Edward Snowden (Asylum) (PE1515)
Agenda item 2 is consideration of new petitions. The first new petition is PE1515, on giving asylum in Scotland to the University of Glasgow rector, Edward Snowden. Members have a note from the clerk, the Scottish Parliament information centre briefing and the petition. I welcome the petitioner—we are grateful to you for coming along, Mr Napier, and appreciate you giving your time. I invite you to make a short presentation of around five minutes, which will be followed by questions from me and my colleagues.
Thank you. Five minutes is obviously a short time to deal with a topic as vast as the Government harvesting every single keystroke from everyone’s computer, every single email, text message and search and millions and millions of webcam images, but let me try.
Edward Snowden was elected by an unprecedented number of University of Glasgow students. By electing him as rector, they are making a statement against saturation surveillance by USA’s National Security Agency. The information that Edward Snowden has placed in the public domain is massively uncontested. The interpretation of it might be contested, but the information that he has put into the public domain about saturation surveillance by the American and British Governments of every single citizen is uncontested, and we owe him a huge debt.
The petition asks the Scottish Government to offer Edward Snowden asylum in Scotland now, conditional on a yes vote on 18 September. Irrespective of whether the people around the table are in favour of a yes vote, all can support the notion that a whistleblower such as Edward Snowden, to whom we owe a great debt, should be offered political asylum. He is in Russia at the moment. When the Americans cancelled his passport as he tried to get to South America, he was locked up for 39 days in the stateless person room at Sheremetyevo airport, during which time he applied to 21 countries for political asylum. US pressure prevented any of them from agreeing to his request. He says that he will take political asylum in any country that respects free communications and the freedom of the press.
The fact that Edward Snowden is in Russia is now being spun to suggest that there is something untoward about his situation in Russia. I am reminded of the old Yiddish story about the man who murdered his parents and asked for clemency from the court on the grounds that he was an orphan. The Americans are now saying that, because he is banged up in Russia, there is something untoward about his relationship with Russia, but he is striving with might and main to exit Russia and get to some other country that will offer him asylum.
I do not have time to go through the whole thing, but in the time I have for questions, I can look at the various different programmes that Edward Snowden has put into the public domain that show that you are being surveilled almost every second of your working life through the harvesting of data.
He is a fugitive. He is trying to get here. We owe him a debt of gratitude.
The final point that I would like to make in my 300 seconds is that whistleblowers are people who deserve our support. I am talking about not only people such as Edward Snowden, who reveal something that is of great importance to all of us—he may be right that every child who is born today will never have any private life—but whistleblowers in the national health service. Only last month, Dr Raj Mattu was vindicated after having been suspended for many years for pointing out that patients were dying unnecessarily because of the cuts. As we know, Jimmy Savile committed horrific offences over many years—indeed, decades—while the talk in the BBC canteen was often, “What the devil is anyone going to do about him?”
11:15Whistleblowers need support. If they do not get support, potential whistleblowers who could reveal illegality, misdemeanour, atrocities and so on will be intimidated. Many people would suggest that there is a democratic deficit in our society. Whistleblowers play a part in filling that gap.
I hope that I have not overshot my five minutes by too much. Edward Snowden has revealed information that we would not otherwise know about and which is of significance to every citizen in Scotland. He acted out of the purest of momenttives. An offer of asylum to the man by the Scottish Government that was conditional on Scotland becoming independent in September would itself be news and would allow the members of the committee to strike a blow for a private life for all of us.
Thank you very much for your comments, which were of great depth, and for keeping them within time.
On a personal level, I congratulate the University of Glasgow on electing Edward Snowden as rector in absentia. It has a track record—if my memory serves me correctly, on a previous occasion it elected Winnie Mandela as rector. That was an excellent result.
I have a couple of questions. I did not intend to ask the first one, but your comments triggered it. You suggested that the NSA has been spying on Scottish citizens, too. Is there any evidence in the information that Mr Snowden provided that American agencies spied on Scottish citizens?
