Chamber and committees

I apologise, Mr Simpson.

Will the member give way?

In the interest of clarity for Mr Simpson, I used to chair the Subordinate Legislation Committee before it was called the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee and we looked at the super-affirmative procedure.

I want clarity about something very important. Draft regulations can be published for up to 90 days before final regulations are published and laid before Parliament and there was a dynamic parliamentary process in which the minister would have to demonstrate amendments made at that point. We are looking at the super-affirmative procedure, which Parliament at that time thought was a substantial level of scrutiny. I still agree with that and I think that it is reasonable for this piece of legislation. I would like clarity from Mr Simpson because I would not support having the measure on the face of the bill—I think that would be wrong—and would like to know from him what procedure would be used if it were not the super-affirmative.

I will refer to dumped mattresses and other items under the section on a code of practice on household waste recycling in relation to bulky uplift charges. However, in relation to amendment 216, one way to avoid a bulky uplift charge for a mattress is to phone the council and say, “Come and reuse, recycle and repurpose my mattress.” The mattress could be done, gone, beyond repair and just at the end of its life and people could use the scheme to circumvent local authority charges. Is that a risk? Is no mattress so far gone that it cannot be repurposed, reused and recycled and get a free uplift? Can you confirm that the intention would be that any mattress would be uplifted free of charge by any local authority if amendment 216 were to pass?

And I have apologised.

I find it quite helpful to have some of the concerns explained. During our stage 1 scrutiny in preparation for our report, we had a debate on the extent to which the bill should be a framework bill. One of the reasons for its being a framework bill is that a lot of the matters that you are raising need to be ironed out: it might be impractical to include such things in the bill or it might make the legislation too rigid. Would you accept that there is a balance to be struck, Mr Lumsden?

Convener, I have been named, so I seek an intervention.

I apologise to Monica Lennon if I was not constructive in relation to that.

I was about to conclude, but okay.

I do not agree, Mr Lumsden, but that is a helpful intervention. These amendments are not about placing further statutory obligations on local authorities—absolutely not. For the other areas that could be included in the code of practice, the language that is used in the bill is “may” and not “must”. I would not agree with giving those things an undue status compared with the other areas that can be in the code of practice.

However, there is a meeting of minds about the need to resolve some of the issues that I have outlined. Amendments 217 and 218 might not be the way to resolve them, but they have to be discussed by Parliament. I raised them during the stage 1 evidence session, and Mr Macpherson, the deputy convener, also had a concern in relation to some of this.

I am happy to keep these as probing amendments, but I would like further discussions with the minister ahead of stage 3 to see whether there is a more appropriate way for me to get assurances that we can tease out the relationship among charging regimes, the mixed approach across the 32 local authorities and the strategy that will be produced by co-production.