Official Report 83KB pdf
At our previous meeting we raised questions about Westminster straying into the Parliament's areas of competence. Does anyone wish to comment on the response? It appears rather disingenuous of the Executive to say that it had nothing to do with it, since its fingerprints were all over the draft document.
A dusty answer.
Yes, a dusty answer. However I can understand why that occurred.
It is only fair to the Executive to point out why we think it is disingenuous—the implication of the note was that the Government really had nothing to do with the private member's bill, but the committee has been informed that that is not quite the case, and that drafting assistance was given by the Scottish Executive development department.
We were merely trying to institute a procedure that would help to streamline things. I think we should reply by saying that we were trying to be helpful and that we are not being critical.
I agree—we will reply that we wrote with the best of intentions and that the Executive would have been better to admit its culpability because we were not reproaching it in any way.
I should express what is perhaps a minority view, but I would not want to see Westminster legislating on devolved issues any more.
I will echo that.
All of us would prefer that the vast majority of devolved legislation goes through this Parliament. As we are all aware, there may be instances when it is more sensible for legislation to be progressed through Westminster. That would happen only after discussion and agreement with the Scottish Parliament.
I agree with Bristow.
On the facts and circumstances of this matter, I can understand how this came about. I do not own a dog, never mind breed dogs, but doubtless regulations are required on that. It might have been easier to bring the regulations in through Westminster, given the stage that the process had reached. However, the Government should have admitted that and confirmed that it was straying into our field of competency, for perhaps understandable reasons.
This issue is coming to the Local Government Committee tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps we can make some comments on it there.