Of the many programmes that Edward Snowden has revealed, there are five significant ones. The NSA can spy on any individual anywhere in the world, as long as they have an email address. The Tempera programme collects all emails, texts, browsing histories, passwords and webcam pictures. Even Facebook posts that people decide not to send but to recall are harvested, so it is not just what is sent that is harvested but what people might think about sending.
The Germans have experience of the Stasi opening a lot of letters. The German justice minister called the harvesting by Government Communications Headquarters of emails in this country “nightmarish”. Edward Snowden is on record as saying that GCHQ—I cannot remember the adjective that he used; it might have been “vicious”—is much worse than the NSA in its approach to harvesting information from citizens who are not even suspected of any wrongdoing.
That might be an argument for another day, but I was interested in your comments.
I want to cover a couple of practical points, one of which you have partly dealt with. The United Kingdom has a duty and a role in relation to asylum. You said that America persuaded many of its allies not to offer asylum to Mr Snowden. I take it that the UK Government has given an official answer to the effect that it will not grant asylum to Mr Snowden.
I hope that it will not come as a great surprise to the committee to learn that although Edward Snowden applied to 21 countries for asylum, I have no record that he even thought about applying to the UK, given that Mr Cameron is in bed with Mr Obama. He thought that applying to the UK would be a lost cause. I think that an application to Scotland would be seen in quite a different way.
I do not want to get pedantic with you, but under the current arrangements, if the UK granted him asylum, he could come to Scotland, as we are still part of the UK. I just wanted to put on the record whether a decision has been made by the current UK Government on granting Mr Snowden asylum.
As far as I know, no such decision has been made. He would not think that, under the present Government, the UK would be a safe haven.
I understand that.
I have one more question before I bring in my colleagues. You will be aware that, if there was a yes vote, asylum would remain reserved until March 2016. Thereafter, it would be for the Scottish Government to make a decision on whether to grant Mr Snowden asylum. Have you had any indication from the Scottish Government about whether it is likely to look favourably on an asylum application from Mr Snowden in the event of a yes vote?
The response to my correspondence was very unsatisfactory. It said that, in future, the Scottish Government would deal with each application on a case-by-case basis. I do not think that it is appropriate to say that Edward Snowden’s case would be dealt with on such a basis, because I think that we all owe him a favour. I am very disappointed in the Scottish Government’s response to my correspondence.
Thank you Mr Napier. I will bring my colleagues in.
If Edward Snowden gets asylum in an independent Scotland, surely the Americans could still petition to extradite him, which would cost a lot of time and money. He would not get away with it, would he? That would be my worry—he would be extradited from Scotland to the United States.
There has to be a crime first. Glen Greenwald and the team of journalists that has been releasing Edward Snowden’s information into the public domain, have just been awarded the Pulitzer prize. It is very clear that Edward Snowden is a whistleblower, that no crime has been committed and that no foreign state is involved. If the Americans wish to extradite someone, they have to specify a crime, and no crime has been committed. The appropriate response should be, “Thank you, Edward Snowden,” not a jail sentence.
We have the example of the Westminster bankers who were extradited from the United Kingdom to America and received long jail terms. America does not have a very good record on that sort of thing—it does not seem to matter whether a crime has been committed. Under our extradition treaty, he could be extradited on spurious grounds, and I would be worried that it could cost us a lot of time and money.
Another individual who was elected rector by Glasgow university students in 2004 is an Israeli whistleblower called Mordechai Vanunu. He was lured to Rome and then kidnapped, injected and taken in a speedboat to Israel where he suffered 20 years in prison, including 12 in solitary confinement. He is still detained in Israel—he is not allowed to leave. There is therefore always the possibility of kidnap and extradition.
Edward Snowden would like to leave Russia and come to a country that has a free press and free communications, and it would be an honour for Scotland if he were to come here. He is a planetary figure. Most Americans consider him a whistleblower rather than a traitor. The discourse that treats him as a criminal is a minority discourse, and I ask the committee to act on the basis that we owe him a huge debt of gratitude for bringing into the public domain all the uncontested information about saturation surveillance of all of you as well as of me and everyone else in the room.
