Hansard

As you say, Presiding Officer, I speak in my capacity as convener of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. The committee has continuing concerns about the bill and accordingly agreed that I should contribute to the debate.

I begin by welcoming the Scottish Government’s willingness to respond to many of the committee’s comments on the bill. The committee raised concerns about the number of delegated powers in the bill relative to its size and considered that more detail should be set out on the face of the bill. Furthermore, the committee was concerned about a number of delegated powers in the bill that permit the creation of criminal offences in regulations. It encouraged the Scottish Government to revisit each of those powers to determine whether the offence could be included on the face of the bill, rather than in subordinate legislation.

The committee also commented on the selection of the negative procedure for a number of delegated powers, which was justified by the Scottish Government on the basis that consultation requirements would provide additional scrutiny. The committee did not agree that the presence of consultation requirements was an appropriate justification for selecting different parliamentary procedures. We are therefore pleased to see that the Scottish Government has been willing to commit to amend the bill to respond to almost all those concerns.

Section 65(1) of the bill provides that

“The Scottish Ministers may make a scheme for the licensing of funeral directors’ premises”,

and section 66(1) provides that

“The Scottish Ministers may by regulations make provision for or in connection with”

such a scheme. I welcome clarification from the Government that it is now intended that a licence will be required by each funeral director rather than for the premises. Nonetheless, our concern is that the bill proposes to set out in secondary legislation an entire licensing regime for individuals who carry out business as funeral directors. In its report, the committee recommended that such a licensing regime should be set out more fully on the face of the bill, rather than being delegated in its entirety to subordinate legislation.

The Scottish Government’s response to the committee’s report expresses an intention to continue to provide for the licensing scheme in regulations and suggests that that will enable the licensing scheme to be developed on the basis of recommendations from inspectors and allow for consultation with funeral directors. In essence, the Scottish Government is not able to set out its policy on the licensing of funeral directors on the face of the bill, as that policy is yet to be fully developed. The committee finds that unsatisfactory. I note the earlier comments from Kevin Stewart on behalf of the Local Government and Regeneration Committee that that committee, too, would like a lot more detail.

The matter is important and will clearly have a significant impact on individuals operating as funeral directors. The approach also clearly contrasts with the approach that has been taken in relation to so many other licensing schemes, including most recently the scheme for the licensing of air weapons, where more detail regarding the operation of the licensing regime was set out in primary legislation.

The committee recognises that there is room for some matters of detail around the licensing scheme to be left to secondary legislation, but it considers that the majority of those matters should be set out on the face of the bill, given their significance. Those people who will be covered by the licensing scheme should be able to understand that scheme, and members should be able to understand the nature of the licensing scheme that they are being asked to agree to.

I note the minister’s earlier comments but reflect that section 61, which is about inspections, is still very general in its terms, simply saying that

“Ministers may by regulations make provision for or in connection with ... inspections of burial grounds ... crematoriums and ... funeral directors”.

We could still do with some detail as to what that is going to mean.

The committee asks the Scottish Government to reflect again on its approach to the licensing scheme and strongly advocates that it include more detail of the scheme on the face of the bill.

The committee will be interested to hear the Scottish Government’s further reflections on the matter and in light of those further thoughts we intend to return to the issue.