Official Report 114KB pdf
Again, various points were raised on the regulations last week. Do members who attended the previous meeting have any comments? The Executive seems to have answered some points and not others.
Can we politely tell the Executive that its answer is not full enough?
Furthermore, the response does not answer clearly the question about keeping records for two years. Perhaps we should draw that point to the lead committee's attention, as it will be talking to the people in the industry who will be required to keep records.
There is also the question of how the implementation of European Community regulations sits with section 57(2) of the Scotland Act 1998. We will seek more information about that at a future meeting with officials.
The instrument has been drafted in a way that raises mutually contradictory matters. All that we can do is draw the lead committee's attention to the difficulties that we have noticed—particularly the problems with the two-year period for record-keeping—and the failure to consolidate the regulations, given that these regulations represent the seventh substantive amendment to the principal regulations. We will see how the lead committee weighs up the importance of accepting or rejecting the instrument.