Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Official Report 503KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2017 [Draft]

I welcome everyone to the public part of the meeting. The next item of business is evidence on the draft Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2017. I welcome Roseanna Cunningham, who is the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, and Andrew Taylor, who is the air quality policy manager at the Scottish Government. I refer members to the papers and invite them to ask questions.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I understand from our notes that Scottish ministers are able to make the Scottish statutory instrument more robust in relation to air quality problems. Is that something that might be considered? For emitters between 1MW and 5MW, the 2029 date suggests a very long lead-in time, although I appreciate that emitters will have to change or adapt their technology. Can you comment on that?

I cannot, really. The instruments are very technical and are designed to transpose a European directive. They do not apply to huge numbers of generators in Scotland—we estimate that there will be about 2,000 by 2030. The dates for compliance are United Kingdom-wide—they are not our dates, if you see what I mean. The 2029 date applies to plants between 1MW and 5MW. We are fitting into a UK-wide framework; we have introduced the SSI for the moment, but there will be changes next year. We are watching what is happening with the English equivalent regulations that have been brought in, because they are already being changed. There did not seem to be much point in our acting if we were immediately going to have to change the regulations.

I should have referred to where I found the information about the ability of Scottish ministers to make the instrument more robust. It was in the Scottish Government explanatory note, which says, on regulation 17:

“The amendments require that when preparing an air quality plan, the Scottish Ministers must consider whether to include measures imposing lower emission limit values for MCPs than those set out in the Medium Combustion Plant Directive, if that would make an improvement to air quality.”

We heard evidence and concerns in committee last week about background air quality. I wanted to highlight that for you, cabinet secretary. I apologise for not having given the detail when I first asked the question.

As I suggested, we regard the amendments as fairly technical changes. The intention is to capture generators that are not currently captured, to ensure that we are not being left behind. That will have environmental benefits and will help the UK to meet more stringent targets, but from our perspective it is not a huge change. Currently, we do not have equivalent generators in Scotland, so one of the things that we have to look out for is that we do not leave open a loophole that would allow them to come in. That is why we will make more changes in 2018. We have approached the transposition as a fairly technical exercise.

I think that Claudia Beamish has highlighted a wider issue, so it would be helpful if you could write to the committee on those wider points when it is appropriate to do so.

Andrew Taylor might want to add something, but as I said, our perspective is that the process involves technical transposition rather than any wider aspect. There are issues that I have questions about, including diesel generators and the concern that we might see an increase in their number, which we do not want, for obvious reasons. At the moment, diesel generators are not a big problem in Scotland. Therefore, from the perspective of where we are just now, although the regulations are part of the broad spectrum of air pollution regulations, there is not a major issue.

The regulations allow for tighter emissions limits to be applied. Under the regulations, all medium combustion plants will have to have an operating permit from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, and it might well be the case that SEPA will decide in some circumstances that a permit justifies the imposition of tighter air quality standards. That will be considered case by case.

Claudia—do you want to follow up on that?

No. I simply wanted to highlight the issue because of the committee’s serious concerns about air pollution.

I have a question that is probably for Andrew Taylor, rather than for the cabinet secretary.

On the 1MW to 5MW plants that were mentioned earlier, is not it the case that a large proportion of such facilities will be standby generators for hospitals, computer centres and so on, and will be used pretty infrequently and therefore have an extremely long life, which means that it would be disproportionately bad news to replace them early in their life cycle? That might help to justify some of the dates that are associated with the smaller generators that are used very little.

Yes. Compliance costs will fall disproportionately on smaller operators, which is one of the reasons for the long lead-in time. There are a number of flexibilities in the directive that we have, for the most part, employed in the regulations. One is that plants that operate for fewer than 500 hours per year on a five-year rolling average will be exempt from the requirements, because applying emissions-limit values to those cases would not be proportionate, given the limited emissions reductions that could be achieved and the associated costs on smaller operators.

I have an indication in my papers that small businesses that operate plants at the lower end of the requirements, between 1MW and 5MW, would end up with annual compliance and administrative costs of between 0 per cent and 2 per cent of gross operating surpluses. There are costs involved in this, and one of the reasons for the long lead-in time for total compliance is to help to balance out that cost.

As I indicated, we are trying to keep within our UK-wide framework on this. For technical reasons, we are going at a slightly different time, but the idea is that next year we will all be in line, across the UK.

As I said, in due course, you could update the committee on the more general aspects of the issue.

The impact assessment estimates annual costs of £3.8 million. My question was going to be about the industry view of those costs and additional cost burdens, with a particular emphasis on the views of small businesses, but I think that you have just answered that.

Yes, I have. There is a total annual cost of £3.8 million for 2030, which includes compliance administration and monitoring. That will, of course, be offset by the benefits, although those will not necessarily accrue to individual businesses. That is where the broader issue arises, given that the benefits will be environmental and health benefits, including a reduction in emissions. I suspect that that is one of the reasons why there is a fairly long lead-in time for total compliance.

As no other members have questions, we move to item 7, which is consideration of motion S5M-08384.

Motion moved,

That the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee recommends that the Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2017 [draft] be approved.—[Roseanna Cunningham]

Motion agreed to.

I ask the committee to delegate to me the task of signing off on the subordinate legislation report. Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank the cabinet secretary and her official for their attendance. We will have a brief suspension to allow for a change of officials.

11:01 Meeting suspended.  

11:02 On resuming—