Health and Community Care Committee, 06 Oct 1999

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 6, 1999

Official Report 172KB pdf

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Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning Orders

Welcome to this meeting of the Health and Community Care Committee. Our friends the statutory instruments have returned to haunt us again. I welcome the Deputy Minister for Community Care, Iain Gray, to his first meeting of this committee.

The first three items on the agenda today are instruments that are subject to approval. All of them deal with amnesic shellfish poisoning, an issue that we have considered before in some depth. These orders concentrate on incidents around the coast of Orkney. I would like to let the minister lay the motions before us.

I would like to say that I am pleased to be here, although it took some arm-twisting—the legal advice that a minister has to move an affirmative statutory instrument as Susan Deacon did before.

With your forbearance, I move,

That the Parliament's Health and Community Care Committee in consideration of the Food Protection (Emergency Prohibitions) (Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning) (Orkney) (No 3) (Scotland) Order 1999 (SSI 1999/73) recommend that the Order be approved.

Motion agreed to.

I move,

That the Parliament's Health and Community Care Committee in consideration of the Food Protection (Emergency Prohibitions) (Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning) (East Coast) (No 2) (Scotland) Order 1999 (SSI 1999/72) recommend that the Order be approved.

I forgot that one of them was an east coast order.

Motion agreed to.

I move,

That the Parliament's Health and Community Care Committee in consideration of the Food Protection (Emergency Prohibitions) (Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning) (West Coast) (No 3) (Scotland) Order 1999 (SSI 1999/71) recommend that the Order be approved.

Motion agreed to.

That last order relates to the west coast, whereas our papers told us that all the orders relate to Orkney.

I thank the minister for giving us his time this morning. I hope that we will not have to see you on too many occasions such as this. The next time we speak to you it will be about a substantive issue—the issue of community care—that is on today's agenda.

I am sure that we are all pleased to see Iain at this time in the morning, but I am surprised by what he said about the legal advice. Paper 15 on procedure says that if a member who gives notice of a motion does not move it, it can be moved by any other member who has indicated his or her support for it before the end of the previous meeting day. Is something that, as a result of a previous debate, is known to be uncontroversial, a good use of a minister's time? Could that be investigated further?

I take your points on board, Malcolm. Can we hear from the clerk on the issue?

The legal advice on that is not absolutely settled. The committee office's view was that we should probably play safe until it is settled, but it is certainly under review. Malcolm's point will be taken on board.

It is nice to see you, Iain, but we feel that ministers should come before us when the issues are more controversial—that saves your time as well as ours.

I agree, with a little trepidation.