Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Official Report 323KB pdf

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Maritime and Coastguard Agency (Memorandum of Understanding)

Item 3 is to note the draft memorandum of understanding between the Scottish Government and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, as outlined in paper 2. Members should be aware that, since the paper was issued, it has emerged that there is no requirement for the committee to report on the MOU to Parliament or for Parliament to approve it. The Parliamentary Bureau has therefore referred the document to the committee for it to note only, because the Scottish Parliament is not named as a party to the document. Members will note that the memorandum of understanding states that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency accounts and annual report will be shared with Transport Scotland, which will enable their being laid before the Scottish Parliament. Also,

“If required to do so, the MCA would submit relevant reports to, and appropriate officials would appear before, the committee of the Scottish Parliament regarding the exercise of functions relating to the coastguard and the safety of ships and seafarers in Scotland.”

I invite comments on the memorandum of understanding.

I will highlight a technical point that I do not think should lead us to take any action, but it would be useful to put it on the record. Paragraph 3.2 of the MOU states that “Scotland” is to be defined as it is in the Scottish Adjacent Waters Boundaries Order 1999, which in essence defines the seaward limits as 55 degrees, 26 minutes and 37 seconds north, and 6 degrees, 34 minutes and 40 seconds west. However, that is only for certain purposes related to fisheries. The other piece of legislation that matters is the Continental Shelf (Designated Areas) (Extended Territorial Sea) Order 1987, which uses a different set of co-ordinates to define the border. There is, by my approximation, an area of around 6,000 square miles that for the purposes of fishing is not in Scottish waters, but for the purposes of exploitation of oil and gas is in Scottish waters from a legal point of view.

It is worth making the point that the excluded area under the memorandum of understanding does not relate to the oil and gas law that would be applied by Scottish law enforcement agencies and courts and so is not an area in which the Scottish Parliament has legislative competence. Therefore, it is proper that we merely note that difference. I would have preferred a memorandum of understanding—which has no legal force but which represents something serious—that talked about the 1987 order. However, having made that point, I do not propose that the committee should respond to it in any way whatsoever.

10:45  

Your point is made.

In the light of your opening remarks, convener, I want clarification of something. Our paper says:

“The Committee is invited to ... consider whether it is content to recommend that the Parliament approve the MoU.”

Is that correct?

No, that has changed. We are being asked just to note the MOU. It is just to say that we have seen it coming through.

Thank you—that is fine.

I want to place on the record that the issue was raised in the Parliamentary Bureau on Tuesday of this week and that it was made clear that we could, if we wish—I am not saying that we should—produce a report and there could be a short debate in Parliament. After considering the memorandum, I do not think that there is any need to do that, but it should certainly be noted for the public that we have the power to do that if we wish.

Okay. Thank you.

My first question is the one that John Mason asked. For clarification, are we being asked to consider rather than to approve or give consent to the MOU?

Yes.

Should any questions or points for clarification that we have therefore be directed to Transport Scotland or the Scottish Government?

We could write to Transport Scotland if there are specific points that you would like to raise.

For the record, page 3, section 4, which is on the operation of the MOU, states:

“Scottish Government Ministers may appoint a named individual to the MCA Advisory Board”.

Who would make that decision and what process would they follow? There is no requirement to answer that question now, but it would be interesting to know the answer for the record.

We will write to ask for clarification of the process.

We should encourage the Government to make full use of the MOU by appointing someone and sending them or a deputy to the board meetings so that we know what is happening at that agency.

My other point is a general one on MOUs and is again for the public record. Each MOU seems to follow a slightly different format in terms of the role of the committee and Parliament. The clerks may take that up later.

That is definitely noted.

On the appointment of a person to the board, will that person be the route for consultation with the Scottish Government or is there another route for that? What will be the role of the person on the board? Will they feed back information or will there be another consultation process working in tandem?

If the committee is content with the approach, we will write to ask about the selection process and how the Scottish Government feeds into that. We can definitely do that.

I have a comment. There might be opportunities further down the line for the committee to take evidence from whomever is appointed. If the person was currently in place, we would be able to do that in relation to the shocking situation in the Moray Firth regarding ship-to-ship transfer of oil, in which there is apparently a dearth of interest from the Scottish Government. It is a reserved matter but, as you will be fully aware, convener, the local communities are deeply concerned. I hope that you will join them in their concern about the potential environmental disaster. If we had someone on the board, we would have an opportunity to discuss that.

Thank you for raising that very good constituency point. It is not for me to answer that here, but we can raise with the Government the process and how the MCA feeds back to the Scottish Parliament and Government.

On Mr Finnie’s point, under paragraph 3.5, “pollution response operations” or the potential for pollution are not part of the memorandum of understanding. That is not within the competence.

I am reading that paragraph again just to remind myself of what it says.

It might be useful to look at paragraph 4.6, which says:

“If required to do so, the MCA would submit relevant reports to, and appropriate officials would appear before, the Committees of the Scottish Parliament regarding the exercise of functions relating to the coastguard and the safety of ships and seafarers in Scotland.”

That seems to be all-encompassing. Ultimately, it would be useful for us to bear that in mind.

The point is that it is clear that we can, once the individual has been appointed, ask them to appear before the committee. If that is the committee’s wish, I will make every effort to ensure that that happens.

On Mike Rumbles’s point, there will, of course, be consultation on strategic priorities, and what could be more strategic than protecting the main industry of the Highlands and Islands, which is tourism and our environment? I suggest that we need to be ambitious.

I take your point, which you have now made twice.

As well as being able to ask the official to come along, we could ask the MCA to come along. Given the point that my colleague John Finnie made about ship-to-ship transfer of oil, that might be a subject that we want to get into.

I believe that that is absolutely right: if it wants, the committee can ask the MCA to appear before us, as well as the person who is appointed by the Scottish ministers.

We are being asked to note the draft MOU, so rather than prolong the discussion, I invite the committee to indicate whether it is happy to write to ask about the process for selecting the person who will represent Scotland’s interests on the advisory board.

We should also ask to be notified of who is appointed in due course.

Okay. In addition we should at the appropriate time invite someone to come to the committee to explain the work that is being done. Is everyone content with that?

Members indicated agreement.

Is the committee happy to note the draft MOU?

Members indicated agreement.

That concludes the public part of the meeting.

10:52 Meeting continued in private until 11:32.