undertaking the business. Good afternoon. The first item of business this afternoon is a debate on motion number 13160, in the name of Bruce Crawford, on new powers for Scotland, an interim report on the Smith commission and the UK Government's proposals. Members who wish to speak in the debate, should press a request speak by now, and I call on Bruce Crawford to speak to and move the motion on behalf of the devolution Further Powers Committee. The Devolution Further Powers Committee was established in October last year. Its task is to scrutinise proposals for further devolution arising out of the recommendations of the Smith commission. It is our interim report published last week that we are here to debate today. This is the committee's initial view of the proposals thus far. Across the committee we believe a report to be constructive, balanced and objective. We may differ across the committee on the powers that we consider the Scottish Parliament should have, but what is clear is that we speak with a common voice in saying that, as a minimum, the spirit and substance of the Smith commission recommendations must be delivered in full in legislative terms and in the actions of both Governments. Our conclusions were that, in significant areas, the draft clauses published in January by the previous UK Government, unfortunately do not meet that objective. The committee is called on the new UK Government to seriously consider the areas that we have highlighted, which we believe the draft clauses fall short in. The UK Government must ensure that the bill, expected to be published next week, is strengthened to fully deliver on the Smith recommendations. As a committee, we set ourselves four very clear and specific tasks in scrutinising proposals for further devolution. First, to assess whether the draft legislative clauses published by the UK Government implemented the Smith commission recommendations. Secondly, to engage as widely as possible with stakeholders, communities and individuals. Thirdly, to obtain as wide a range of expert opinion as possible within the time-flame available. Lastly, to publish a report that should seek to influence the content and development of a new Scotland bill and let others judge whether we have met those objectives. I do ever wish to thank all those who provided evidence to the committee, whether informal evidence sessions at informal meetings in local communities or at public meetings in Hamilton, Aberdeen or Shetland. In order to assist us on our task, we appointed three advisers. They were named Christine O'Neill to provide advice on constitutional matters. Dr Heidi Poon, dealing with taxation and Professor Nicola McEwen with regard to welfare. I wish to put on record the committee for the assistance of our advisers provided us in developing the report. I would also like to put on record our thanks to our clerking team, who is led by Stephen Imre. They did a fantastic job in preparing us in terms of the witnesses that were called and in helping to pull together our report. Most of all, however, I want to thank my fellow committee members for the mature professional manner in which they approached their work. Our report has been agreed unanimously by all members of the committee. In my view, it carries far greater weight as a consequence of that. The recommendations that we make are intended to be constructive and assist the UK Government in producing legislation that will implement the Smith recommendations. It is important to note that, in certain areas such as the devolution of air passing duty and aggregates levy, the draft clauses indeed meet the aims of the Smith commission as far as the committee was concerned. However, because of the time available, I have to focus on the broad areas where the committee found that the draft clauses were not fit for purpose. In a wide range of areas, the committee considered that either clarification was required on the effect of a clause or that amendment was required to the clauses as currently drafted. Perhaps the most significant area that we considered that to be was on welfare. Specifically, the committee considered that the draft welfare clauses would not provide a Scottish Government with the power to, for instance, create new benefits in the areas of devolved responsibility or make discretionary payments in any area of welfare. The definitions of a carer and of disability would significantly constrain the policy autonomy of future Scottish Government in those areas. The committee also considers that the clauses do not devolve all the powers over support for unemployed people expected by Smith. For example, the access to work programme would appear to remain reserved. We seek assurances that winter fuel payments will be devolved, and whether to be a future Scottish Government introduces a new benefit or top-up that will not result in any offsetting of reduction in a UK benefit. The interaction of devolved and reserved powers is critical across many of the Smith commission proposals. Universal credit provides an example of one such proposed shared power. That light, the committee considered that the draft clauses at 20 and brackets 4 and 21 and brackets 3 could be considered or perceived to be a veto and need to be looked at again. More generally, we recommend that the principles that should inform intergovernmental working on welfare require to be placed in statute. That is a summary of our recommendations on welfare, and other members will no doubt want to go into more detail on those recommendations in due course. The draft welfare clauses are the area where perhaps most concerns rest because they are potentially also the most complex to implement. I know that that is an area that is being carefully scrutinised by the welfare reform committee. Those clauses will impact upon some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals in Scottish society. That reminds me of a quote that Sir Harry Burns is fond of recalling of a Los Angeles priest who said to him, what we need is compassion that stands in awe at the burdens the poor have to carry, rather than stands in judgment at the way they carry it. It is therefore essential that legislation in this area not only implements the spirit and substance of Smith but is also capable of being implemented efficiently. The taxation powers proposed for devolution by Smith will also result in a significant degree of shared power between the Scottish and UK Governments. Here, the most critical elements of the operation of powers are in the areas that were not dealt with by draft clauses. Instead, the operation of those powers will be governed by a new fiscal framework that is currently being developed. Although the operation of the no detriment principle and block grant adjustment may sound esoteric, those issues are absolutely critical to the effective operation of those powers. In this area, the committee is grateful for the work that has been undertaken by the finance committee, who found clear differences between the Scottish and UK Governments regarding the no detriment principle. Similarly, we recommend that greater clarity is required with regard to how no detriment will operate in practice. We have also made a number of detailed recommendations relating to the implementation of the taxation proposals, such as how to determine what constitutes Scottish VAT, but I will leave that for others to discuss. On boring, the draft clauses were silent on how a new boring regime will operate. Accordingly, any early understanding of what boring powers are being devolved should be a high priority for both Governments at this point. In the committee's view, a move towards a prudential regime would provide a sensible approach. We also recommend that future Scottish Governments should be able to retain any underspend in order to better manage volatility and income. Clearly, the current boring powers of the Scottish Government are too restrictive to cope with this new era of fiscal devolution. It is therefore imperative that the boring regime entered into provides genuine flexibility to future Scottish administrations. On the devolution of the Crown Estate, the committee also expressed significant concerns. The Smith commission could not have been clearer in the recommendations on the Crown Estate. It said that responsibility for the management of the Crown Estate economic assets in Scotland and the revenue generated from those assets will be transferred to the Scottish Parliament. However, the committee found that the draft clauses in this area would result in the creation of two Crown Estates operating in Scotland. Let me assure you, Presiding Officer, that was a considerable surprise to the committee, not least those members of the committee who also served on the Smith commission. Moreover, the committee took the view that the legislative approach to devolution taken in draft clauses could be construed as being overly complex and complicated. Accordingly, the committee recommended that the UK Government should revise its approach to devolving the Crown Estate. I welcome the work now under way by the rule of affairs committee in this area. On the constitutional issues, the committee has made recommendations that seek to strengthen the draft clauses in relation to the permanency of the Scottish Parliament, in particular that a referendum should be held by the Scottish people if there was ever a suggestion that this Parliament should be de-established. We have also made recommendations in relation to the SEAL convention, and this is a issue that we all know has become much more relevant given the new UK Government's plans to repeal the Human Rights Act. The proposals for further devolution will implement result in a fundamental shift in the structure of devolution, Presiding Officer. Lord Smith recognised the importance of inter-governmental relations in the forward to his commission's report. Throughout the course of the committee's work, the importance of inter-governmental relations was a constant theme, raised as a critical issue underpinning the delivery of further devolution. As a committee, we agree with Lord Smith that the current largely non-statutory machinery of inter-governmental relations in the UK will not be sufficient to deal with the challenges arising from the proposals for further devolution. The committee recognises that for inter-governmental relations to operate effectively, there must be space for discussions between Governments to take place in confidence. However, the general principles that will underpin inter-governmental relations and dispute resolution of future should, in the committee's view, be placed in statute. Central to any new structure or inter-governmental relations will be the role of this Parliament and indeed Westminster, in scrutinising the actions of Governments within the new structure. That will pose a significant new challenge to this Parliament and this is an area that the committee intends to give further consideration to and thought about in the coming months. The report is the culmination of seven months of intensive scrutiny, firstly, of the Smith commission recommendations and then of the draft legislative clauses produced by the previous UK Government. I do not wish to sound conceited, it is not usually my style, on behalf of the committee, but the sense I have is that the report has been well received by a cross-spectrum of Scottish society. In this age of digital parliament, let me cite two tweets in my defence. Firstly, from a former member of the Smith commission, Professor Adam Thumpkins, who many will know well—some in this chamber certainly will know well—he said, I am quick to criticise the Scottish Parliament when it screws up, but today's report from the devolution committee is legislative scrutiny at its best. At the other end of the constitutional spectrum, Dr Andrew Tickle of the Glasgow Caledonian University, perhaps better known to some as the author of the blog, Lallans Peak Warrior, considered the committee's report to be forensic, clear, constructive and one of the best reports that he has seen come out of Holyrood. Now, do not make those points lightly. That is a message as much for this Parliament as it is for the Secretary of State for Scotland in terms of the contents of this report. It is now the ambition of all of the committee to see both the letter and spirit of the Smith commission report fully translated into legislative package in the coming months. If the UK Government is getting ready to fire the starting pistol by introducing the Scotland bill next week, then my committee is saying that we are not yet at the starting line, so let's not have a false start. Let's try to get the legislation right at the outset of the journey. It was in that spirit that Lewis MacDonald, Linda Fabiani, I met with David Mundell on Tuesday. We were pleased that he signalled an imminent introduction of the Scotland bill and that he is planning to make some and I stress some changes to the bill before introduction, most notably on the welfare clauses. All three of us welcomed the constructive dialogue that we had with the Secretary of State for Scotland, but we also said that we would reserve judgment until we see the actual bill, as there is still a lot of work ahead for the UK Government to get it right. We would like to see as many changes as possible incorporated into the bill before its introduction, but if that is not possible, then the Secretary of State for Scotland has a responsibility to clearly articulate what changes he intends to bring or make via Government amendments during the passage of the bill. Let's leave nothing to nuance or interpretation. We owe it to the people of Scotland to be crystal clear on what new powers are coming. That, I believe, is not just me speaking or other members of the SNP, but all five political parties represented on the Devolution Further Powers Committee. With that, I move the motion in my name. I am grateful for the opportunity to set out for Parliament the Scottish Government's response to the Devolution Further Powers Committee interim report on further powers for the Scottish Parliament, which was published last Thursday. Like all members, I am extremely grateful to the committee for the work that they have done on the report. As Mr Crawford has said, that is a report that has demonstrated itself to be dispassionate, evidence-based and a considered report from the Devolution Further Powers Committee. It is particularly significant that it was a unanimous report and represents the views of all those who participated in the committee process over which Mr Crawford presided. Mr Crawford was, as we would all expect, entirely measured in the way in which he expressed the committee's report and made it clear that his sighting of the commendation that had been made of the contents of the report and its style to be simply for the benefit of Parliament and not in any way to reflect his own personal contribution. However, at the outset, I do not think that reports of the evidence-based, dispassionate and considered nature that we have seen from the Devolution Powers Committee come out by accident other than from the very careful stewardship of conveners like Mr Crawford, who has clearly presided over a process of evidence-gathering within the committee and which has created such a strong basis for a dispassionate conclusions to be arrived at. The report is part of a growing consensus around the forthcoming Scotland Bill. The Scottish Government has maintained, since the publication of the draft clauses in January, of the fact that there were a number of issues that were not properly addressed by the publication of the draft clauses in January, which had to be remedied. That view has been reflected in a number of contributions that have been made by various stakeholders in the course of the past few