Where to start? What Mr Snowden did was brave. There are other figures, too, such as Michael Moore—the American writer, not the former Scottish secretary—who has illustrated many of the actions of the United States. Of course, this is not all about the United States. This morning, we heard about America and China and information being leaked.
My problem is with how we change the surveillance of each and every one of us that you rightly point to. It is wholly unacceptable, but I do not know that offering Mr Snowden asylum will change that ethos. That surveillance will still go on. I sympathise with his case. He certainly did a lot of people a favour by releasing that information, but offering him asylum here will not change the problem that we face of Governments that are not open or leaders who are unable to open their Governments.
The same thing could be said about any other major world issue in the past, such as slavery or women not having the vote. A single action would not solve the problem; no one is suggesting that it would.
However, to go back to the previous question about illegality, the American President’s own body, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, found that the programmes were illegal, so the burden is not on Edward Snowden to escape the accusations but on those who are running the programmes.
We need to discuss Edward Snowden coming to Scotland. A couple of weeks ago, he said on the record that at least his worst fear—that his revelations would be ignored—had not happened. Indeed, there has been a world-wide discussion and the issue is in the public domain. The higher up the agenda the issue can be pushed, the better for us all.
There is no magic bullet. Serious problems exist with technology, in that every single keyboard stroke can be harvested. That was not possible in the past. When I watched spy movies as a kid, the fact that letters were opened between the post office and your address was seen as ominous and dark; now every single keyboard stroke can be harvested.
We face fundamental problems and, at the very least, we need a declaration of principle. The First Minister has made a declaration of principle that such intrusion is unacceptable and ominous, and you have done the same, Mr Brodie. However, we need more and more people to do that—we need a tsunami of opposition; perhaps then a solution will open up. We cannot let the matter be swept under the carpet.
Some of you will know more about this than I do, but GCHQ has issued a defence advisory notice to the BBC advising it very strongly—it is probably like a policeman asking you to pull over—not to run stories on a particular surveillance activity and British involvement in that activity. Therefore, we are already being prevented from accessing information. The BBC is colluding in that, as are Microsoft, Google, Skype, Yahoo and so on. They have all been very docile and obedient in supplying information to the NSA.
The problem is gigantic and there is no single solution, but offering Edward Snowden asylum would be a declaration of principle. As politicians, you will understand better than I do the importance of symbols. Such an offer of asylum now would be news. His election as rector of the University of Glasgow was reported by around 200 newspapers and television stations worldwide. Such acts are significant. I ask the committee to take the action that I have proposed.
I commend Philip Snowden for releasing the information and I welcome the petition. I am one of those individuals who may be decried as a conspiracy theorist about what is going on in the world and what various Governments are doing. However, what Philip Snowden highlighted—
Edward Snowden.
Sorry—I was thinking about Philip Assange.
Edward Snowden highlighted GCHQ’s involvement and the free exchange of information between the British security forces and the NSA. Many people do not realise that the US Government runs, in England, what is ostensibly a listening post, from a Royal Air Force base. It is linked to GCHQ but is staffed predominantly by American personnel, and is monitoring and surveilling potentially every citizen in this country and in Europe. As Mr Napier said, we must highlight that every keystroke, communication, whether by email or verbally on the telephone or mobile or any other exchange, could be harvested, listened to and monitored by security services. It is good to highlight that, so that people are aware that the wrong people are being prosecuted and persecuted for the actions that they took.
However, I have concerns about the petition’s validity. Under the UK’s current extradition treaty with America, were Mr Snowden to come on to UK soil, he would be extradited, as Cameron Buchanan highlighted. Depending on what happens on 19 September, a wider debate is to be had about whether an independent Scotland would honour that treaty agreement with the US. That debate must be had before we commit ourselves to giving sanctuary in Scotland to anyone who seeks that support.
I suggest, convener—and I respectfully ask Mr Napier to comment on this—that it would be appropriate to hold off on the petition until we get the result of the referendum on 19 September. We can then take forward the petition and get a reasoned response from the Scottish Government that is based on what we can deliver, rather than offering false hope to Mr Snowden.
