Subordinate Legislation Committee, 30 Apr 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 30, 2002

Official Report 76KB pdf

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Instruments Subject to Annulment

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Instruments Subject <br />to Annulment

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Home Zones (Scotland) Regulations 2002 (SSI 2002/177)

The home zones regulations—ooby dooby dooby!

That was a technical term.

You will have to help us with the spelling.

There are serious points on the regulations. Regulations 5, 9 and 14(f)—which raises a question about vires—contain some seriously impenetrable items.

We could say a great deal about the regulations. They deal with the designation of roads as home zones, which can be classified in different ways. The regulations are important, because people must be informed and consulted about home zones, which they must be able to understand. The law must stand up to that, but from our reading of these regulations it does not appear that they meet that aim.

Another peculiar problem with the regulations is that we are not sure how often the consultation is to be repeated. People are informed about a designation in the first instance when a notice is sent out. If they object at that stage, it is not clear whether their objection remains valid or whether they must repeat it.

I also noticed that we are advised that the instrument is so defective that it ought to be scrapped. Would it be possible for the Executive to start again? We have received page after page of good advice that the instrument may be the worst that we have seen.

I do not know whether the instrument is the worst that we have seen, but—

It is up there—or down there—with the worst, convener.

I am not sure about that. Certainly, we should draw the instrument to the attention of the Executive. We should suggest to the Executive that, given that we have raised so many objections, we would have no objection if it were to start again.

A thorough redraft is required.

All right. Is the committee so minded?

Members indicated agreement.

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Registration of Fish Farming and Shellfish Farming Businesses Amendment (Scotland) Order 2002 (SSI 2002/193)

This order raises the question of whether we should send a nice wee letter to the Executive asking where it would like to insert new paragraph 3, because each part of schedule 3 already contains a paragraph 3. Although we should definitely send a letter, I do not think that we need to write formally, because the problem that we found does not negate what the Executive is trying to do—it simply has to decide in which part of schedule 3 it wishes to put the paragraph. Is that correct?

Our letter will have to be more than informal because the principal order will not make sense if it contains two paragraph 3s.

Therefore, the drafting is defective, and our practice in relation to defective drafting has been to write formally to the Executive.

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Animals and Animal Products <br />(Import and Export) (Scotland) Amendment (No 2) Regulations 2002 (SSI 2002/196)

As Brian Fitzpatrick missed the rest of the meeting, perhaps he would like to give us an exposition of these regulations.

No. I decline.