Meeting of the Parliament 24 April 2025
I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate on the DPLR Committee’s recent report on framework legislation and its impact on parliamentary business and, crucially, effective committee scrutiny. I should also say that I was pleased to give evidence, along with Kenneth Gibson, for the inquiry.
I will begin with a quick summary of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee’s submission to the inquiry. As Stuart McMillan has already set out, the DPLR Committee outlined what framework legislation is as part of its inquiry, but I should point out that the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee used a slightly broader definition. It defined framework legislation as
“primary legislation which sets out broad powers with the details of how these powers would be used and implemented to be set out at a later date either through secondary legislation or through other documents to be laid in Parliament.”
The reason for using that broader definition in our submission is that it encompasses primary legislation that requires Scottish ministers to lay a document before Parliament that may be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and approval. I understand why the DPLR Committee’s inquiry focused on primary and secondary legislation, but from a broader parliamentary and subject committee perspective, the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee feels that other laid documents that set out the detail of Government policy are equally important.
The Rural Affairs and Islands Committee agrees that there is a place for framework legislation where the legislative powers will be required for the long term, but flexibility is required as to how they will be exercised.