Section 1 — The graduate endowment

Part of Education (Graduate Endowment and Student Support) (Scotland) (No 2) Bill: Stage 3 – in the Scottish Parliament at 10:00 am on 29 March 2001.

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Photo of Dennis Canavan Dennis Canavan Independent 10:00, 29 March 2001

The bill refers to the possibility—or indeed the certainty—that, if it is passed, the Executive will come to Parliament with a statutory instrument that sets out regulations. My experience of secondary legislation at Westminster is that the Government often introduces such legislation by way of a statutory instrument at dead of night. If Parliament has an opportunity to vote on the legislation at all, it is on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. In my experience, there is no opportunity to amend the regulations or the statutory instrument. Therefore, it is not the best example of parliamentary democracy in practice.

With the Scottish Parliament, I thought that we might have more opportunity not just to scrutinise secondary legislation, but to amend it and to tell the Government when it has got things wrong.

We heard the minister refer to a threshold for the repayment of the graduate endowment after graduation, but no threshold is mentioned in the bill. The Executive has indicated that it is in favour of a threshold of £10,000 per annum and has said that that threshold will be subject to review. Presumably, the Executive will come to Parliament with the regulations on the threshold and give details of the obligations on graduates to contribute to the graduate endowment fund.

In a sense, if we pass the bill in its present form, we are being asked to buy a pig in a poke, because the bill has no details about the levels of payment that students will have to make. No mention is made of the threshold. As a result, we are unable to quantify the hardship that students will suffer from the passing of the bill and the regulations or statutory instrument that the minister may lay at a future date.

When the minister comes to Parliament with the regulations in the form of a statutory instrument, Parliament should have the opportunity to consider that instrument in detail—not just to vote yes or no, but to tell the Executive that it has got it wrong. Parliament should be able to suggest to the Executive where it has got things wrong and to instruct the Executive to come back to the Parliament with amended proposals.

For example, if the Executive is intransigent and stands by the income threshold of £10,000 per annum at which a graduate must make a mandatory contribution and, by the time the proposal is laid before Parliament, members—perhaps even a majority of members—consider that that threshold would be too low and that the contributions that individual students would have to make according to their means would be wrong, we should have the opportunity not just to turn down the Executive's proposals, but to tell the Executive what an alternative, fairer proposal would be. As well as ensuring a fairer deal for students, that would enhance the Scottish system of parliamentary democracy by giving the Parliament the power to tell the Executive to think again about detailed regulations.

I move amendment 8.