Rural Affairs Committee, 25 Apr 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 25, 2000

Official Report 210KB pdf

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Budget Process

Members should have received extracts from this year's departmental report, which was published on Friday. The extracts cover the areas the committee will be interested in but, as members will be aware, not all of them are relevant to our remit. There may also be other extracts that we do not have that members would consider relevant. Members may wish to consider chapter 6 on rural affairs and forestry and chapter 8 on local government and European funds, which cover the core Scottish Executive rural affairs department and Forestry Commission work with local government services and European funding in general. We have to decide today whether we wish clarification from the Executive on any aspects of the figures in the report.

It is useful to have this paper and the opportunity to discuss it. Some of the funding lines have been presented in a fairly general way. It would be useful to explore those areas a little further. That applies to both agriculture and fisheries. It would be useful to hear from witnesses from the rural affairs department to find out some more information.

I support Lewis on that. Only blanket figures are given. There is very little explanation of the trends behind them. It would be useful to have members of the Executive here to talk about those trends.

I support the comments that have been made so far. We should seek clarification of the figures for the Fisheries Research Services. There is no change in the figures for 1998-99 and 2000-01, which is quite surprising given some of the topics that have been discussed in this committee.

Would it be appropriate to invite representatives of SERAD to answer questions on this report?

Would it be appropriate for those representatives to submit a document prior to giving evidence, so that we have advance notice of what they will say?

Alasdair mentioned to me a moment ago that it would be useful to have submissions in writing so that those giving evidence can answer questions on their submissions.

I do not disagree with that, but I take it that in doing that we would not be limiting the range of questions we would be able to ask about this report.

Do we have anybody in mind we would especially like to question? Will we require a range of witnesses with expertise on agriculture, forestry and fisheries?

Given that Richard Lochhead has said that he wants to ask about fisheries, I have forestry questions that I would like to ask. I have no doubt that members would like to ask agriculture questions. We need a range of witnesses.

We will make that clear when we contact SERAD, so that it can provide for that when deciding who to send to the committee.

We will be required to draw up a report on aspects of the budget document. The deadline for submitting the report is the end of May. Members of the clerking team have suggested that it might be appropriate for us to appoint reporters to take responsibility during the development of that report. In discussions earlier, my view was that, as we have done on one or two occasions before, it would be appropriate to appoint two reporters on this matter. One should be a member of an Executive party and the other should be a member of an Opposition party. Does that meet with the committee's approval?

Members indicated agreement.

Are there any volunteers?

I see that Lewis Macdonald has raised his hand to volunteer.

Not quite.

Did you just want to speak?

Yes. I nominate Cathy Peattie.

I suggest Richard Lochhead.

Would it be appropriate to ask Richard Lochhead and Lewis Macdonald to be reporters on this issue?

No, Cathy Peattie. I know that you are keen to have me as a reporter, Alex.

Cathy Peattie seems to be appointed as a reporter rather a lot, but that is okay so long as she is keen.

Would the committee be content for Cathy Peattie and Richard Lochhead to act as reporters on the budget?

Members indicated agreement.

Do members have any other comments to make on the budget?

We therefore come to item 5 on the agenda, about the timetabling of the National Parks (Scotland) Bill, which the committee has decided to take in private.

Meeting continued in private until 16:53.