Item 5 is our scrutiny of the state of play of the transposition and implementation of EC legislation in Scotland. We asked the legal adviser to produce a report for today's meeting. I am happy to note the report and the recommended actions. If colleagues would like to discuss them in detail, they may wish to place the item on a future agenda. I invite members to share their views.
I would value the opportunity to discuss this item at a future meeting. We have had a heavy work load of reading and a heavy committee meeting this week and there have been a lot of important debates in the Parliament, so there has been a lot of behind-the-scenes work to get through.
The paper is good and detailed but it cannot have been the most interesting paper to put together. It highlights a significant worry, from our scrutiny point of view, about the late transposition of EC directives. We will be fined if we do not deal with EC directives on time—the Treasury is happy to pass that on to us. I do not know whether it is naivety on the part of the Executive or whether it is on purpose—I hope that it is the former—but the reasons that have been given for late transposition are not justifiable and do not stand up. It is important that the Executive learns that those justifications do not hold up. I would be grateful if we could examine the issue at a future meeting.
I am happy to do that. I drew to the legal adviser's attention the fact that I felt that we needed further information on late transposition. We are all agreed that we would be happy to continue this matter—
Could we have a briefing note on what the Commission does when it sees that a directive is late? What is its usual timetable? For example, is it 20 months? Is there an automatic fine? I am not sure what happens, so a briefing note would be helpful.
We will add such a note to our discussion on the report, which will probably be on the agenda for the next committee meeting. That will give us the opportunity to afford the issue the attention that it merits. I agree with Helen Eadie that this afternoon's meeting has been lengthy. I know that members have taken a considerable time to read all the background papers for our inquiry.
Meeting closed at 15:50.
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