Section 1 — Duty to provide free school meals

Part of Education (School Meals) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2 – in the Scottish Parliament at 4:15 pm on 11 June 2003.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Brian Adam Brian Adam Scottish National Party 4:15, 11 June 2003

By stipulating that any regulations must be made under the affirmative procedure, amendment 8 seeks to ensure that the minister comes before Parliament to give an account of the effects of the legislation. The amendment would mean that the minister had to appear before Parliament to answer questions about the regulations and it would ensure that members could amend what was put before them.

Amendment 8 would also allow for progressive change. It seeks to allow the minister to be involved in such a process and, more important, to allow the Parliament to scrutinise the performance of the legislation and argue for effective change. If the amendment is not agreed to, the regulations will be made under the negative procedure, which will not give the Parliament the same opportunity for scrutiny or to amend the minister's proposals.

Let me take a specific example. If amendment 8 is agreed to, we will be able to amend the figure of £13,230, which is regarded as the appropriate income limit under the child tax credit regulations. For technical reasons, we cannot make such amendments in the bill itself. However, amendment 8 would, through its insistence on making regulations under the affirmative procedure, make it possible for us to change that figure in future. That would be a significant step forward. If we do not get the opportunity to make the changes that we have sought today, at least amendment 8 would allow both the Government and the Opposition to revisit the issue regularly after seeing the performance of the legislation in practice.

I move amendment 8.