 homme dydd. I welcome members to the 20th meeting in 2015 of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. Members may be asked to switch off mobile phones, please. Denderось is the decision on taking business in private, however it's proposed that we should take item 4 in private due to my considering a draft report for the Education Scotland Bill as amended at stage 2. Do we agree to take that in private please? Agree. 2. Pwysig ddau cyntaf o'r prysgio negatwy, ac mae gennym ni'n nosion o'r ddau amser a'r ddaeth yn ein gwneud yn bwysig yn gweithio'r cyllid. 3. Mae'r prysgio arbeth o ddau'r gwahodau ym Mhwng Sgoledig, Ysgoledig yn 2015, SSI 2015, 202, ynghylch i'r Ysgoledig, yng Nghymru, ynghylch i'r Ysgoledig, Ysgoledig, ynghylch i'r Ysgoledig, ynghylch i'r Ysgoledig, Ysgoledig, ynghylch i'r Ysgoledig, 9. diwiwethech cyfaintwyr nid, Yanghwm amser i Anghwm, Scotland Order 2015, SSI 2015-210. 10. diwethech cyfaintwyr nid, River Basin Management Planning, etc., Ewellianious Amendments Scotland Regulations 2015, SSI 2015-211. 21. diwethech cyfaintwyr nid, Ewellianious Amendments Scotland Regulations 2015, SSI 2015-214. Eyad o'r llythdoedd gennyngu'r Sgolwyr, Scotland Ryegwm, SSI 2015-216. The Property Factors Registration Scotland Amendment Regulations 2015, SSI 2015-217. The Building Scotland Amendment Regulations 2015, SSI 2015-218. The National Health Service, Optical Charges and Payments and General Off-Down-Makes Services, Scotland Amendment Regulations 2015, SSI 2015-219. Public Bodies Joint Working Integration Joint Board Establishment, Scotland Amendment Order 2015, SSI 2015-222. The Protection of Vulnerable Group, Scotland Act 2007, Fees for Scheme Membership and Disclosure Requests Amendment Regulations 2015, SSI 2015-223. The Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service Administrative Support, Specified Pensions Order 2015, SSI 2015-224. Scottish Sensing Council, Procedure for Appointment of Members Regulations 2015, SSI 2015-225. The Late Payment of Commercial Debt, Scotland Regulations 2015, SSI 2015-226. The Health and Care Professions Council, Registration and Fees Amendment No. 2, Rules, Order of Council 2015, SI 2015-1337. Is the committee content with all of these, please? Yes, sir. Thank you. Adender item 3, then, is the Community Empowerment Scotland Bill. And this item of business consideration of delegated powers in this bill after stage 2. Members will have noted that the Scottish Government has provided a supplementary delegated powers memorandum and will have seen the briefing paper for the committee. Now, stage 3 consideration of the bill is due to take place on Wednesday, the 17th of June, that is next week. The committee should therefore agree its conclusions today. A number of the comments that the committee had at stage 1 were addressed through amendments at stage 2. There are however four delegated powers provisions within which the committee may wish to raise points on. Firstly, new section 97D of the Land Reform Scotland Act 2003, as inserted by section 48 of the bill, sets out the types of legal entity that may be a part 3A community body and therefore eligible to make an application to buy abandoned or neglected land under new part 3A of the 2003 act. This section has been amended at stage 2 and a power conferred upon Scottish Ministers to specify additional types of entity, which may be a part 3 community body in regulations. The committee may wish to note that parts 2 and 3 of the 2003 act contained similar powers to the power inserted in the new section 79D1B. I said 79, I meant 97, sorry, D1B. Those powers are subject to the affirmative procedure. These powers are, however, subject to the negative procedure for consistency. The committee may wish to raise this with the Scottish Government. Does the committee agree to call on the Scottish Government to amend the bill so that the power in new section 97D1B of the 2003 act is subject to the affirmative procedure? Secondly, new section 62C2 of the bill, as inserted at stage 2, provides that the Scottish Ministers may by regulations modify the meaning of Scottish professional football league club in subsection 1. This power is subject to the negative procedure. The committee may consider this power to modify the meaning of Scottish professional football league club as a significant power, which is relevant to the scope and application of the new part 5B of the bill and which may appear to merit the higher level of parliamentary scrutiny afforded by the affirmative procedure. Does the committee therefore agree to call on the Scottish Government to amend the power in section 62C2 of the bill at stage 3 so that it is subject to the affirmative procedure? I thought that the term Scottish professional football league club was self-explanatory and did not need a definition, but I accept that if we do need a definition then it should be the affirmative procedure. Do members have any other comments? No, okay, and we are agreed to report on that. Thank you. Thirdly, sections 62E, 62F, 62I, 62G and 62P, use the words prescribe or prescribed, and it appears that the intention in respect of these provisions of the new part 5B of the bill is to confer a number of delegated powers. However, the committee may wish to note that the use of the words prescribe or prescribed alone is insufficient to compare delegated power and that, where such terms are used in legislation, they are normally accompanied by an interpretive provision that specifies who the powers are conferred on and what form the subordinate legislation made in their exercises intended to take. Does the committee agree to call on the Scottish Government to amend the bill at stage 3 in order that sections 62E, F, I, K and P are fully cast as powers to make subordinate legislation subject to the negative procedure and to clarify by defining the term prescribe and prescribed all by such other means as they consider appropriate, whom the powers are conferred on and what form the subordinate legislation made in their exercise is intended to be. It is unfortunate that they use the phrase 62E1 such other body as Scottish ministers may prescribe in view of the ambiguity that you have highlighted. It seems passing strange that we only have to go back to the beginning of this part of the amended bill 62C, the meaning of Scottish professional football club