Official Report 570KB pdf
Scotland Act 1998 (Functions Exercisable in or as Regards Scotland) Order 2015 [Draft]
Agenda item 2 is to take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment on the draft order.
The order has been laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it before its provisions may come into force. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited to consider the motion to approve the order under agenda item 3.
I welcome the cabinet secretary back to his post. Congratulations, cabinet secretary. I also welcome Brian Endicott, the deputy scheme manager, and Gemma MacAllister, solicitor, from the Scottish Government. Do you wish to speak to the order, cabinet secretary?
Thank you, convener, and good morning to all members of the committee.
Thank you for your congratulations—it is a real honour and privilege to be reappointed to the position of Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment. I have thoroughly enjoyed the past few years in this post. I hope that we have achieved much, and it has been good working with the committee, but I very much appreciate that there is still much to do in the times ahead. I look forward to working with the committee to meet some of those challenges and to grasp some of the massive opportunities that are relevant to many of the issues that we will be speaking about.
Of course, one big challenge is the implementation of the new common agricultural policy, which I know we will come on to later in the meeting. This Scottish statutory instrument is relevant to the policy, because there are some farms in Scotland, and south of the border, that straddle both countries and are covered by different Administrations for the purpose of the CAP. An arrangement has been in place for a long time, which the order renews for the new CAP, whereby a farm declares which Administration it wishes to be administered by. The payment rate that that farm receives, irrespective of the fact that it straddles the border, relates to the different Administrations’ rates. It is really quite a technical statutory instrument to deal with that situation.
Good morning, cabinet secretary, and I repeat the congratulations—it is good to see you back.
I understand that this provides clarification of the situation between Scotland and England. Does it apply to other parts of the member state of the United Kingdom? In other words, if somebody has a holding in Northern Ireland or Wales, does this apply to that, or is it purely about the Scotland-England relationship?
It does apply to that. It was remiss of me not to clarify that it applies to all Administrations within the UK.
The explanatory note that we received on the instrument talks about Scotland and England. Does the point need to be clarified anywhere in the order itself?
My understanding is that all parts of the UK are covered. As you say, there are farmers who have holdings in different Administrations. I should have been clear that all parts of the UK are covered.
That is okay. Thank you very much.
There are no other questions, so we will move to agenda item 3, which is to consider motion S4M-11642, asking for the committee to recommend approval of the affirmative instrument. We can debate this for a long while, if need be, but I hope that that will not be the case.
I invite the cabinet secretary to speak to and move the motion, and I remind members that officials cannot take part in the debate.
As I explained in my opening remarks, this is largely a technical measure.
I move,
That the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee recommends that the Scotland Act 1998 (Functions Exercisable in or as Regards Scotland) Order 2015 [draft] be approved.
Motion agreed to.
Thank you, cabinet secretary. The committee’s report will confirm the outcome of the debate.