Knife Dealer’s Licence (Miscellaneous) (Scotland) Order 2010 (SSI 2010/311)
Item 5 is subordinate legislation. We have to consider one negative instrument today. Members will see that the Subordinate Legislation Committee has drawn two matters to the Parliament’s attention. The first is that part of the order breached the 21-day rule, although the Subordinate Legislation Committee accepted the explanation that the Government provided.
I think that I am right in saying that the issue came up and was discussed at stage 3 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill. This is a sensible piece of subordinate legislation that deals with an unintended consequence of the act. It is a superb piece of secondary legislation.
The order seems to be absolutely necessary; we spoke about the matter at the time. I share the Subordinate Legislation Committee’s concerns about the words “qualified to teach”, but I also have to respect the Government’s response that there is no obvious way of improving on it. It is just one of those situations where we have to acknowledge that, as and when it comes before a court, the court will have to do what it is good at and make a judgment.
I agree with my two colleagues, but we have to take the reasonable person approach. Most of us have a commonsense view of who is qualified to teach. Although I understand where the Subordinate Legislation Committee is coming from, to go down the road of trying to define it all would be to end up destroying what we are trying to do here.
Are we content to note the instrument?
The committee will now move into private session for the remaining agenda items.