Other instruments of interest
8. The draft Children and Young Persons (Sale
of Tobacco etc.) Order 2007 will, from 1 October 2007, raise
the minimum age of sale for cigarettes and tobacco products from
16 to 18. Two other SIs take effect on 1 July: the draft Smoke-free
(Penalties and Discounted Amounts) Regulations 2007 set the
levels of fines for smoking in designated smoke-free areas. The
draft Smoke-free (Exemptions and Vehicles) Regulations 2007
set out exemptions from smoke-free legislation, including
designated rooms in residential accommodation such as hotels,
care homes, hospices and prisons, in laboratories conducting research
into the effects of smoking, and for actors required to smoke
as part of the action of a play in which they are performing.
All closed public vehicles will be smoke-free.
9. We brought the School Admissions Code to the
special attention of the House in our 8th Report. This week, we
have seen three statutory instruments laid by the Department for
Education and Skills (DfES) which all relate to admissions procedures:
the School Admissions (Adjudicator Determinations Relating
to Looked After and Certain Other Children) (England) Regulations
2007 (SI 2007/105); the Education (Admission Forums)
(England) (Amendment) Regulations 2007 (SI 2007/192); and
the School Admissions (Co-ordination of Admission Arrangements)
(England) Regulations 2007 (SI 2007/194). The effect of SI
2007/105 is to build on the existing role of the Schools Adjudicator,
while SI 2007/192 and SI 2007/194 relate to the activity of Admissions
Forums. We recognise the importance of the policy underlying these
instruments, which is to improve arrangements for admission to
schools, not least in the case of looked-after children. At the
same time, however, we would comment that the range of procedural
and other changes made by the instruments present difficulties
of understanding and implementation to those concerned (e.g.,
governing bodies of schools, local education authorities, and
parents); and the Explanatory Memoranda provided could have done
more to explain the context for, and effect of, the changes. We
look to DfES to monitor the working-out of the new arrangements
and to keep Parliament informed of their evaluation.
10. The draft Scottish Parliament (Elections
etc.) Order 2007 updates the requirements for the conduct
of elections for the Scottish Parliament to apply provisions from
the Electoral Administration Act 2006 in the same way that they
have already been applied to other parts of Great Britain[3]
(e.g. to introduce a system of anonymous registration of electors,
to enhance anti-fraud measures and further to regulate party and
campaign expenditure). In addition, the Order includes two novel
provisions: one to allow the use of electronic counting of ballot
papers, the second enables the use of a combined ballot paper
which will print on the same sheet of paper in different colours
the regional ballot paper on the left and the constituency ballot
paper on the right. The House may also wish to note the Minister's
statement under section 19 of the Human Rights Act 1998 that,
although he is not able to state that the provisions of the draft
order are compatible with the convention rights (because of the
application of certain provisions to convicted prisoners), he
nonetheless wishes the House to resolve to approve the draft order.
The European Court of Human Rights has, in Hirst v. United
Kingdom, ruled that section 3 of the Representation of the
People Act 1983, which bars convicted prisoners from voting in
parliamentary or local elections, is incompatible with the convention
rights: the Government are currently separately consulting on
how to amend that legislation.
11. The draft Police (Northern Ireland) Act
2000 (Renewal of Temporary Provisions) Order 2007 renews the
temporary provisions in Northern Ireland regarding the appointment
of police officers and police support staff. The provisions were
introduced to address the religious imbalance within the Police
Service of Northern Ireland, and enable the Chief Constable to
recruit police trainees on a 50:50 basis, where one half of recruits
is Catholic and the other half is non-Catholic. The provisions
were previously renewed by an Order laid in 2004, which the House
debated on 11 March 2004.
3 See also draft Local Electoral Administration and
Registration Services (Scotland) Act 206 (Consequential Provisions
and Modifications) Order 2007 and draft Representation of the
People (Scotland) (Amendment) Regulations 2007 also considered
this week. Back
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