Subordinate Legislation Committee, 31 Oct 2000
Meeting date: Tuesday, October 31, 2000
Official Report
117KB pdf
Education (Graduate Endowment and Student Support) (Scotland) Bill
We are under less of a time constraint on the bill. Does anyone have preliminary comments on it?
I am very unhappy about the bill. Previously we have accepted the need to have brief bills that rely on regulation, but that is increasingly becoming the norm. In general, provisions should be contained within the body of a bill. Setting them out so extensively in regulations, some of which—as the Executive's memorandum exhibits—have not yet been crystallised, should be the exception.
Given the time scale that we have, I think we should request that the Executive come before the committee to explain why the bill is proceeding on this basis and to assure us that it is not moving towards a general policy of proceeding with bills that contain the minimum of substance. If this continues we will get two-line bills that say, "The Scottish ministers may make regulations". That might make this committee's job easier, but it is not an approach that is to be recommended.
I am comfortable with that suggestion.
The only issue on which I would disagree with David Mundell is that it would make our job a lot more difficult if everything was done by regulation, because we would have piles of regulations to get through every week.
Section 1(2)(b) of the bill, to which members have primarily been referring, seems extremely broad. I want an explanation from the Executive as to what it has in mind and to know whether it could be defined more tightly.
At £1.10 from the Stationery Office for two pages of A4, I do not think that the bill will make the bestseller list.
I agree with the request that we invite civil servants to come to the committee to explain what the bill means and why the powers are drafted so widely.
A more basic point is the title of the bill: the Education (Graduate Endowment and Student Support) (Scotland) Bill. As far as I know, Governments do not have the power to change the ordinary meaning of words, so that the word night has the meaning of the word day, or black means white. That seems to be what is being done in the bill. The word "endowment" means that a benefit has been conferred upon somebody when, in fact, what has been conferred is a debt, or arguably a tax, but certainly not a benefit. The bill is struggling with the fundamental contradiction of its title.
I do not believe that the matter is outwith our compass, because we must consider ambiguity and instances when the meaning is not clear. The word "endowment", which is referred to throughout the bill, seems to be taken to mean the exact opposite of its dictionary definition. It would be helpful to receive some legal guidance on interpretation, which—as the convener will know—has been closely examined over the years; specifically, the extent to which the meaning of a word as defined in various dictionaries is binding on Governments or Executives or whether dictionary meanings can be inverted, subverted and discarded.
I must take issue with Fergus Ewing's comments. He may want to make a political point about the way in which the funding of student finance is going—I am sure that we will debate that in the chamber in due course—but, on the definition of endowment, there clearly are beneficiaries of the scheme; the beneficiaries are the future generations of students who will receive funding as a result of those endowments. Anyone who takes out an endowment is paying money into a scheme or a charity or whatever in order that other people can benefit from it, so Fergus's points about dictionary definitions are spurious and he should stick to making the political point in the appropriate arena.
On a more general point, did not we discuss whether a word was required to have its ordinary meeting, and that that was an issue that we could raise? We discussed the issue not necessarily in the political context, but we did discuss it. It would save a lot of definitions and legal time if the word "endowment" was deleted and the word "tax" was substituted. Without straying into that, we can look at words, although it may not be appropriate to do so on this occasion.
We can leave the tautological debate for another day, but we can invite the Executive to address us on the lack of firm proposals and on the number of matters that are left to regulation. We may also ask whether a super affirmative procedure will be considered and the matter dealt with at a later date.