Chamber and committees

Will the minister take an intervention?

Yes, please. Thank you, minister. I indicated that I had worked with the very helpful bill team. On amendment 79, the team stated that the estimated cost of establishing a database was £140,000 in the initial year. It added that further costs are more difficult to estimate but that it seems likely that those would fall to around £100,000. Obviously, there would have to be a financial memorandum if the cost was more than half a million pounds. Would you not agree, minister, that £140,000, which is the cost estimated by the bill team, is good value compared with potentially having a long, protracted conversation with the UK Government? The Scottish Government is entirely able to create its own database and, in comparison with other things that get agreed to in this place, at a relatively small cost.

On the point about the resource and the time that it would take, in our stage 1 report we asked that the Scottish Government get back to us—

Is there something wrong with the microphone? Can you hear me?

I note Tim Eagle’s comments on the instrument at the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee in relation to the increase in financial costs. I am slightly concerned about that. I do not think that we have enough information about that or about the deficit that is expected by 2029. I also want to know how the instrument will affect game and milk processing plants and slaughterhouses, for example. I want to understand the instrument’s impact.

Does what Rachel Shucksmith has just said about flexibility ring true with you, Mark?

I am finished.

Why set a timescale of 12 months if you cannot achieve it?

You have just said that you are making it flexible because you think that you will not achieve it.

What does the Government envisage will happen?