Meeting of the Parliament 24 April 2025
I am grateful to have the opportunity to respond to the debate on behalf of the Scottish Government. I welcome the remarks of the conveners of both the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee and the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee. The Government has published its response to the DPLR Committee’s report, from which I hope it is clear that it broadly supports the committee’s conclusions and recommendations.
I will focus my remarks on certain key points in the Government’s response. However, before I do so, I want to acknowledge the way in which the committee approached its inquiry. I recognise that the inquiry came against a backdrop of concern about the volume of so-called framework legislation in this parliamentary session, on which several members had commented. Some had suggested that the introduction of such legislation is a more frequent phenomenon than it was previously. I hear what was said about the Donoughmore report of 1932 and the concern about ministers’ powers having been a long-standing issue. I cannot respond on behalf of Ramsay MacDonald’s national Government of that year, but I will respond on behalf of the current Scottish Government.
I respectfully suggest that, although it has been asserted that so-called framework legislation has recently been introduced with greater frequency, I have yet to see any evidence, in the form of numbers, to demonstrate that there has been such a phenomenon. I have been an elected representative in this place for the same length of time as the Deputy Presiding Officer—18 years—and I say earnestly that I have not noticed such an increase in recent years.