Meeting of the Parliament 22 March 2016
I am, of course, the aforementioned convener of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, which welcomes the amendments as a response to its concerns.
Section 66 contains a revised power allowing the Scottish ministers to make regulations for or in connection with a licensing scheme for funeral directors’ businesses. That power was subject to the affirmative procedure. Given the extent of the power and its potential impact on individuals, the committee encouraged the Scottish Government to lodge, at the very least, an amendment to attach an enhanced form of affirmative procedure to the power, which amendment 101 does.
However, the committee continues to believe that licensing regimes ought, as a matter of principle, to be set out substantially in primary legislation rather than delegated entirely to regulations. The committee accepts that some matters of technical or administrative detail relating to such schemes could appropriately be set out in regulations but is of the view that the delegation of power to create an entirely new licensing scheme in subordinate legislation—whether under this bill or any other bill—does not strike an acceptable balance between primary and secondary legislation.
Accordingly, the committee’s preference would have been for matters relating to the licensing of funeral directors’ businesses to be set out more fully on the face of the bill. The committee acknowledges the time constraints and appreciates that it has not been possible to develop such detail on the face of the bill. It therefore accepts that an enhanced form of affirmative procedure will enable the Parliament to scrutinise and influence the development of the proposals on licensing before the regulations are laid for approval in accordance with the affirmative procedure.
I see that the Minister for Parliamentary Business is here. It would have been helpful to the committee if there had been some recognised form of words about enhanced scrutiny to cover the issues involved in, for example, preparing a draft, consulting, laying a document that summarises representations and describing the changes in the affirmative procedure that are in front of us. I understand that we may not want such a form of words laid down in statute, but if we and the Government had such a form of words to refer to, it might make life an awful lot easier.