where, subparagraph 2, the more normal phrasing Scottish ministers may by regulations modify the meaning of football club in subsection 1. It seems strange to use one more regular way of doing things and then to start to use a word that is not defined. I suggest that, while I am content with what it is proposed that we say, that if ministers do not bring forward amendments at stage 3, we as a committee delegate to the convener and deputy convener the power to bring forward in the name of the committee amendments that will substitute in an appropriate way may prescribe with words that would give effect to something like Scottish ministers may by regulations, which would be the more normal form. I do expect that the Government will respond to previous comments on this subject, but it might be useful as we will not be able to meet before the deadline for the submission of amendments that we empower convener and deputy convener to put forward amendments if that is necessary, because it seems to be a rather candid way to describe what it seems in policy terms to be probably quite a reasonable thing to want to do. Thank you for that comment. Can I just observe before I bring you in, John, that this does seem to raise the whole issue of how we should operate when we are very close to stage 3 and we are dealing with stage 2 amendments in the way that we are and which I suspect the Government would not have chosen, of course, because if we wait until next Tuesday's meeting, as Stuart Stevenson rightly points out, we will only be able to produce a manuscript amendment which is unsatisfactory. Let's put it that way and puts the onus on presiding officers and Government to agree with us. Whereas if we did have some mechanism of looking at the amendments which I gather will come tomorrow, that's the expectation, then we would be able to submit something in the name of the committee, as it were, in the typed form, formally rather than having to do it too late. I don't know whether the members have any views on how we should tackle that. I guess in the first instance, let me just ask our clerk whether we can reasonably and acceptably delegate to the deputy convener and myself the power to do that. Yeah, okay, the view is that that's perfectly possible, a legitimate thing to do. Thank you convener. I'm more than happy to support that you and the deputy convener have required to provide a manuscript amendment to clear up this slightly anomalous situation in which we find ourselves. I would further say that, again, we are back where we have been before, too little time between stage 2 and stage 3 to consider the effects of stage 2 and amendments that might be required, therefore notwithstanding the assurances that we've had from Government ministers and others that this situation would be avoided at all costs in future. Those assurances have given to us in the past. Can observe, we've had a while since stage 2, but obviously a lot of this has taken a while to think about. I've got to say that, in principle, of course, the idea that these amendments come rather late is something that we have already discussed, and I think I have discussed on the record with standards and procedures, which is another issue for another day, but it hasn't already been looked at. Just to be clear, what I'm proposing does not relate to manuscript amendment, but to a formal amendment that would form part of the business bulletin. Manuscript amendments, of course, could be another issue, but I'm proposing that it would not simply be the committee empowering convener to do manuscript, but to do proper ones. Can I just, again, for the sake of the record, pardon me, anybody listening will maybe be wondering what on earth we're doing. If we see the amendments tomorrow Wednesday day for putting in amendments formally, right, so we could, the deputy convener and I could agree, plead it with our clerks and advisers, an amendment we could put it in by Thursday, in which case it would have been formally lodged, it would not be in a manuscript amendment. Anything we do after that, of course, would then have to be in a manuscript amendment. That's absolutely fine by me. I wasn't aware that my position was essentially a fallback position in case there was insufficient time. But equally, if we then found things next week, we would still be in a position to bring forward a manuscript amendment, albeit that that would then be at the discretion of the presiding officer, as I understand it. Yep. Okay, so we're agreed that we need, the committee has empowered us to do that. Thank you. Can I come back to the basic question, which I don't want to read again, which is to ask the committee to call on the Scottish Government to amend the bill at stage three, to deal with that point that I just put on the record? Are we agreed? We are. Thank you. Right. Fourthly, new section 69A of the bill requires the Scottish Ministers to make regulations for or in connection with the size or sizes of an allotment. But without effecting section 681D. Section 681D defines allotment for the purposes of part seven of the bill as, amongst other things, land that meets one of the requirements as to size set out in section 682 and 3. The committee may consider that it's not clear what provision the regulations made under 69A are intended to make or how any such regulations could make provision about the size of allotments without affecting the requirements as to size and allotment that are specifically set on the face of the bill. Does the committee therefore agree to call on the Scottish Government to amend the bill at stage three so as to clarify the manner in which the power in section 69A regarding allotment size is intended to operate? John. I can just say that this is very important. I completely agree that we should seek clarification in this, because I know that it's a controversial area. I've had constituents in touch with me about it, so I think that we really want clarity on it. Right. Is the committee agreed on that? Agreed. Thank you. Does the committee agree to report that it is content with the other provisions in the bill which have been amended at stage two to insert or substantially alter provisions conferring powers to make subordinate legislation and other delegated powers? Thank you. That completes item three, and I can now move this meeting into private. Thank you.