Subordinate Legislation Committee, 12 Sep 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 12, 2000

Official Report 113KB pdf

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Education (Student Loans) Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2000 (SSI 2000/240)

Again, various matters were drawn to the Executive's attention about these regulations. It appears that we should draw attention to certain points again, as the regulations contain defective drafting. Do other members wish to comment?

There is a difficult symbiotic relationship between the English regulations and the Scottish regulations. The time scales do not quite match, although one depends on the other. In this case, the Scottish regulations have had to, and will have to, wait until the English regulations, which have caused difficulties with timing in Scotland, have been put into proper order.

There are points of ambiguity in relation to the definition of "metropolitan police district" and to the question of which meaning is to apply to the various periods that are specified in section 76 of the London Government Act 1963. Those are two examples of defective drafting to which it would be useful to draw the attention of the lead committee, so that that committee may deal with them.

The lead committee should also reach a view as to whether, from here on and for evermore, we will incorporate and import into Scots law the word "mortgage" from south of the border. Alternatively, will we preserve the phrase "heritable security", which has been good enough for Scotland for the past 300 years, from the days of Lord Stair onward?