11:30
Before I bring in Mr Napier, I have some information on the very good point that John Wilson has raised. I had a look at the white paper last night and noted that on page 260 it states:
“An independent Scotland will maintain current arrangements for extradition”.
That possibly answers Mr Wilson’s question. The white paper is quite clear on that position and, no matter how we view it, the white paper is obviously the bible on what will happen if Scotland becomes independent. However, I would certainly welcome Mr Napier’s view on what he wants the committee to do on the petition. You are the expert on your petition, Mr Napier.
First, it is nice to have an offer, but an offer does not mean that a person would be forced to take it up. The offer of asylum to Edward Snowden would be the significant aspect. He would obviously have to evaluate the risk involved in accepting it. Sadly, we live in an age when—as we know—there is rendition. People have been snatched and sent off for torture in countries in which I have worked. The record is pretty appalling in terms of people being kidnapped and tortured. So, anyone considering an offer of asylum would have to evaluate the risks in accepting it. However, the offer itself would be a declaration of principle and a way of saying that we oppose the harvesting of every keystroke.
I want to add an important point that I did not have a chance to make in my opening remarks. I had an opportunity that one does not often have: I spent some time with a 27-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, who used to give daily briefings on intelligence to a man called Ronald Reagan—he sometimes found him awake. He was a very significant figure in the CIA called Ray McGovern, who said that blanket, or saturation, surveillance is being sold based on fear and its being a price we have to pay for protection against terrorism. He said that it is complete nonsense.
The official American Government bodies have come up with a figure for the number of terrorist attacks that have been prevented by the saturation surveillance programmes: I am not very good at statistics, but I can remember the number zero. In fact, the biggest prize that they could brandish in 2007 was a Somali taxi driver in America who transferred $8,500 to Somalia. God knows what it was for—it could have been for his family. However, that was the trophy that cost billions of dollars in saturation surveillance. So, an insider from the upper echelons of the CIA is going public to say that the price that we are being asked to pay is a price that gives us no protection whatsoever.
Just before I bring in Mr Brodie, it would be useful for the committee to get a strong steer from you, Mr Napier, on the next steps for the petition. Mr Wilson suggested one option, which is that we defer consideration until after the referendum, for obvious reasons. Another option is that we write now to the Scottish Government to ask for its views on the petition, although I think that you might have already identified what the Scottish Government’s view would be. Which of those options would you prefer the committee to follow?
The worst thing for anyone who is a fugitive and is being victimised for doing something noble, whether they are in solitary confinement in prison, or whatever, is the feeling that you are alone. You can stand great suffering if you know that people out there know what is going on. However, the feeling of being isolated can be very demoralising.
Snowden felt great after his election by University of Glasgow students. It made him feel good when exile is being used as a punishment against him. I therefore ask the committee to push the petition as vigorously and quickly as possible, and that the offer of asylum be made. A decision on acceptance of the offer would have to follow an evaluation. However, the reason why I ask for the offer is because saturation surveillance is happening today and will happen tomorrow, and millions and millions of our emails and texts are being harvested. I think that that is a very urgent dangerous situation that goes well beyond being a nightmare scenario. The imagination of George Orwell could not have encompassed Big Brother having that power. Given the size of the challenge and the danger, we need a commensurate response. I ask that we do not look too closely at future extradition arrangements that might follow the referendum. Whatever the referendum result, a position statement by this committee would be good.
I was interviewed by the Russian news agency and a couple of other international news agencies today; the committee’s deliberations are going to be significant. I ask the committee to take a position of principle and to push the petition as vigorously and quickly as possible.
I ask for clarification, so that I understand you correctly. Do you want us to write to the Scottish Government, asking for its assessment of the situation? Would that be useful? It sounds as though you do not want the matter to be deferred until after the referendum.
I do not want the petition to be deferred. I would like you to write to the Scottish Government, asking it for a clear answer. I would also like the committee to take any other steps that are within its power. I do not know the extent to which you can stimulate debate within the Government, but I ask you to take every possible step.
You alluded to “Scotland’s Future”. I am so glad that you have read it, convener.
Were you in any doubt, Mr Brodie?
