Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012 [Draft]
New duties are imposed by new section 34(2L) and (2F) as read with (2H) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which the regulations create. The scope of those duties will be informed by a code of practice to be issued by the Scottish ministers that is not subject to parliamentary scrutiny. The clarity of the new offences created of failing to discharge those duties requires to be assessed in conjunction with that code of practice, which is not yet available. The lead committee may wish to explore the scope of the duties and the clarity of those offences as part of its consideration of the instrument.
The Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Regulations 2000, which are amended by these regulations, have now been amended 24 times. Does the committee agree to write to the Scottish Government to suggest that the 2000 regulations would merit consolidation, and to ask whether the Scottish Government has plans to consolidate them?
I note that our legal advisers have said that the 2000 regulations are “impossible to follow”. We might want to endorse their judgment.