Chamber and committees

Agenda item 2 is consideration of three made affirmative instruments.

Is the committee content with the instruments?

Members indicated agreement.

Welcome to the seventh meeting in session 6 of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. Before we move to the first item on the agenda, I remind everyone to switch their mobile phones to silent.

Agenda item 1 is to decide whether to take business in private. Is the committee content to take item 6 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

An issue has been raised on Scottish statutory instrument 2021/322. The?instrument revokes three previous sets of regulations and replaces them with consolidated international travel regulations, with the aim of improving their readability and accessibility, as well as making certain specific changes.

In correspondence with the Scottish Government, the committee highlighted that schedule 4 to the instrument provides exemptions from requirements in the international travel regulations for certain people, including a “member of aircraft crew” as defined in subparagraph 10(2)(a)(ii).

The term “EU-OPS” is used in that paragraph, and it is defined in subparagraph 10(2)(c) with reference to the meaning of that term in paragraph 1 of schedule 1 to the Air Navigation Order 2016. However, there is no reference to EU-OPS in that order. The Scottish Government has confirmed that that is an error, in so far as there is no longer such a reference in the order, and it undertook to correct the error at the next available opportunity.

Are members content to report the instrument on reporting ground (h), on the basis that the instrument’s meaning could be clearer in that respect, and to welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to clarify the position by updating the reference at the next available opportunity, which it has done in SSI 2021/343?

Members indicated agreement.

Agenda item 3 is consideration of two affirmative instruments, on which no points have been raised.

Is the committee content with the instrument?

Members indicated agreement.

Is the committee content with the instruments?

Members indicated agreement.

The instrument brings into force section 17 of, and schedule 1 to, the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006. It forms part of a package of Scottish statutory instruments relating to elections that were laid before the Parliament earlier this month.

In correspondence, the committee asked the Scottish Government why section 17 and schedule 1 are only now being commenced, 15 years after the 2006 act was passed. The Scottish Government replied to say that there was an apparent omission in section 17 of the 2006 act at the time that it was enacted, in so far as it did not commence the accounting period for election expenses when an individual becomes a candidate.

That is being corrected by article 3(4) of the Scottish Local Government Elections Amendment Order 2021, which the committee considered last week. That in turn enables section 17 of the 2006 act to be brought into force by the current instrument. A copy of the Scottish Government’s full response can be read in paper 3 for the meeting, which is available on the committee’s website.

The response also indicates that steps to rectify the omission were not given priority, despite there having been various local government elections since 2006. Given the omission and the delay in resolving it, are members content to report the instrument under reporting ground (g), on the basis that it has been made by what appears to be an unusual or unexpected use of the commencement powers conferred by the parent statute?

Members indicated agreement.

Also, does the committee wish to highlight to the lead committee the Scottish Government’s response as to why the delay in rectifying the omission occurred, so that that committee might consider whether the explanation is satisfactory from a policy perspective?

Members indicated agreement.

No points have been raised on the following instruments.