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Chamber and committees

Health Committee, 07 Nov 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 7, 2006


Contents


Subordinate Legislation


Curd Cheese (Restriction on Placing on the Market) (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (SSI 2006/512)<br />Feeding Stuffs (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2006 (SSI 2006/516)


Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Scotland) (No 2) Regulations 2006 (SSI 2006/517)

The Convener:

Item 2 on the agenda is consideration of three instruments that are subject to the negative procedure. The Subordinate Legislation Committee has raised no issues on the instruments, no comments have been received from members and no motions to annul have been lodged. Do members agree that we do not wish to make any recommendation on the instruments?

Is it permissible at this stage to ask for more information on the Feeding Stuffs (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2006 (SSI 2006/516)?

The Convener:

It would have been useful if you had asked me that before I asked the question on the instruments. The clerks will advise me on the timescales that we have available to us.

We shall proceed with SSI 2006/512 and SSI 2006/517 today and hold off consideration of SSI 2006/516 until next week. According to the clerks, that fits in with the timescale. Does the committee agree that we do not wish to make any recommendation in relation to SSI 2006/512 and SSI 2006/517?

Members indicated agreement.

In respect of SSI 2006/516, if Euan Robson asks for the information that he needs, we will see what we can do.

Euan Robson:

In the light of paragraph 4.3 of the regulatory impact assessment, I would like an assessment of the cost to manufacturers of making the required changes. The RIA suggests that the Commission is undertaking a review of animal feed labelling, so replacement regulations may affect labelling as early as 2009 and a cost will therefore fall on some manufacturers for labelling equipment. The regulatory impact assessment does not quantify costs—it might not be possible to do so, but it would be helpful to know whether they will be a significant or minor burden. It may be that all the labelling machinery will have to be altered and new parts or machines bought, but in 2009 everything will have to be thrown out and started again. That might be an exaggeration, but it could be inferred from the papers.

We will try to get that information and we will put the regulations on next week's agenda.

I apologise for not raising the matter sooner.

You have to move fast around here.