Subordinate Legislation Committee
Meeting date: Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Official Report
331KB pdf
Draft Instrument not subject to Parliamentary Procedure
Public Services Reform (Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland etc) Order 2013 [Draft] (SG 2013/4)
I welcome everyone to the fifth meeting in 2013 of the Subordinate Legislation Committee. As always, I ask members to turn off mobile phones.
The first item is consideration of a draft order not subject to parliamentary procedure. This is a draft of an order that the Scottish ministers propose to make under the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 and which is required under section 26(1) of that act to be laid before the Parliament for the purposes of consultation. The consultation period must run for at least 60 days and the Scottish ministers must take into account representations received during that period before laying the order. Once laid, the order will be subject to the affirmative procedure and the committee will scrutinise the draft order laid under that procedure in the normal way.
The legal advisers have raised two minor drafting errors. First, paragraph 3 of schedule 2 to the order amends section 9 of the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Act 2000 by substituting
“Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life”
for
“Public Standards Commissioner for Scotland”
when the correct title of the new commissioner is the commissioner for ethical standards in public life in Scotland.
Secondly, schedule 1 makes textual amendments to the Scottish Parliamentary Commissions and Commissioners etc Act 2010 that are consequential on the transfer of functions by the order. With regard to paragraph 20, which modifies section 18 of the 2010 act, the word “it”, which appears at the end of section 18(1), should—in line with other amendments to the act—be changed to “the Commissioner”, but this change has been omitted.
The Scottish Government might wish to consider addressing those errors when it brings forward a draft order for approval. Does the committee agree to draw the Parliament’s attention to the draft order under the general reporting ground as it contains two minor drafting errors?
Members indicated agreement.