Subordinate Legislation Committee, 13 Nov 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 13, 2001

Official Report 81KB pdf

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Instruments Subject to Annulment

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Northern College of Education (Closure) (Scotland) Order 2001 (SSI 2001/407)

The committee might have questions for the Executive about the Northern College of Education order. Murdo Fraser seems to understand all about it.

I will start and someone else can come in.

In the definitions section, Aberdeen University is defined as the University of Aberdeen, and Dundee University is defined as the University of Dundee. Those definitions seem to be completely pointless. Why the wording "University of Aberdeen" and "University of Dundee" could not have been used throughout the order is beyond me. I would simplify it and remove the need for a definition.

We are agreed on that.

We do not need to define the obvious.

No. That is what happens when you send people on drafting courses.

Is there anything else?

The staff are mentioned in articles 4(1)(b) and 4(2)(b), which come under the heading

"Transfer of property, rights, liabilities and obligations".

That might be an inappropriate heading for staff. The staff contracts could be classed as property, rights, liabilities or obligations. However, to use that heading for the staff themselves might be inappropriate, if not offensive. We must ask the Executive to look at that wording.

That might be just a typo although it does not seem that someone could have forgotten to put in the word "contracts". It seems feudal.

The way that the sentence is worded, the word "contracts" could not be inserted. It would have to be jiggled about a bit.

We will draw that to the attention of the Executive and say that we think that is an odd way to describe staff.

We move on to article 5. Someone might know what it is about, but it might also be an example of bad drafting practice. There is a reference to

"non-recurrent grant under any earlier regulations"

and there is no reference to what that might be. We just do not know what that means. Do we say that to the Executive in those words—we do not know what it means?

We just say that we are seeking clarification.

Article 7 of the order provides for the governing body to be dissolved. Are we satisfied that the way in which the body would be dissolved is clear enough or do we need an explanation?

Do you mean that we need an explanation on whether winding up means that the body should have completed the process of winding up before it is dissolved, or whether dissolution includes the winding up?

Is not the question whether the enabling power, section 47(6) of the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 1992, permits simultaneous winding up and dissolution?

We can ask.

I want to ask about the articles dealing with the vesting date. Articles 4(1)(b) and 4(2)(b) both mention a vesting date, but the term "vesting date" is not defined. The vesting date might be 1 December 2001, but it is not defined as such and it should be absolutely clear. There are provisions for actions prior to the vesting date, so we need to know what that date is.

There is another point that the order does not address, which perhaps it should. That is the question of any pre-emption rights in heritable property. The transfer of the assets and liabilities might require a transfer of heritable property. If there are pre-emption rights in the heritable property that might cause difficulty. I understand that such potential difficulties have been dealt with by specific provision in an order, but I note that there is no such provision in this order. Perhaps we should draw that to the Executive's attention.

We would need to ask whether that would be required in the current situation.

It may be that the Executive has looked into that.

And decided that there are none.

We need to flag it up.

Is there anything else that we should take up with the Executive?

What about the phrase

"non-recurrent grant under any earlier regulations"?

We do not know what that means and will ask the Executive.

Some unnecessary amendments are listed in footnote b on the first page and footnote b on the fourth page. We should ask the Executive for an explanation of why they are cited.

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Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2001 (SSI 2001/408)

No points arise on the regulations.

I am quite happy that they should go through.

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Fish Health Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2001 (SSI 2001/409)

Here is an important one. There is a minor typing error, which can be corrected.

More good news for the people of Gigha.

That is good news.

Yes.

No points arise on the instrument.

That is us.

For the record, I should have mentioned Gordon Jackson's apologies.

Abject apologies. You missed yourself yesterday.

I was at a very interesting meeting.

We have cracked the secrets—we now know what subordinate legislation is about.

Sorry, convener. I was at several interesting meetings.

I realise that you have other fish to fry.

Healthy fish.

However, there will be notes on our away day.

Meeting closed at 11:37.