Local Government and Communities Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Official Report 681KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Redemption of Heritable Securities (Excluded Securities) (Scotland) Order 2018 (SSI 2018/376)

Agenda item 3 is consideration of a negative instrument, which is listed on the agenda. I refer members to paper 3.

The instrument has been laid under the negative procedure, which means that its provisions will come into force unless the Parliament agrees to a motion to annul it. No motion to annul has been laid, and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has not drawn the instrument to the Parliament’s attention on any of its reporting grounds. Do members have any comments on the instrument?

I have a question about the consultation. Paragraph 5 of the committee’s paper on the instrument says:

“Since October 2014, Scottish Ministers have undertaken a number of public consultations on the proposal to exempt certain heritable securities from ‘the 20 year security rule’.”

I wonder why progress was not made at the time. Have we any idea? The paper is not specific in that regard. It simply goes on to say:

“the formal consultation was completed several years ago and the Order could not be pursued at this time”.

Do we know why it could not be?

We have no idea. The matter has been dealt with by the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, and I suspect that, if there were any questions, they would have been asked at that point. I am happy for the committee to write to the Government to find out the answer.

It just seems that there has been an inordinate amount of time between consultations.

Given that the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee had no issues with the instrument, I invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to the instrument. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

That concludes the public part of today’s meeting.

10:51 Meeting continued in private until 11:49.