months. Now, a cross-party committee of Parliament has made the very serious and substantive and well-evidence point that the draft clauses that were published by the United Kingdom Government in January did not implement in spirit and in substance the conclusions of the Smith commission. That essentially is the essential test and starting point for this debate, because what the people of Scotland have the right to expect, at the very least, is for the full and faithful implementation and translation into legislative reality without any doubts, without any uncertainties, without any interpretations required of the contents of the Smith commission. We now have a number of voices, whether it is the Scottish Government, and some people might say that they would say that would not they, but we also have stakeholders and we also have an all-party parliamentary committee saying that there is a necessity for the draft clauses to translate in spirit and in substance the Smith commission into reality. That is a fundamental part of the conclusions of the committee and of the debate this afternoon and in our consideration of the publication of the Scotland bill when that emerges in the course of the next seven days. Before I go on to set out a more detailed response on behalf of the Government to the report, I would like to briefly recap on our route to this point. This Government has been clear that the result of the referendum last September was clear and decisive, but the Government still believes that independence is the best way forward for Scotland. We respect the result of the referendum and the view of the people of Scotland expressed democratically in that referendum. We therefore played a full and constructive part in the Smith process that followed the referendum to develop and to deliver more powers for this Parliament. The Government published detailed proposals for more powers for this Parliament in October as a contribution to Lord Smith's work founded on the acceptance of the fact that the additional powers that we were setting out were powers that could be secured within the constitutional framework of the United Kingdom. Linda Fabiani and I represented the Scottish National Party on the commission. Now, whilst we signed up to the conclusions of the commission and we signed up to them in full and in good faith, it is no secret that we never viewed the proposals from that process as going nearly far enough, but we recognised the progress that had been made and sought to work constructively with the United Kingdom Government to enable them to deliver a Scotland bill that commands broad support. The publication of the UK Government command paper in January was an important step in taking forward the proposals of the Smith commission. However, it is clear to the Scottish Government at that time that the draft clauses did not deliver Smith in full and we made that clear at the time. The Scottish Government's priority since publication has been to work with the United Kingdom Government to improve the clauses and to ensure that the bill that is introduced delivers the spirit and the intent of the Smith commission in full in a coherent and a practicable way. The Scottish Government, therefore, since the publication of the draft clauses, has made a number of detailed comments and observations to the United Kingdom Government about how the issues and deficiencies that we highlighted in January can be properly and fully taken into account by the UK Government in the formulation of the Scotland bill. I would now like to turn to the details of the committee's exemplary report. This is an interim report by the committee and makes clear that it covers the areas of the bill of the highest importance. The committee quite rightly is waiting to see the bill as introduced and any changes during its progress through the UK parliamentary process before offering any recommendation on the question of whether the Scottish Parliament should give its legislative consent to the proposals. Even at this interim stage, it is highly significant that the conclusions that have been reached unanimously by the committee provide cross-party endorsement of the view that the draft clauses do not meet the spirit or the substance of the Smith commission report. A particular focus of the committee's report is the clauses on welfare and employment support. The committee found that the drafting of the clauses on new and top-up benefits would limit the policy discretion available to future Scottish Governments, that the definitions of carers and disability were overly restrictive, and that there were unnecessary restrictions on the employment support programmes that could be delivered. Members will be aware that those are among the most high-profile areas where the Smith commission reached agreement on the transfer of further powers to the Scottish Parliament. The significant shortfalls that the committee has identified will have a real impact on the Scottish Government's ability to deliver reform and improvement in those critical areas that are matched to the specific needs of the people of Scotland. The shortfalls on the relevant draft clauses therefore need to be addressed as a priority if the Scotland bill is to be viewed as a credible reflection of the Smith proposals. The report also touches on the veto clauses in the draft bill, most notably the one related to changes to universal credit. The committee's recommendation here is for this issue to be resolved through joint working between the Governments. I can tell the chamber that the Scottish Government has made proposals to the United Kingdom Government to resolve this issue based on administrative tools such as concordats, effective joint working between officials, and joint ministerial working groups. Those are proven and well-established means of ensuring that the sort of co-operation that will be required, and I continue to see no need for a statutory backstop. The committee also highlights shortfalls in other areas that it has examined from the Crown Estate to the show convention and the qualities. Of course, one of the committee's recommendations building on Smith is the implementation of the proposal to devolve the management of the Crown Estate's responsibilities to the islands. Does the Government plan to take that matter forward? Yes, the Government does intend to take that forward, as has been the consistent position of the Government throughout the process. However, Mr Scott will appreciate as a signatory to the report that there are many issues and obstacles that have to be resolved about the contents of the provisions in the Scotland Bill on the Crown Estate, which are far from straightforward. The Scottish Government strongly supports the committee's call for improvements in the various areas that I have raised. We have made our own proposals to the United Kingdom Government to deliver on those improvements. Before leaving the detail of the committee's report, I also want to touch on tax and the fiscal framework. Successful negotiation of the fiscal framework is one of my highest priorities in the months ahead. I have made clear to the United Kingdom Government that an acceptable fiscal framework is essential to allow the Scottish Government to recommend that this Parliament consents to the bill, and I do not suspect that Parliament would expect anything else of the Government. I have asked for an early meeting with Treasury ministers to review work so far, and the Chancellor and I made a personal agreement before the election to oversee work on the framework to ensure that rapid progress is made. In relation to the specific comments of the committee, I agree that further information will be required from both the UK and Scottish Governments to enable the Scottish Parliament to give its legislative consent. My objective is that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament are clear about the financial implications, opportunities and risks that come with the powers that transfer through this bill. Let me conclude my remarks by reflecting on the events since the general election two weeks ago today. The Prime Minister came to Scotland on Friday. I met the First Minister and myself along with the Secretary of State and the parliamentary under Secretary of State. The discussions were constructive and helpful. There were clear commitments by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State that the Scotland bill would implement the Smith commission in full, and of course we will test that commitment when we see the Scotland bill on 28 May. Similarly, the Prime Minister undertook to consider proposals from the Scottish Government for devolution beyond the Smith commission. We will put those proposals to the United Kingdom Government and I will meet the Secretary of State to discuss the next steps in this respect. The Government is clear that the process that follows on any timetable for action in this respect should allow for full engagement with the people of Scotland. The Government is clear that the general election result in Scotland shows the desire of the people of Scotland for change. The Government will build on the Smith commission proposals, which we will hold the UK Government to account to deliver in full, in consistent with the arguments and explanations set out by the devolution further powers committee. We will also propose a coherent set of powers that will allow this Parliament to encourage growth, create jobs, address poverty and tackle inequality in our country. Those are the objectives of the Government as we take forward the constitutional agenda. Our priority is to ensure that the Scotland bill reflects the in full, in substance and in spirit, the contents of the Smith commission report and to put to the United Kingdom Government our proposals to extend and expand the powers of this Parliament to enable us to be able to tackle the issues that matter to the people of our country. I now call Jackie Baillie, Ms Baillie, around about six minutes. Thank you Presiding Officer. Let me start by thanking the members and clerks of the Devolution Further Powers Committee for their work in bringing this report before the chamber today. I am pleased that the Scottish Government's approach has been to take this unanimous report to use as the framework for discussion with the UK Government about the draft clauses that give effect to the Smith agreement. As the committee has said, all that we want to see is that the letter and spirit of the Smith agreement is fully translated into a legislative package that will be contained in the first Queen's speech of the new United Kingdom Parliament. In the very short time available to me, I want to touch on three particular areas—public engagement, the fiscal framework and welfare. That said, there are a number of other technical and drafting issues that the committee explores fully in its report, and I commend the detail of that to the chamber. One example of which is the need to tighten the wording of the clauses on equality provisions to ensure that the legislation allows for quotas to be set for the boardrooms of public bodies, which the majority in this chamber support. The lack of time to cover all of those issues in the chamber in debate today does not mean that they are any less important, and I am grateful to the committee for taking the time to scrutinise all of those for the Parliament. Let me turn to the first issue of public engagement. The Smith commission was undoubtedly a swift process. The commission members worked at a truly electrifying pace, but there is a need for more widespread understanding of what the powers are intended to be transferred. It is the case that if you ask any number of people, a substantial number are indeed not aware of the powers that have actually been transferred to the Parliament in 2012, never mind what is proposed by Smith. We should use that as an opportunity to have that dialogue, to talk about implementation, because having the power is one thing. Actually using it and how you use it is a much more interesting discussion. So let's take this opportunity to inform, to discuss and to listen as well. Secondly, there is the fiscal framework. There are substantial powers over taxation coming to this Parliament. Some indeed came to this Parliament for April 2016, others flowing from the Smith agreement could be by 2020 or indeed earlier. The report made clear that there was agreement with the draft legislative clauses, but the key issue that the cabinet secretary has highlighted is implementation. Making sure that the Scottish Government and Her Majesty's revenue and customs talk to each other about the practicalities, defining residency arrangements for collection and so on seems eminently sensible. I concur with much of what the cabinet secretary said about making sure that the fiscal framework is robust. Similarly, with VAT assignment and the much quoted phrase of no detriment, there needs to be a much clearer understanding of what that in practice means. One SNP MSP, who shall remain nameless because I think they said this to me in jest, defined no detriment as getting full fiscal autonomy for Scotland, but not worrying if the sums didn't add up, because you could always just shout no detriment and the UK Government would bail us out, a bit like having one's cake and eating it. I am sure that that is not the SNP's position on this important matter. In this and in other areas, intergovernmental relationships are critical. We need a shared understanding, a shared evidence base to ensure that our legislation and approach is sound. Far be it for me to point out to the SNP and the Tories that megaphone diplomacy of the kind that we have seen recently is unlikely to be conducive to that mature and sensible relationship in the interests of our country, but I recognise that much of that is political theatre. With all that new financial responsibility comes the need for much more robust and independent financial scrutiny. The Scottish Government is consulting on giving the fiscal commission legislative underpinning, and I very much welcome that, but it must do more than that. They should be truly independent from government. None of them should occupy a dual role as an advisor of government and to scrutinise in an independent function. They should have teeth to properly hold the Scottish Government to account for the nation's finances. There should be nothing for any of us to fear from that degree of transparency. Thirdly, let me turn to the area of welfare, because this is perhaps where the UK Government has been most disappointing in its draft clauses. The Smith agreement was clear that the Scottish Parliament should have the ability to create benefits in devolved areas, but it should also be able to top up reserved benefits if it is so wished. Those particular draft clauses illustrate, I believe, the behind-the-scenes efforts of the DWP to thwart the agreement, and it is simply not good enough. I believe in a UK-wide system of social security, guaranteeing a minimum safety net for every person across the United Kingdom, but I strongly believe that this Parliament should be able to enhance those benefits to reflect different but specific needs in devolved nations. In the welfare clauses, the UK Government needs to redraft so that the spirit and substance of the Smith agreement is delivered. Already, the Government is illustrating that the debate goes further. The Labour Party indeed wanted the full devolution of housing benefit, something that was not supported by the majority within the Smith commission. The reason for wanting that is that we want to abolish the bedroom tax, but also to look at how we better use the money to begin an ambitious programme of house building. I say that we need to spend as much time if not more on bedding down the powers that we have and the powers that