Subordinate Legislation Committee, 20 Nov 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 20, 2001

Official Report 75KB pdf

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Executive Responses

I welcome everyone to the 32nd meeting of the Subordinate Legislation Committee in 2001, for another fun-filled hour.

Or less.

Indeed. We have received no apologies this morning.

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Northern College of Education (Closure) (Scotland) Order 2001 (SSI 2001/407)

We have received the Executive's response to the eight points that we raised on the order. The committee felt that the order contained bad drafting, but the Executive has not addressed that as we might have wanted.

To our basic question on the definition of the universities, the Executive has replied that it knows what it means and that we really should know what it means as well. As there has not been much movement on the issue, perhaps we should draw it to the attention of the lead committee and the Parliament.

Having read the recommendations in the legal briefing, I have no problem drawing them all to the attention of the Parliament.

So we do not need to go through them one by one.

That is what I was hinting at, convener.

Well, that is what I am hearing.

We should simply draw to the attention of the lead committee the fact that the order contains defective drafting. Furthermore, the Executive has provided us with an explanation, which is not wonderful, but at least it is there. We will also draw that information to the lead committee's attention.

Okay.