Subordinate Legislation Committee, 17 Sep 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 17, 2002

Official Report 103KB pdf

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Executive Responses

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Food for Particular Nutritional Uses (Addition of Substances for Specific Nutritional Purposes) (Scotland) Regulations 2002 (SSI 2002/397)

The regulations are called the "parnuts", I believe. The committee feels that we might be required to draw the regulations to the attention of the lead committee and the Parliament on the grounds of failure to comply with proper drafting practice. There is a slight difference of opinion between the Executive and us as to whether it would be a better idea to follow the procedure used in the equivalent English regulations. Much as it might surprise some folk, I think that we are probably right and that the Executive is wrong. We will also draw the matter to the attention of the European Committee. Why should it go unscathed?

That could be good, because I am on that committee.

You will know exactly what we are talking about.

Oh, yes. I will by the time that the matter comes up.

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Road Traffic (Permitted Parking Area and Special Parking Area) <br />(Perth and Kinross Council) Designation Order 2002 (SSI 2002/398)

Here is another nice one. Members will remember discussing the order. Unfortunately, Murdo Fraser missed that discussion because he was saving Gibraltar for Queen and country.

I was.

Well, you missed this bit about Kinross and Perth, which we thought was much more important. We asked the Executive for an explanation of three matters. One was about the actual name of the area to which the order refers. Article 3 refers to the

"Perth and Kinross Council local government area."

However, the name of the area prescribed by the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 is effectively the Perthshire and Kinross local government area—the council being Perth and Kinross Council. Obviously, we asked for an explanation. It turns out—are you all sitting up and listening to this story—that in 1995, I think, the council decided to change its name. The Executive should have informed us of that in a footnote in the order because it cannot expect us to know of every name change.

It is a bit like the Post Office.

Is it?

Consigned to history.

At least we have an answer as to why there appears to be a discrepancy.

But the Executive should have told us.

Yes. A helpful footnote is absent. Bill Butler is pursing his lips. Do not worry, Bill, it gets better.

Only if it accelerates.

We also queried why amendments made to the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 and the Road Traffic Act 1991 by the Greater London Authority Act 1999 have not been reflected in the order. That has caused odd results of doubtful competence. We queried whether it is true that the Greater London Authority can dictate the uniform that Perth and Kinross parking attendants must wear, because it matters whether jackets should be buttoned on the right or the left and whether there should be three or four buttons. I think that we were right.

This is not a trivial point. The weather in London is considerably warmer than it is in Perth and Kinross. They could be designating shirt-sleeves in London and traffic wardens in Pitlochry could be freezing in mid-winter.

The traditional dress code may be different from one place to another and we want to keep little distinctions, do we not?

With the committee's permission, I will interpret the Executive's answer. The Executive accepts that it may technically be the case that the Greater London Authority could dictate the uniform that Perth and Kinross parking attendants must wear. However, the Executive will consider making further modifications to make the position clear.

That is appropriate.

I feel that honour has been satisfied on both sides. The Executive's explanation was difficult to follow, but we got round it in the end.

Am I alone in feeling that life is passing me by?

Is it of interest to you to know that in Namibia the equivalent of our traffic wardens wear a tabard with "car guard" written on it and carry a great big club?

I do not think that we should instruct the clerk to write to Ken Livingstone to say that when he considers the matter of Perth and Kinross uniforms he should consider Colin Campbell's information.

We also asked for an explanation of the words in schedule 2:

"in each place where they occur."

The Executive accepts that that is misleading and unnecessary in the context of the provision, but thinks that the meaning is nevertheless clear. We think that enough has been said on that matter.

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Road Traffic (Parking Adjudicators) <br />(Perth and Kinross Council) Regulations 2002 (SSI 2002/400)

This is a little more important. This is actually quite serious stuff. Oh, good—Gordon Jackson has arrived. I am glad about that because we have got to a serious bit.

Sorry I am late.

No, that is quite all right. We asked a couple of questions on the regulations.

I remember.

I will give you a second to look at the Executive's response and decide whether you want to comment. Our first query was on informing an appellant of the outcome of a request for an extension to the time limit on appealing.

The Executive accepted, at the time of the committee's consideration of the Road Traffic (Parking Adjudicators) (City of Glasgow) Regulations 1999 (SSI 1999/60), that it might have been better to include in those regulations express provision for informing an appellant of the outcome of a request for an extension to the time limit for appealing. However, it appears that, although the Executive agreed with us on that point, it did not amend the regulations that apply to Perth and Kinross. The Executive's reason for that is that the regulations for Glasgow and Edinburgh were not amended. The Executive asks why it should amend the regulations for Perth and Kinross when it has not received a request from Glasgow or Edinburgh councils to do so in their case.

They might not have reached the point at which they want to have the regulations amended.

I do not know, but the Executive's response seems backside foremost to me.

The Executive's logic seems to be wrong. I do not doubt that the councils are following the proper administrative practice. However, if the Executive accepts that the provision should be included in the regulations, the fact that that did not happen in the case of Glasgow and Edinburgh is not a reason for not doing it right the next time. Even if the Executive decided that it could not be bothered to amend the regulations that apply to Glasgow and Edinburgh, why does it not do things properly in respect of the new regulations that apply to Perth and Kinross?

There could be a series of these regulations.

I hate to use the word childish, but it sounds almost as if the Executive is saying, "We've not got it right, so you're not going to get it right." It seems to be saying that if Glasgow and Edinburgh have not got it right, why should anybody else get it right?

I did not follow the Executive's explanation at all.

There is no logic to it.

If the regulations are not right, they should be corrected.

Better to have two wrong and all the rest right, than to say that if two are wrong we have to keep all of them wrong for the sake of consistency. There is no sense in that.

Part of the principle of the way that we work is that, when we point out defective drafting and say that we will not make a fuss about it on that occasion, the objective is for the Executive to improve on future regulations.

We could descend to the level of saying, "If we allow it to happen once, we will never allow it to happen again."

We must draw the regulations to the attention of the lead committee and the Parliament. We should do that with a note to say that we realise that we draw attention to many examples of defective drafting, but that these regulations are a good example of why we do so. If examples of defective drafting are not picked up as early as possible, a series of consequential mistakes can be set in train.

We also asked the Executive to explain why, given the definition of "proper officer" in regulation 2, regulation 11(1)(a) makes reference to "administrative staff". Its answer was perfectly acceptable.

There was a misunderstanding about our letter to the Executive. The Executive pointed out that it had previously replied to a request for clarification on SSIs 2002/187 and 188, but those instruments were mentioned in respect of the clarification of the definition of "proper officer" and not the clarification of SSIs 2002/187 and 188.