European Committee, 23 Apr 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 23, 2002

Official Report 213KB pdf

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Executive Briefings

Item 3 is our consideration of a response from the Executive on procedures for reporting and briefing pre- and post-meetings of the Council of the European Union and the joint ministerial committee. I think that we are making significant, if gradual, progress on this matter. We have now received an encouraging response from the Executive, which asks us to take in good faith its offer of providing requested information as early as possible in advance of key meetings. Perhaps the best strategy is to accept that as a declaration of intent, but to continue to monitor the situation rigorously.

However, I would like an indication of the Executive's view of the importance of issues to Scotland instead of simply being given information as it comes in. Perhaps the Executive could supply us with an assessment of how it views an issue and rates its importance. It should be possible to receive such a briefing from the Executive. That said, we simply have to make our intentions known, monitor the information as we receive it and find out whether it meets our requirements. If it does not, we should go back to the Executive. In any case, we should still note the progress that has been made.

How do we compare on this issue with other committees in devolved Administrations? Obviously, the rest of the UK must now have expertise in these matters, particularly the Welsh, who have a strong interest in similar issues. To what extent have they managed to resolve our problem of when to decide whether to attend a particular Council meeting? Convener, would you be able to talk to conveners of similar committees in those Administrations to find out how they are handling the issue?

We have put in place many of the procedures as a result of discussions with the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee. However, we are almost unique in the UK because of the legislative powers that we have and because this committee combines scrutiny with the functions of a standing committee. The European Scrutiny Committee simply has a scrutiny function, while much of the responsibility for strategic overview goes to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. The National Assembly for Wales does not have the Scottish Parliament's legislative powers. As a result, we tend to find that we are ahead of things. I do not know whether the clerks have any further information on the matter.

The Welsh Assembly's European Affairs Committee does not function in the same way as we do; for example, it does not receive the 1,100 or so European documents that are issued every year. Our sister committee in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Committee of the Centre, is beginning to feel its way into this area. For example, in the past week, it published a report on the Northern Ireland Assembly's functions in relation to the EU's engagement with the office of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister. I think that I have already circulated that report's conclusions.

It would be impolite to say that the other devolved Administrations are behind us. I should say instead that this committee is setting the pace a little bit and that those committees are now beginning to follow an approach that is similar to the way in which we engage with the Scottish Executive. If members are interested, I will collate a little more information on the detailed working practices of the European Affairs Committee and the Committee of the Centre and circulate it separately so that members have more of an understanding of how they operate.

That would be helpful. I will report later on the meeting that I had yesterday with the chairs of the other European committees, but my general impression is that we have learned quite a lot from the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee. Some of our inquiries will be completed before its, which is quite nice.

We asked that the Executive inform us in advance of any proposed attendance at European Council meetings, but that suggestion has been rejected. I am not sure that I am convinced by the explanation, which states:

"Due to the uncertainty in the run up to these meetings, and the often last minute decisions taken about which Ministers should form the UK delegation, I am not sure it would be helpful to provide the Committee with details of which meetings the Executive plans to attend."

We should pursue that point. It is fair enough that, on certain occasions, it may be impractical for the Executive to give us as much prior notice as we would like. For example, we may not be able to summon the minister to give evidence before the minister goes to the meeting.

However, despite the uncertainties and difficulties that are mentioned in the Executive's response, we should be informed in advance whenever possible. Even if we can be informed only a few days in advance, the Executive should, as a courtesy, tell the clerk and/or the convener. If there is some merit in the committee's having a prior meeting and possibly receiving a briefing from the minister, we should, on occasion, be able to pursue that. We should not allow the Executive to get away with more or less saying that providing advance notice would be too difficult.

I also observe that the response states:

"Of course, Scotland is represented at all Council meetings whether a Scottish Minister is present or not."

Does that mean that a Scottish Executive official, rather than a Scotland Office official, is present at all meetings?

I presumed that Scotland's views were represented through the UK minister.

The delegation would, in addition, normally include an official from the Scottish Executive.

So Scotland is represented in both ways.

Therefore, even when no Scottish minister will attend the meeting, we might still feel that the agenda is important enough for us to hear from or cross-examine the official beforehand.

