Local Government Committee, 25 Apr 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 25, 2000

Official Report 200KB pdf

---

Subordinate Legislation

The next item on the agenda is subordinate legislation. The first instrument before us is the Local Government (Discretionary Payments and Injury Benefits) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2000 (SSI 2000/77). Eugene Windsor informs me that no member has raised concerns about this instrument. I have to ask the committee whether it is content with each of the instruments that are before us. Are members content with this instrument?

Yes.

The next instrument is the Non-Domestic Rates (Levying) (Scotland) Regulations 2000 (SSI 2000/92). The Subordinate Legislation Committee, which met this morning—Bristow Muldoon and I are both members of that committee—wrote to the Executive about the instrument, as there was some doubt about the figures that it contains. A reply has now been received. In his letter, copies of which can be supplied to members, the clerk to the Subordinate Legislation Committee states:

"The Committee noted firstly that the accompanying Executive Note states that non-domestic rates provide around £1.5 billion annually and asked the Executive whether in future such figures could be given more precisely."

He goes on to say that

"the Executive states that the figure of £1.5 billion quoted is an estimate of non-domestic rate income that the Scottish Councils estimate they will collect from the businesses in the year 2000-01. The figure of £1473 million quoted in ‘Serving Scotland's Needs' is the amount of the NDRI, which at the time of publication (1999), the Scottish Executive estimated that would be distributed to councils in 2000-01. The Executive explains that the amount distributed in any year is always different from that collected in any year as it includes flows from NDRI in past years."

That sounds almost as complicated as the paper that we received about finance. The letter concludes:

"The committee's questions related to the Executive note and there was no comment on the substance of the instrument. The Committee will be drawing the attention of the Parliament to the Executive's response as providing clarification sought by the Committee."

The document that we have received from the Executive details the distributable amount of NDRI as £1,662.691 million.

The figure given to the Subordinate Legislation Committee was £1,473 million.

That is only about £180 million difference.

The Subordinate Legislation Committee's recommendation paper states that there is a breach of article 10(2) of the Scotland Act 1998 (Transitory and Transitional Provisions) (Statutory Instruments) Order 1998. Is that a matter of concern, or is it merely a technicality?

We think that the breach is that the order is effective from 1 April. The Subordinate Legislation Committee picked up the other issues this morning.

I think that we should seek further clarification on the resources. There is no reason why we should not delay consideration of the regulations for a week, while we receive further information. There seems to be a significant anomaly regarding the amount of money that we are discussing.

I do not agree. We are discussing the Executive note, which explains what the instrument is about, rather than the body of the instrument. The exact amounts will be covered in other information about the Scottish Executive's budget. It is important that explanatory notes and Executive notes are accurate, but they are not part of the legal document.

It is important that the same figures are used, given that both sets of figures come from the Executive. I do not see what difficulties would result from our delaying consideration of the instrument for a week while we seek further information, to ensure that this matter is tightened up a bit.

I do not see what advantage there would be in doing that.

I have no axe to grind on this, but I think that it would be a good idea to dot the i's and cross the t's. That might also mean that the next time the Executive presents us with an instrument of this sort it will provide us with rather more detail.

The Subordinate Legislation Committee delayed consideration of the instrument and wrote to the Executive about it. As I said, a summary of that exchange is available to any member who wants one. This morning the Subordinate Legislation Committee decided to bring the Executive's response to the attention of Parliament as providing the clarification that was sought by the committee. I understand the point that Kenny Gibson is making but, as Bristow Muldoon says, the discrepancy was in the Executive note. This will be picked up in Parliament.

At the end of the day, this is a technical matter. It is not something that we will lose sleep over. Given what you have just said, I would be happy to proceed.

Given what I have said about the instrument being referred to the Parliament, are members content with the instrument?

Members indicated agreement.

I have been informed that I cannot put the question with the caveat that I included. Are members content with the instrument as it is?

Members indicated agreement.

Now I can say that it will be referred to Parliament.

I will have to ask the public and the official report to leave before we consider the next item, which is on our report on the performance of council refuse collection services.

Meeting continued in private until 16:55.