I will ask you questions on it later.
On extradition, I hope that there would have to be evidence of criminality. The hacker’s name escapes me, but there was a recent extradition case that ran for four or five years that involved a young Scottish guy. When we talk about things like that, we need to be clear about the principles that would be applied through international agreements.
Mr Napier, do you think that it would be appropriate for the committee to offer false hope to Mr Snowden regarding political asylum if, on 19 September and beyond—irrespective of the outcome of the referendum—the extradition treaty with the United States is not revoked?
There are huge issues in different periods of history, and this is the big issue today. I do not think that Mr Snowden is naive. He has taken this step and has, as he says, given up living in paradise—in very secure conditions, with a high salary and a great life. Looking back on that, he is pleased that he did so, despite the dangers and despite the fact that—according to reputable US media sources—elements in the American intelligence community are openly discussing the option of killing him, which has been discussed in the media as well. He still thinks that he took the right step.
Mr Snowden will not think that the offer of asylum by a committee or by a group of parliamentarians means that it is a done deal and that he should buy a ticket from Moscow to Prestwick or Glasgow. However, it will be a morale booster. More important is that it will be a signal to people in Scotland that there are people in the Parliament who view saturation surveillance very seriously. Not much is coming out from the political domain to say that the issue is being treated with the gravity that it undoubtedly deserves. Therefore, it would be newsworthy as a declaration of principle.
If I may say so—I exclude the people who are in the room from this—politicians currently have a very poor reputation indeed and are held in very low public esteem. This is a young Parliament and its members will, I hope, escape the opprobrium that is directed at their partners at Westminster, where the majority have had in the previous Parliament to return money that had been wrongly obtained. This is an opportunity for parliamentarians to change the situation and to win back public esteem by being seen to take a stand on an issue of principle. The details can be ironed out later.
I would love the debate to continue, as you will have identified, but we have other petitioners waiting. I ask you to remain for a second. We have finished our questions and it is now for the committee, as always, to make its decision. We are at the summation point at which we have to decide what to do with the petition. You have helpfully given us some advice on the next steps, but it is for committee members to decide.
My view is that there is merit in asking the Scottish Government for its view. Members have identified what they think that view is, but we normally write to the Scottish Government when a petition addresses a Scottish Government function. I ask colleagues for their views on the matter.
This is a difficult one, convener. As I have said, I sympathise with what Mr Snowden did, or was forced to do, but I take John Wilson’s point about offering false hope. A letter to the Government might simply produce the same answer that Mr Napier has already had from it. I am not suggesting that we—what is the phrase?—kick this into the long grass, but I wonder whether it is wise to do anything until we know the situation after 18 September. I do not like to prolong decision making unnecessarily, but I am conscious of Mr Snowden’s position. I will go along with the committee’s general feeling.
As I have said, I am generally sympathetic to the petition. If it was in our gift—by which I mean the gift of the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament—I would want us to give political asylum to Mr Snowden. However, it is not in the gift of either at the moment and, in any case, the issue will be subject to negotiation. Indeed, the convener has quite rightly highlighted paragraph 260 of the white paper.
It was page 260.
Given that it says on page 260 that it would be the intention of a potential future Scottish Government to honour the existing extradition treaty, I am minded to suggest that we delay further consideration of the petition until after 18 September to allow Parliament and this committee to debate at that time the wider issues that the petition raises about political asylum—not just Mr Snowden’s life and liberty, but the issue of having extradition treaties with a country that seems to flout international law.
That is my opinion, convener.
It is clear that the matter is not within our gift, and the Scottish Government has clearly indicated on page 260 of the white paper its intentions if there is a yes vote on 18 September.
I am not sure of the merits of this. Mr Napier has already written to the Scottish Government, and it has already indicated its response, which obviously does not satisfy Mr Napier. I am not sure whether the response that the committee would receive would be any different.
I certainly have some sympathy with the petitioner, who has passionately argued his case, but as you have pointed out, convener, we are limited in the actions that we can take. Even with a successful yes vote, Scotland will not be independent until March 2016, and it would be a decision for the new Scottish Government—whatever colour it might be.
