Official Report 565KB pdf
Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes (Amendment) Order 2025 (SI 2025/678)
09:37
Our next item of business is consideration of a statutory instrument. The order has been laid under the negative procedure, which means that it will come into force unless the Parliament agrees a motion to annul it. No such motion has been lodged, and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has made no comment on the order.
Before we go on to consider the order itself, I want to make a comment on the accompanying policy note. It seems to assume certain pre-existing technical knowledge. For example, there are references to “EU values” and “UK values” with regard to trading; there is no further explanation of the terms, and I am not entirely clear what they mean. It is very important to me as a parliamentarian that policy notes are understandable—they should be understandable to any member of the public who wants to know what an instrument does, and they should be understandable when parliamentarians are being asked to agree to instruments.
The policy note also uses greenhouse gas statistics from 2019 although, as I have been informed by the Scottish Parliament information centre, the 2023 figures have been available since June. Furthermore, the policy note refers to being “carbon neutral by 2040”. That might well be a specific policy commitment in a particular area, but a little more context to clarify that would have been helpful and welcome to me as somebody considering the instrument.
That said, do members have any comments? If not, I invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendation in relation to the instrument. Are we agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
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