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Housing Grants (Assessment of Contributions) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2004 (Draft)
Item 2 is subordinate legislation. We come to consideration of the draft Housing Grants (Assessment of Contributions) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2004. I welcome Mary Mulligan, the Deputy Minister for Communities, and Jean Waddie, an Executive official, who have joined us for this item. As members are aware, the instrument is subject to the affirmative procedure, so the deputy minister is required under rule 10.6.2 of standing orders to propose by motion that the draft regulations be approved. Committee members have received copies of the regulations and the accompanying documentation. I invite the minister to speak briefly to the instrument, but she should not yet move the motion.
Good morning everybody. It is pleasing to be back before the Communities Committee; I have missed you all over the recess. As the convener indicated, there are some new faces. I look forward to working with you during this session of the Parliament.
I understand that the measures have been introduced because there have been difficulties with the registration of housing support services by the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care and are intended to ensure that problems do not prevent service providers from receiving funding—
You are on the wrong instrument. We are not dealing with that one yet.
What I am really asking is why the exclusion is limited to the Eileen Trust, the Skipton Fund and trusts that make payments to variant CJD sufferers.
This instrument has nothing to do with the care commission. We are adding trusts that were identified as not being on the original list. The trusts are additional; they are not the only ones.
If further trusts were to fit into the same category in the future, would the door also be open to them?
Yes, I assume so. The point is that those trusts had been missed from the original list and that is why we are including them now.
As there are no further questions, I ask the minister to move the motion.
Motion moved,
That the Communities Committee recommends that the draft Housing Grants (Assessment of Contributions) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2004 be approved.—[Mrs Mary Mulligan.]
Motion agreed to.
Do members agree that we will report to the Parliament our consideration of and decision on the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.
Do members have any concerns that they wish the committee to report to the Parliament?
No.
I thank the minister very much for her attendance.
Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 (Payments out of Grants for Housing Support Services) Amendment (No 2) Order 2004 (SSI 2004/348)
We move on to item 3, which is another piece of subordinate legislation. The item for consideration is the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 (Payments out of Grants for Housing Support Services) Amendment (No 2) Order 2004 (SSI 2004/348). Members have been provided with copies of the order and the accompanying documentation. Do members have any comments?
It all seems very sensible. Could we write to the Executive to find out why the slippage occurred to cause the order to be necessary? There was obviously a hiccup in the registration system. We should agree to the order, which is a sensible measure to fill a hole, but we should write to ask why the hole occurred in the first place.
I ask for clarification of the expression "in due course". The note on the order states:
I suggest that we take a view on the order and that we might write separately in the terms that have been identified. We can ask what caused the slippage and what timescale the Executive envisages for going back to the system as it was.
Members indicated agreement.
Therefore, the committee will not make any recommendation on the order in its report to the Parliament. I ask members to agree that we report our decision on the order to the Parliament. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
We have further agreed that we will write to the Executive in the terms outlined.
Aberdeen City Council (Bobby Calder Park) Compulsory Purchase Order (No 3) 2001 (SE 2004/156)
Item 4 is, again, subordinate legislation: the Aberdeen City Council (Bobby Calder Park) Compulsory Purchase Order (No 3) 2001 (SE 2004/156). Members have been provided with a copy of the order and the accompanying documentation. Do members have any comments?
When I read through the order, I was a little unclear about the current status of the land. Owners are listed as "Unknown", so I wonder who the land is being purchased from, who will be paid if no one knows who the owners are and whether it is common land. There is a reference to "common or open space" being land that comes under this type of order. I wonder whether the order goes against the recent trend to regard common land as something that cannot be bought and sold. Could we get more information on those issues?
My understanding is that the council has gone through a range of procedures and that the Executive has to agree this order for the matter to be progressed. You are right that it seems that it is not known who owns the land. I think that it is deemed to be common land.
Members will note from the paper before us that the Subordinate Legislation Committee questioned why the order had been delayed for so long. There had been a three-year delay by the time it came to that committee earlier in the month. The fact that the council has promoted the compulsory purchase order will have been advertised widely within the local area. The whole idea of advertising is to give anyone with an interest in the issue an opportunity to comment. If no owners have come forward, I would not like the committee to hold up matters for any longer than is necessary.
There is a further stage—when the compulsory purchase order goes through, the Executive will have to consider the responses. I presume that it will have to deal with the possibility that the land in question is common land. My understanding is that the laying of the order before Parliament is not the final part of the process.
Can we get a clear description of what Parliament's role is in relation to the order, as this is the first time that such an order has come before Parliament? On what basis must we agree it or not agree it?
I understand that the order needs to receive parliamentary approval after the Executive has considered it.
Can we grant or withhold that approval on our own terms?
It seems that there is no objection to the order locally. I presume that any such objections would have been flagged up to us.
It used to be the case that Scottish Office approval was necessary when one wanted to acquire land the owner of which one could not trace. Such approval might well have been replaced by parliamentary approval. I do not know whether that is useful.
I might be being a bit dim, but does not paragraph 6 of paper COM/S2/04/25/3 provide the explanation? It says that the CPO
My question was more about the terms on which we can take a view on the order. Can we withhold or grant our approval on whatever terms we consider fit and, if so, do we not need to know a bit more about the case?
A motion to annul the order, which would have allowed us to have such a discussion and make that decision, has not been lodged. We would not be able to withhold our approval. The fact that the order is subject to the negative procedure means that it would have been necessary for a motion to annul it to have been lodged; we would have had a vote on that. No member has chosen to lodge such a motion. We might want to brush up—both individually and collectively—on the implications of our responsibilities in such matters and it might be helpful to get a note on that, but a motion to annul the order under consideration has not been lodged and obviously that cannot be done now.
Members indicated agreement.
As the committee is content, it will not make any recommendation on the order in its report to Parliament. I ask members to agree that we report our decision on the order to Parliament. Are we agreed?
Members indicated agreement.