Justice Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Official Report 634KB pdf

Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee Consultation (Referral Criteria for Scottish Law Commission Bills)

Agenda item 4 is consideration of a response to the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee on its request for views on the procedure for Scottish Law Commission bills. I refer members to paper 5, which is a paper by the clerk. I invite comments from members.

It is interesting that the DPLR committee wishes to maybe expand its remit. I have not served on the committee, nor would I necessarily want to serve on it. Something was mentioned about the DPLR committee potentially looking at defamation, which would be particularly unfortunate, because we have done the preparatory work in that regard and have held some discussions. Although I understand some of the frustrations around the DPLR committee’s limited remit, we would have to exercise some caution if something that obviously fell within the remit of this committee was not considered by this committee.

The DPLR committee certainly plays an important role in looking at the technical details. Are we broadly content with the status quo?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 8 October, when we will continue taking evidence as part of our pre-budget scrutiny of the Scottish Government 2020-21 draft budget, with a focus on funding for the Scottish Prison Service.

We now move into private session.