MINISTERS have expressed grave concerns over the emergence of UK Government plans to use Scottish councils as its eyes and ears against illegal immigrant workers.
Licensing committees would be legally required to carry out full background checks to ensure any applicant for a taxi or private hire driver's licence is permitted to work in the UK under the Conservatives' Immigration Bill.
But the move has sparked a major constitutional row over the impact it would have on devolved legislation.
The Law Society of Scotland has also said it believes that to become law, the plans would require the consent of the Scottish Parliament.
Local authority leaders fear it will add another bureaucratic and financial burden on them and most councils will not have the expertise to forensically check the authenticity of travel and immigration documents.
Anyone for whom the UK is not their place of birth and wants to drive a cab, often the first choice of profession for immigrants, would have to prove they have all the relevant consents.
It is understood plans to extend the checks to liquor licensing are under consideration.
The Bill has been strongly criticised at the Scottish Parliament for its overlap into devolved legislation.
A Scottish Government spokesman said it had made strong representations to the UK Government as the Bill impacted upon devolved laws, adding that it had serious concerns.
He added: "This process must take into account the views of the Scottish Government and relevant Scottish stakeholders.”
"The proposals have been studied by the Law Society and there are certain issues upon which we seek clarification and we will be raising these with the appropriate civil servants."
The Scottish Government added that the Westminster plans gave it order making powers to legislate on immigration matters within its Bill without the requirement for a legislative consent motion from the Scottish Parliament and that "ministers continue to press for meaningful engagement on these issues".
The Law Society of Scotland’s director of law reform, Michael Clancy, said assessing the issue of legislative consent was not easy, but added: "In the circumstances the Society's sub-committee came to the view that the Sewell Convention did apply and the Scottish Parliament would need to give consent."
Glasgow City Council said there had been no consultation with licensing authorities over the late proposed amendments to the Bill.
Cosla, the local government umbrella body, said it was important the extra requirements for "taxi licensing remain light touch" as councils were facing significant cuts.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel