Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Official Report 596KB pdf

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018

Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (Revocation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Agenda item 3 is consideration of a notification from the Scottish Government in relation to the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (Revocation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

The COSME programme is a European Union programme supporting small to medium-sized enterprises, and United Kingdom participation is focused mainly on access to finance and markets. After exit from the EU, the UK Government proposes to revoke what will be a redundant EU regulation on COSME. In the event of no-deal withdrawal, the chancellor has given a guarantee of Her Majesty’s Treasury funding for UK projects that had been successful in securing EU funding before the exit date. Under that guarantee, the UK Government will be able to use existing domestic legislative powers to fund relevant projects that fall under COSME.

At its previous meeting, the committee agreed to seek further information on the regulations, and the response is contained in members’ papers. Is the committee content for the issues to be dealt with by statutory instrument laid at Westminster?

Members indicated agreement.

In that case, I will write to the cabinet secretary, notifying him of the committee’s decision.

We now move into private session.