Chamber and committees

I have a final question. I commend the Government for the fairness and reasonableness of its approach through the pandemic. There is no doubt that there was consensus. You brought us in and we engaged.

There is absolutely no guarantee that that will continue. You are now asking this Parliament to give you permanent powers for an emergency on the basis that you are nice and reasonable people. However, this Parliament cannot guarantee that that will be the case for evermore, so you are asking Parliament to take a big step in giving you those powers for evermore on the basis that you are fair and reasonable people. You are that now, but that might not be the case in the future. That is why I think that there is a real danger that you are asking us to do more than we should be doing.

The Presiding Officer has got it wrong before, too. That is the whole point. The system got it wrong. How do you know that you have got it right this time?

We are talking about the children’s commissioner, who is appointed by Parliament. The commissioner’s office is an incredibly serious institution that considers such matters, and it would not have said what it said last week if it did not have any justification for doing so.

To be frank, the Scottish Government has got this wrong very recently, with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill, so what confidence does the Government have that it has got this bill right? Surely we cannot afford for this bill to be bogged down in the courts in the same way as the other bill has been. What can you tell us to convince us that the Government is right and the children’s commissioner is wrong?

Go on.

Thank you. That merits quite a lot of further discussion, but it would probably try the committee’s patience if we were to go too far down that route.

Perhaps the committee will look at whether we want to return to the issue another time.

I have one question for you both. Earlier, it was suggested that it would be logical for us to wait for the public inquiry to consider, debate and conclude before we consider what further legislation is required for future emergency situations. Would that be a wise thing to do? We will start off with Liam Fowley.

Megan Farr, you have given a pragmatic response and set out a potential way ahead that deals with the concerns that some of my colleagues, including Fergus Ewing, expressed earlier about the need to respond quickly in an emergency while making sure that we do not have permanent and disproportionate emergency powers.

There are two elements to this. There is the length of time that the powers are in place and there is the content of those powers. In an earlier session, we heard that leaders of various higher education institutions think that what is proposed is micromanaging far too much, that there should be broad principles and that they should be allowed to get on with implementing them. There is a debate about whether that is right, and then there is the debate about the length of time.

I would like you to comment on the content aspect, if that is okay. Are you saying that we should use the time now to debate the content and then have the legislation ready to roll if the event were to happen again? Are you saying that, perhaps rather than legislating now, we should debate now and get it ready?

I am curious about this issue. It surely does not matter who makes the final call, because the professional advice from the public health officials will be the same no matter who makes the decision. Why is it necessary to have multiple people legally entitled to close the school when the advice will be the same? The issue here is surely about ensuring that we have the right advice about how to proceed and clear authority and partnership to make it happen. David Belsey, why is it necessary to have multiple bodies making the call?

As a Liberal, I am really grateful that you have raised that issue. What has been the response from the Government to that proposal?

That probably brings us back to the sharing of good practice and collaborative working that Louise Goodlad was talking about. Is it a question of ensuring that headteachers, third sector organisations and everybody else involved share the understanding that, now that there is an opportunity to commit to longer-term funding, it needs to be seen perhaps as an example of best practice?