Official Report 295KB pdf
This item of business is consideration of the Scottish Government’s response to the committee’s stage 1 report on the bill. Members have seen the briefing paper and the response from the Scottish Government.
The committee may wish to highlight the following matters to the lead committee on the bill.
Section 37(1) enables the Scottish ministers to make further provision by regulation for the purposes of part 1 of the bill. However, the committee’s report noted that the powers at sections 4(1), 6(1), 7(2), 13(9), 14(2), 15(1), 17(6) and 18(2) and (4) set out various matters in part 1 of the bill that may be prescribed by regulations.
The committee did not consider the broad, general power in section 37(1) to be necessary, and it recommended that it be removed by amendment at stage 2. The report further recommended that, if the Government considers that further types of provision need to be specified beyond those already set out across sections 4(1) to 37(2), that could be achieved by bringing forward appropriate amendments.
The committee’s report also commented on section 76, which confers powers to make ancillary provisions in stand-alone regulations. Under it, the Scottish ministers may make
“incidental, supplementary, consequential, transitional, transitory or saving provision as they consider necessary or expedient for the purposes of, or in consequence of, or for giving full effect to, any provision of this Act or any provision made under it.”
The committee considered the use of the words
“or any provision made under it”
to be unusual and that the Government had not provided sufficient justification for this use of additional wording. The committee considered that the scope of the power in section 76 is uncertain, and it recommended that it be removed by amendment at stage 2.
The Government’s response to the report indicates that it does not intend to accept the committee’s recommendations in relation to the two matters that I have just discussed. Do members have any comments, or are we comfortable to draw the response to the attention of the lead committee?
I am content to draw it to the committee’s attention, but at the risk of putting my head in a noose I think that the Government’s response is quite reasonable. There will perhaps be a need for broader powers on occasion in terms of the developing situation with airgun licensing.
This is broadly an issue of policy, and it would be entirely proper to draw it to the attention of the appropriate policy committee for it to consider whether there is a policy need for the powers. I feel slightly uncomfortable with the drafting in its present form, but it may well be that the policy committee concludes otherwise when it looks at it.
I think that the general argument is that we are looking at some slightly unusual words and there is no obvious explanation for why they should be there, but plainly that is a matter of policy and I therefore suggest that referring the issue to the lead committee is the appropriate thing to do. If colleagues are comfortable with that, that is what we will do.
Does the committee have any further comments, or shall we just look at what comes back at stage 2—assuming there are any amendments that come to us?
I think that this is fundamentally a matter for the policy committee.
I am not entirely clear how much this is an issue of policy, as the wording seems to be important and we have not really had an explanation. The approach that we might reconsider the bill after stage 2 is fine.
Thank you, colleagues. That draws us to the end of the agenda, so I close the meeting.
Meeting closed at 11:43.