Subordinate Legislation Committee, 10 Sep 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 10, 2002

Official Report 120KB pdf

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Instruments Subject to Annulment

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Food for Particular Nutritional Uses (Addition of Substances for Specific Nutritional Purposes) (Scotland) Regulations 2002 (SSI 2002/397)

These regulations implement the Commission directive on substances that may be added for specific nutritional purposes to foods for particular nutritional uses. Substances that are added for nutritional uses to baby foods are controlled under separate legislation and are excluded from these regulations. Similar regulations have already been made in England. [Interruption.] I see that the only member of the public is leaving. She may have had enough. That is all right—perhaps she will come back for more next week.

Unlike the English regulations, the preamble to the regulations contains no reference to the consultation requirement that is imposed by article 9 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, which provides that:

"There shall be open and transparent public consultation, directly or through representative bodies, during the preparation, evaluation and revision of food law, except where the urgency of the matter does not allow it".

As the requirement for public consultation came into force only in March, the European Committee probably does not know about it. We should draw that to the attention of that committee.

We should ask the Executive why, in this instance, it has not referred to Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 in the preamble because, according to the European regulations, it is supposed to do so.

Members indicated agreement.

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Road Traffic (Permitted Parking Area<br />and Special Parking Area) (Perth and Kinross Council) Designation Order 2002 (SSI 2002/398)

This order is a lulu. For a start, there is a deliberate error in the title of the order, because we think that the name of the place is actually Perthshire and Kinross. We should ask the Executive to explain why the order gives the area a different name from what it is called in the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994.

Moreover, the Greater London Authority Act 1999 amendments to the Road Traffic Act 1991 and the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 have not—and should have been—reflected in the order. Such an omission gives rise to a number of questions that need an explanation.

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Parking Attendants (Wearing of Uniforms) (Perth and Kinross Council Parking Area) Regulations 2002 (SSI 2002/399)

The committee will be pleased to hear that no points arise on this instrument.

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Road Traffic (Parking Adjudicators) (Perth and Kinross Council) Regulations 2002 (SSI 2002/400)

We have a couple of questions for the Executive about these regulations. For a start, why does regulation 4 not make any provision for informing an appellant of the outcome of a request for an extension to the time limit for appealing? Given the definition of "proper officer" in regulation 2, why does regulation 11(1)(a) refer to "administrative staff"? Furthermore, the regulations are not drafted in a gender-neutral format, which is a point that we usually comment on.

The proposed regulations on parking in Perth and Kinross are a bit of a dog's breakfast. For example, one interpretation is that the Greater London Authority can dictate the uniform that parking attendants in Perth and Kinross must wear.

The mind boggles.

However, if the Executive has called the area by the wrong name in the first place, the GLA will perhaps not have such a power.

I can see that it is much too late on in the meeting to take up that issue with the committee. Still, we have to ask the Executive some serious questions about this order.

There is a more important question about why the Executive does not include in regulations the requirement that people have to be informed of certain things. It is all very well to say that that is done administratively, although I am sure that in practice it is carried out decently. However, compared with other aspects that we have picked up on, that seems a substantive provision to leave out of regulations. I am surprised that the answer is that such a provision is covered administratively.

We should not just let that go by.

We asked previously about such provision in the Glasgow regulations. The Executive acknowledged that we had a point, but said that in practice it would not make much difference. However, the Executive has produced new regulations, so the provision to inform people should be incorporated in them.

We are entitled to object to that provision not being included in the regulations. If the regulations for Glasgow and everywhere else missed out the provision for informing people but the Executive said that that was done administratively, that is okay. The regulations had been printed, so that was fine. However, given that we made the point to the Executive, it should not have missed out the provision the next time that it produced such regulations. We are entitled to say to the Executive that we made a serious point, which it accepted. We did not make a fuss previously, because we accepted that administration would deal with the point in practice. However, the Executive has done the same thing again. That is a wee bit remiss of it, to be honest. It is as if somebody just did not check that out again. The point did not get noted and the previous regulations were just copied. That is not entirely good.

We will inform the Executive.

If we just ask the Executive why it has left out the provision to inform, we will get the same answer again. Presumably we will inform the Executive that although it agreed with our point previously, it has done the same again.

We will make the point that we do not seem to have progressed since the Glasgow and Edinburgh regulations.

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Conservation of Seals (Scotland) Order 2002 (SSI 2002/404)

The order prohibits the killing, injuring or taking of common seals.

It seems fine.

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Electricity Act 1989 (Requirement of Consent for Offshore Generating Stations) (Scotland) Order 2002 (SSI 2002/407)

The order is fine.

No points arise.