Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee,

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Official Report 139KB pdf

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Budget Adviser

Good afternoon and welcome to the 11th meeting in 2008 of the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee. I apologise for starting a minute or two late. I have remembered to switch off my mobile phone—I remind everyone else to switch off theirs. We have apologies from Alison McInnes.

The first item on the agenda relates to the possible appointment of an adviser for the 2009-10 budget process. Members will have had a chance to have a look at the paper that explores the options.

In a sense, the choice of adviser will depend on whether we are going to concentrate on climate change or transport issues. It might be next to impossible, but it would be helpful to have an adviser on each for our scrutiny of the budget because the climate change bill is coming up, and because of the inquiry we are going to have into trains and so on. I understand that that might be difficult, in which case I should say that I was very happy with our adviser on transport from last year. He was helpful, and I would be happy to endorse asking him again.

I agree with everything that Cathy Peattie said. However, when we spoke about this last year we realised that climate change issues would be more significant in the session's second year than in the first. As a consequence, although I agree that we got a great advantage from the adviser that we had last year because he was very good and I would not hesitate to reappoint him, I still think that we need someone whose speciality is climate change issues. If it comes to making a decision one way or the other, climate change issues should be our number 1 priority this year.

I should point out that we will have the chance to consider specific candidates at a future meeting once we have made that decision.

We expect to focus more strongly on climate change because of the forthcoming bill and other work that is coming through. The transport inquiry that we are considering doing after the summer recess will not necessarily relate specifically to the budget process. However, our take on the budget in the year of the climate change bill should have a strong focus on climate change.

I also agree with Cathy Peattie. We need to seriously consider the climate change aspects of the budget, particularly with the climate change bill coming up and the number of changes in how the Government will consider the issue. It is also important to have a more in-depth discussion about how what we do relates to how the other subject committees consider climate change issues. It is almost impossible for one committee to consider the climate change aspects of every other committee's interests, but we need to ensure that those aspects do not slip through the net by our assuming that the other committees are doing it when they are assuming that we are doing it. I agree that we need to have an adviser who has a climate change remit.

However, I also agree with Cathy Peattie that it would be a shame if the other part of our remit were to be lost completely. That is perhaps a difficulty of having a remit that has two distinct parts. I would be keen for us to have an adviser on both areas, but if that is not possible, my preference would be for someone who has expertise on climate change.

That sounds like a consensus view. My opinion is that if we are to prioritise climate change, we should not necessarily be surprised if we cannot combine expertise in both subject areas to the extent that we might wish.

We are being asked to consider whether to appoint an adviser. I take it that the answer to that is yes.

Members indicated agreement.

We will ask the clerks to examine the specification, bearing in mind our desire to prioritise climate change, and to consider whether it needs to be changed in any way. It can be brought back to the committee at a future date. When are we likely to consider the issue again?

Within the next few weeks.