are coming as we debate the powers that we would also like to see. Devolution cannot simply be about transferring power from one Parliament to another, that is not enough, from Westminster to Holyrood, from one set of politicians to another. We want to see power devolved further, to local authorities and communities themselves empowered to do more. I have to confess, in closing, that the SNP has, to me, been one of the most centralising Governments. I think that we need to reverse that. If we believe in devolving power, and I believe that it is a principle shared across the chamber, then we need to move that power out of Edinburgh, too. Many thanks to now Colin Anabelle Goldie. Six minutes, please. I, too, would like to take this opportunity to welcome the committee's report and to extend my thanks to the convener Bruce Crawford, the committee members, the clerks and the committee advisors for what I think we all agree is a very thorough piece of work. This has been a significant exercise and it is important that this Parliament is an effective forum to oversee her changes to the devolution settlement that is implemented. I think that the committee has manifestly fulfilled its scrutiny obligation. I have to say that looking at the report, Mr Crawford, I felt quite nostalgic and missing my presence on your committee. Above all, it is important that our constitutional direction is a matter of building consensus rather than being politically divisive. In that vein, I pay tribute to the work of my fellow commissioners and the Smith commission and, of course, Lord Smith of Kelvin himself, who presented with a demanding schedule, as Jackie Baillie said, work together to create a scheme of more powers that all parties represented in the chamber could agree upon. Now we are faced with the work of translating these statements of principle into legislation. It is now for us in the Scottish Parliament and for the UK Parliament to, in the words of the committee, provide constructive commentary on this process. We must ensure that the Smith commission agreement is effectively brought forward, recognising both the spirit and the letter of the agreement itself as both Bruce Crawford and the cabinet secretary have said. In that, I feel that the committee has functioned very effectively, but, of course, this has two sides to it. If I am permitted the indulgence of the chamber, I am not surprisingly pleased that a Conservative majority was obtained a fortnight ago. We have a UK Government in place that has implemented the commission's proposals as an absolute priority of these commitments will form an important part of the Queen's speech next week. However, that is just the beginning of the process of bringing forward a new effect of Scotland Act that will make this chamber, this Parliament, one of the most powerful devolved legislators in the world. I would rather make progress if you do not mind, time is tight. It is in the interests of both the UK and Scottish Governments that the legislation reflects the Smith agreement. To that end, I am sure that the committee's views will be extremely useful—indeed, cogent—in informing the work of the UK Government as the bill progresses. However, that is also a time, Deputy Presiding Officer, to reflect further on broader issues. In that respect, it seems to me that the Scottish Government reflects three positions in Scotland's constitutional future. The first is that the Smith commission's recommendations be implemented as a priority is something that we can all agree upon. The second is that independence for Scotland and leaving the United Kingdom is an argument that many in this chamber will reject, and it was roundly defeated in the referendum last year. However, the third is that more powers beyond the Smith commission recommendations is more fluid. Some will feel that that option is still inadequate, some will feel that that option is too much, but many, Deputy Presiding Officer, will at least want to explore what the Scottish Government has in mind. Both the Prime Minister and the new Secretary of State have met the Scottish Government and have said that they will listen to their views in this area. I think that that is a constructive approach. My question is when and in what format proposals in this area will be set out by the Scottish Government? I am not simply asking for a restatement of the SNP's proposals to the Smith commission, because within that process and the call for evidence that we saw, enormous opposition raised to some of the suggestions such as the devolution of corporation tax, because in that regard concerns were raised not just from business groups, but from bodies like the STUC, the Scottish Whiskey Association, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland and the Chartered Institute of Taxation. With little likelihood of building any sort of consensus around those sorts of proposals, I think that it is important that the Scottish Government intends to outline areas for further attention and devolution that ought to be realistic and evidence-based. I think that that would be a constructive contribution to any on-going discussion for the Scottish Government to lay out what power, short of independence it seeks and also to indicate a framework for procurement of evidence and engagement with civic Scotland. There are some signs of positive change and it seems that the SNP or at least some within the party have recognised the instability of the full fiscal autonomy which they once supported. I understand their new MP for East Lothian for example has said that and I quote, fiscal autonomy without inbuilt UK-wide fiscal balancing would be tantamount to economic suicide. Dear Presiding Officer, fiscal balancing, that pulling and sharing of resources that we spoke of during the referendum is a vital component not only of a common currency area but of the economic union in Dosh last year by the Scottish people. Of course fiscal balancing must be supported by some level of common taxation. The Smith commission was careful not to pull apart the areas that support the UK's single domestic market and I would like to see the Scottish Government recognise those principles that the union people voted for is more than the absolute minimum theoretically required to maintain the UK as a state. In conclusion, Deputy Presiding Officer, this is a process in which the views of this chamber matter a very great deal. By moving forward in a constructive way, we have the opportunity to create an enduring settlement based on that broad consensus. A powerhouse Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom with responsibility for what it raises as well as for what it spends, reflecting not just the wishes of many in this chamber but reflecting the aspirations of the Scottish people. This interim report, Deputy Presiding Officer, I think is a very positive first step in that process. Thank you very much. We now turn to the open debate speeches of a maximum of six minutes, please, and I call Rob Gibson to be followed by Ian Gray. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It's my pleasure to support the arguments in the paper today and to point out that, in particular, I wish to comment on the work of the Crown Estate. Now, it's taken us decades to get to a stage where we can see issues related to the Crown Estate being devolved. We've seen the devolution of planning powers to local authorities, which took nearly a decade to achieve. We saw demands in the Scotland Bill Committee before the 2012 act for the Crown Estate to be devolved. It was not devolved at that time. So now we're in a position where we've got draft clauses which, in the legislative approach that has been adopted for the management and the revenues of the Crown Estate, could be construed as overly complicated unless there is full transparency and full consultation with the Scottish Parliament and Government during the process. Looking at those draft clauses, it seems to us that there are a range of things that have been touched on in brief by some of the previous speakers, which I think I want to deal with in one or two greater details. For example, in the draft clause 23, where it says that it may bring in a scheme to devolve, the word that we would like to see is the word shall, and we don't believe that parliamentary draftsmen would have any difficulty in understanding that and the import of it, because it looks as though something is being held back rather than generously offered. Now, the Smith agreement was very clear that the management and revenue of the Crown Estate economic assets held in Scotland should be devolved. So, as was said earlier by Bruce Crawford, many of us were amazed that, somehow or other, there would be a continuation of the Crown Estate in another form. Indeed, two Crown Estates working in Scotland at the same time. Yes, we would see Crown Assets devolved, but where, in fact, the Crown Estate in London decided that it wished to invest in Scotland, it would continue to be able to do so under the scheme that is being proposed. The committee was quite clear in saying that if there were to be a non-devolved Crown Estate—and we think that this is a ridiculous concept, but if there were—then any of the profits that came from the investment in Scotland should accrue to this Parliament and for the Scots to decide how to spend them. Yes, Mr McDonald. I am very grateful. He is right that we highlighted concern around how that might work in practice, but what we were very clear not to do was to say that we would wish to prohibit any investment by any other public body within the United Kingdom in projects in Scotland. I thank you very much for that, but it still stands that we want to see our fair share of any profits that come from those, and that has been stated in our report quite categorically. The Crown Estate deals with an entity called Fort Canard, which is a shopping complex that is tied up in an English law that was created in 1907 as part of a partnership with a private entity that seems to be offshore. We are very unhappy about that continuation, and we also think that any profits from that should be shared from those assets in Scotland with the Scottish Parliament. The coastline of Scotland is estimated to be around 10,250 miles. The Orden and Surveys said that the coastline of Britain—that is GB, Northern Ireland—is about 19,491 miles. Scotland has an inordinate importance of more than half of the coastline of Britain to make sure that we are able to apply the policies of this Government to be able to decentralise control over Crown Estate assets and so on. Therefore, the Crown Estate is inordinately important to the Scots compared to what it is in the rest of Britain. In that respect, we believe that at the earliest opportunity, we should have the chance to look at the Our Islands, our future initiative and make sure that that devolution continues. However, that is not contained in the draft clauses at the present time, but it is a commitment from the SNP Government, as I understand. The committee believes that there is scope for some communities for further devolution of the management of certain economic assets such as harbours and port authorities and local marine interests and experts. We have to find ways to include those in further discussions, but that is beyond what Smith was talking about and certainly far beyond what was being discussed with regard to the draft clauses. We recommend that the Scottish Government keeps this and other committees in the Parliament up to date with the discussions with local authorities and others about their interests in taking on those powers. My own committee, Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, has been bringing the Crown Estate commissioner and his officers in Scotland into our Parliament each year to tell us about their activities, and that will allow us to interrogate their activities in greater detail. I would suggest to you that the report provides a model of clarity about the things that require to be cleared up. A memorandum of understanding about issues related to UK interests and Scottish waters is another of those. Fundamentally, in conclusion, the issue about the staff in the Crown Estate is of considerable concern to us because it becomes very obvious that they need to be accommodated in the approach of the Scottish Government to using the Crown Estate's powers and that their expertise should be recognised and utilised and some clarity given to them about their future. I am glad to support that motion, and I hope that those clarifications help the debate. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. In the days since the election, in some sections, it has become quite fashionable to denounce Smith. Of course, some started that quite early. My fellow member of the Smith commission, Mr Swinney, started as denunciation about 15 minutes after the report was released. However, for my own erstwhile colleagues, some of them took a little longer before they jumped on that bandwagon. I want to start by repaying tribute to the work of the Smith commission and all the members of that commission, because the truth is that Smith commission was given what many believed to be an absolutely impossible job and, in my view, made a remarkably good fist of what they were asked to do. We were asked to deal with some extremely complex issues. We were asked to deal with it on a timescale, which was very truncated with the deadline of St Andrew's Day, so we had only around 10 weeks to do the work. The complexity of the issues that we were dealing with is one reason that comes through into the committee's report that there were some things which the commission agreed among ourselves that we were not going to be able to resolve. Therefore, they had to be left for, usually, negotiation and discussion between the two Scottish and UK Governments. Some references have been made to some of those. Already, the fiscal arrangements, of course, the fiscal framework is one and the detail of the borough and regimes. I do not think that we need to make any apology for the fact that those are elements of the relationship between the two Administrations and Parliaments that have to be worked out over time. There is not a devolved democratic structure, be it federal or otherwise, in the world, which does not have some complexity within those fiscal frameworks and arrangements for fiscal transfer and borrowing. It was a process in which a compromise was made. I was cheeky there with the Deputy First Minister about his reaction on the day that the Smith commission was published, but in all fairness to him and to Ms Fabiani, they made very clear from the start that they were not going to change their view that a devolved settlement would not go far enough for them, but they were prepared and indeed did to take part in that process. They compromised and everyone on Smith, I think, did compromise. I think that we should take the chance to pay some tribute to that again. Of course, the next difficult task was the draft legislation. I know that drafting legislation is not easy, but frankly, I simply have to agree with the Deputy First Minister that examination of the draft legislation does rather say that some of it does not, as he puts it, reflect both the spirit and the substance of what was agreed at Smith. I want very quickly to add my voice to some of the points that the committee has made, because I think that the committee has done a remarkably clear-sighted job of what they were required to do by looking at the degree to which the draft legislation does reflect the agreement and where it does not. In a number of areas, I just want to put in, as it were, my tuppence worth on taxation. It was very clear in Smith that the agreement was that income tax was a shared tax, that a great deal of responsibility would be devolved, but that it would continue to be a shared tax. That is why, for example, tax allowances were not devolved as part or recommended for devolution. Gently, the use of the income tax devolution to justify what is called English votes for English laws has been one of the more reprehensible misuses of Smith since then. On a particular point, I also want to say that that did involve considerable debate as to whether it would be possible to set a zero rate in order to remove some taxpayers—or make some taxpayers—not liable for tax at all. I want to say that I am very clear that the Smith agreement was that a zero rate should be possible, so the legislation should reflect that. On welfare, I am absolutely clear that, when we look at, for example, the £2.5 billion of welfare benefits that are to be devolved, what was intended was complete devolution of both those resources and their responsibility. In other words, if we look at one of them, carers allowance, that would mean that the Scottish Government could simply take this money, get rid of carers allowance altogether and use the money for something else. I do not think that they would be likely to do that, but any idea that it means some control over a continuing carers allowance is, for my point of view, simply incorrect. It is also the case that it was absolutely the intention that this Parliament ought to be able to create new benefits in devolved areas and not for a temporary period. I want to say that, on this side of the house, as Jackie Baillie has said, we are not close to the idea of going beyond Smith, and in particular in the area of housing benefit, we would like to continue to argue for that, because that is a case that we think has great merit, and although we did not win it in Smith, we will continue to make it. Not least because, and this is important, the arrangements in Smith were supposed to ensure that this Parliament would be able to abolish the bedroom tax, but they do so in a rather complicated and convoluted way. The simplest way to achieve that would be to devolve housing benefit, and that is just one reason why we will continue to argue for that as the process continues. Many thanks. I now call Linda Fabiani to be followed by Tavish Scott. