Chamber and committees

Do you anticipate all of those coming in this calendar year or within the next 12 months?

I am sure that we can improve as we go along. Others might want to come in at this point, convener.

Right—okay. I will move on to my final question for now, although I have more questions later.

As you mentioned, we have highlighted that we are not persuaded by some of the reasoning that the Scottish Government has provided for breaching the 28-day rule for negative instruments. Will you expand on what work you are doing to ensure that such breaches occur only when absolutely necessary?

It sounds as though there might be some movement and that you might not necessarily use the made affirmative procedure.

I want to query an aspect of the Town and Country Planning (Miscellaneous Temporary Modifications) (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/292). As you will be aware, under coronavirus legislation, the requirement to hold public consultation events on potential building developments was suspended; in other words, such events did not need to be held. The regulations continue that suspension until 31 March next year. Given that we are now allowed to attend all sorts of events, such as concerts, football matches and weddings, I query why anyone should not be allowed to hold a public consultation event.

We have not had an explanation for that, so the committee should write to the Government asking for one. We could also write to the lead committee, which I think in this case would be the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. There is a related regulation that we will consider later—SSI 2021/291—so we could perhaps include that in the letter.

Convener—

We are not quite in private yet. I apologise, but I want to raise an issue.

We know that we are to have a debate in the Parliament on vaccine passports. I do not actually know what we will debate yet, because we have not seen any details. Frankly, all that I have to go on is what the First Minister announced last week and what I have read in the press. We will have a debate and vote and I imagine that, for such a significant measure, regulations will be laid at some point.

There is a process issue. A lot of the coronavirus legislation has gone through under the made affirmative procedure, under which the law comes into force and then the Parliament has a look at it. A lot of planning has clearly gone into vaccine passports. The First Minister said last week that, if MSPs approve the proposals, she would like them to come in at the end of this month. Therefore, there is time to do what I would describe as proper scrutiny. I argue that the regulations should be laid before they come into force and that we should use a process other than the made affirmative procedure.

Given the lack of clarity, the committee could write to the Government to ask what its plans are. We do not want to know about the detail of the plans—that is for a policy committee to scrutinise—but we want to know how the Government plans to proceed and what process it plans to use. We could also flag that up to the COVID-19 Recovery Committee, which I think will be the main policy committee.

The reason for the 28-day rule is to allow parliamentary scrutiny. There will be occasions when the Government will breach the rule for very good reasons—for example, there can be emergency legislation—and we will often accept that. However, I do not believe that the regulations fall into that category. There was simply no good reason, in my view, for the Government to breach the rule in this case, and we should push back strongly on it. The explanation, to be frank, does not wash. A change of minister is not a reason to breach the 28-day rule, in my submission.

I agree with everything that the convener has said, but the instrument highlights a problem concerning the need to be clear in law about what is meant. If it was the Scottish Government’s intention that people in nightclubs who are dancing are not required to wear face masks, why did it not just say that? The word “dancing” appears nowhere. That is probably because it is very difficult, if not impossible, to define dancing in law.

We saw an example of someone dancing in a nightclub in Aberdeen over the weekend. Some people may call that dancing, but some will not. One man’s backward walk is another man’s dancing. It is very difficult to say what we mean. The Scottish Government said that dancing can be

“taking part in exercise of a type that reasonably requires that the person is not wearing a face covering.”

However, while dancing can be exercise, it does not have to be. It is a recreational activity that is not necessarily strenuous. That makes it difficult, if we want to be clear in law, which we do.

It is worth highlighting to the lead committee that there are issues with the instrument. My guess is that the reality in nightclubs—not that I have been to one for many years—is that people take off their face masks as soon as they get inside, whether or not they are dancing. The lead committee should look at the matter, accepting that as a reality. The instrument falls down in terms of clarity of the law and we should highlight that.

I nominate Stuart McMillan to be convener.