Although I note Mr Napier’s request to move speedily with the petition, I believe that there are issues with Mr Snowden’s asylum at the moment. Russia has granted him only temporary asylum for a year, and perhaps one of the other 21 countries to which he has applied for asylum might intervene before his period of temporary asylum in Russia is up.
I tend, therefore, to concur with the general feeling of the committee. Given that Mr Snowden has only temporary asylum in Russia and given that we are awaiting the result of the referendum in September, we should defer further action until after the referendum.
What do Mr Torrance and Mr Buchanan think?
We should defer the petition until after the referendum.
Absolutely—I think that it would be premature to deal with the issue just now. It has nothing to do with Edward Snowden; the point is that the issue does not fall within our competence. Moreover, I do not think that there is any point in writing to the Scottish Government, because it will not matter.
Thank you, colleagues.
As you will have heard, Mr Napier, we are all very interested in your petition. The clear majority opinion is that we defer consideration of it, but I point outthat that does not mean that it has been concluded. We will keep you carefully up to date with developments after the referendum, when, depending on the result on 18 September, we might well discuss the issue further.
Thank you very much for the excellent contribution that you made in your five-minute presentation and in your responses to our questions. You are an example to other petitioners of how petitions to Parliament should be dealt with, and I congratulate you on your performance.
I suspend the meeting for two minutes for a changeover of witnesses.
11:44 Meeting suspended.Bulk Fuel Storage Safety (PE1522)
The second new petition that we consider today is PE1522, from Simon Brogan, on improving bulk fuel storage safety. Members have the petition, a note by the clerks and a SPICe briefing.
Welcome, Mr Brogan, and thanks for coming along. I invite you to give us a brief presentation—around five minutes—to set the context, before I kick off the questions from members.
Thank you very much for inviting me. This is the second petition that I have brought as a result of the Buncefield explosions and fire in December 2005. I launched the first petition in February 2006.
There are two bulk fuel storage sites in the town of Kirkwall, in Orkney. Kirkwall power station is owned by SSE and is very infrequently used, because Orkney is connected by submarine cable to the grid on mainland Scotland. The power station holds two 500-tonne tanks of diesel fuel. The Shore Street Kirkwall fuel distribution depot holds 1,640 tonnes of diesel and kerosene, but by virtue of the fact that the fuel is for onward distribution, it does not fall under the Water Environment (Oil Storage) (Scotland) Regulations 2006.
Kirkwall power station falls under the 2006 regulations, which means that it must have modern bunding arrangements. Bunding is the secondary containment measure that is used to prevent damage to the environment. The primary container is the steel tank, the secondary containment measure is the bund and the tertiary containment system involves gathering rain water or oil that is spilled within the bund and preventing it from going off site.
There are two bulk-fuel storage depots in Kirkwall. Shore Street holds fuel for onward distribution and the power station holds fuel that is used on site. The power station site is governed by a law passed in Scotland that means that it must have a more modern bunding arrangement.
The Shore Street depot is not governed by the 2006 regulations or by any other law, except the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. Four of the six tanks at Shore Street were built in 1938, and I think that the Scottish Parliament has really got a duty to do something about that. The tank nearest to a house is only 30ft away from it. There are dwellings very close to the Shore Street depot, which is in the centre of the front of Kirkwall. It is a disgrace that the depot is still there and it is high time that something was done about it.
Thank you very much for your presentation, Mr Brogan. I am familiar with the Shore Street site in Kirkwall. In fact, I think that, wearing my Highland and Islands hat, I had a surgery case to do with that site.
We attended it together.
Ironically, I stayed in the Kirkwall Hotel, which is a hop, skip and a jump from the depot.
If I understand your presentation, your concerns are about health and safety and preventing fire and explosions in the future in Scotland by having a different regulatory regime. Is that a fair summary of your petition?
That is not a totally adequate summary. The 2006 regulations insist on the bund having an impermeable lining, including under the tank. At SSE’s power station in South Uist, a tank leaked 40 tonnes of diesel in November 2008. Although it spent £250,000 in 2007 on upgrading the bunding, SSE decided not to lift the tanks to put an impermeable lining underneath them because it would have cost too much and been too difficult a problem.