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Although things have very much moved on since last September, I think that it is worth putting where we are today in context. It started pre-independence referendum with the vow that was made, and then with a post referendum commitment of what Scotland could expect to happen next. That resulted in the committee being set up across party to look at devolution and further powers, and then with a very firm remit to study the draft clauses coming from Westminster from the then Government in relation to the Smith commission report, the Smith agreement on which some in this chamber served on that Smith commission. I think that what has become very clear and certainly has come out across party in the report that has been done by the committee is that, in fact, the draft clauses that came from the Westminster Government do not match either the spirit or the substance of the Smith report, and I think that it is very, very telling and excellent that it is, in fact, cross-party agreement that this is not the case. By the nature of the events that have outlined in the timescale, I would say that there are issues to be further discussed to ensure that that Smith agreement is delivered both in spirit and substance, and indeed that there is a coherence in the legislation that results from the Smith commission. The Secretary of State for Scotland agreed with that point the other day when we met with him, I'm pleased to say, but I'd also like to be very clear about something else. We're talking here about intent, the spirit and substance of the Smith agreement which came from the intent of the Smith commission following on from commitments made. So it's about intent. It's not about interpretation. You cannot say that the Smith agreement is there to be interpreted and that the draft clauses may in some way actually interpret it in one way, while perhaps I myself would interpret it in another. It's not that simple. To talk of interpretation is to belittle the commitments made. It's to belittle the cross-party work of my Smith commission colleagues and the cross-party work of my colleagues in the Devolution and Further Power Committee, not to mention the excellent contribution of advisors and witnesses. I can't emphasise enough that the committee, cross-party, overall noted spirit and substance, and I would add to that clearly intent, not interpretation. There's a couple of things that I'd like to particularly focus on and I know my colleagues will focus on other things. The permanency of the Scottish Parliament, that was a big thing both in the VAU and post referendum commitments. There was a lot of talk about this at the Smith commission and there was also a lot of talk about it at the committee. Certainly in the draft clause that has come up provides that the Parliament and Government will be recognised as permanent. I don't see that there is any purpose and I'm not sure what the expected effect is of adding these words. It's not at all clear and I would think that removing them would move the provision much closer to the Smith recommendation. That's the view of the committee. If we were to weaken the effect of that clause, it would be unfortunate, given that all-party agreement to the recommendation. Indeed, the views expressed to us by the then Secretary of State for Scotland that the permanence of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government is, in fact, guaranteed. We consider that the effect of the clause in permanency that is currently drafted is declaratory and political rather than legal in effect. We recommend that, should there ever be any thought of a future UK Government deciding that the Scottish Parliament was no longer required, that would have to be tested in a referendum of the people of Scotland, with majorities also being required in the Scottish Parliament and indeed in the UK Parliament, because the Smith agreement said clearly that nothing within any settlement precludes the sovereignty of the Scottish people. It has been noted many times related to that devolution as a process, not an event. It was interesting when Lord Smith came up before the committee, he said, if you know a way of making the institution permanent, tell me, because that is the Scottish people's will. I think that we should bear that in mind at all times when we are talking about any legislation in respect of the powers to Scotland. I am looking at the time, there is always a worry that you do not have enough to say, and then you start and you feel that you could say so much more. I would also very much like to have talked at greater length about the Sewell convention, because, again, the committee was concerned that there was not enough emphasis being given to making sure that the UK Parliament could not, in fact, legislate against the will of the Scottish Parliament. I hope that the Secretary of State and his colleagues will look at that much more closely and redraft the clause before it is presented again to the UK Parliament. I underpin so much of all of that as inter-governmental relations and inter-parliament relations as a subset of that. I hope that all concerned in trying to smooth the way for this to obtain additional powers for Scotland and coherence in that settlement will bear in mind that it must be underpinned by respect on all sides. I thank you very much. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I just start too with the general adulation for the convener of the committee and all others who served on that. I must confess that I always take the Deputy First Minister very seriously in his remarks, but I do find it wonderful when the Government says such nice things about a parliamentary committee report. I do not remember the same thing about the minority report that some of us produced on police centralisation, but I guess that is how those things go in any Parliament. There we are. Mr Crawford did handle it extremely well. I am very pleased to join in that. However, I may say that I listened to the today programme on the Friday morning with some chuckle as I heard the Deputy First Minister extolling the virtues of the committee report and then, of course, the impending meeting between the Prime Minister and the First Minister. Only then dawned on me that, of course, the necessity to get the committee report out, which was right, which was the right thing to do, also beautifully coincided with the meeting between the First Minister, indeed the Deputy First Minister, the Prime Minister and, no doubt, a great range of other very important people. I am sure that our committee report helped enormously in those discussions. Next Friday, as the Deputy First Minister rightly said, the Queen's speech will then produce a draft Scotland bill. I suspect next Thursday, when the Queen's speech is read out, there may be more interest on the Tory benches about the in-out referendum on Europe rather than on the Scotland bill, but we can always hope that the Scotland bill will be top of the list because it certainly should be, not just because of its implications for our nation but also for its implications, I think, for the rest of this United Kingdom as well. Mr Crawford, who is very careful with his language and needs to be applauded for that, pointed out that the draft clauses do implement Smith in some areas, but not in others, and I entirely agree with exactly that synopsis. The Deputy First Minister, who is also extremely careful with his language, did not quite put it in those terms. I do think that it is important to recognise that what the committee has said is that the clauses do get it right in some areas but demonstrably do not in others and do not, as Linda Fabiani has just said, just to have to give an endless point, Linda Fabiani rightly said, do not implement the whole spirit of Smith with regard to some of the other areas, which Mr Swinney is no doubt about to tell me about. I am grateful to Mr Scott for being with me. I am very happy to associate myself with his remark that there are elements of the draft clauses that fully and entirely, and to the Scottish Government's satisfaction, implement the Smith commission in spirit and in substance, but in some it does not. I am most grateful for that clarification and I am sure that that is exactly as it should be. Mr Swinney also mentioned in his remarks that he of course argues for independence. I would argue for something different, I believe, if there ever was a case now across this UK for a federal solution to the constitutional upheaval that we seem to perpetually go through and more to the point put our people through, then that is it. But Annabelle Bulldo made a good remark, a good observation in her opening remarks, and that was around the parliamentary scrutiny of the points that the Deputy First Minister was making about the suggestions that his Government have rightly made to strengthen the clauses that both the committee and many others consider to be deficient. That in essence is what the committee looked at. It is a very small part of the report, but it is a part that I think is important. That is the parliamentary scrutiny of what the Government does. Now, I think I wrote down Mr Crawford's observation that there needs to be, I think, as he said, space for confidential discussions, and he's right, of course, to shoot. I, Jackie Bailey and Lewis MacDonald would all recognise exactly that requirement when Governments talk, but similarly there's a need to ensure that there is parliamentary scrutiny of that. And there are some examples from different parts of Europe, particularly Scandinavia, where they are, I think, in parliamentary terms much more effective at looking at these kind of aspects. They're dull, they're dry, they're about politicians looking at politicians of what they do, but actually they're about, of course, the policies that we implement. And similarly, one man's veto, of course, or one person's veto rather, is another person's proper discussion. Today in the newspapers, in The Herald, for example, we have what The Herald described as a new front in the First Minister's rapidly escalating fight with the UK Government after she demanded a veto over Britain's energy policy. Well, we've been discussing, Mr Crawford raised, and he rightly raised, the veto that some see in the context of the social security provisions in the bill. Well, here we have, for example, the other way round of a veto on another area of policy. So all I can commend to the Government, both the Government of ours here in Scotland, but also the Government down at Westminster, is an approach based on the recommendations that the committee have made about intergovernmental work and governmental activity. I heard the Deputy First Minister very interestingly say, if I caught him right, that he didn't believe there needed to be statutory backing for that. Now, I'm sure that's an area that the committee may wish to come back to. I'm sure that the Deputy First Minister to his credit will happily come along and explain his thinking on that. But I think there are those of us who might both have sympathy for his arguments, but also want to prove that completely to ensure that we get the right balance there so Parliament can do its appropriate job. Two final points have I made, Deputy Presiding Officer. The first is to associate myself broadly with Rob Gibson's remarks about the Crown of State. I mean, we can get a bit hung on about the two Crown of States thing. We're going to get rid of one, and that, I think, I very strongly agree with his remarks on. And I also am grateful to the Deputy First Minister's answer to me earlier about devolved devolution within Scotland, because I believe that all my life and I want to see that happen. And the final point I want to make is with regard to the fiscal framework, and I don't have time to go into the detriment principle. But my contention in this area is that the Government have got it right when they have made or seek to make the Fiscal Commission independent. I think that's fundamentally important for our deliberations of government activity. But the working relationship between the Office of Budget Responsibility on a UK-wide basis and the Fiscal Commission, once it is independent, is to me fundamentally important as to how we might resolve some of these outstanding issues. Many thanks. I now call Stuart McMillan to be followed by Elaine Murray. