Item 4 concerns petition PE373. We are asked to agree that the issues that are raised in the petition be considered in conjunction with our stage 1 report on the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Bill. Does the committee have any comments on the petition and the large bits of paper that all apparently say the same thing? Does the committee want to add anything other than that we will bear them in mind in the report?
Official Report · Committee
Petition
Summary Warrants (Alleged Debtors) (PE373)
Speakers
Choose an MSP to read only their contributions- Johann Lamont Lab 2
- Robert Brown LD 1
The record
3 contributionsThe petition echoes the need for a charge for payment to be served before someone receives a summary warrant. We have come at that point also. I am less persuaded of the need for the debtor to be able to challenge the summary warrant as a matter of routine, but there might be some advantage in tying a more detailed calculation of the debtor's arrears position to the summary warrant. I am not sure what the local authorities provide with a summary warrant. If they provided a breakdown that said, for example, "1998-99: council tax £X", the debtor could work through that and have a limited right to challenge it. There might be some merit in such a procedure, but it should not stop the summary warrant procedure, because 99 times out of 100 there is no issue with the merits of the summary warrant, apart from the odd calculation problem.
Do we agree to take the petition into account when dealing with our stage 1 report?Members indicated agreement.
In this meeting
Everything on 26 Jun 2002 →- Scottish Parliament Social Justice Committee Wednesday 26 June 2002 (Morning) Committee business · 1
- Items in Private Procedure · 4
- Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1 Bill debate · 15
- Petition Petitions · 3
- Homelessness Task Force (Legislative Proposals) Committee business · 2
The type of each item (debate, statement, questions, members’ business and so on) and the times shown are worked out by this site from headings, the chair’s opening words and the Official Report’s running timestamps. They are not the Parliament’s own classification. Text: the Scottish Parliament Official Report.