Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Official Report 586KB pdf

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European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018

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Common Fisheries Policy (Amendment etc) Regulations 2021

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Official Controls, Plant Health, Seeds and Seed Potatoes (Amendment etc) Regulations 2021

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Vegetable and Ornamental Plant Propagating Material and Fodder Plant Seed (Amendment) Regulations 2021

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Plant Health (Amendment etc) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

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Official Controls and Phytosanitary Conditions (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Item 4 is consent notifications in relation to five UK statutory instruments. The instruments have been laid in the UK Parliament in relation to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The instruments have been classified as type 1.

As members have no comments, is the committee happy to write to the Scottish Government, incorporating the comments that have been made in the briefing paper regarding the short notice, the technical changes and the provision of information, but confirming that we are content for consent to be given to the UK SIs that are referred to in the notifications?

We are agreed.

Before we move into private, I would like to say a few words, as I believe that the committee will not meet in public next week. It has been a great privilege to spend five years as your convener, and I have enjoyed my time. I personally thank all committee members, past and present, for the help that they have given me. It is not always easy to marshal 11 people in the same direction, and I include myself in that. I wish Mike Rumbles, Richard Lyle, Peter Chapman, Stewart Stevenson, John Finnie, Angus MacDonald and Maureen Watt the best of luck in the future, provided that it does not involve campaigning against me. I wish you well and thank you very much for all the work that you have put in.

It would be wrong if I did not briefly mention one or two other people at this stage, mainly the clerks who supported the committee during this session of Parliament. It is very easy for the committee to be seen to move effortlessly through business, but it is only possible to do so if the clerks support the committee in the way that they have done. Sam, Alex, Jenny, Baktosch and Michael have all supported the committee, and we owe them a debt of gratitude for the paperwork and papers that they have prepared.

People might have noticed that one person remained off that list: Steve Farrell, who is the senior clerk. The reason why he remains off the list is that he has been a true disappointment to me, in that his answering machine message still refers to his being a clerk to the previous committee that he was on, and not the committee that he is on at the moment. However, although it has taken me five years to get over that and to excuse him for not making that change, I believe that we owe him a debt of gratitude for all the work that he has done to marshal his team to support us. I would like that point, and our thanks, to be recorded in the Official Report.

We now move into private session.

11:27 Meeting continued in private until 12:21.