Rural Development Committee, 18 Dec 2001
Meeting date: Tuesday, December 18, 2001
Official Report
238KB pdf
Agriculture Research Report
Agenda item 3 is the agricultural research report that we commissioned some time ago, on 31 October 2000. Members have a note from the Scottish Parliament information centre about the final draft. We are asked to accept the report and to agree on whether it should be published.
I hope that members had a good chance to read the report—which is in four volumes—over the weekend. Our bid for use of the parliamentary research budget was approved by the conveners liaison group and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The report could be published as a report to Parliament by the committee. However, it would remain the work of the researchers and would be published in their name.
We could also send the report to the Executive with a specific request. We had a private briefing with the report's author some time ago, at which some members were present. The idea came from that briefing that if the Executive were considering any new scheme, it should perhaps run it past this report to see exactly what the new scheme's impact would be on agriculture. If we encourage the Executive to do that when we send it a copy of the report, we could ensure that the report would be of some use in future.
Are members content to publish the report?
Members indicated agreement.
SPICe was certainly happy that the report is a sound and solid piece of work. We will publish the report and send it to the Executive with a polite request that it should refer to the report to determine the impact of any new schemes that might be under the Executive's consideration.