Good morning. The draft order amends certain legal immunities and privileges in connection with the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, which is otherwise known as the European southern observatory, or ESO for short.
The ESO is an intergovernmental organisation that is supported by 16 member states, including the United Kingdom and the host state of Chile. The ESO was established by an international convention that was signed in 1962 in Paris. It is developing a giant telescope, which is at an advanced stage of design, with astronomers and industry across Europe.
The UK astronomy technology centre at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh is leading the partners in the UK that are part of the international project. There are 20 full-time equivalent posts in the project, with the work split between 40 to 50 individual staff members.
To enable the organisation to fulfil its purposes and carry out its functions, privileges and immunities apply by virtue of a practical protocol to the convention that was signed in 1974. The conferral of immunities and privileges on officers of the organisation is effectively a condition of membership.
The UK Government joined the ESO in 2002, but the protocol on the privileges and immunities of the organisation came into force for the UK only in September 2012. As part of the UK’s membership of the ESO, the agreement has to be effective throughout the UK. That includes privileges and immunities, some of which relate to devolved matters in Scotland.
Equivalent provision in respect of reserved matters and devolved matters in the rest of the UK has been conferred by legislation at Westminster. To the extent that the privileges and immunities relate to devolved matters in Scotland, however, conferral rightly falls to the Scottish Parliament.
The order’s purpose is to correct an error that was inadvertently made to the principal order—the International Organisations (Immunities and Privileges) (Scotland) Order 2009—by an amending order in 2010. This area of law is complex and the policy note therefore sets out a comprehensive explanation of the position. Articles 7 to 19 of the protocol require member states to grant a number of privileges and immunities to the organisation and its officers and staff. The majority of those relate to reserved matters and are dealt with in the parallel United Kingdom order.
An error in the UK order—failure to confer certain immunities and privileges on officers of the organisation who are British nationals—came to light because the ESO pointed out that some of its staff were not receiving the reserved tax exemptions to which they were entitled. When the Foreign and Commonwealth Office alerted Scottish Government officials to the discrepancy in the UK order relating to reserved tax, officials reviewed the Scottish order last autumn and discovered a different mistake that was unrelated to taxation.
In fact, the Scottish order had conferred too many immunities and privileges in one instance only—that is, on high officers of the organisation, and specifically the director general of the ESO or a person acting in their stead, in the event of their being a British national.
It is unclear how that discrepancy arose in the Scottish order. Although it is of course regrettable, officials acted to remedy the situation as soon as they realised in the autumn of last year that an amendment was required. The work had to be done in tandem with the FCO to ensure that the two orders could be considered at the same Privy Council meeting. We understand that the discrepancies in the Scottish order have given rise to no practical issues; indeed, it should be noted that since 2007 the director general of the ESO has been a Dutch person.
As a result, the purpose of the order is to correct and limit the provision of immunities and privileges of high officers of the ESO who might in the future be British nationals in the course of any activities in Scotland, in order to reflect the equivalent Westminster order and the terms of the founding agreement. High officers who are British nationals will be entitled only to more limited immunities and privileges, namely exemption from income tax and immunity from legal process in respect of acts performed by them in the exercise of their functions and within the limits of their authority, except in the case of motor traffic offences committed by them or of damage caused by motor vehicles belonging to or driven by them. The order will therefore help the UK fulfil its international obligations in respect of Scotland.
I hope that that slightly more comprehensive overview of what is a technical and complex area of the law has been helpful to members, and I am, of course, happy to answer any questions that the committee might have.