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Moving to the next item on the agenda, a paper in my name suggests a way in which we can deal with these petitions. I ask members to consider items as they appear on that paper, and to make any comments that they feel are appropriate.
The main recommendation that you make is that we consider the pesticide tax petition separately from the others. I am not inclined to support that view, because the petitions have been brought forward as a whole, and we should consider them as a whole.
In case you have forgotten, Lewis, may I remind you that the pesticide tax petition was brought to us before the others. It is numbered separately. We dealt with it quickly on a previous occasion, and asked for a report from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, which we now have. That is why it appears separately.
May I make a comment? I have just been passed a note, which members may be interested in, if it is correct, which says that in his speech to the National Farmers Union of England, the Prime Minister has announced that if there were plans to impose the pesticide tax, they have been scrapped. The issue no longer exists.
You are taking advantage of my research.
I should have credited you with that information, because we shared it.
I support the suggestion that we should not deal with these petitions in a piecemeal fashion. I have raised concerns before that we seem to deal with one crisis at a time. Having heard what farmers were saying on the NFU demonstration, it is clear that people want us to address these issues.
Are there any other comments or questions?
The petition comes from a cohesive section of the community, which practises farming in all its complexities. It would be remiss of us to discuss each petition in isolation. The petitions that were presented on one day came from a united front, so we should keep matters that way and discuss the petitions as a unit.
May I remind you that at our first meeting with the NFU, it said: "Help. We need a strategy for agriculture in Scotland." We want to help. Let us look at how we can take that forward. Can we get back to considering how we do that?
I have not checked the wording of the petitions, but some of them seem to be of a shorter-term nature, whereas others are more strategic. I have not had access to the Prime Minister's speech, but if the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced a pesticide tax in his budget there would be no point in our considering PE24. Our consideration of the longer-term strategic issue might take us well beyond the date of the budget. We should establish which of these petitions involve short-term issues that we should deal with right away.
I would like to reiterate my point of view, which is echoed very strongly by Cathy Peattie. These petitions came to us together, from the same source, and it is incumbent on us to treat them together and to highlight their importance. I propose that at either our next meeting or the one after we should consider these petitions as the sole items on the agenda. They are that important. We should take a strategic view on them.
I agree with the proposal that we should take a strategic view on these petitions. We should consider, in the context of our discussion of our future programme, where they fit into the business of the committee. It is important that we consider the petitions together. However, we already have a standing commitment to undertake an inquiry into the state of Scottish agriculture, the timetabling of which should affect when we consider the petitions.
Would it be appropriate for us to take this opportunity to consider whether we want to obtain research or request information that is relevant to any of the items on the list of petitions? I remind members that the Public Petitions Committee has designated other committees the lead committee for four of the eight petitions that were submitted on the same day. However, it is important that we should have some input into their consideration of those items.
As I understand it, you are saying that in due course the European Committee will seek our comments on PE61 and PE62, and that we should wait for the Transport and the Environment Committee to comment on PE63. However, the other petitions are for us to consider and we should examine them in detail. We have already received informal briefings from the pig industry, so we ought to be able to proceed with our consideration of PE64.
It would be appropriate to approach SERAD for additional information on those issues. Do members wish us to undertake other research at this time?
While I do not want to anticipate our discussion, given the fairly extensive nature of our future meetings I imagine that we will have to consider holding additional meetings as a matter of course. We will not be able to get through all our business by meeting every couple of weeks. We will have to discuss how we programme additional meetings into the timetable.
We should defer this discussion until we get to the agenda item on future business. We are agreed that we should deal with the petitions as a specific issue—I think that everyone is happy with that approach.
I am quite happy to have a separate meeting to discuss petitions, in advance of which it would be useful to have a note from the clerks to illustrate the common themes in the petitions. It would also be useful to have a note on the elements of the petitions that fall within the Parliament's remit, given that certain elements do not. It would be helpful to separate those elements out, so that we can home in on the points that we can progress.
We have heard from pig farmers and taken evidence from various people, but I am frustrated that we did not seem to be able to do anything for them. The only way in which we can make changes is to combine the whole shebang, if you like, in a strategy on which we can make recommendations. I fear that we will have another meeting, discuss the petitions, agree how dreadful the situation is and then move on to the next item of business. We need to deal with petitions as part of a comprehensive strategy on agriculture in Scotland.
I echo Cathy's sentiments. The purpose of our meeting on petitions should be to consider how to blend them into our overall strategy and investigations, not just to go round in circles saying how terrible things are.
Do we need to approach individuals or organisations for further research or written material?
No. We should be quite focused. The research will come later, as part of the overall investigation.
If there are no other research needs that members wish to discuss, we will discuss petitions as part of our discussion of future business.
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