Justice Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Official Report 783KB pdf

Subordinate Legislation

Electronic Monitoring (Relevant Disposals) (Modification) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 (SSI 2020/309)

Our final public item of business is to consider the Electronic Monitoring (Relevant Disposals) (Modification) (Scotland) Regulations 2020, which is a negative instrument. We wrote to the Scottish Government about an element of the Scottish statutory instrument and its vires under the Management of Offenders (Scotland) Act 2019, and we have seen the Cabinet Secretary for Justice’s response. Given that response, are members content not to make any recommendation to Parliament on the SSI, or do members want to progress the matter? Does anyone want to say anything? Does Liam McArthur want to comment?

I was just busily trying to type that I am content in the chat box. I had raised concerns about the challenge, not the principle of the proposal, which I was comfortable with. However, in light of the Government’s response, I am happy that that matter has been addressed.

I share that view. I think that the committee was right to raise the issue with the cabinet secretary, and I am glad that we did. The answer that we got was helpful and clarified the matter. No doubt the correspondence to which we are referring will be published on the committee’s website, if that has not already happened. Other members are indicating that they are content not to make any recommendations to Parliament on the instrument.

Our next meeting will be a week today, on Tuesday 24 November, when we will continue to take oral evidence on the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill, including, again, from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice.