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Chamber and committees

Rural Affairs and Environment Committee, 16 Dec 2009

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 16, 2009


Contents


Flood and Water Management Bill

The Convener:

Item 3 is consideration of the committee's approach to legislative consent memorandum LCM(S3)24.1, on the United Kingdom Flood and Water Management Bill. Paper 10 sets out two options. Option 1 is that the committee could agree to produce a brief report stating that it is content with the LCM and that it notes that the UK Government has introduced legislation in that area earlier than anticipated. The committee could also agree to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, requesting information on how the provisions of the UK bill interrelate with the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009.

The second option is for the committee to agree to write to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency to ask whether it is content with the proposal in the LCM, and then take evidence from the cabinet secretary or the Minister for Environment on the memorandum in the new year, before reporting.

Do members have any comments?

I presume that the minister will have consulted SEPA about the issue anyway. Therefore, is there any need for us to consult SEPA further? We will only get the same response. Assuming that that is the case, I would favour option 1.

The first part of option 1—a brief report saying "Fine".

Can we delegate it to you, convener, to check the point mentioned by John Scott? If you are satisfied, we could go for the first part of option 1.

The first part. We do not want to write to the cabinet secretary.

No.

Does everyone agree to defer the decision to me?

Members indicated agreement.

Meeting continued in private until 11:06.