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. At the publication of this report and today's debate are further steps along Scotland's journey and the history that's actually been made and I'm delighted, certainly, that members of the Inverclyde Historical Society are actually in the gallery today to witness today's contribution. Presiding Officer, I warmly welcome this debate and I'm pleased that, as a committee, we can actually speak with one voice on the issues surrounding the draft clauses published on 22 January. I aim to focus my attention on two areas of the report. First of all, the fixed-odds betting terminals, the FOB-Ts, that's paragraphs 412 to 415, and also the employment programmes, paragraphs 302 to 313. Regarding the FOB-Ts, members won't be surprised that I raised this issue once again in the chamber and I've been consistent in raising my concerns as to how damaging these machines actually are and I've campaigned for more powers to actually come to this Parliament regarding these machines and I welcomed their inclusion in the Smith recommendations, even though they are limited. Paragraph 415, set of our report published last week, clearly highlights our committee's limited evidence, received on the issue, as well as highlighting our concerns on the limitations in the draft clauses, which would have no effect whatsoever on existing premises in Scotland. The area of FOB-Ts is now even more in need of further clarification as the two new UK Government ministers, who will deal with gambling, as John Whittingdale MP, the new culture media and sports secretary, has previously pushed for those in FOB-Ts to be relaxed and has supported having up to 20 FOB-Ts machines per betting shop. In contrast, the junior minister, Tracy Couch MP, who in 2013 said that she believed that we should look carefully at limiting them or limiting the stakes that people can actually place on them. Those mixed messages at the UK Government level will need to be clarified as soon as possible and that's why I've written to the UK Government asking for that clarity. However, we, as a committee, will scrutinise those clauses in the bill when it's published next week. The second issue is that concerning the employment programmes. The Smith recommendations were crystal clear. Paragraph 51, 57 of Smith said that the Scottish Parliament will have all powers of support for unemployed people through the employment programmes currently contracted by DWP on expiry of the current commercial arrangements. The draft clauses, unfortunately, don't go that far and in paragraph 335 of our report, for that from last week, we state that the committee considers that the clauses as currently drafted do not fully implement the Smith commission recommendations. The committee considers that the Smith commission intended that all employment programmes currently contracted by DWP should be devolved. We received evidence from organisations expressing their concern at the draft clauses on the issue. However, if we go back to the 4 December 2014, when we took evidence from the then Scottish Secretary of State, Alasdair Cymru, on the issue of the work programme, then it's clear that there has been a lack of clarity about this particular issue from the outset. It was reported that day that the work programme had been extended to the spring of 2017. When questioned by Linda Fabiani MSP, Mr Cymru stated that the decision had taken place in August 2014. However, when I questioned Mr Cymru and whether the Lord Smith was aware of the decision, he replied by stating that he didn't know that my colleague Linda Fabiani, however, gave it a determined no, and that is all on public record. I raise this point, Presiding Officer, not to be partisan, as most of the contributions so far, including mine up to now and what will say further, have been constructive and consensual, but to highlight one area where there has been a lack of clarity. Clearly, the draft clause 22 from the UK Government published in January needs to be improved and providing this Parliament with the ability to help all and to have the flexibility over the length of time an individual has been unemployed will aid greatly governments of all political hues in this Parliament going forward. Presiding Officer, the evidence that we received on transferring employment powers was helpful. One such body to provide that evidence was the Employment Related Services Association, ERSA. It stated in paragraph 304 that ERSA continues to believe that this sufficient provision should be best achieved through the devolution of responsibility for all in-work and out-of-work welfare policies and benefits to the Scottish Government, including responsibility for job centre plus in Scotland. Last week, the SDEC signed a memorand of understanding with the Scottish Government of further powers that should come to this Parliament as a priority. Those included minimum wage, trade union employment law, health and safety law, equality legislation and further powers over social security. If those powers can be transferred, they would provide this Parliament with greater flexibility and opportunity to help it with employment programmes such as the work programme or work choice, the latter programme being a specialist disability employment programme. Every member clearly wants more people into employment and training and we should always strive to improve upon what is being done. Unfortunately, the current draft clause 22 published in January won't deliver what is needed and the new UK Government have an opportunity to deliver something meaningful in the new bill from next week. In various areas of our report, we have highlighted that the draft clauses do not meet the spirit and substance of the Smith commission recommendations. We also consider that our unanimous report should be taken into consideration by the new UK Government when it works on producing the new Scotland bill. Clearly, the draft clauses don't go anywhere far enough for the SNP members and that is a given. We will continue to press on will powers to come to the Parliament but, nonetheless, I suggest that the comments from Ben Thomson on 23 January and Ben Thomson, the chair of the campaign for Scottish Home Rule, are apt for the draft clauses. He states that the real missed opportunity in this command paper is that it does not deliver a sustainable proposal based on a set of principles that give Scottish Parliament control over domestic policy. In other words, it does not deliver Scottish Home Rule. It is now up to the UK Government to strengthen those clauses and live up to the spirit and substance of Smith. Who knows? From my perspective, even go forward on Smith. I am pleased to be able to speak in this debate despite not being a member of the committee. Committee members, clerks and witnesses are to be congratulated in a very detailed interim report that flags up a number of important issues that need to be addressed if the Smith commission recommendations are to be properly implemented. As others have said, it is particularly commendable that committee managed to reach consensus between five political parties on matters that are controversial, because that consensus makes this report all the more powerful. I hope that the UK Government will therefore consider the issues that are raised with the utmost seriousness. The convener talked about intergovernmental relations and Linda Fabiani at the end of her contribution, which indicated that she would have liked to have said a bit more about the Sule convention. In fact, it was the committee's recommendations regarding the Sule convention and legislative consent memorandums that stood out to me as I looked through the report. The committee stated that the current draft clause 2 does not incorporate in legislation the process for consultation and consent, where Westminster plans to legislate in a devolved area. The law society expressed concern to the committee that the draft clause 2 does not place the Sule convention whereby the Westminster Parliament does not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of this Parliament on a statutory footing. Professor Allan Page of the University of Dundee observed that it would be preferable for that to be made clear on the face of the legislation. I am concerned that current situations should not be watered down. I want to see the need for consultation and consultation with adequate time to do so to be strengthened, because, despite the law society stating that the Sule convention had worked relatively well, our experience during my time on the justice committee is that it has not always been satisfactory. If I could ask members to cast their mind back to the legislative consent memorandum on the anti-social behaviour crime and policing act, which we passed on 22 January last year, although we did somewhat reluctantly agree to that legislation, the Justice Committee was sufficiently concerned about the proposals to criminalise force marriage that we could not make a recommendation on that part of the LCM and we asked the Parliamentary Bureau for a short debate. In that particular matter, members will recall that the Scottish Parliament has already passed our own legislation, the force marriage etc, protection and jurisdiction Scotland Act 2011, which was deemed thereafter to be in contravention to this convention. Scottish organisations representing women's ethnic minority groups hadn't had the opportunity that their sister organisations in England and Wales had to respond to the UK legislation. They were unable to put forward their view on how the Scottish act was working and, in particular, their arguments about why they felt that it was not in the contravention of the convention, although, indeed legal advice that committee received contradicted that view. There were also major changes in the maximum sentence for the criminal offence, which again were introduced in Scotland without consultation. I should again make it clear that it wasn't the policy intention that was a concern in this instance. It was the lack of consultation with Scottish stakeholders and the possible conflict with our own legislation. We were faced with the choice eventually between accepting an LCM, which hadn't been subject to consultation in Scotland, or introducing emergency legislation here. That's a path that we all know is strewn with pit fault. Reluctantly, most of us accepted that the LCM was pressed at the better route. However, committee members strongly felt—and I'm sure that others could back me up on this—that the LCM process was flawed. The Justice Committee has also received other LCMs on criminal justice in Courts Act and the Serious Crime Act, for example. Those were prompted by amendments introduced in the House of Lords. Although most of them hadn't been as sensitive as the forced marriage issue, there had been very little opportunity to receive evidence while adhering to the short timescales that are required for this Parliament to consent to the LCMs. The Justice Committee has not found the LCM process to be ideal with regard to the opportunity for consultation prior to giving consent or otherwise. I am therefore very concerned that the draft bill weakens the process rather than strengthening it. I will give you an example. The UK Government's intention to scrap the Human Rights Act 1998 further compound my belief that the LCM process has to be strengthened with regard to consultation and consent. The Scotland act places obligations on this Parliament with regard to human rights. However, if the Human Rights Act is repealed in a weaker British Bill of Rights is introduced at a UK level, we might receive LCMs that could contravene the legislation that founded this Parliament. It is clear that the vast majority of members of this Parliament are opposed to the repeal of the human rights act. If it is repealed by the UK Government and replaced by something weaker, it may be the decision of this Parliament to pass our own human rights bill to protect human rights in those areas that are devolved. We may wish to do that. What happens then? UK legislation could be compliant with the provisions of the British Bill of Rights but in contravention with the Scottish Human Rights Act. This Parliament could be presented with LCMs that are incompatible with our own legislation. I think that human rights is one important example. However, as responsibilities are devolved to this Parliament, there will be an increasing potential for divergence of legislation and therefore complications if the UK Government seeks to legislate in devolved areas. It is therefore essential that the clause is redrafted to reflect the need for consultation and consensus. I conclude by saying that I very much agree with the convener that the UK Government really needs to get this bill right before it is introduced into Parliament at the UK level. Some of these are serious issues for concern where we could be conflict between the Parliament and the UK Parliament if we do not get these things right. I think that it is necessary for inter-governmental relations that we do so. I now call on Alison Johnstone to be followed by Stuart Maxwell. I too would like to recognise the diligence of the committee clerks in this process, our advisers and to thank all those who gave evidence to assist in our deliberations. The committee was, of course, chaired with Flair, Firmness and Fairness by Bruce Crawford, and I am only sorry that I have been unable to make him blush. Oh, did he come in for it? You've got Flair. The committee was tasked with scrutinising the translation of the Smith commission's recommendations into proposed law by the previous UK Government. As you have heard from committee colleagues, the scrutiny was undertaken in an atmosphere of mutual respect and with agreed determination that, and I quote from the report, both the letter and the spirit of the Smith commission's report be fully translated into a legislative package. A key conclusion that can be reached by the committee can be found at paragraph 493 and states that, in some of the areas that the committee believes that the current draft legislative proposals fully translate the political agreement that was reached in the Smith commission, but in other areas improvements in drafting and further clarification are required. In some critical areas, the then UK Government's draft legislative clauses fall short. In the time that I have today, I'm going to outline where the Scottish Green Party is content that the clauses meet the letter and the spirit and where we believe they do not. I'm also going to stress, and Jackie Baillie touched on this too, the need to broaden public engagement as widely as possible as this process moves forward. Presiding Officer, I think it's fair to say that we're having this debate today because, during the referendum, the people of Scotland, regardless of what side they were on in the debate, became so involved in the debate about what kind of Scotland they wanted to live in. Some 18,000-plus emails were received during the Smith commission process. Given the timescale, I think it's fairly likely that they won't have all received the consideration that they perhaps deserved. We'll never have all the time that we wish, but there is a little more time now for engagement. I think that that level of engagement illustrates—that is SCVO note—that if it's to be meaningful and effective, devolution must be driven by the people of Scotland and that there must be opportunities for the public to influence the process and contribute their views. The report states as a key recommendation that further public engagement directly with the people of Scotland as well as representative bodies, charities, industry groups, voluntary bodies is still a vital activity that needs to be carried out and is fully committed to the spirit of the recommendation made by the Smith commission in this respect. The committee calls upon the UK and Scottish Governments to consider how to commit to the spirit of the Smith commission's recommendation in this respect. The committee did what it could in this regard, got out and about and had meetings and engaged where possible, but I would like this Parliament and that of the UK to consider properly how to broaden meaningful consultation. I urge the Government to look at things such as citizens' juries, consensus conferences and a method called Sharets has been used, as colleagues will know, in the planning system in Scotland with some success. Those techniques are used across the world to help to solve complex problems without top-down imposition by the so-called experts. As colleagues have stressed today, one of the complex problem areas is welfare devolution. At FMQs last week, my colleague Patrick Harvie spoke of the tangible level of fear among so many people in the face of cuts to what remains of the welfare state. The engender briefing for today sets out starkly how gendered the cuts have been. Since the coalition Government started cutting, 85 per cent of the money saved from tax and benefit changes has come from women's pockets. We want