the bill at the end of the process. That is an important policy consideration.

In addition, it might be appropriate to say that there is no requirement for the Government to respond to a stage 1 report. For a framework bill, that response is often where the committee is able to tease out some of the policy objectives of a bill, which can assist with agreeing to its general principles, too. We have found ourselves not quite sure what all the desired outcomes for some bills would be. In one case, we did not have a Government response to our stage 1 report prior to the stage 1 debate and the Parliament voting on the general principles. Those are the areas of concern in relation to the points that you asked us to comment on, convener.

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.