I reinforce what Dennis Canavan has said. It is interesting that, further on in its reply, the Executive states that it is happy to provide information on whether a minister intends to attend meetings of the joint ministerial committee on Europe or of the ministerial group for European co-ordination. It is not for the Executive to decide whether the information would be helpful. The committee has considered the issue and has decided that it would like to know. It is very kind of the Executive to decide that the information would not be helpful, but we disagree. We should go back and ask the Executive.

Some of us do not equate the presence of a minister in the European Council of Ministers with the be-all and end-all. I am certainly not here to make capital out of saying that we must have a Scottish minister at everything. However, if the Executive were open and transparent about the meetings, those that say a minister should attend every meeting might be exposed. For example, if the meeting is to discuss the sequestration of Russian mafia funds or the situation in Ramallah in Israel, those who insist that we send our ministers to every meeting would look rather silly.

Of course, I do not agree that Scottish interests are best served by being represented by the UK line, but we should make the point that we want the Executive to be a little more answerable to us than its response has suggested. The suggestions in the paragraph on the JMC are more the flavour of what the committee is looking for. We need more transparency and open communication.

Far be it from me to defend the Executive, but I happen to know that there are often last minute changes to the agenda. The trouble is, if we set up a formal structure whereby the committee is notified that a minister is going to be present at a particular Council meeting and it emerges that the agenda for that meeting has changed completely and there is no purpose in the Scottish Executive minister being there, the fact that the minister's attendance has been notified to the committee may mean that the whole thing is set in concrete and the minister is obliged to attend a meeting for no useful purpose. I am persuaded by the case for some reasonable flexibility. I am not trying to obfuscate—I share the view of the other committee members that we should have access to information. However, I am not sure whether we are serving Scottish interests well by setting hard and fast rules that might be self-defeating.

We want to get a sense of what is happening at different Council meetings, so that, if there is an issue that we consider to be particularly important to the Scottish Parliament, someone can come and talk to us about it, either before or after the meeting. It is not so important who attends the meeting—whether it is an Executive official, a deputy minister or a Cabinet minister—as long as we know what is on the agenda in good enough time. I suspect that there might be occasions when the committee's discussions will influence who attends the next Council meeting. I would like to know who is going and when but, more important, I want to know what is being discussed. That will trigger our scrutiny. These things are much easier afterwards when everything is cut and dried. However, knowing when it would be useful to pull someone in for scrutiny is the main issue and that is what we should push for.

I agree with that and I understand John Home Robertson's comments, too. However, I am sure that we are all mature enough to understand that there will be circumstances beyond our control. We might have to sacrifice something in order to ensure that we get as much consultation and preparatory exchange of views as possible, in the full knowledge that once in a while something will be pulled for no reason.

Sometimes, the closer we get to the meeting, the easier it is to make judgments about whether it is better for ministers to be here in Scotland or over in Europe. Sarah Boyack makes a valid point. The job of the European Committee and one of the reasons for the scrutiny procedure pre-Council is to tell the Executive when we think that a minister should be attending a meeting. Perhaps it is more important that we have the information about how relevant the issue is to Scotland so that the committee can say whether a minister should go. Then we can ask whether a minister attended and if not, why not, given that the committee thought the issue important. It will be easy to collect the information after the fact. It is important that we know ahead of time what the issues are and their relevance to Scotland.

We have taken major steps forward in the past three years and we will get there eventually. I suggest that we review the procedure after a few months. Certainly, a lot more information is coming our way and we will be able to take a view on whether an agenda item is so important that we want a minister or some other form of Scottish representation at a Council meeting. We can easily find out whether there was such representation at a meeting. I suggest that we pursue that approach and review it in six months.

I have to disagree, convener. We need to know which minister is intending to attend because that places a responsibility on that minister's department to consider the issue—Council attendance should not be just a decision that is made by an official or by a minister. If a minister hopes to attend a meeting—subject to there being no changes to the agenda; it is perfectly possible to put "to be confirmed" next to an item—it is important that we know that the subject matter that is supposed to be considered on that agenda is the responsibility of that minister. That will allow us to hold ministers to account and to tell them that their department is responsible for the discussion that will take place. If the minister then decides not to go, that is fine. We should not micro-manage and tell ministers when they should go and when they should not go, but we should know who takes responsibility. Too much responsibility is lost in Europe. We cannot tie down many of the documents that come out.

