Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 11 Dec 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 11, 2001

Official Report 198KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Protection of Wrecks (Designation) (No 2) (Scotland) Order 2001 (SSI 2001/384)

Agenda item 5 is consideration of two pieces of subordinate legislation. With us are representatives of Historic Scotland and of the Scottish Executive.

First, we will consider Protection of Wrecks (Designation) (No 2) (Scotland) Order 2001 (SSI 2001/384) under the negative procedure. Members have the Executive note on the instrument. Does anyone have questions?

I have asked several parliamentary questions about orders on wrecks. A general issue arises from the order. The wreck to which the order applies was discovered in 1993 and was visited again last year. An emergency procedure exists for designation of a site, which involves Westminster ministers. A wreck can become

"increasingly vulnerable to sport divers and trophy hunters",

as the Executive note says, at any time. The time lag between 1993 and now is considerable. Even the time between the visit last year and now is pretty considerable.

As members know, individuals can do damage over a weekend. Can such orders be produced more quickly to designate wrecks before they are in danger, instead of allowing time for difficulty to occur? For instance, a temporary designation that was subject to confirmation by a statutory instrument could be made.

I am dissatisfied with the Westminster procedure, which involves Westminster ministers. According to the written answer that I received, that procedure does not automatically involve Scottish ministers, although perhaps that answer is in error.

The order came into force on 1 December 2001. Today is 11 December. How does that work with the negative procedure, should we wish to overturn the order?

The instrument remains in force unless annulled within the 40-day period, which expires on 18 December.

If we wanted to annul the order, we would have six days to do so. We would have to approach the Parliamentary Bureau about that.

A member would need to lodge a motion with the chamber clerks.

The time is tight.

I understand the point that Mr Russell makes.

My more general point concerns the time between the wreck's discovery, the decision to recommend designation from the University of St Andrews and the appropriate organisation, and the order's coming into force.

Section 1(4) of the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 allows Scottish ministers to consult about a proposed order. It also says that if Scottish ministers are

"satisfied that the case is one in which an order should be made as a matter of immediate urgency",

they can dispense with the consultation procedure and make an order straight away. Therefore, an emergency designation procedure exists.

If, in the judgment of those who judge such matters, a wreck is worthy of preservation, a default protection procedure, confirmed or otherwise by statutory instrument, would be a better procedure than the present procedure, which includes a time lag. That time lag is not as great as that for the previous order on protection of wrecks that we considered, but such time lags provide the possibility for damage to be done.

The wreck to which the present order applies has already been damaged by the explosives that were used to reduce its height, but I understand that the rest of the wreck is well preserved.

That is right.

That situation might have changed on 30 November—the order came into force on 1 December—but we would not know that. A default procedure would be better. I realise that we cannot deal with that here, but I put that on record for consideration.

There is another designated site in the Firth of Forth, which is close to the site that we are discussing. It is offshore from Burntisland. If somebody had been diving on the site that is subject to this order, it would have been reported to Historic Scotland and the emergency procedure could have been enacted.

I understand that, but I would like consideration to be given to a default procedure.

We could write to the appropriate minister and ask for their views on the subject.

That would be the right way to approach the matter.

We could also note the time scale and consider that again for future Scottish statutory instruments that come to the committee. Unless there are strong objections, I suggest that we agree that the instrument proceeds.

Members indicated agreement.

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Scottish Social Services Council (Consultation on Codes of Practice) Order 2001 (SSI 2001/424)

We now turn to Scottish Social Services Council (Consultation on Codes of Practice) Order 2001 (SSI 2001/424) under the negative procedure. I like the fact that those SSIs have succinct titles, which conveners can quickly read out.

The convener might be interested to know that the Subordinate Legislation Committee has drawn attention to the awkwardness of some of the titles. I am not sure that it is easy to change the system.

I knew that Margo MacDonald would have a significant impact on the Subordinate Legislation Committee.

Do members have questions on the order?

I misunderstood point 11 in the extract from the Subordinate Legislation Committee report. It talks about unnecessarily referential drafting. I thought that it said unnecessarily deferential drafting. We should note the Subordinate Legislation Committee's point that it seems to be a long way round to do something.

It seems that there are no strong views and the committee does not want to make any recommendations in its report to the Parliament.