European and External Relations Committee, 01 Feb 2005

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 1, 2005

Official Report 139KB pdf

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G8 and Council of the European Union Presidencies Inquiry

Item 3 concerns paper EU/S2/05/02/1 from the clerks, which follows up the conclusions of the committee's away day on 14 January. It outlines a draft remit and timetable for an inquiry to examine the involvement of the Scottish Executive in preparations for the G8 summit at Gleneagles in July and its contribution to the United Kingdom's presidency of the Council of the European Union from July until December 2005.

Given the major events that are taking place in Scotland this year, members will recall that we considered that the inquiry would be an appropriate vehicle to gather our views on a range of subjects and to determine whether the Executive is maximising the opportunity beyond a focus on business tourism, which has been the focus of some of the discussions so far. The clerks have prepared the note to trigger the inquiry.

I will open up the discussion to comments from members, but before I do so, and to enable full participation, I invite Iain Smith, as the Liberal Democrats' representative on the committee, to declare any relevant interests.

Thank you, convener. I give my apologies for being slightly late for my first meeting of the committee. I hope that it will not be a habit. I have no relevant interests to declare.

Thank you, and welcome to the committee.

Are there any comments on the terms of reference for our next inquiry?

I have a couple of brief comments on the paper. The section on climate change refers to consensus. It would be nice to achieve that but, given the difficulties that we have in achieving it even in our own country, I wonder whether our statement should be quite so positive. I recognise that it is an ideal, but to a degree committees such as ours should deal in practicalities.

My comment on the UK presidency of the EU is one that you would expect of me. The list of policy priorities demonstrates how far the EU delves into the internal affairs of Scotland. That is simply an observation, not a plea for a change to the paper.

I am not altogether surprised by your final remark.

I am told that the use of the word "consensus" under the heading "Climate Change" reflects the Government's own statements on the issue. The language used illustrates the Government's objectives, but I take your point.

That does not surprise me, given my comment about practicalities.

I see that we are in for one of those afternoons.

The inquiry will be interesting, but I am a little bit worried. We will have to keep it focused. We have listed climate change and other issues and we could do inquiries on issues such as chemical weapons and fighting terrorism. I am worried about the range of issues that we are trying to cover in what will be a short timescale. As a result, I make the plea that we should try to narrow things down a bit and keep the inquiry very focused.

I know that we have discussed Scottish ministers' commitment to promote Scottish policy interests within the UK presidency of the EU, and I hope that we will focus on Scottish input to the presidency and how we take forward the Scottish agenda. Although I do not want the G8 element of the inquiry to concentrate only on business tourism—after all, we had some important discussions on the matter during our away day—I was a tiny bit alarmed when I saw the extent of the remit. We will have to be focused if we want to complete the inquiry within two months at the most.

We might not have time to do this, but I also wondered about appointing an adviser to give us focus and to help us to analyse some of the written information that we are likely to receive over a short period. Given that and the fact that we will need to have weekly meetings, I think that we might be placing quite a burden on the clerk, and perhaps an adviser would help in that respect. The committee has not appointed one in quite some time, but we have done so in the past when that has been appropriate. I highlight the idea for discussion.

After reading the preliminary paper, I am nervous about getting ourselves involved in another marathon inquiry with a remit that would be physically impossible for us to cover in the time that we have. How are we going to deal with the middle east problem, climate change, Africa and so on, precious little of which has anything to do with the Scottish Parliament's responsibilities?

The paper lists 14 issues that I think the Parliament has responsibility for, and we will need to whittle that list down to a couple of issues. For example, the one big issue that would come within our remit is climate change, because certain things that we need to do to address that matter fall within the devolved powers of the Scottish Administration. There is not an awful lot that we can do about Africa or the middle east, however much we might like to.

I support Irene Oldfather's point that we need to be focused. For example, the UK Government has announced two major themes for its presidency of the G8: Africa and climate change. The other issues that are set out at the bottom of the first page of the briefing paper look very interesting but, frankly, I agree with John Home Robertson. Given the timetable that we have set ourselves, I do not think that we will have the time to cover any of those issues with the priority that they deserve.