to fix those wrongs that are harming women, children and vulnerable people, but there are genuine concerns that we will not get the devolution of welfare right. Our job has not been made easy by the complex devolution agreement, which potentially could make things even more confusing for people. The committee report has important recommendations to make sure that we are able to create a system that works. On top of that, women and those in receipt of benefits need to be much more involved in the design. Genderers are calling for the administration of universal credit to be devolved early with a section 30 order. Jim McCormack also pointed out that we need much improved intergovernmental working if we are going to manage those really important areas of shared responsibility like welfare properly. Greens called for and welcomed agreement on the proposals for devolution of unconventional gas licensing, fuel poverty and energy efficiency programmes and formal consultation on energy policy. I agree with much of what the First Minister said yesterday on energy policy that Scotland needs a stronger voice. The Scottish Government has a moratorium on fracking, but there should be no delay on the public consultation. It is time for a complete ban and no delay on devolving the licensing regime. The Crown Estate, as we have heard, is another area where the draft clauses do not deliver the Smith agreement. For some reason, the proposed method of devolution is convoluted, described by Land Reform expert Andy Wightman as a fake, complex and unnecessary. I strongly support the devolution of Crown Estate away from Holyrood, but there is no need for overly complex preconditions in an already complex settlement. The draft clauses do, in effect, allow two Crown Estates in Scotland, with one managed by commissioners in London and one managed by whatever sort of local devolution scheme is established. That is entirely at odds with the spirit of the commission and must be rectified. I welcome colleagues' openness to the idea of building on Smith. There is too much to cover here, but I will end on a final point that devolution must not stop at Holyrood. I was not campaigning for a mini Westminster in Edinburgh, and if the last couple of years have taught us anything at all, then surely they have taught us that we need to trust our local authorities, our communities and our people with more power. Thank you. Thank you very much. I now call Stuart Maxwell to be followed by Mary Fee. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Presiding Officer, I think it's fair to say that, in some senses, we have been slightly overtaken by events. The general election changed things. We are at the start, not at the end of a process, and that means that the watering down of some of the Smith proposals by the draft clauses means that they have to be revisited. Gordon Brown, of course, famously guaranteed that, if Scotland voted no, then we are going to be within a year or two as close to a federal state as you can be in a country where one nation is 85 per cent of the population. If some think that the draft clauses deliver on that promise, then what about the promise made by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, on Monday, 18 May, in the House of Commons, when he said, I hope and believe that we can bring the countries of our erected kingdom together, implementing the revolution agreed for Wales and Northern Ireland, creating in Scotland the strongest devolved government anywhere in the world. Let me repeat that promise made by the Prime Minister this week. We will create in Scotland the strongest devolved government anywhere in the world. Not only do the draft clauses not come anywhere near meeting that promise, but the Smith Commission proposals fall short of it as well. However, that is the test that the Prime Minister wishes us to judge his Government's proposals by. The devolution committee asks Spice to provide analysis of the amount of fiscal decentralisation in the UK compared to other OECD countries. The UK was almost at the very bottom of that graph. Belgium, Norway, Australia, Italy, Germany, Finland, Spain, the USA, Sweden, Switzerland and Canada all scored much higher on sub-national government tax revenue as a percentage of total tax revenue and sub-national government expenditure as a percentage of public expenditure. The amount of fiscal decentralisation to Scotland has been overplayed. Few financial powers have thus far been decentralised. The Smith proposals take us a little further, while the recommendations on devolving benefits does not take us very far forward at all. If the Prime Minister really means to make Scotland the strongest devolved government anywhere in the world, as he has promised, then his government's draft clauses are unrecognisable as the means to make this a reality. The Smith commission did not recommend extensive powers for the Scottish Parliament on welfare despite the pre-referendum promises, guarantees and vows. It listed some benefits to be devolved, but the vast bulk of welfare benefits were to remain reserved. However, the Smith report states that the Scottish Parliament will have new powers to create new benefits in areas of devolved responsibility. Unfortunately, the draft clauses propose that the powers of the Scottish Parliament will apply as long as they specifically relate to areas of welfare responsibility that are devolved. It does not sound necessarily a big difference, but this is a substantial difference and in no way meets either the spirit or the substance of the Smith recommendations. As Professor Spicker of Robert Gordon University mentioned in his submission to our committee, schedule 5F of the Scotland Act 1998 implied a presumption that all benefits would be reserved unless explicit provision is made to the contrary. The draft clauses on further powers operate, and I would like to quote Professor Spicker here, operate almost wholly by adding further exceptions. He also said that the clauses in the white paper are not faithful to the recommendations of the Smith commission. The key differences are the absence of the power to create new benefits and the restrictions that are placed on the categories of people to whom benefits refer. That restriction will have real consequences for the people of Scotland. It is not an abstract concept, particularly for our most vulnerable citizens. Unless the UK Government makes substantial changes in that area, it will have failed in their promise to meet the Smith recommendations in full. One final point on the power to create new or top-up benefits is a crucial one, that any additional income created by such new benefits introduced by the Scottish Parliament must provide additional income for recipients and not be offset by reductions in entitlements to benefits, tax credits or tax relief provided by the UK Government. That is the unanimous view of the committee and the UK Government must rise to that challenge. Even the specific benefits that Smith proposed to be revolved have been restricted in the draft clauses. To give just two examples, it was recommended that benefits for carers be devolved, but the white paper only proposes devolving benefits for unemployed carers, and while Smith recommended devolving industrial injuries disillament benefit, the white paper proposes devolving industrial injuries disillament benefit, excluding prescribed industrial diseases. I think that that is important and I would like to quote from a research paper published by the Alliance for Cancer Prevention, entitled Asbestos in Scotland as to why I think it is important. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the Government's official statistics recorded rates of mesothelioma in Scotland running at 31 per cent higher than the UK average. While in the Clyde side region rates were almost double, and in Glasgow the rates were two and a half times higher than the UK average. A particular hotspot was the town of Clydebank, several miles west of Glasgow, which officially recorded the highest rate of mesothelioma mortality in the whole of the United Kingdom. However, apparently, the Scottish Parliament cannot be trusted to deal with providing industrial injuries disillament benefit to the victims of Asbestos. Given the feelings of the draft clauses on welfare, I have to question and I have to ask Labour members this. If SNP MPs lodge amendments to the bill on devolving welfare powers, will Labour MPs support those amendments or will they vote to keep welfare in the hands of majority Tory Government? That is an important question. It is not an attempt to directly attack our colleagues on the Labour benches, but it is an extremely important question that the members of the public in this country need to know the answer to. The general election reset the bar. The Scottish National Party received an overwhelming mandate from the people of Scotland. The Prime Minister has promised to make Scotland the strongest devolved Parliament in the world. Therefore, the question for all of us here today is simple. Will we stand together and demand that the promise is honoured? Or will some parties accept an offer that fails both in spirit and in substance to even meet the recommendations of the Smith commission? I welcome the opportunity to speak this afternoon and in doing so welcome the report by the devolution and further powers committee. Unlike previous members who have spoken today, I thank Bruce Crawford and his committee for the work that they have done to produce such a comprehensive report. Going forward, we need cross-party co-operation to make our additional powers work for all and to ensure that powers are used for a better Scotland. The Smith agreement has set out a very clear path for Scotland to enhance and enshrine our Scottish Parliament. Amongst the wide-ranging proposals set out by Lord Smith, in particular I welcome the proposal for votes at 16 and 17, the devolution of air passenger duty, tribunals and, most crucially, the devolution of welfare. With another five years of a Tory Government and a majority one at that and their focus on reducing the welfare bill, our poorest and most vulnerable need the protection afforded to them through Smith. I hope that we can all act upon these welfare issues as soon as practically possible and indeed work together to see more powers and welfare coming to this Parliament. With the Scottish Parliament now within the final year of this session, I anticipate positively engaging with young people to ensure that their voices are heard and not ignored. As a long-standing supporter of lowering the voting franchise, it was a joy to speak with 16 and 17-year-olds during the referendum campaign and hear their passion and interest, regardless of position taken. The work of the devolution committee to engage with young people during informal events and online to seek their views is to be commended. As a Scottish Labour leader and infrastructure capital investment in cities, I welcome and support the devolution of APD. The committee report shows overwhelming support for the devolution, in particular Glasgow Edinburgh and Aberdeen airport, who also try to ease concerns about cross-border effects in the result of the reduction of APD or, indeed, its abolishment. In a past life, I sat on employment tribunals, and with my experience in mind, I wholeheartedly support the devolution of tribunals in order to improve access to justice. As is stated in our devolution commission report, we believe that the operation of employment tribunals should be devolved, even when there is a continuing reservation of responsibility for common right across the UK. The administrative cost, which has been forced upon workers, wishing to seek justice from their employer, goes against everything I believe in as a trade unionist. With the further transfer of powers for tribunals, I hope that this Parliament will unite in removing the punitive costs that I have just referred to. The Smith commission rightly discussed the issues surrounding victims of human trafficking, and I back the need for further exploration to extend the temporary right to remain in Scotland to victims of human trafficking. I plead for both Governments to work on the basis that victims must be protected from further abuse, in particular from their own home country, and if the temporary right to remain was withdrawn. On equality, there is a desire for gender quotas to be introduced to the boards of Scotland's public bodies. Again, I encourage the Scottish Government to work with the UK Government to clear up what the committee regarded as doubt about the power of the Scottish Parliament to legislate for gender quotas. With further clarification needed, I eagerly look forward to the next steps of the devolution committee to hear more about the relationship between gender quotas and the equality act. On taxation, I join with others inside and outside this chamber in warning against a race to the bottom between the countries of this island. However, with the recommendation that the Scottish Parliament has the power to set the rates of income tax and the thresholds, we must use these powers to tackle inequality and injustice by redistributing wealth from top to bottom. On borrowing the committee reports that all the parties of the Smith commission agree that current borrowing powers are restrictive and limited, and utilising the proposed borrowing powers will enable our infrastructure the investment they require. There is clearly further work required in regards to borrowing powers, and I wish the devolution committee every success in getting both Governments to meet the challenges head on. The Smith commission reports that the Scottish Parliament will have the power to prevent the proliferation of payday loan shops. That is another area that I fully support action for. The Scottish Government can already tackle the problems of such payday loan shops through the planning process, but so far I have not done so. Yet, as citizens advice Scotland's highlights, the Scottish Parliament planning laws cannot tackle online access of payday companies. In Renfrewshire, the council has banned access to online payday loan companies in any of its public library computers. That is a measure to be welcomed and supported by those wishing to tackle the debt problems caused by quick access to loans, but at a very heavy burden to the consumer. With the UK Government expected to launch a bill for further powers next month, I look forward with great interest to see what comes from the bill and the subsequent inquiry from the devolution committee. In closing, I hope that across the chamber, we can work together to strengthen our Parliament. Thank you very much. I now call on Christine Grahame to be followed by Alex Rowley. