Subordinate Legislation Committee, 26 Jun 2007

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Official Report 120KB pdf

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Scottish Parliament Subordinate Legislation Committee Tuesday 26 June 2007

[The Convener opened the meeting at 14:15]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We have hit the starting time almost to the second. I welcome everyone to the second meeting in session 3 of the Subordinate Legislation Committee. We have received no apologies. I ask members and all others present to turn off their mobile phones and pagers—although pagers are mostly things of the past.

I stress that this is rather an unusual meeting. It is not representative of the way in which things were done in the past or will be done in the future. This is our only opportunity to consider statutory instruments that have been laid since the dissolution of the second session of Parliament. Usually, when the committee considers instruments and raises points with the Executive, it has an opportunity at a further meeting to consider the Executive's response. We do not have that luxury today, which I think is a little unfortunate, but we are trapped between a rock and a hard place.

Members will note from the legal brief that the legal advisers have already approached the Executive about two instruments on which they identified substantive points. We will consider the Executive's responses at appropriate junctures during the meeting.

One of the instruments that we are considering today was laid only last Friday. Unusually, it will be considered by the whole Parliament this Thursday, under rule 10.7 of standing orders. That is a very short timescale, and we will touch on that later.