As for the UK presidency of the EU, the briefing paper lists many different issues, but we will never be able to do justice to each and every one of them. We should simply pick out one or two matters on which we might be able to influence the Scottish Executive's input to the presidency. As it stands, the paper is a bit too wide and ambitious. Indeed, we might be giving ourselves a huge amount of work even if we were to narrow down our inquiry into the G8 agenda to Africa and climate change.

I take on board the comments that members have made, which all relate to the focus of the inquiry. I ask members to concentrate on the paragraph on the committee's interest. I appreciate the extensive context of the inquiry that is set out in the paper, but the focus of the inquiry is the extent to which the Scottish Executive is contributing to or having an influence on the UK's presidencies of the G8 and the EU. That addresses the points that Dennis Canavan, Irene Oldfather and John Home Robertson raised.

With those comments on the record, we can define the inquiry's remit tightly on that basis and set the rest of the paper in context. We have to address who we want to invite to give oral evidence. Obviously we will extend a general invitation to others to express a view on the issues that we are considering.

I am happy to consider getting an adviser on board and if it is the committee's wish that we take steps in that direction, I will ask the clerks to initiate the necessary proceedings. I venture a guess that there will be bureaucracy involved in our getting there, but we can certainly consider the possibility.

I offer a more serious comment. I go along with much of what others have said. Given our short, sharp approach and the timescale, we should really be addressing the climate change and G8 issues. To a degree, other committees deal with the issues in relation to the EU presidency to which the paper refers. Advisers can be useful at certain times, but I query the appointment of one in this case. I would have thought that it would be difficult to get an expert adviser on both climate change and poverty. There is enough interest among members to allow us to delve into those issues sufficiently, given the timescale to which we are working.

I want to be clear about what I am to conclude from the convener's comments about the Executive's contribution to the agenda. Given what other members have said, it seems to me that the Executive has an opportunity to exert influence in relation to climate change, because we can identify an area of responsibility there, and in relation to international development, because we have advanced that agenda in the Parliament in recent months. I am not sure whether we should examine whether the Executive is influencing the agenda in relation to chemical weapons, for example. I take from what was said that we will focus on the Scottish contribution.

I do not want to repeat myself, but that is exactly the focus of what we want to do. The inquiry is about whether the Executive is able to secure progress on its priorities through the G8 or EU presidency agendas. The Executive has set priorities in relation to climate change and international development. This is not about saying to the Executive, "Why don't you go and solve the problems of the world?"; it is about what the Executive is doing to use the opportunity of the events that are being held in our midst.

It is also about encouraging Scottish non-governmental organisations.

Absolutely. I imagine that a reasonable starting point for our first evidence-taking session would be to have a number of NGOs before us to ask them what the Executive should be arguing for and influencing on the agenda. We should get a flavour of that from the various organisations concerned. The paper will be reconfigured to include an invitation for evidence from various parties.

We move on to the issue of witnesses and committee meetings. We have a rough idea of potential witnesses, but I want to add to that list a number of NGOs from which it is important that we hear. There is a point in the paper about the possibility of additional committee meetings, although I do not think that 1 March is a runner because of the Brussels trip. Are there any other comments on the list of potential witnesses?

There are two separate headings. There is the G8 presidency, in relation to which we are focusing on Scotland's interest in international development, NGOs, climate change and all the rest of it. There is also the separate issue of the EU presidency. Are we considering all that at once?

I am considering it all at once. When we structure the work programme, I do not want there to be a false distinction between the G8 and the EU presidency. The Prime Minister set out some pretty clear priorities that span both of those events. We should consider our work in that way as well, so we would be looking for a combined list of witnesses.

In that case, of the 14 issues listed on the second page of the paper, I would have thought that the final item, "Developing a Confident, Democratic Scotland" and the two sub-headings, would probably be the most appropriate one for this committee. All the rest of the issues fall within the remits of other committees, but we could have a constructive session under that heading.

Are there any other comments?

We are talking about the list of witnesses. My understanding is that climate change and poverty are the two major issues in the run-up to the G8. We seem to have a heavy concentration on European issues among the witnesses listed. We have to reconsider the witness lists.

I agree, but with the caveat of what I said earlier about the NGOs being essential contributors to our discussions. That will make the discussions a bit more balanced. I hear what you are saying about the European focus.

If there are no other comments, are we agreed on the paper?

Members indicated agreement.

I will ask the clerks to start work on calling for written evidence and arranging the meeting programme.