Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Official Report 283KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Financial Assistance for Environmental Purposes (Scotland) Order 2015 (SSI 2015/210)

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Environmental Liability (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2015 (SSI 2015/214)

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Water Environment (River Basin Management Planning etc) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Scotland) Regulations 2015 (SSI 2015/211)

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Common Agricultural Policy (Direct Payments etc) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2015 (SSI 2015/215)

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the 24th meeting in 2015 of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee. I remind members to switch off mobile phones as they can interfere with the broadcasting system, but I note that committee members might be using tablets for committee business.

Agenda item 1 is consideration of subordinate legislation. Of the four negative instruments listed on the agenda, only the fourth—the Common Agricultural Policy (Direct Payments etc) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2015 (SSI 2015/215)—has been drawn to Parliament’s attention by the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee on the grounds that it breached the 28-day rule.

Does any member wish to comment on any of these pieces of secondary legislation?

I have a comment on the Common Agricultural Policy (Direct Payments etc) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2015 (SSI 2015/215), regulation 6 of which removes references to specific species of grass that are required when a farmer chooses to undersow a crop. The amended regulations are therefore nothing other than a recognition of the matter that NFU Scotland raised with the committee and which we raised with the Government. I am pleased to see that that has had an impact and that common sense has prevailed.

That is very good.

I was interested to note that an equality impact assessment had been carried out on the regulations, but there is no information about its results in the committee briefing. It would be useful to have that. Given that there is no reference to any impacts, I have to assume that there are none, but I would like clarification on that.

We will get clarification from the minister on that.

Although the Environmental Liability (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2015 (SSI 2015/214) are probably uncontentious, they are nevertheless quite an important piece of work, as they are all about keeping our seas clean. I welcome the fact that they are in front of us, because they step up the previous requirements. When things go wrong in the seas, it is devastating to wildlife and fishing in the affected area, so it is good to see these regulations.

Indeed.

As agreed, we will seek some information on one of the instruments. If members have no further comments, does the committee agree that it wishes to make no recommendations in relation to the instruments?

Members indicated agreement.