Health and Sport Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Official Report 461KB pdf

---

Subordinate Legislation

---

Sale of Tobacco (Registration of Moveable Structures and Fixed Penalty Notices) (Scotland) Regulations 2010 (Draft)

The next item of business is an oral evidence session on an affirmative Scottish statutory instrument. Members will have received a copy of the draft regulations and the clerk’s cover note, which includes, for information, the Subordinate Legislation Committee’s comments. Remaining nailed to her chair is Shona Robison, the Minister for Public Health and Sport, and we have been joined from the Scottish Government by Mary Cuthbert, head of the tobacco, sexual health and HIV team, chief medical officer and public health directorate, and Rosemary Lindsay, principal legal officer in the solicitors health and community care division, legal directorate. A motion that the committee recommend that the instrument be approved has been lodged and will be debated under the next item on the agenda. Once the debate has begun, the minister’s officials will not be able to participate.

I ask the minister briefly to outline for the committee the purpose of these draft regulations.

I will be brief. The draft regulations underline the Scottish Government’s commitment to implementing the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Act 2010 and, if approved, will ensure that the required information is supplied on people who wish to sell tobacco from moveable premises. They also provide details of the fixed penalty scheme set out in the 2010 act. As members will note, the draft regulations have been adjusted to take account of some minor drafting points that the committee’s legal advisers have raised.

The regulations are an important component of our plans in the 2010 act to establish a tobacco sales registration scheme. The act also introduces a fixed penalty scheme. The registration scheme will come into effect on 1 April 2011 and retailers will have a full six months, until 1 October 2011, to register. An important point is that, as we pledged during the Parliament’s consideration of the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Bill, registration will be simple and free.

Regulations 2, 3 and 4 set out the information that will be required from applicants to the register who intend to sell tobacco from moveable premises, while regulations 5, 6 and 7 set out information and detail about the new fixed penalty scheme. As these measures will help significantly in regulating sales of tobacco products and will form an important part of our efforts to curb illicit sales, I hope that the committee will support the draft regulations.

12:45

Do members have any questions? No? Well, that is fine. That ends the evidence session.

We now move to the debate on the motion to approve the draft regulations. If no member wishes to speak, I will ask the minister to move the motion.

Motion moved,

That the Health and Sport Committee recommends that the draft Sale of Tobacco (Registration of Moveable Structures and Fixed Penalty Notices) (Scotland) Regulations 2010 be approved.—[Shona Robison.]

Motion agreed to.

I thank the minister for her evidence.

---

Sale of Tobacco (Prescribed Document) Regulations 2010 (SSI 2010/406)

---

Sale of Tobacco (Register of Tobacco Retailers) Regulations 2010 (SSI 2010/407)

---

Community Health Partnerships (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2010 (SSI 2010/422)

The next item of business is consideration of three negative SSIs. Do members have any recommendations to make?

Members: No.

With that, I close the meeting.

Meeting closed at 12:46.