Transport and the Environment Committee, 08 Sep 1999

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 8, 1999

Official Report 193KB pdf

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Statutory Instrument

The next item on the agenda is consideration of statutory instrument SSI 1999/1, the Environmental Impact Assessment (Scotland) Regulations 1999, which was laid on 9 July and is subject to annulment until 9 October. The committee might decide that its contents are acceptable or it might want to seek further information and consider it on 22 September. Members have the report from the Subordinate Legislation Committee, which recommends that the attention of the Parliament should not be drawn to the instrument, and we understand that the European Committee will consider the item on 14 September.

We should lay down a marker to the Executive about how we want matters of this nature to be presented to us. We have been given a 112-page technical document, full of valuable information which is largely incomprehensible to the members of the committee, and an elegantly worded but opaque analysis of what the regulations mean. We are told that the regulations include more projects, but we are not told which ones; neither are we told what the scope of the regulations is or how the regulations differ from the previous ones. We are told that the new regulations clarify the use of thresholds, but we are not told the way in which they do so. References, such as the one to scoping, are not clearly defined. I find the brief inadequate.

What is annoying is that I know that perfectly digestable information is available. When the legislation was laid in the recess, I obtained information from the Parliament's information centre and I am surprised that the straightforward information that was given to me has not been replicated in what was given to the committee.

The brief tells us that consultation took place, but we are not told who was consulted or what the findings were. We are then told that we have little choice but to approve the instrument. I am very reluctant to agree to make a decision on the instrument today. I ask for a rather more informative briefing and for better practice from the Executive. Lay people such as ourselves—none of us are specialists in the fields that the SSIs will cover—need practical guidance in a concise form. We will have to consider the instrument again in the light of a better effort from the people who give us the relevant advice.

Thanks, Murray. A point well made.

I support what Murray said. If we are to scrutinise the instrument, we need a brief that helps us understand it. I wonder if members of the Subordinate Legislation Committee were given a brief or if they had to plough through the whole document without an informal briefing. It is important to lay down a marker to the Executive. We should request of the Executive that such documents are accompanied by a simple explanatory document.

The Subordinate Legislation Committee had the same information as us, but they were examining the technical process, not the content.

I wish to support my colleagues in seeking more information. My understanding is that there would be time to consider this matter at a future meeting, and presumably there would be no difficulty in having a short brief. Last night, I got to page 54, marking a number of questions where I felt I needed more information, when I realised that perhaps that was not the best approach to take and that there might be a quicker way to proceed.

Indeed, and congratulations on getting to page 54.

We have noted the comments that were made with regard to clarification and the desire to have better briefing summaries so that we can ask the right questions and take the right action. We have time at our next meeting on 22 September, so we will ensure that the information is given to the committee as soon as possible.

Will we be reissued with the report in the next set of committee papers?

No.

It might be appropriate for the author of the report to be available at the next meeting so that we can ask questions on his amended report.

We can arrange that.