Rural Affairs Committee, 12 Sep 2000
Meeting date: Tuesday, September 12, 2000
Official Report
187KB pdf
Subordinate Legislation
The first piece of subordinate legislation before us is the Suckler Cow Premium Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2000 (SSI 2000/215), which has been circulated to members along with the explanatory note.
These regulations form part of Scots law only. They amend the regulations that govern the administration of the suckler cow premium. The amendment is to allow applications to be submitted electronically. The Subordinate Legislation Committee noted in its report that the principal regulations had been subject to six amendments and welcomed the Executive's intention to consolidate the regulations. If there is any concern about the instrument, the Rural Affairs Committee will have to submit a report by 25 September, although the final date for action by the Parliament is 30 September. Are members content with the instrument?
I think it slightly ironic that, in order to put in electronic returns, one has to get authorisation in writing.
I will conclude that the committee wishes to make no further comment.
The second instrument is the Animals and Animal Products (Import and Export) (Scotland) Regulations 2000 (SSI 2000/216). The regulations revoke and re-enact with changes the Animals and Animal Products (Import and Export) Regulations 1998. They include new provisions that set out detailed animal health conditions arising from new European measures for intra-community trade in cattle and pigs. The Subordinate Legislation Committee noted in its report two instances of defective drafting and expressed doubts as to whether the internal appeals procedure against decisions made by the Executive were compatible with article 6.1 of the European convention on human rights. Should there be any concern with this instrument, the Rural Affairs Committee would have to submit a report by 25 September and the Parliament would have to complete its process by 30 September. Bearing in mind the views expressed by the Subordinate Legislation Committee, do members have any comments on these regulations?
Is it possible to point us towards the section that deals with appeals? That objection seems significant.
The report—the Subordinate Legislation Committee's 31st report—was published only recently, which is why it has not been circulated. Paragraph 16 in the section on these regulations states:
"Regulation 28 also raised the question of whether the Regulations should have included a specific right of appeal, as a matter of course, in order to comply with Article 6 of ECHR. Article 6(1) states that in the determination of his civil rights everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law."
I do not have a copy of that.
It is a recent publication; it became available only yesterday. Do members feel that they wish to consider the report in relation to—
I have not seen it.
Neither have I.
I have not seen it either, but paragraph 28 of the SSI says that whoever's application is turned down will receive "in writing" the reasons for the decision and
"the details of his right of appeal against the decision".
Would the details of the right of appeal clarify whether ECHR had been complied with? There is no information on what the appeals procedure actually is, unless it is described somewhere else.
Some members of the committee have this information and some have not, so how can we continue this discussion?
We do not have the Subordinate Legislation Committee report, but we have the SSI.
So how can we discuss the report?
Because the convener has just read it out to us.
Well, I am not happy that we are discussing this in this way. It is important to have the detail in front of us.
We can continue with this next week, and we will have the details circulated.
If we are going to continue with it, can we request a bit more detail on the right of appeal? As Rhoda Grant said, there is no information about the appeal mechanism, other than that the person would be notified of the right to appeal. We need more information about the mechanism.
The Executive's response suggests that the result to be achieved is fixed, although the Executive has some latitude as to how that result is achieved. The question is whether that is within the competence of the Scottish Executive and whether the right of appeal is dictated by the original legislation.
That information will be sought and supplied to members in advance of our next meeting. At that meeting, this topic will be on the agenda again.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your attention. As there are no other issues relating to items on today's agenda, that brings us to the end of the meeting.
Meeting closed at 15:30.