The necessary impermeable lining throughout the bund must be insisted on for all the fuel depots that escape the 2006 regulations due to the arbitrary distinction between those that use the diesel on site and thoughse that distribute it. There is no sense to the distinction involving onward distribution, because oil storage in an oil distribution depot means that there is a lot more oil coming and going and therefore more risk.
The other aspect is of course your worries about water pollution from the diesel.
That is the whole point. Bunding is the bête noire of the oil storage industry because it has to be able to withstand enormous fire hazards and temperatures. That creates massive problems. Bunds have to cope with rain. If rainwater was not dealt with, a sealed bund would fill with rainwater. That is a problem, but bunds are the only way of securing the environment.
That is a very good point. Thank you very much for that.
Do any of my colleagues wish to ask questions or to make observations?
Mr Brogan certainly seems to have a valid point. As someone who hails from Stornoway, which faces similar issues with bulk fuel storage, and who represents Falkirk East, which includes the Grangemouth petrochemical complex and refinery, I am certainly aware of the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 and of the need, following Buncefield, to ensure that proper bunds are put in place.
As Mr Brogan mentioned, the Scottish Government has taken action to ensure that proper bunds are in place, certainly in Grangemouth in my constituency. There seems to be an anomaly with regard to risk, depending on whether the fuel is for use on site or for onward distribution. I am not aware of the situation in Kirkwall, but from what I know about the situation in Stornoway, it is probably difficult to get bunds in place in such a tight area. The distribution companies might have to consider building bulk fuel storage sites on the outskirts of the town instead. I do not know whether that is the case in Kirkwall.
You raise two points. The fuel depot that I am talking about falls below the inventory threshold under the COMAH regulations, which is 2,500 tonnes. Any facility that holds more than 2,500 tonnes falls under the lower tier of the COMAH regulations. Such facilities are highly regulated. Kirkwall fuel station falls outwith that.
In relation to the size of the bunding, the height of the bund walls is predetermined and I am told that that is okay, but Kirkwall fuel station does not have an impermeable lining. That is insisted on for all those bulk fuel sites that come under the Water Environment (Oil Storage) (Scotland) Regulations 2006. Therefore, the issue is one that the Scottish Parliament can do something about.
From the feedback, it seems to be the case that there is an issue. We should certainly raise it with the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, for one.
Most definitely.
Do other colleagues have questions to ask or points to make?
Good morning, Mr Brogan. I seek clarification on the definition of “onward distribution”. What do you consider that to mean? It is my understanding that the fuel that is in the containers in the Kirkwall fuel station can be in them for a period of time, as the containers are constantly topped up. That means that the argument about the fuel being for onward distribution does not really stand up in the context of the dangers that may be presented because of inaction by the Government in applying the appropriate regulations or by the operator of the site.
I am sorry; I do not quite understand what you are asking me.
I am asking you about the definition of “onward distribution”. In your petition, you said that part of the reason for the exemption from the regulations is that the oil that is being stored is for onward distribution. I want to get your interpretation of what that means.
There are two types of bulk fuel storage. There is the fuel that is stored on site to be used on site. In the case of Kirkwall’s power station, it will be burned in the generators. In the case of the Shore Street fuel depot, the fuel is pumped from ships into the tanks. Tanker trucks are filled and driven away constantly. The fuel is imported and is then distributed through the community.
12:00
The point that I was trying to get at was how full the tanks can be at any one time, or over a period of time. I understand that the fuel is taken from tankers into the containers and then from the containers into trucks, for distribution. The question is how long it can be lying in the depot before it goes for onward distribution.
I do not know exactly how often the coastal tanker delivers oil to Kirkwall, but let us say that it is every six weeks, on average. The tanks hold 1,640 tonnes of diesel and kerosene. They will be filled, and in the course of the six weeks the levels will drop, until another boat arrives. The boat comes up from Grangemouth, maybe, and it might feed into Wick, Inverness, Lerwick and Kirkwall.