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I commend the committee for this interim report. I was going to commend the convener, but I think he's had enough commendations. That's absolutely. I refer in particular to paragraph 5, which states, in short, all of the committee want to see both the letter and the spirit of the Smith Commission's report, fully translated into a legislative package in an ex-UK Parliament from what I'm hearing, from what I've read in the report, even that is not happening. I want to go beyond that. I want to focus on the pages on from 1 to 5 of the report headed coherence and cohesiveness of the proposals for further devolution. It's a matter that I raised in a previous debate on 10 December. I'll be a bit more fiery then when it was early days after the Smith Commission. When Smith's criteria was that proposals should be substantive and cohesive, and I argued that why we could state across this chamber, we've all got different views about what is substantive, and that's appropriate. But cohesive, we must see as something that we should be able to agree on. And when you look at the evidence, and there is a caveat to this because I noted under that heading, it says, the committee does not at this stage intend to take a collective position on this strand of evidence it has gathered, which is about the coherence and cohesiveness of the proposals. But the evidence isn't the evidence of politicians. It's the evidence of the very civic society that Alison Johnstone referred to. Professor Michael Keating, who suggested that the devolution of a broader range of taxes would have provided greater flexibility to the Scottish Government, he did not see what was being proposed as cohesive. Dave Mocksome of the S2C also sought a greater range of taxation powers to be involved, again because, including employment law tribunals referred to by Mary Fee, because what is being proposed is not cohesive. Again, Poverty Alliance Peter Kelly called for control of the national movement wage and much more to deal with poverty issues because, again, his view on behalf of the poverty alliance is that the proposals were not cohesive. There was a range of organisations with welfare issues that highlighted the linkages between employability and equalities and suggested that devolution of equalities legislation in pilot law would have resulted in a more coherent package of proposals for devolution. We have many strands of evidence. One parent families took the same view. When you look at what is being proposed, and of course we want certain benefits devolved, but will that work? Even though my direction of travel in a better way soon is to independence, even if yours is not, and you simply are looking for a form of devolution, Smith, Smith plus Smith, maximum plus or whatever, you have to give it that test. Will it work? If you want to stabilise the UK, would those proposals stabilise it? Will they work? Before you even deal with intergovernmental dealings, you cannot even look at that if what you have in your powers in here are not cohesive and coherent. I have concerns about this being put forward, a huge concern that we are not even getting Smith, but even beyond that we have not resolved those issues. As others have said, we have moved on in the last election to the Scottish people, not voting for independence, but voting for more than Smith. There is no doubt about that, and that will not deal with it, and that will not deal with cohesiveness and substantial results. I will now move on to the public engagement, which I also raised in December because that Smith commission done at breakneck speed, and those 18,000 people that submitted various proposals to Smith had written his report within a month. Of course he did not read them all. They took the trouble to put stuff in, but at the end of the day politicians sorted something out. It did not involve the Scottish people, whatever their views were. I am rather pleased that what the committee has said at the end, at its key conclusions and recommendations, and again echoing Alison Johnston's point, the committee believes that further public engagement directly with the people of Scotland, as well as with representatives of those bodies, I quoted charities, industry groups and voluntary bodies, is a vital activity that needs to be carried out and is fully committed. What we must not do is rush. We must do something that is appropriate for the people of Scotland. Of course we continue with the Smith proposals, but that is no longer good enough. It is not good enough in what it is delivering, and it is not good enough because it is turning its back on what the people of Scotland may want, who have not had a voice in where we are going, and it is time that they had. Mark McDonald will now call on Alex Rowley to be followed by Mark McDonald. Alex Rowley, if I can just pick up on that point that Christine Grahame talked about, where it was the stability of the United Kingdom. I would have to say that the greatest threat to the stability of the United Kingdom right now is the fact that we have a British y Prif Weinidog yn ddyn nhw'n ei wneud i'w ddweud o Gwladd Sgolwyr ac oedd oedd o'r ddweud o Gwladd Sgolwyr yn Meddwl England i'r ddysguig, os oedd, o'r Prydysol. Rydyn, y bydd y bydd y gwestfridiau yn gweithio'r SMP oedd oedd oedd y Sryd Gwyllgor. Rydyn ni wedi cael ei wneud i'w ddim yn gweithio'r sgolwyr, rydyn ni nid i'r cyffredinol o'r that they have done in producing this very detailed report. I have been able to skim through the report, but it is clearly a very valuable report, and I will study it in greater detail as we move forward. If I could pick up on the point that the Deputy First Minister made when he introduced this today, a mae eisiau ein maslygau o ddiwyddoch chi'n meddwl i'r pryd yn deall.  Ieithaf, mae'r gwrthod ymlaenwch i ni, Ac yn ei gael i'r cyfatwyd i'ch cyfraeg i ystafell i'r Gwyrraeth.  Rwy'n fawr i gael cyfrifoldoeth sydd gyd i ddim yn cyfrifiwyr. Rydyn ni'n cael cyfrifiwyr o'r cyflawn, ac mae'n cael cyfrifoldoeth ac mae'n cael cyfrifiwyr i gael ceisio i gael y Llywodraeth honno. figuring in grace pwynt i ddim yn gwneud yn gydych chi i gael cyfrifoldoeth y byddwn i gael guides reasons, but I don't see that as the end of the process. I think we will go much further than the Smith Commission itself. The point was made by Jackie Baillie. She highlighted house and benefit, and house and benefit has been an area I certainly at my own party think should be included. It brings me to the point of the yes, the Spirit and the Smith commission iawn. The substance must be implemented in full. However, there has to then be a discussion that involves the Scottish people and how we use the powers that we have. The specifics that Jackie Baillie talked about and how those benefits support it is one that I will be making the argument for. For further devolution. That is a national scandal when you look at the angen edrych i hyfforddiant cansu gwybod, yn gweithio ddau cyfrifigiad, ac allanion wneud ffocl o'u ffocl gweithio i Schodaeth Drasau. Felly, gweithio gweithio ddau, y byddai yn cael ei ddechrau atsiaeth, byddai yn gweithio ffocl i Gwylodau Cymru, gweithio ddau mwy o'r parangodau cyfrifigiad o'r Ffocl yn cyfrifigiad. Yn gweld arinhwm, rydym i ddim gweithio i wornig sydd y acesol ond we must move beyond the politics of grievance but equally I would accept we need to move beyond the politics of fear. We've got to embrace the journey that we're on in terms of devolution. There was a point that was made by Unison Scotland this week where they said that Unison Scotland has always been a strong supporter of a strong Scottish Parliament. In the run-up to the independence referendum we produce fairer Scotland and devolution. Since then we've had the Smith commission report which although it doesn't go as far as we are good for in its submission it is an important step forward. It's an important step in the right direction and I think it's important that we recognise that point and start to look at how we will use those powers. They then go on to say that that doesn't mean of course that we have a simplistic approach where more devolution is automatically assumed to be better. The argument for full fiscal autonomy for example are very weak. Now the Scottish Government have put a stronger case and have a case for full fiscal autonomy. What I'm keen to do is move away from the politics of fear and actually have that discussion because let's have that debate and let's get on to the table so that the people of Scotland can have that debate and have an open dialogue not on the politics of fear but actually setting out what full fiscal autonomy would mean for Scotland. I argued in the referendum for a novo. I did so because I believe that it was in Scotland's best interest to remain part of the United Kingdom pulling and sharing resources where practical and where necessary but at the same time bringing far greater powers to this place where necessary where it was in the interests of Scotland. So today in welcoming this report and having this debate my view would very much be that yes we need to ensure the spirit of Smith is implemented. The substance of Smith is implemented. Nothing else would be acceptable to this Parliament and we should unite on that but let's now have the debate about what more powers we need but more importantly how are we going to use those powers to make Scotland a more prosperous place where everyone in Scotland can enjoy the rewards that are available for a successful economy. Many thanks and I now call on Mark MacDonald up to seven minutes. Thank you very much. I found Alec Rowley's contribution as I often find Alec Rowley's contributions to be measured and very interesting and I think there were a lot of ideas there which it's not for me to involve myself in the internal affairs of other political parties but I would simply say to Mr Rowley that I understand that there may be a vacuum into which such positive ideas may well find a home. I thank the committee clerks, my fellow committee members including our over-thanked convener this afternoon, who have steered us very much towards what has been recognised both inside and outside this chamber as a substantial piece of work but beyond that the range of witnesses who came before the committee because if it wasn't for the high quality of evidence that we received as a committee I don't think that we would have been able to come to the substantial conclusions that we drew as a result. Other members have highlighted the public meetings that took place. I was only able to attend the public meeting in Aberdeen and one of the things that surprised me at that public meeting was that the lack of awareness amongst individuals, many of whom were extremely politically active both in the referendum campaign but in politics in general. The lack of awareness around not just what was in the draft clauses that the UK Government had brought forward but what was actually recommended by the Smith commission in the first place and I think that ties into what my colleague Christine Graham was saying about the fact that the public were not part of the process and didn't see themselves as part of the process of the drawing up of the Smith commission conclusions. I know that the timetable was very much a victim of campaign rhetoric and that the timetable that had been laid out during the course of the referendum campaign had to be adhered to for political reasons but I do think that it does give us pause that even those who you would consider to be politically aware were struggling to comprehend exactly what was on the table. A number of points in this debate that I think met it a little bit more examination. One is around the issue of the fiscal framework which I think is absolutely vital. It's a very dry and technical area of the debate but it's also an extremely important one as well as being a member of the devolution further powers committee. I also have the pleasure of being a member of the finance committee not a sentence that normally flows from the mouth of a member of the finance committee but one of the things we've been doing on the finance committee is examining the issue around the fiscal framework. I think that there are a number of issues that have been highlighted during our evidence taking which also came up during the evidence sessions at the devolution further powers committee which need to be examined further. Those are around tax competition and tax gaming and also the issue of no detriment and I cannot emphasise enough the importance of getting a firm definition and understanding of no detriment and what it means because we are seeing different interpretations not just at governmental level but also at academic level and I know that there is hopefully going to be some work done to explore no detriment a little further both in terms of its definition but also in terms of its practical effects. On the issue of gaming, one of the interesting pieces of evidence that we took was from Professor David Heald of Aberdeen University and Professor Heald highlighted the autumn statement and what he saw as the disruptive potential of what the UK Government does when it sets its tax policies. He said that this Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, spent a long time trying to reform stamp duty land tax and to produce a property tax that would be implementable by the beginning of April but the UK Government has basically disrupted that implementation by suddenly changing the tax in the rest of the UK. What I've referred to in committee evidence is the rabbit out of the hat approach that often happens at UK budget setting. I think that we need to look at how that fits within the powers that are being devolved to this Parliament. On the issue of where we go from here and where we perhaps need to go further, I think that one of the issues and it covers the taxation element and one of the areas where we took evidence and one piece of written evidence from NUS Scotland which I thought was very interesting was around the issue of savings and dividends because one of the concerns that they highlighted was that, by devolving nonsavings taxes, the Scottish Parliament has put in a precarious position for any future tax rises, particularly the introduction of a higher rate of tax. As we have seen in the year before the introduction of the 50p rate in 2010 and then the year following the reduction to 45p, those who it affected were able to shift extremely large sums of money between years and between income and dividends. There is a concern that, were the powers not to be in possession of this Parliament, that could cause some difficulty. I think that that is something that will merit a watchful eye and further examination as we go forward. We have heard mention of the STUC proposals and I have to say that, in yesterday's economy debate, I intervened on Jackie Baillie about whether the Labour Party were now going to come with us and with the STUC around the powers around employment law and the minimum wage. In response to me, Jackie Baillie said, I thank the member for his intervention. We will have an opportunity tomorrow to debate the full devolution package. I will also be speaking then and I look forward to engaging with him on the substance of that issue. I waited and I waited and I did not hear whether or not Jackie Baillie and the Labour Party were going to go where the STUC are clearly pushing for us to go. I can understand the reluctance of the Labour Party in advance of the referendum to make those commitments because they were obviously hedging their bets on a Labour Government coming to power. Now that we have the situation where we have a majority Tory Government at Westminster and the likely impact that that is going to have on trade unions, on employment law and on minimum wage, will Jackie Baillie now join the STUC and Scottish Government in supporting that devolution? Of course, I had the seven minutes that the member had. Instead of the six minutes, I would have been able to develop that point fully, but I am happy to consider any suggestions coming from that member. I will give Jackie Baillie a suggestion. The suggestion is that when I say, will you join with the STUC and the Scottish Government in demanding that those powers are devolved, Jackie Baillie should answer, yes. There is my constructive suggestion to the member for how we can proceed on this. Finally, if I may, when we look at what is coming forward, we obviously have the bill being published next week. It will be interesting to see whether the very constructive points that the committee has raised are factored into that bill. If they are not, what I would like to hear in the closing speeches, particularly from the Conservative benches but also from the Labour benches, is a commitment that they will lobby with us for Westminster to agree to amendments that will deliver the spirit and the substance of Smith. It is the very least that the Scottish people expect and deserve. Thank you very much, and we now move to closing speeches. I now call on Alex Johnson in seven minutes. