Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, 30 Sep 2009
Meeting date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Official Report
325KB pdf
Arbitration (Scotland) Bill
Given that we all have a fairly busy day, and given that we will have the opportunity to have lunch with Robert Peston in the members' dining room shortly, we will resume the meeting. I want to give Gavin Brown time to sit down because he is the only person who knows about the next item of business.
The final item of business is the Arbitration (Scotland) Bill. We agreed to consider this week, before stage 2 starts next week, whether the committee wishes to consider any committee amendments to the bill. Of course, members will be free to lodge their own amendments.
I thank the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism for the information that he has provided to the committee and for lodging the Government amendments on Monday, which will give us time to consider them today, which is helpful. The amendments touch on most of the issues that we raised in our report. We have to consider whether we still wish to pursue any amendments. As I said, members are free to lodge amendments on specific areas if they are not happy with the way the Government has responded.
Does Gavin Brown want to comment?
Yes. We raised a couple of issues last time. One was in relation to our original recommendation 2, which referred to the retrospective transitional provisions, I suppose, of the bill. Jim Mather's amendment 60, which applies to after section 33, seems to take care of the issues that I had on that point.
Our recommendation 3 was about bringing in part of the UK Arbitration Act 1996, which relates to consumer protection. That has not been proposed, but there is a letter from the minister explaining that he is awaiting a response from Westminster on it.
Our recommendation 7 referred to section 13, on confidentiality. Amendment 52 would replace section 13. What is proposed is much cleaner and takes care of the issues that the Faculty of Advocates, in particular, raised. It seems satisfactory.
The Government has dealt with most of the issues that we raised. I am still a little bit unsure about the list of small-scale consumer arbitrations and the potential impact on them, but there is not a specific section in the bill on that, so it does not merit a committee amendment. I would not recommend any specific committee amendments.
My only thought was about the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law model law and amendment 51. I would be interested to hear whether members think it provides a safe protection for parties to resort to the model law, rather than use the bill as it is designed.
We can explore that when we debate the amendments. There will also be an opportunity to return to the issue at stage 3 if members of the committee are not satisfied.
At first sight, the amendment looks to be cleaner and clearer than what was there before.
On that basis, do we agree that we do not need to lodge any committee amendments at this stage, although we will have that opportunity at stage 3 if we feel that something has not been satisfactorily dealt with at stage 2?
Members indicated agreement.
That concludes today's meeting. It has been a long meeting but a valuable one. I remind members that at our next meeting we will deal with stage 2 of the Arbitration (Scotland) Bill and take further evidence on the budget.
Meeting closed at 12:59.