Subordinate Legislation Committee, 14 Nov 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 14, 2000

Official Report 74KB pdf

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Welfare of Farmed Animals (Scotland) Regulations 2000 (SSI 2000/draft)

The next item on the agenda is draft affirmative instruments. The first one is the Welfare of Farmed Animals (Scotland) Regulations 2000 (SSI 2000/draft). Some matters have been drawn to our attention.

Given that failure to implement a directive on time is an offence in Community law, we should ask the Executive to clarify the point about the timing of the regulations.

Another issue is that people have to pay for the revised draft of the regulations. If a draft is revised it is probably because the Executive made a mistake; or, more to the point, that we pointed out a mistake that the Executive made. We should establish the principle that if someone has bought the original version, the revised draft should always be free of charge.

I support that. Those instruments are presumably not usually purchased direct from Her Majesty's Stationery Office, but go to various organisations that are on the mailing list.

It is unfair if a voluntary organisation has to pay out money again.

We can point out that people may have to buy copies of revised regulations. A method should be found to ensure that those who bought the original draft get the revised draft free of charge.