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. It has been an interesting debate. At times, it has been focused very much on key issues. At times, it has wandered to some extent, but I will deal with the issues in much the way that others have done. First of all, the actions of the convener in bringing forward this unanimous report. He shouldn't be praised too much. There are one or two people in this Parliament who are actually pretty damn good at what they do. Bruce Crawford is one of them, and he delivered once again. Much has been made of the fact that the support for this report was unanimous, but it should not surprise anyone that a Conservative member of this Parliament should have demonstrated commitment to the Smith process. The Smith commission sat on a relatively short timescale and brought together key ideas at a critical time in Scottish history in the days immediately after the referendum. It did so in an atmosphere that may well turn out to have been unique, and I think that it is only appropriate that we should maintain our commitment. There are those who are concerned about the timescale that has been applied. In fact, Christine Grahame described it as going forward at breakneck speed. Yet, if you remember, the commitment that was given immediately after the referendum that there would be a timetable on day one appeared to have been broken when it took us to lunch time on day two to put the timetable together, and many on the losing side in the referendum cried betrayal at that very moment. So do not be surprised if timescale remains important to the newly elected UK Government. As far as the ability of the individual clauses to translate the desires of the Smith commission into law and into practice is concerned, there are varying degrees of success with the clauses that have been published. In terms of taxation, I am particularly happy with what has come forward, but the weakness is perhaps the lack of detail and issues such as the fiscal framework, the concept of no detriment, the practices that will be involved in borrowing and how we deal with assessing what the Scottish component of VAT is. Are things that we will have to address as time goes on. It is the case, of course, that that will have to be done through a much stronger governmental framework. Intergovernmental relations are going to be absolutely key to this, and that is why it is a consolation to me to see progress being made on the development of a strong working relationship between our First Minister here in Scotland and our newly re-appointed Prime Minister in Westminster. However, the process that we are involved in is the process that is driven by the Smith commission, and it is important that we find ways to ensure that the promises that were made through Smith are brought about. Those processes will be easier in some areas than in others, and it is particularly in the area of welfare that my concerns drove me to support the broad view of this committee. I am content that, having discussed the matter with someone who was involved in the drafting of those clauses, the intent was to give effect to Smith. However, the clauses as they currently exist remain questionable in my view as to whether they achieve those objectives. For that reason, I think that in that area in particular, re-drafting is necessary. The issue of the veto, for example, which was brought up on day one after the publication of the clauses, is in my view something of a red herring, but the wording of the clauses as drafted give rise to that concern, and consequently we need to be sure that we know what they mean before we go forward. There are a number of other issues, such as the Crown Estate, which has thrown up questions since the publication of the draft clauses, which we did not anticipate before their publication. I believe that the Crown Estate issue will only get more complicated before we get to a solution on it. There are other aspects of this debate, which I think I have to mention, and that is that we have also always had those who have gone off in different directions. There are those who have been more concerned about process than they have about the Smith commission itself. There are those who are more concerned about how we might use the policy driver for using the new powers once we have them. I believe that that is a step too far during this debate. We need to know what powers we will have before we talk about policy. Perhaps that is something for next year's election campaign. There have also been those who are too concerned about what we might add to this process. I believe that it would be a mistake to drop the Smith process, the current process, and simply go off and now try to argue for additional powers in some or other area. It is perfectly appropriate for our two Governments to discuss where we would wish to go next, but it would be a foolish error to drop the current process in the hope of something better. I think that we have a tremendous opportunity to put together a package of powers that will be coherent and that will deliver for Scotland. We must also remember that we have a process to go through both in this Parliament but much more relevantly in the Westminster Parliament to deliver those new powers. By virtue of the election that we have just been through, the Scottish National Party itself has a very strong representation in the House of Commons and will have the opportunity to amend and adjust the bill as it goes through Parliament. We must also remember, however, that Parliament has a role. As we go forward, the two Governments will, of necessity, have to become closer and to have a better working relationship. We must never forget that Parliament must have a role, don't lock Parliament out, make sure that Parliament has that role and we can make this work for the benefit of Scotland in the longer term. I now call on Lewis Macdonald at seven minutes or thereby, please, Mr Macdonald. Devolution is a process, not an event. Delivering Scotland's devolved Parliament was one of the highest priorities of the incoming Labour Government of 1997. That was delivered in record quick time. It is now 16 years since this Parliament first met on the mound and elected Donald Dure as First Minister. The Scotland act of 1998, which Donald Dure delivered, was rightly praised for its clarity and directness. Critically, it provided that what was not reserved was devolved. That provision removed a whole range of potential difficulties before they could arise, a point to which I will return in a moment. It also ensured that further devolution was bound to follow. Anything that the Government did not do before 1998 but came to do afterwards would be devolved unless a specific decision was made to reserve responsibility for it to the United Kingdom Parliament. The process of devolution did follow. Just as the original act implied, it was soon enhanced by both legislative and executive devolution of further powers. On top of that, we have stepped changes in the scale and scope of devolution with the Kalman commission and the Scotland act of 2012, and now with the Smith commission and the Scotland bill that we expect to see next week. Indeed, with the Smith agreement on the Crown estate, we have a high-level commitment to devolution from this Parliament to Ireland and other communities, a commitment that I was glad to hear the Deputy First Minister repeat today. I would remind Rob Gibson on that subject that the Smith agreement commitment to further devolution to a local level was of the management of all the relevant economic assets, including the seabed, the foreshore where appropriate and mineral and fishing rights. We cannot now pick and choose which aspects of the Smith agreement we want Government to implement. Rob Gibson, I thank the member for taking an intervention. I think that when we are talking about deciding how these things should be done, it is not a question of whether the people at the most local level should control them, but we have to have a structure in which they do so, and the obvious place to do that is in this Parliament. Do you agree? I think that what is important is that the committee has come together across parties to call for the implementation of the Smith agreement, and that is not a call that any of us should back down from, no matter what practical challenges are in the way in making that happen. As has been said, the scheme to devolve devolution within the United Kingdom has been endorsed by every party in this Parliament, including those that campaign to leave the UK, and that is the significance of the Smith agreement. No party here today can reject that agreement because every party assigned it an undertaking to deliver it. At the same time, parties can argue for powers beyond Smith. We have done that today, and others have done so too. Likewise, we have signed off the committee report on a cross-party basis, but at the same time, we clearly have different views of the relative importance of different parts of the Smith agreement and of the areas where the draft clauses fall short or are unclear. There may be issues of interpretation. There will be questions of priorities. There are differences of philosophy as well. When a number of us, as Bruce Crawford said, met the Secretary of State for Scotland at Whitehall this week, he emphasised the issue of interpretation. However, there should be no dubiety about how to interpret the intention of a new devolved power to create top-up welfare benefits. Since the Smith agreement does not envisage claimants facing a clawback from other income, neither should the next Scotland bill. Nor should the commitment to devolving employment programmes that are currently contracted by the DWP be artificially limited in the way that the draft clause is proposed. Devolving the power to abolish the bedroom tax is the clear intention of the Smith agreement without disadvantaging those who receive discretionary housing payments. We would, of course, go beyond Smith in those areas. We would wholly devolve housing benefit rather than see it absorbed within universal credit, and we would seek to ensure that housing support was used in a range of ways to benefit those in greatest need, not least in providing more and better social housing. Scottish Labour's priorities will be to use the new fiscal resources and the new spending powers to protect those in the lowest incomes, as well as to support the creation of jobs and opportunities through devolved employment programmes. The Smith agreement allows us to do much of that if it is delivered in full, and that is our priority at this stage. However, if we go back to the first principles, the legislation that we see next week will inevitably lack some of the clarity and simplicity that was achieved by Donald Dure's original Scotland Act. That Scotland Act grew out of a constitutional convention. That was not an all-party process, although it had the support of a number of parties here, but nonetheless it grew out and developed and came as a statute from that Labour Government with a very clear basis on which the devolution settlement could evolve. Under that Act broadly speaking, powers and areas of responsibility were either reserved or devolved. Now, as has been said in the debate already, responsibilities that were previously reserved are to be shared in future, whether in areas of taxation or in areas of public spending. That must inevitably mean a less clear division of powers in the future devolution settlement. That simply reflects the complexity of the Smith agreement itself and the choices that have been made in that context. On welfare, for example, the simple model of reserving the whole area of legislative responsibility for social security is to be replaced by a new web of exceptions to reservations and exceptions to exceptions. Likewise, the devolution of the crime estate is to be done by way of a scheme to devolve its economic assets, rather than simply by removing the crime estate as a whole from the schedule of reserved powers. Some of the flaws identified in the report can be sorted by inter-governmental agreements or by relatively straightforward changes to the draft clauses. Others may require more far-reaching amendments. However, whatever we do, I do not think that we can credibly insist on implementation of the Smith agreement and then claim that the lack of coherence of that settlement means that it cannot stand. If all parties compromise in order to reach the Smith agreement and all parties have taken a mature approach, as Bruce Crawford called it to agree today's report, then all parties must get behind the new more complex devolution scheme once it has been delivered and make it work. Whatever the outcome of the parliamentary process over the next few months, it will mean that both parliaments in future work within a more complex devolution settlement than we have done for the last 16 years, and how Governments work together will become all the more important, as well as the mechanisms for holding ministers to account by elected members of both parliaments. Bruce Crawford highlighted the committee's call for the general principles of intergovernment working to be placed in statutes. I was somewhat surprised to hear John Swinney appear to reject that view, but that is no doubt an issue that we will return to before too long. Indeed, he may have something more to say. For now, we support this committee report as a yardstick by which to measure the bill that is produced next week and the basis for the next stage in the process of devolution. Many thanks. I now call on John Swinney up to nine minutes, please, Mr Swinney. Presiding Officer, this has been a very wide-ranging and constructive debate this afternoon, but within this wide-ranging debate, there was one very specific contribution on a particular issue that Dr Murray raised in, as usual, the detailed and thoughtful way that Dr Murray raises these points about the application of the Sule convention and its operation in particular its application to the Human Rights Act. I want to just take a couple of moments to address some of what Dr Murray raised, because I suspect that a great deal more of what she raised about the implications around the stance of the current United Kingdom Government on human rights provision will require some very detailed legal analysis that Parliament will have to consider. However, the points that Dr Murray raised about just how confident we could be in the robustness of the Sule convention is directly applicable to what we might face on the Human Rights Act, because it will undoubtedly for the current UK Government to repeal the Human Rights Act and to replace it with a bridge bill of rights will require the agreement of this Parliament in a legislative consent motion consistent with the Sule convention. However, some of what Dr Murray then went on to raise about the possibility of this Parliament legislating in the sphere of human rights will be very complicated for us to consider, given the fact that the Human Rights Act is named in schedule 4 and therefore an area in which this Parliament is prohibited from amending. The issues that Dr Murray raised on a point of great detail illustrate the significance that can be attached to some of the provisions within the Smith provisions. We certainly have to make sure that nothing happens that in any way diminishes the effective control that this Parliament has to protect the legitimate interests of the devolved settlement in relation to some of those questions. I think that the debate has benefited enormously from taking place in what I might call the cool aftermath of the general election, where I notice a signi