Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Official Report 674KB pdf

Subordinate Legislation

Pests of Plants (Authorisations) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

The next item of business is consideration of a consent notification relating to a United Kingdom statutory instrument. I refer members to paper 3.

Do members have any comments on the notification?

I would like to make a point that I have raised before. Our papers say:

“The SI will be laid in the UK Parliament on 3 October and will come into force on 1 November 2022. According to the Scottish Government, it was not possible to provide the Scottish Parliament with the required 28 days to consider the notification as the ‘policy details were not able to be finalised prior to summer recess’.”

On numerous occasions in this committee, we have talked about the fact that SIs are not laid in time, and I think that it should be noted that, with this instrument, the UK Government has done that again.

I do not think that that is accurate. The instrument could not have been laid any earlier than it has been. We are talking about a couple of days, so any delay would not have made any difference to the time that we had to consider it. However, we can certainly note your point.

Thank you.

Are members content with the Scottish Government’s decision to consent to the provisions that are set out in the notifications being included in UK rather than Scottish subordinate legislation?

Members indicated agreement.