Commencement of Parts 2, 4, 5 and Section 55(3) and Related Instruments to be made under the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010: Consultation Paper

Chapter 1
Introduction

1. The Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 ("the Act") received Royal Assent on 3rd June 2010. On that date the following provisions of the Act came into force: Part 1 (which deals with the interpretation of Acts of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish statutory instruments (" SSIs")); Part 3 (which deals with the publication of those Acts and Instruments); and most of Part 6 (which contains general provisions).

2. The Government proposes bringing the rest of the Act into force on 6th April 2011. To that end, the Government intends to make a commencement in December which will commence the remaining provisions of the Act on that date. The remaining provisions of the Act are-

• Part 2 (which deals with the parliamentary scrutiny of SSIs);

• Part 4 (which makes provision relating to orders subject to Special Parliamentary Procedure (" SPP"));

• Part 5 (which deals with the laying of documents other than SSIs); and

• the provisions of Part 6 which are not yet in force (which revoke the transitional instruments which will be superseded by the Act's provisions).

3. Bringing the Act fully into force on 6th April 2011 will enable the Scottish Parliament to operate entirely under the rules and procedures specifically designed for its purposes in its next session.

Purpose of the consultation

4. To enable the Act to come into force fully on 6th April 2011, the Government intends to bring forward the following instruments -

• the Scottish Statutory Instruments Regulations 2011 ("the SSI Regulations"), which are to be made under section 42 of the Act to make provision for the publication, numbering and citation of SSIs;

• A Savings and Transitional Provisions Order under section 57(2) of the Act to make savings and transitional provision ensuring a smooth transition from the existing regime to the new one; and

• Three Orders to make amendments to existing legislation on transport and works, roads and harbours under sections 56 and 57(1) to ensure that existing legislation on those subjects correctly interfaces with the Act's provisions on parliamentary scrutiny of subordinate legislation.

5. This consultation paper provides an outline of the provisions in the draft instruments and, where appropriate, a commentary of the policy proposals giving rise to the provisions. The Government would welcome responses to the specific questions raised and any comments on the draft instruments generally. The Government would also welcome respondents' views on whether any additional issues need to be addressed to achieve full implementation of the Act. Annex A contains a list of those individuals and organisations which the Government has consulted directly on the terms of the Act.

6. The rest of the consultation paper is structured as follows :-

Instrument	Annex	Chapter
Scottish Statutory Instruments Regulations 2011	C	2
Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 (Savings and Transitional Provisions) Order 2011	D	3
Transport and Works (Scotland) Act 2007 Modification Order 2011	E	4
Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 Modification Order 2011	F	4
Harbours Act 1964 Modification Order 2011	G	4

Responding to this consultation document

7. The Government is inviting written responses to this consultation document by 7th December 2010. Please send written responses to:

ILR(S)AConsultation@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

or

Al Gibson
Constitutional and Parliamentary Secretariat
Area GA North
Victoria Quay
EH6 6QQ

8. This consultation, and all other Government consultation exercises, can be viewed online on the consultation web pages of the Government website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations. You can telephone Freephone 0800 77 1234 to find out the location of your nearest public internet access point.

9. The Government now has an e-mail alert system for consultations (SEconsult: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/seconsult.aspx). This system allows stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly e-mail containing details of all new consultations (including web links). SEconsult complements but in no way replaces Government distribution lists and is designed to allow stakeholders to keep up to date with all Government consultation activity and to be alerted at the earliest opportunity to consultations of most interest. We would encourage you to register.

Handling your response

10. We need to know how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public. Please complete and return the Respondent Information Form (attached at Annex B) as this will ensure that we will treat your response appropriately. If you ask for your response not to be published we will regard it as confidential and we will handle it accordingly.

11. All respondents should be aware that the Government is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made under the Act for information relating to responses to this consultation exercise.

12. Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public, copies will be made available to the public in the Government library by 30th December 2010 (20 working days) and on the Government web pages by 4th January 2011 (25 working days). Where agreement to publish has been given, we will check all responses for any potentially defamatory material before logging them in the library or placing them on the website. You can make arrangements to view responses by contacting the Government library on 0131 244 4565. Responses can be copied and sent to you but a charge may be made for this service.

What happens next?

13. Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other evidence to help Scottish Ministers reach a decision on the way ahead. We aim to issue a report on this consultation process by 31st January 2011.

Comments and complaints

14. If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to me at the address above.

Guidance

15. The Scottish Government will produce guidance on the operation of these provisions for use by external stakeholders. This guidance will be issued, and disseminated at around the same time that the instruments come into force in April 2011.

Regulatory and Equality Impacts

16. The matters dealt with in these instruments are of a highly technical nature and impact principally on the functions of the Parliament and of the Queen's Printer for Scotland ("the QPS"). However, we have considered whether the provisions would have any adverse effects on either the general public or other organisations within Scotland. Our conclusions are set out below.

17. The provisions in the Act oblige the QPS to make all legislation to which it applies (primary and secondary) available to the public. The proposed SSI Regulations will elaborate on that general duty, by requiring the QPS to make secondary legislation available on a website. The Regulations will also oblige the QPS to provide the National Library of Scotland with printed copies of every SSI subject to certain exceptions intended to reflect current practice, and will require the QPS to provide a printed copy of any SSI on request. This is the only aspect of these regulatory proposals which can be said to have any potential impact on the wider public.

18. At present all SSIs are made available by the QPS on the legislation website www.legislation.gov.uk. The Government is satisfied that adequate provision is already in place to ensure the accessibility of legislation. In particular, the Browsealoud program allows visitors to the legislation website the option of having website content read to them. As the visitor moves the cursor over text, that text is spoken aloud. Browsealoud is free to download and gives control over the voice, word pronunciations and speech highlighting. Legislation is also made available on request and at no extra cost in various formats including Braille, Moon, Audio and on disk in ASCII, HTML encoded, XML encoded and SGML encoded formats.

19. The proposed SSI Regulations will not disturb these arrangements and therefore will have no adverse affect on equalities obligations.

Conclusions

20. The provisions in the proposed instruments are all of a highly technical nature, dealing with matters of legislative process and the accessibility of legislation to the general public.

21. The provisions in the proposed SSI Regulations will not disturb the arrangements currently in place for access to legislation. The QPS will continue to publish all legislation electronically on a website, printing all primary legislation and, on request, printing SSIs as well as providing legislation in various different formats Therefore, these provisions will have no adverse affect on equalities obligations.

22. Overall the provisions in the proposed instruments have no specific implications for equalities groups or other third parties. Members of the public and organisations will continue to have access to relevant information and processes as they do at present.