We can find out from the subject matter whose responsibility an issue is; that would not be a problem. It is more important that the committee takes a viewpoint on the issue. By defining the issue and having information about it, we will know which minister is responsible. In that sense, the committee will be able to hold ministers to account.

I would like the committee to pursue the point in the penultimate paragraph on the first page of annexe A of the briefing paper, which is entitled "Response from the Executive". The wording that is used is interesting. I am not sure who is the author of the letter. Is the author a minister or a senior civil servant? He or she says:

"I am not sure it would be helpful to provide the Committee with details of which meetings the Executive plans to attend."

Frankly, I am sure that it would be helpful. I think that other members of the committee would like at least to be informed of what the Executive's intentions are. We appreciate that the agenda and the Executive's intention to attend might change the night before a meeting. Nevertheless, we ought to be informed about whether the Executive plans to attend a meeting as matters progress.

The next sentence of the Executive's response states:

"Of course, Scotland is represented at all Council meetings".

I am not sure how that should be interpreted. It is not stated that the Scottish Executive is represented at all Council meetings. The sentence might mean that it is the job of the UK minister to ensure that Scotland is represented. That whole paragraph requires clarification. You should pursue the point about being informed of the Executive's intentions to attend Council meetings, whenever that is possible and practicable.

On having rights to know, we must remember that we all have responsibilities. It would be a major step forward if we achieve what you suggest, which is to have advance dialogue with ministers before they go to Brussels. You are right to say that we will therefore know who is likely to go on behalf of the Scottish Executive, because that goes with the territory—it is bound to come up in the course of the discussion. At that point, the committee would have the responsibility and the right to make its view known that it would like a particular minister to go. Although that request might be declined, it would not be an unreasonable request to make.

None of us is a million miles away from one another in what we are trying to achieve. Your way of dealing with the matter—to seek to get it agreed that we always know in advance what is on the agenda—is probably the best way. If we know what is on the agenda, everything else will fall neatly into place.

I honestly do not think that we are a million miles away from one another. We all share the same objective of greater transparency and greater accountability from the Executive. There is a question mark about whether it would be helpful for us to know in advance whether a minister will go to a Council meeting. I am happy to write to the Executive on behalf of the committee for further clarification of that paragraph. Would that be helpful, Dennis?

Who wrote the Executive's response?

I understand from the clerks that the response was written by an official on behalf of Jim Wallace. We could write back and ask for clarification, because there seem to be different perspectives on that paragraph. I would have read it as referring to a UK minister, but Sarah Boyack and John Home Robertson feel that a Scottish Executive official would probably be present. Perhaps we could write to ask for further clarification of that point. Working party meetings will take place in advance of the meetings of the Council of Ministers, and the Executive may have an input into those working party meetings. Perhaps we could ask for a little more clarification on what input the Executive has in advance of Council meetings.

As the information begins to come through to us, we will be able to do a much better job of holding ministers to account. Our objective is to check whether ministers are attending meetings at which important Scottish issues are on the agenda. The committee wants to know that big issues of importance to Scotland get the representation that the committee wants them to get. That is what we all want from the information that comes through.

Can we proceed on the basis that I will write back to the Executive and ask for further clarification of what exactly that paragraph means? I will express the committee's view that we do not want just to get information as it comes in. We would like as much information as possible, particularly when there is a Scottish dimension to something that is happening at the Council. We would also like to know who attends the meetings and at what level. We should push ahead and try to put the process in place—we will be able to refine it as we go.

We are getting close to where we want to be. I do not want to obstruct the committee's basic objective, which is to get to the bottom of exactly what happens at, and who attends, the meetings and we must push things forward. Even if we do not get the information the week before a Council meeting, the committee may meet the week following it anyway, so we will be able to put together a picture of what is happening over a period of time. That will enable us to have a better view of the Executive's input.

The Executive's response contains this important sentence:

"The important issue is that Scottish interests are considered in the formulation of the UK line."

In a sense, it does not matter whether an Executive official or minister goes to Brussels to take part in a discussion, if it has already been agreed that the UK will take a different line. The crucial discussions take place when the UK line is formulated. That may be done beforehand, in Whitehall, or it may be done at the last minute in the room of the United Kingdom permanent representation to the European Union. That is the key point that we should be aware of.

We have found a way forward. We will continue to review the situation, but we have much improved the committee's scrutiny role.