Justice Committee
Meeting date: Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Official Report
691KB pdf
Subordinate Legislation
Police Service of Scotland Regulations 2013 (SSI 2013/35)
Police Service of Scotland (Promotion) Regulations 2013 (SSI 2013/39)
Police Service of Scotland (Special Constables) Regulations 2013 (SSI 2013/43)
We will now consider three Scottish statutory instruments that are subject to the negative resolution procedure and which arise from the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012. Members will see from their papers that the Subordinate Legislation Committee has drawn our attention to SSI 2013/35 on a number of grounds—that is an understatement—including defective drafting, and to SSI 2013/43 on the ground of one drafting error. On both instruments, the SLC said:
“It appeared to the Committee that the meaning of ‘dependant’ was unclear”,
in relation to a constable or special constable’s business interests, and suggested that the Justice Committee might want to consider the practical effect of that.
The Scottish Government wrote to the SLC and copied its letter to this committee yesterday, to confirm that it intends to lay amending regulations as soon as possible after the SLC completes its consideration of the police and fire reform instruments. The letter was circulated to members electronically; I hope that you all have it—it has funny letters at the top.
Are there any comments on the instruments? If not, are members content to make no recommendation on them? We will see what comes next. The clerk has indicated that the amending regulations will come to us, so we will have the opportunity to consider them then. Are members content with that?
Members indicated agreement.