Hansard

I am conscious that we are often asked to vote through secondary legislation on the nod and I am sure that, if I had not objected to this particular piece of secondary legislation, that would also have happened this time. Emergency legislation is too important to operate in this way. In my view, we cannot do our duty as MSPs if we simply leave such important scrutiny of secondary legislation to the COVID-19 Committee alone, no matter how well it fulfils its role.

When Mike Russell gave evidence to the COVID-19 Committee on 16 September, he said:

“The regulations are not perfect, but they are necessary and proportionate, which is why they need to be supported.”—[Official Report, COVID-19 Committee, 16 September 2020; c 30.]

I make it clear that I fully support the purpose of these regulations, which is to

“make provision for a local authority to give directions relating to specified premises, events and public outdoor places in its area”

for the purpose of preventing, protecting against, controlling and providing a public health response to the incidence or spread of infection by coronavirus in the local authority’s area. Those directions can include closing down premises and/or restricting access to them and must be proportionate to addressing the public health problem.

I have no problem with any of that, because it is putting control of the measures into the hands of our local authorities, which are obviously in the best place to decide on these issues. However, regulation 4 also states that the Scottish ministers have the power to overrule those decisions of local authorities. In the policy note, the Scottish Government makes it clear that the regulations apply only to “specified premises” and do not affect other regulations giving emergency powers to the Scottish Government to implement wide restrictions. Why, therefore, is it that the Scottish Government still seems to think that it knows best over local authorities when it comes to specific premises in a local authority area?

I return to what Mike Russell said in evidence to the COVID-19 Committee on the regulations—they are not perfect. They are not perfect because the Scottish Government still wishes to be able to direct local authorities to take action on specific premises—I see that the cabinet secretary is nodding his head, but it is true. The Scottish Government wishes to have the ability to micro-manage the issue, which is another example of how its management of the health emergency is so wrong. Mr Russell is laughing—it is not good enough to laugh.

I do not mind so much if I am the only MSP to vote against that particular regulation. I will vote against any regulation that is as wrong as that one is. When it comes to review the regulations—as is required before 9 October—I urge the Scottish Government to think again and to amend them, to reflect the trust that we should have in our local authorities to do the right thing about restrictions on specific premises in their own areas.