Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Official Report
336KB pdf
Disabled Persons’ Parking Badges (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
We come to agenda item 4, under which the committee will consider the delegated powers in the bill at stage 1.
The committee is invited to agree the questions on the bill’s delegated powers that it wishes to ask the member in charge of the bill. It is suggested that those questions are raised in correspondence. The responses will help to inform our draft report on the bill and the committee will have an opportunity to consider the responses at a future meeting, before the draft report is considered.
Section 1 of the bill amends section 21(1A)(b) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 to provide that the form of a blue badge that is issued by a local authority in Scotland must “fulfil any requirements” that are specified, in regulations or administratively, by the Scottish ministers. That will allow some elements of the specification to be published in subordinate legislation and some to be set administratively.
The bill will amend section 21 of the 1970 act to provide that the form of a badge must meet any requirements that are prescribed by regulations
“or otherwise specified by the Scottish Ministers”.
The power in the bill is broad enough to allow the Scottish ministers to specify the requirements of the badge entirely administratively, without publishing any details as to the form of the badge in regulations. That would seem to be contrary to the policy intention that non-sensitive features of the badge should be published in regulations so as to keep such information freely available in the public domain.
Does the committee agree to ask the member in charge why he has decided not to draw that power more narrowly, so as to specify generally what requirements are to continue to be prescribed in regulations and what features may be set administratively, and, given that the policy intention is explained in the delegated powers memorandum as including that non-sensitive features of the badge should be published in regulations, why the power is drawn broadly enough to enable the whole specification of the badge requirements administratively, if desired?
Members indicated agreement.
Section 6 allows the Scottish ministers to make regulations that require local authorities to review, on request, a decision not to award a badge on the ground that a person is not eligible for one. Eligibility depends on being a disabled person of a description prescribed in regulations. The regulations will specify who may apply for a review and the manner in which the application is to be made. They may also provide for the procedure that an authority has to follow when conducting a review. Under section 6(3)
“Regulations ... may provide that the review requirement ... does not apply to a decision that a person is not a disabled person of a description ... prescribed under ... the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 and ... specified in the regulations.”
The power to exclude certain decisions from review is a wide power that cuts across all decisions on eligibility, yet the delegated powers memorandum does not explain what it will be used for.
Does the committee agree to ask the member in charge to explain what the power in section 6(3) of the bill is intended to achieve and, if the power could be used to impose further eligibility criteria for applicants, why that is considered proportionate?
Members indicated agreement.
I want to put on record something in relation to our access to other legislation.
The bill is substantially about amending the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 and the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. It is worth making the point that the normal source of legislation that has already been passed is www.legislation.gov.uk, which is managed by the United Kingdom Government. Neither of those acts is up to date on that website and the sections to which the Disabled Persons’ Parking Badges (Scotland) Bill refers are not present. Therefore, it is substantially difficult for those of us who sit at the end of an electronic wire at the weekend preparing for the committee meeting to know what the effect of the bill would be.
I felt that it would be useful to put on the record that it would be substantially helpful if the UK Government kept up to date the published record of legislation that is available to the members of this Parliament.
Indeed. As a chiding to those who may not have been diligent enough to look it up, that might be useful, but it makes the general point that, if we cannot actually get at the legislation, it is not effective law. We have said that before and I guess that we will say it again.
Of course, I can go to the Scottish Parliament information centre after the meeting and remedy that defect, but it inhibits one’s good preparation for meetings, which is not good order.
Not overly to criticise the UK Parliament, I want to ascertain that our Parliament has its own house absolutely in order and that every website is up to date. Perhaps Mr Stevenson could inform us about that.
I suggest that we not get into a debate along those lines. Mr Scott’s point is fairly made; nonetheless, the point that we should make is that the general public—of whom we happen to be members in this context—should have access to the current law. Perhaps that is the point with which we could stay.