Economy and Fair Work Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Official Report 593KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Registers of Scotland (Digital Registration, etc) Regulations 2022 [Draft]

The committee will now take evidence on the Registers of Scotland (Digital Registration, etc) Regulations 2022. I welcome Tom Arthur, who is the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth. He is joined by Graham Fisher, who is deputy director of the Scottish Government legal directorate, and Harry Murray, who is policy lead at Registers of Scotland.

I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

Thank you, convener. I am grateful for the opportunity to appear before the committee to answer questions about the instrument, which relates to land registration. As the committee will appreciate, the keeper of the registers of Scotland plays a vital role in the Scottish economy by safeguarding property rights through the registration of documents in the land register and the register of sasines.

In response to the necessary closure of Registers of Scotland’s offices due to the Covid pandemic, the emergency coronavirus acts provided a basis for applications to be submitted to ROS digitally, thereby ensuring that the property market could continue to operate during the period of public health restrictions. That method of submission has proved to be enormously popular, and there has been strong stakeholder support for its retention, so the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill, which was introduced yesterday and will be published today, will look to provide a continuing basis for applications to be submitted to ROS digitally.

The regulations before the committee complement the bill by making digital submission the default method of submission to ROS, subject to exceptions. In addition, the regulations open up the register of deeds in the books of council and session to electronic documents for the first time.

The regulations also make technical amendments to the Requirements of Writing (Scotland) Act 1995 to clarify and make additional provision on issues that have come to light through the increased use of electronic documents and signatures over the past two years.

The regulations give effect to proposals that were set out in the digital submission consultation that Registers of Scotland held on our behalf, which set out plans for how digital submission could be placed on a permanent statutory footing for several of the keeper’s registers, and how that represented a positive step on the road to fully digital registration.

The reaction to that consultation was overwhelmingly positive, with customers and stakeholders showing strong support for the proposals. There is a clear expectation within the conveyancing profession that digital submission should become the standard method of submitting applications to ROS.

As the convener mentioned, I am joined by Harry Murray from Registers of Scotland and Graham Fisher from the Scottish Government legal directorate. Along with my officials, I would be happy to answer any questions that the committee may have.

11:30  

Thank you, minister.

Why have the regulations been drafted in such a way that they will come into force, in respect of the presumption, only if new primary legislation successfully replaces the emergency coronavirus acts? Could Harry Murray explain that?

Yes.

Is the minister happy for Harry Murray to answer the question?

I am happy for Harry to respond to your question.

The bill and its interaction with the secondary legislation is ultimately a matter for Parliament, but in relation to the specific technicalities of how they interact, Graham Fisher from the Scottish Government legal directorate is better positioned to respond.

Mr Fisher, would you like to respond? I want to understand why the regulations come into force only if the new primary legislation successfully replaces the emergency acts. Is it expected that the bill will replace them? I am wondering why the Scottish Parliament information centre paper says that that will happen only “if” the bill replaces those pieces of legislation.

I am happy to respond, convener. It is for Parliament to consider the bill’s provisions. I appreciate that those were only introduced yesterday and published today, as the minister said. In effect, the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill will replace the temporary provisions that were in place to allow copies of traditional paper deeds that have been signed to be registered electronically at the Registers of Scotland. It will replace, in pretty much identical terms, the existing temporary provisions in the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 that allow for digital submission.

Because the changes that are being made in regulations 2 and 3 are intended to be in effect at the same time as the permanent provisions that will be introduced by the bill, it was thought appropriate to make the procedural changes that the regulations make alongside the change in the bill. As they will have effect at the same time, it makes sense to have both sets of measures in place at the same time.

The only reason for the changes in the regulations being made alongside the change in the bill is so that they can come into effect at the same time. That is the neatest approach for the default provisions in the regulations, which, as the minister mentioned, are supported by the conveyancing profession. I hope that that answers the question; I would be happy to answer any further questions if it does not make sense.

If members are interested, section 24 of the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill includes the provisions that will replace the temporary provisions in the current coronavirus acts.

Good morning, minister. I am happy to see that progress is being made. One of the good aspects of Covid is that it has accelerated something that was intended to happen anyway.

I have a general question. How confident are you that the organisational capacity and capability from an information technology perspective is in place, with particular reference to safety and security? You may have already tested that. We are talking about extremely important documents that go back a long way, and hacking is a concern for any organisation.

I thank Michelle Thomson for her support for the measures and for recognising that this is an opportunity to take another step towards a fully digital service. Before I ask Harry Murray to come in, I make the observation that the regulations put on a permanent footing what has been in place for the past couple of years with the digital submission service.

As you will be aware from the response to the consultation, which was carried out from December 2020 to February 2021, there has been overwhelming stakeholder support. I encourage members who have an interest in the application of digital technology to public services to read the responses to the consultation. It is encouraging and heartening to see how overwhelming the support has been on a range of issues, including efficiency, ease of use and savings on postal costs and paper, which, I am sure, we would all welcome, given our environmental commitments.

With regard to your question seeking assurance on the capacity to deliver in the future, I ask Harry Murray to expand on the points that I have made.

Please go ahead, Mr Murray.

I will build on what the minister said. The key point to make is that the development and implementation costs have been identified and the work to provide for the regulations has already been done. That work was carried out at the outset of the pandemic so that we could make use of the provisions that were introduced in the temporary legislation.

With regard to security and fraud, it is important to note that the digital submission service is open only to existing Registers of Scotland e-service account holders, the majority of whom are solicitors. Those users or applicants are under a statutory duty of care in the underpinning legislation, the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Act 2012. In addition, solicitors operate under their own professional and regulatory standards.

In the two years for which we have been offering the services in question, no fraud has been attributable to the digital submission service. We are extremely confident, as are users, that the digital platform does not expose any risk and that there are no issues. This is now the business-as-usual operating model. In essence, we are not introducing anything new.

