Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations 2017 [Draft]
Agenda item 2 is subordinate legislation. The committee will consider the draft Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations 2017. The instrument is subject to the affirmative procedure.
I welcome the Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs, Annabelle Ewing, and her Scottish Government officials. Aileen Grimmer is from the civil law and legal system division, Gaynor Davenport is from the directorate for housing and social justice, and Sadif Ashraf is from the directorate for legal services.
I remind members that the officials are permitted to give evidence during agenda item 2, but may not participate in the debate on the regulations during item 3.
I refer members to paper 1, which is a note by the clerk, and I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.
Thank you and good morning, convener.
I am pleased to be here to present regulations that make provision for legal aid to be available, in certain circumstances, in the first-tier tribunal for Scotland housing and property chamber. The regulations are needed to ensure that civil legal aid will continue to be made available when the functions and jurisdiction of the sheriff court, in civil cases relating to tenancy-related disputes in the private rented sector, transfer to that chamber on 1 December 2017. The regulations will also allow for civil legal aid to be available for disputes in relation to the new private residential tenancies that are provided for under the Private Housing Tenancies (Scotland) Act 2016, which will also come into force on 1 December 2017.
The first-tier tribunal for Scotland housing and property chamber has a less adversarial approach in which legal representation will not be the norm, but given that eviction is a possible outcome in cases that will be transferred from the sheriff court, it was considered to be important to maintain the status quo as far as availability of legal aid is concerned. It should also be noted that the regulations do not involve any changes to the eligibility criteria.
The regulations provide for consequential transfer of all existing legal aid provisions, except for applications by landlords in relation to appeals of landlord registration matters under the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Act 2004. It should be noted that the policy objective is to develop landlord registration and letting agent registration in parallel and, moreover, in that regard to mirror existing procedures for property factors in the first-tier tribunal for Scotland housing and property chamber. No legal aid is available for property factors in such matters, and no legal aid is to be available for the new letting agents regime. Therefore, in the interests of parity of treatment, it is not being proposed that legal aid will be available for landlord registration matters: there should not be any difference in treatment in such matters. Even if eligibility conditions were met for such applications—which would be less likely—it is, as I have said, not proposed that legal aid be available.
I am happy to answer members’ questions.
Before we move to questions, there are two declarations of interests to be made.
I want to declare interests as a landlord in the private rented sector, as a member of the Scottish Association of Landlords and as a solicitor with current practising certificates from the Law Society of Scotland and, in England and Wales, the Law Society.
I declare that I am registered on the Scottish roll of solicitors.
It appears that members do not have any questions, so we will move to item 3 and formal consideration of the motion on the affirmative instrument. I should say that the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has considered and reported on the instrument and has made no comment on it.
I ask the minister to move motion S5M-08085.
Motion moved,
That the Justice Committee recommends that the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations 2017 [draft] be approved.—[Annabelle Ewing]
Motion agreed to.
That concludes our consideration of the regulations. The committee’s report will note and confirm the outcome of the debate and our agreement. Is the committee content to delegate authority to me, as convener, to clear the final draft of the report?
Members indicated agreement.
I thank the minister and her officials for attending, and I suspend the meeting briefly to allow them to leave.
10:06 Meeting suspended.Civil Legal Aid (Scotland) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2017 (SSI 2017/310)
Agenda item 4 is consideration of a Scottish statutory instrument. I refer members to paper 2, which is a note by the clerk.
Members have no comments, questions or recommendations, so does the committee agree that it wishes to make no recommendations on the regulations?
Members indicated agreement.