Chamber and committees

The final point that I will make is that we heard last week that the reason for some of the delay was the prioritisation of the Scottish child payment in this Parliament, which led to slippage elsewhere. I suspect that the Government’s proposal is being introduced now given the tight timetables that Government is on, which Mr Griffin mentioned. Now would be the time to do it. Nonetheless, I take on board the points that Mr Griffin made.

Thank you. Our committee will, of course, pursue that.

I have a supplementary on the convener’s questions, but I first want to ask briefly about something that you said in your last answer, Mr Griffin, just for a bit of clarity. You mentioned increasing entitlement and recommendations. Do you mean recommendations on changing the eligibility criteria to increase entitlement, or do you mean scientific and wider evidence that the threshold has been met and that certain conditions and categories in the workforce should receive the benefit? Are you talking about changing the eligibility criteria or about scientific and wider expert evidence that the eligibility criteria and threshold have been met?

I apologise for cutting across you, but it is worth noting that the Health and Safety Executive would not come to give oral evidence to the committee. Also, the HSE’s written evidence is pretty incomplete and insubstantial, although it mentions the fact that it has a pretty close working relationship with IIAC. Therefore, it would need to have a pretty close working relationship with SEIAC or whatever was put in place in Scotland. However, the HSE is pretty much silent on that and will not give a view on it, so I am a bit dissatisfied.

My line of questioning is not about criteria and eligibility for a new benefit; it is about the preventative work. If research and evidence at a granular level were to make a compelling argument for employment law or health and safety legislation to be changed on preventative grounds, should the proposed body not have the power to make pretty strong recommendations on that? Would it not be helpful if those powers sat in the Scottish Parliament? That is the essence of my questioning.

I know that we are nowhere near that situation at the moment, but it is good to talk, minister, as you know. Has there been any initial dialogue with UK Government officials, even at this stage? In particular, I am conscious that, as we heard last week, environmental NGOs believe that there should be a qualified automatic exemption to the internal market act for public health and environmental purposes. Is there an on-going dialogue with the UK Government ahead of the front loading of a lot of the work that we have heard about?

I have no further questions. I might share the minister’s characterisation of the political environment, but the committee is keen to scrutinise the nuts and bolts of the bill. It is positive to hear about the on-going discussions at official level.

There are probably lots of questions, convener, but I have to say that you merely caught my eye. I do not wish to comment.

I am unclear whether the minister has inadvertently answered the question that I was going to ask. I might just ask it anyway, so that it is clear in the Official Report.

Some stakeholders have argued that targets should be clearly set out in the bill, but, during an earlier exchange, the minister mentioned that NGOs, for example, were not clear what targets they would like to be set, and she said that some of the science and methodology around how they would be established is still emerging and evolving, so secondary legislation might be a much better way of setting targets. I just want a bit of clarity on the Government’s position on that.

The second part of my question is about whether there might be a different case for consumption targets, because the Scottish Government already publishes carbon footprint information under climate legislation requirements. Might it be possible to introduce consumption targets to the bill?

Those two questions for the minister are intended to mop up any gaps in evidence, convener.

Thank you. That gives a bit of clarity to what was said earlier.

That is helpful. It partially pre-empts my final question, which is good. How could common frameworks be used to support policy coherence and the pace of progress in this area? Could they help to manage divergence? In saying “divergence”, minister, I am thinking about a twin-track approach, because I suspect that the end destination for all four UK nations will be the same. It is about having policy coherence so that, if Scotland wishes to go more quickly, we can do so in a managed way. Do you have any comments on how common frameworks can be used to support policy coherence?