Report shows COVID-19 impact on ministerial orders

The impact of the COVID-19 emergency on regulations made under statutory powers has been revealed in a report by a Holyrood committee. 

In its annual report for the 2019-20 parliamentary year, the Delegated Powers & Law Reform Committee says coronavirus-related legislation represented a "significant" proportion of its workload in recent months.

The committee, whose role is to scrutinise Scottish statutory instruments to ensure they are within delegated powers, accurate, achieve the intended policy and are clearly drafted for the end user, considered 255 instruments during this reporting period, compared with 243 in 2018-19.

Of these, 243 were laid by the Scottish Government and 12 by the Lord President's Private Office, to update civil and criminal court rules.

Coronavirus accounted for 23 of the 243 Scottish Government instruments, 9.5% of the total.

The urgency required in addressing the public health emergency was the reason given for many of the breaches of the Parliament’s "28-day rule", which provides that where a Scottish statutory instrument is subject to the negative procedure it must be laid at least 28 days before the instrument comes into force.

It was also cited as one reason for the substantially increased use of "made affirmative" procedure, which means that an instrument may come into force as soon as it is made but will lapse after 28 days unless the Parliament approves it.

The volume of Brexit-related instruments, to address deficiencies in legislation that would arise on the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, has however declined in the last year.

Under a protocol for considering UK statutory instruments stemming from the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which require the consent of the Scottish ministers because they relate to devolved areas, the Scottish Parliament considered 34 consent notifications, down from 93 in the previous reporting period.

Committee convener Bill Bowman MSP commented: "The COVID-19 pandemic has been a significant aspect of the committee's work this year as we considered both primary and secondary legislation aimed at addressing the public health emergency and its consequences. This is something the committee will continue to monitor in the next parliamentary year."

He observed that the committee had had to balance the need for secondary legislation to be implemented quickly with the need for proper scrutiny. 

Mr Bowman added: "The committee also notes the reduction in the volume of EU exit legislation in this reporting year and is interested in exploring what the volume of legislation in this area might be as we approach the end of the Brexit transition period."

Click here to view the committee's report.