Subordinate Legislation Committee, 27 Jun 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Official Report 145KB pdf

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Consolidation Bill Procedure Inquiry

Members will see from the committee papers that the Procedures Committee is undertaking an inquiry into consolidation bill procedure. It has written to the committee to seek our views on our involvement in the scrutiny of such bills. We are supposed to be involved in a specific aspect of the procedure. Our only involvement to date has been our scrutiny of the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Consolidation) (Scotland) Bill in 2003, when the committee considered new powers to make subordinate legislation and also raised a number of points on existing powers as consolidated.

If members have read through the material, they will see that the big issue is whether we should continue to scrutinise all provisions or restrict ourselves to new provisions that arise in a consolidated bill. As I understand it, the problem is that when we examined provisions in the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Consolidation) (Scotland) Bill that we might have considered to be old provisions rather than new ones, we discovered that there were issues with them, so if we deal only with new provisions we might well miss the opportunity to rectify other issues.

So there is a case for reinventing the wheel.

I am reluctant to deny our legal advisers the opportunity—indeed, the delight and privilege—of examining all the provisions. After all, everything looks different when seen in a new context, and we should examine the whole bill.

What is the committee's general view?

Leaving aside the burden of work involved, I think that it would be kind of daft if we were barred from correcting errors that no one had noticed before. It is not so much about reinventing the wheel as about whether we are obliged to repeat mistakes.

Perhaps it is more like reinserting a spoke in the wheel.

That is better.

When we discussed similar measures for our draft report on the regulatory framework in Scotland, we felt that enforcing the split between new and old provisions in consolidated legislation was logical and would help to save parliamentary time. However, the issue is clearly not that easy. Given that there is no point in trying to enforce an artificial divide, I think that the suggestion that we consider all relevant provisions is sensible.

The point is that faults were found with old provisions.

Indeed. It works both ways. Because such a divide is artificial, not natural, we should not worry about it.

I agree. We should consider the whole legislation, not just bits of it. Bringing two old provisions together might indeed give rise to something new.

It might be worth commenting not only on the points in the letter but on consolidation in general. Indeed, we can use the work that we have already carried out on consolidation in our regulatory framework inquiry to provide a wider response to the Procedures Committee. We have done the work—it is simply a matter of extracting the material.

Fair enough.

I assumed that Iain Jamieson had already done that, given that he is advising the committee.

It seems daft not to use that work.

Do members agree to send that part of our regulatory framework report to the Procedures Committee and to consider all provisions in consolidated legislation?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you very much. I hope that you have a nice summer recess and that we see you all in September, refreshed and recharged.

Meeting closed at 11:17.