Subordinate Legislation Committee, 06 Nov 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 6, 2001

Official Report 124KB pdf

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Executive Responses

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Processed Animal Protein (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2001<br />(SSI 2001/383)

We now move to Executive responses to questions that the committee raised. Does the committee want to draw the regulations to the attention of the lead committee and the Parliament on the ground that there appears to have been an unjustifiable delay in making, laying and bringing them into force?

There was much to-ing and fro-ing about holidays and weekends. The explanation that we received was not necessarily satisfactory—the regulations are important and they have not been treated with any great urgency.

The explanation makes sense. Am I being too charitable? Probably.

I will be advised by the clerk. What do we do in this circumstance? Do we send a polite letter in which we note the Executive's response, but say that we still think it was late in dealing with the regulations?

That is for the committee to determine. An option might be to send a letter to the lead committee, but it would be more usual for the committee's view to be included in its report, if it decides on that now.

Our view is that the Executive was still a bit late.

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Abolition of the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce (Consequential Provisions) (Scotland) Regulations 2001 (SSI 2001/390)

We asked three questions on the regulations. The committee might think that the Executive has not fully addressed the concerns that we expressed and that we might need more clarification. However, if we ask the Executive for more of an explanation, we should request that it replies to the lead committee because of pressure of time.

Two powers were invoked during the discussion on the abolition of the cross-border body—in lay terms, the European power and the power under the Scotland Act 1998. We questioned why the European power has been used rather than the Scotland Act 1998. The issue will come up again and again.

If we ask the Executive's position, it could just play with a straight bat and say that it is happy. The matter is a bit technical for the rest of us. I just do not know where we could take the issue. If we ask the Executive why it decided to tackle the matter this way, it will simply reply, "Because we are satisfied that that is the right way".

Apparently there is also a technical drafting problem with regulation 2.

It does not appear to correspond with regulation 5 of the UK regulations.

Such technical drafting mistakes are definitely the committee's territory, and we should draw them to the Executive's attention. However, because of the pressure of time, we will ask the Executive to reply directly to the lead committee.