Justice 1 Committee, 27 Nov 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 27, 2001

Official Report 318KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2001

Members have a paper on the Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2001. The instrument just changes the tables in schedule 2 to the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987, which show the amounts that can be deducted from weekly earnings under an earnings arrestment.

I draw the committee's attention to paragraph 3 of the paper, which states that the Executive note includes

"a list of consultees on a draft instrument. This list includes Citizens Advice Scotland, CBI Scotland and Money Advice Scotland. The note reports that where a response was received ‘no adverse comments' were offered."

That is important. It appears that the instrument does not do anything substantive: it just brings the figures into line with inflation.

I remind the committee that, as is stated under the heading "Procedure" in the paper,

"Under Rule 10.4, this instrument is subject to negative procedure which means that it comes into force and remains in force unless the Parliament passes a resolution, not later than 40 days after the instrument is laid, calling for its annulment."

Any MSP may lodge such a motion. Therefore it is open to any member of the committee to do so, in their own capacity. Do I take it that the committee simply wishes to note the instrument?

Yes. I note that the average increase will be in the order of 160 per cent, which is rather substantial, and that people will probably be quite surprised at the level of the increase next time there is a deduction from their wages. The fact that the Executive has tried to plan ahead and has offered the proposed charges for 2002 or 2003 is to be welcomed, but the figures have been left unchanged for a long time and such a large increase is probably unfair on the people from whom deductions will be made.

I hear what you say. October 2002 is seven years on—

The levels were last revised in 1995.

Yes, I see that. I hear your comments. Is it the position that we wish simply to note the instrument? If Mr Matheson wishes to deal with the point that he raised, it is open to him to do so—he can lodge a motion.