I note my entry in the register of members’ interests in relation to use of the land registry. I welcome the progress on digitisation and the development of electronic formats.

I invite the minister to comment on the position of people who will only be capable of submitting written paperwork to the register. We have a huge issue, particularly in rural areas, with a digital divide, because of people’s internet connections and so on. Can the minister guarantee that people will still be able to submit entries non-electronically and explain how they will be able to do that? For people who submit non-electronically, how will that be recorded and reported on to make sure that there is no discrimination in the quality or speed of service that they receive, compared with those who submit digitally?

I thank Mr Burnett for his important questions. As he will be aware, while the system moves to a digital-by-default approach, there are exemptions in the regulations. For example, if the Registers of Scotland IT system had been down for a period of more than 48 hours, paper applications would be possible. Similarly, in relation to the important point that Mr Burnett raises, for those individuals who do not have access to a computer or an internet connection, the option of paper submission will still be available. In addition, the keeper has a discretionary power to allow for paper submissions in exceptional circumstances.

Perhaps Harry Murray could expand on some of those points.

Again, I will build on what the minister said. As I explained previously, the digital submission service is limited to existing professional users, who are primarily members of the legal conveyancing community. However, we will continue to provide for the exceptions that apply. A key exception would be for a citizen who was dealing with their own conveyancing activity. They would simply be able to submit a traditional paper-based application in the way that they previously would have done. The way in which the land registration provisions work means that no preference is afforded to a digital application—the date of registration will be the date of registration, so there is no real change there.

I think that there was also a query about island communities. The digital provisions lend themselves very well to that situation. In effect, we have a system that introduces a level playing field so that remote or island communities are no longer disproportionately impacted by the vagaries of postal, courier or ferry services.

We feel that the new system introduces a level playing field for all manner of people who interact with our services.

Thank you. To come back to my second question, what analysis will we be able to see of the reporting of the volume of electronic and written submissions? I appreciate that there will be no discrimination in terms of dates, but will we be able to see information on volumes and postcodes?

The keeper frequently provides statistical analysis from the full range of work that she does. If the committee was interested in having periodic feedback on that, I cannot see there being any difficulties with that. The keeper could potentially provide that as part of her quarterly updates to the committee, for example. I do not see any difficulty with us being able to provide such data, which I think will simply confirm that there is no disadvantage to non-digital submissions.

I hope that the keeper will note that conversation.

One of my questions has been covered by the answers to Alex Burnett’s questions. As an islander, I am delighted that Harry Murray says that any disadvantages that island communities might have faced have been removed.

I have a quick question for the minister. There were 223 respondents and a 97 per cent approval rating for what is proposed, which is something that politicians can only dream of. Can you outline any issues or concerns that might have been raised about the changes?

I agree entirely that there was overwhelming, near-unanimous support. A small proportion of respondents—the figure was less than 10 per cent—raised questions, primarily with regard to a digital-by-default approach and the potential consequence that could arise from that of people being excluded. The previous line of questioning shows how that issue has been addressed through the building in of safeguards.

A limited number of concerns were raised around security of personal data but, again, as has been touched on, that issue has been addressed, in the sense that no new personal data is being collected through this process. As we have seen over the past two years, the digital submission service is a robust and resilient service, which has served us well throughout the pandemic. Indeed, as well as providing us with a more efficient service, it will also provide us with a more resilient service, should any other unforeseen events—I hope that this will not be the case—require the interventions that we have been living with over the past two years.

Harry Murray may wish to add something from an ROS perspective.

Like the minister, I have never been involved in any form of public consultation that has had such striking support. We were almost having to dig to find anything negative. This is slightly anecdotal, but when we looked at the responses of the sole respondent who objected to placing the digital submission provisions on a permanent footing, the rest of their responses tended to suggest that they had made an error in giving that answer.

It is also worth pointing out the very small number of people who gave what could be classed as negative responses. There was nothing in the way of any positive contribution or any specific comments as to why they were not in favour of the proposal, so it was really difficult to tease anything out of that.

11:45  

The only other thing to add is that the managing of personal data and the maintaining of public records is quintessentially the work of the keeper. She has enormous experience in that, so we are very confident that we have robust processes in place. We consistently do impact assessments and review our processes to make sure that we maintain our records to the highest possible standard. We are extremely confident that we do not expose anyone to any risks.

Thank you.

If there are no further questions from members, we move to agenda item 4, which is the formal debate on the motion. I remind the committee that only members and the minister may take part in the formal debate.

I invite the minister to speak, if there is anything further that he would like to say, and to move motion S6M-02599.

Motion moved,

That the Economy and Fair Work Committee recommends that the Registers of Scotland (Digital Registration, etc.) Regulations 2022 [draft] be approved.—[Tom Arthur]

No members have indicated that they wish to speak in the debate on the motion. I think that members were content with the question-and-answer session.

Motion agreed to.

I invite the committee to agree that the clerk and I will produce a short factual report on the committee’s decision and arrange to have it published.

Members indicated agreement.

I thank the minister and his officials for joining us today. We now move into private session for the remaining items on the agenda. I apologise—I was being too hasty. We have another Scottish statutory instrument to consider first.

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Consumer Scotland (Designated Regulators) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/465)

We move to agenda item 5, which is consideration of a further SSI. The committee is invited to note SSI 2021/465. The purpose of the instrument is to set out the authorities, as per section 9(6) of the Consumer Scotland Act 2020, who are designated as regulators from whom Consumer Scotland can require information related to its functions. I invite members to note the instrument.

Members indicated agreement.

That concludes the public part of the meeting. We now move into private session.

11:47 Meeting continued in private until 12:31.