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Chamber and committees

Subordinate Legislation Committee, 06 Feb 2007

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 6, 2007


Contents


Instruments Subject to Annulment


Instruments Subject <br />to Annulment


Adults with Incapacity (Ethics Committee) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2007 (SSI 2007/22)

No points arise on the regulations.


Strathclyde Passenger Transport Authority (Constitution, Membership and Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Amendment Order 2007 <br />(SSI 2007/23)

The Convener:

Members will note that article 3 of the order reduces the membership of the Strathclyde Passenger Transport Authority from 34 to 20. Under the principal order, members hold office for a period of three years. The principal order provides for the resignation of members and for their removal in certain circumstances, but there does not seem to be anything to cover the membership being reduced by statute. Furthermore, there are no transitional provisions in the order. Shall we ask the Executive how it envisages the reduction in membership will be achieved?

Members indicated agreement.

The Convener:

We will also ask how, in the absence of transitional provisions, surplus members will be chosen and removed from office. There is also a minor point. Article 2 should read "Constitution, Membership" rather than "Consequential, Membership". Do members agree to raise that informally?

Members indicated agreement.


Police Grant (Variation) (Scotland) Order 2007 (SSI 2007/24)

No points arise on the order.


Sulphur Content of Liquid Fuels (Scotland) Regulations 2007 (SSI 2007/27)

The Convener:

Similar regulations have been made in England and Wales—the text of the Scottish regulations is almost identical. There are a couple of issues for us to consider. First, the English regulations define "new plant" and "existing plant," but the Scottish regulations do not. We might want to ask about that.

Mr Macintosh:

My attention was drawn to paragraph 145 of our legal brief, which states:

"In the second place the transitional provisions in the Scottish Regulations (regulation 8) provide that applications for permits that have been made under the Regulations that the current Regulations replace but which are not determined by the time the new Regulations come into force are to be treated as applications made under the new Regulations whereas the English Regulations provide that applications under the existing Regulations are to be dealt with under those Regulations (which remain in force for that purpose)."

It is fantastic to use one sentence there. Well done to whoever wrote that.

I think it was Margaret Macdonald.

Shall we ask the Executive those two questions?

Have we asked any questions yet?

There is a question about the definition of "new plant" and "existing plant".

Yes. We should draw the Executive's attention to that.

Do you want me to clarify what it is?

No.

You are quite happy. The two questions are in the legal brief. We will raise those with the Executive.


Police (Injury Benefit) (Scotland) Revocation Regulations 2007 (SSI 2007/28)

No points arise on the regulations, but members will note that the instrument breaches the 21-day rule.


Sex Discrimination (Public Authorities) (Statutory Duties) (Scotland) Order 2007 (SSI 2007/32)

There was a question about the vires of the order, but there have been further discussions between our adviser and the Executive's legal team and it seems that the order does work due to section 117 of the Scotland Act 1998.

The question was whether the reference to "Secretary of State" includes the Scottish ministers. We are assured that it does.

Yes. There are some minor drafting points that we will raise informally.

Yes. I think that we all received correspondence on the matter from the Equal Opportunities Commission—

Did we?

Well, I did. Maybe it was just me. The EOC was concerned.

If you want to pass the correspondence to the clerk, we will all see it at some point.

Are we agreed that the order is okay apart from the minor points?

Members indicated agreement.