Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
I welcome everyone to the 24th meeting this year of the Subordinate Legislation Committee. I have received no apologies; we have a full house. I ask everyone to turn off their mobile phones and so on.
Item 1 is consideration of the delegated powers in parts 4 and 5 of the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Bill. We are reporting to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, to which I will refer in future as the SPPA commitee, for its interest as the secondary committee before it reports back to us. We will consider the other delegated powers in the bill at our meeting next week, which I shall not be at—I am grateful to Ian McKee for agreeing to chair it.
On section 47, "Pre-consolidation modifications of enactment", the committee might wish to highlight to the SPPA committee concerns as to the width of the power in section 47(1). Those concerns are: the power is available in respect of all subject matter, but some areas of the law may be considered too sensitive to permit substantive policy changes to be fast-tracked in that way; the threshold that must be met before the power is available to ministers is loose and subjective; further consideration should be given to the potential for changes to the common law in the course of codification; and interaction between a Scottish instrument and a Westminster bill raises issues of control of the process.
We might also highlight to the SPPA committee our concern as to the proposed level of scrutiny, and express our view that if the power is approved by Parliament in this or an amended form, consideration should be given to increasing the level of scrutiny by use of the super-affirmative procedure. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Part 5 of the bill relates to orders that are subject to special parliamentary procedure. Does the committee agree that it has no concerns to highlight to the SPPA committee on delegated powers in relation to part 5, but that we will reconsider part 5 once the SPPA committee has reported back to us on its consideration?
Members indicated agreement.