One might naively suggest that oil containers should be outwith the main harbour area, but of course they are at harbours for good logistical reasons, because the fuel is shipped in. Inverness has oil storage, as do Kirkwall and the Western Isles. There are good, solid reasons for that. I think that your point is that, although the tanks have to be there, we must ensure that the proper bunding is in place, which has not always happened, because the regulations do not apply in all cases.
You have made good points. Unless members urgently want to comment, we will go to summation. Mr Brogan, you probably know from your previous experience of lodging a petition that this is the point at which we decide our next steps.
In my view there are clear next steps. We should write to the Scottish Government, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the Health and Safety Executive. I would also be interested in hearing what the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has to say about the situation. Mr Brogan mentioned SSE, so it might make sense to write to the company and perhaps to similar companies.
We should certainly write to SSE.
Have I missed anyone that we should write to?
We should ask Orkney Islands Council for its view. There is an environmental health issue, which the council should have considered. I would like to know whether it has made representation to the Government on the issue.
I presume that a private company distributes the fuel on Orkney—
If I remember rightly, it is Brogan Fuels—no relation.
It might be worth getting the company’s view, too.
Does Highland Fuels also have a role?
No, in Orkney it is Scottish Fuels, which changed its name recently to Certas Energy.
Okay, so it would be worth writing to Certas. Do members agree to write to that collection of organisations?
Members indicated agreement.
Thank you. As you have heard, Mr Brogan, we are very interested in your petition and we are going to take it forward. We will keep you up to date on developments and we will try, as we do for all petitions, to take it to the nth degree, to ensure that you get satisfaction on the genuine points that you have raised. Thank you for coming, and have a safe journey home.
We are really tight for time, so I will suspend for just a minute, to allow Mr Brogan to leave.
12:03 Meeting suspended.Referenda for Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles (PE1516)
The third new petition is PE1516 by Malcolm Lamont on referenda for Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles. Members will have received a note by the clerk, the SPICe briefing and the petition itself. I refer members to the clerk’s note and ask the committee whether it is content that the petition is admissible.
Members indicated agreement.
Thank you.
As with all petitions, we now need to consider the various options. We can invite the petitioner to speak to the petition; we can write to the Scottish Government, asking for its views; we can defer consideration of the petition until after the referendum; or we can take any other action that the committee considers appropriate. First of all, do members feel it appropriate to do what we do for other petitions and ask the petitioner to come and speak to his petition?
I do not think that the petition is inadmissible, convener.
We have already ruled on that, Mr Buchanan. We are now considering what actions the committee can take. [Interruption.] The clerk has just advised me that the only practical consideration that we should bear in mind is that the petitioner is on holiday and might not be immediately available. We will, if the committee is so minded, ascertain on what dates he can come in. What is the committee’s view on inviting the petitioner to speak to the petition?
I am not suggesting that there is referendum fatigue, but because of the wide-ranging nature of the issue that is raised in the petition, I wonder whether we should in the first instance write to the Scottish Government, seeking its views. Based on that response, we can consider whether to invite Malcolm Lamont to come in.
Perhaps the clerks can help me with something. The form for the petition asks:
“How many signatures have you collected so far?”
How many supporters are there for the petition?
We can get absolute confirmation, but I understand that there have been more than 2,000 signatures collected.
Mr Brodie has suggested that, in the first instance, we write to the Scottish Government, asking for its views, and that, once we have received its response, we work out our next steps, which could include inviting the petitioner to come in and speak to the petition. Do members agree?
I agree with Mr Brodie’s suggestion that we write to the Scottish Government to seek its view before inviting Mr Lamont to a committee meeting. However, I seek clarification on one issue. The title of the petition refers to
“Referenda for Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles”.
Is “referenda” actually the correct term? I understand from a linguist that the term should be “referendums”; the plural of “referendum” is “referendums”, not “referenda”. Can I have that clarified?
We will seek advice from a higher authority but, as always, I bow to Mr Wilson’s understanding of the English language.
The suggestion, therefore, is that we write to the Scottish Government for its views, and deal with the petition at a future meeting. Are members agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
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