Explanatory note

This Order specifies enactments under section 40(6)(c) of the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 (“the Act”).

Section 40(1) of the Act creates offences relating to causing significant environmental harm. Section 40(6) of the Act provides the Scottish Ministers with a power to specify enactments for the purposes of a defence to section 40(1).

The effect of this Order is that it will be a defence for a person charged with an offence under section 40(1) of the Act to show that the acts or failures alleged to constitute the offence were authorised by, or otherwise carried out in accordance with, an enactment specified in the Schedule to this Order. The enactments in the Schedule cover a range of environmental authorisations, registrations, permits or exemptions with which a person may be able to show compliance. These include:

• Landfill permits

• Offshore chemical permits

• Discharge permits

• Part A and Part B pollution prevention and control permits

• Waste management licences

• Registrations relating to use of radioactive material and mobile radioactive apparatus

• Authorisations of disposal and accumulation of radioactive waste

• Exemptions under the Radioactive Substances Exemptions (Scotland) Order 2011

• Waste management exemptions under regulation 17 of the Waste Management Licensing (Scotland) Regulations 2011

• Authorisations under the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2011, including the general binding rules.

• Licences for deposits in the sea

• Nuclear site licences

• Discharges in compliance with the Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Oil Pollution) Regulations 1996 and Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Pollution by Sewage and Garbage from Ships) Regulations 2008

• Species licences under section 16 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981

• Muirburn licences