Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Official Report 438KB pdf

Instruments subject to Negative Procedure

Acquisition of Land (Rate of Interest after Entry) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2016 (SSI 2016/258)

We move on to an instrument that is subject to the negative procedure. The amendment regulations were laid before the Parliament on 8 September and come into force on 30 September, so they do not respect the requirement that at least 28 days should elapse between the laying of an instrument that is subject to the negative procedure and its coming into force.

As regards its interest in the Scottish Government’s decision to proceed in such a manner, the committee might want to consider whether the Government’s failure to comply with the requirement was acceptable in the circumstances. The Scottish Government’s planning and architecture division set out the reasons for the failure in its letter to the Presiding Officer of 8 September, which was supplemented by a written response to the committee.

Does the committee want to draw the amendment regulations to the Parliament’s attention on reporting ground (g), as the instrument fails to comply with the requirements of section 28(2) of the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010?

Members indicated agreement.

The clerk is pointing out that I should also have asked whether the committee agreed that the Government’s failure to comply was acceptable in the circumstances—of course, that is what we were doing. Thank you to the committee for your agreement and to the clerk for pointing out the error of my ways.