Environment and Rural Development Committee, 01 Mar 2006

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 1, 2006

Official Report 214KB pdf

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Scottish Water

At last week's meeting, we agreed to consider the governance of Scottish Water. I circulated to members the letter that I received from the Minister for Environment and Rural Development—[Interruption.] I will pause to allow people to leave, so that we can have a little more quiet.

The minister wrote to us about the resignation of the chair of Scottish Water and the process of appointing an interim chair and a long-term successor. Since the matter was put on the committee's agenda, a debate in the Parliament on Scottish Water has been scheduled, which will take place tomorrow. The debate will give members an opportunity to make speeches but it will not necessarily give them a chance to ask questions. The issue is therefore still relevant to the committee and I invite members' views on how we proceed.

It is important that we find out what the prospects are for the delivery of the quality and standards II and quality and standards III investment programmes for Scottish Water, which the Government set up. The minister's letter gives reasons for Professor Alexander's resignation, but the differences between the parties appear to be disputed. When we read between the lines, it is unclear whether the resignation will make a difference to starting Q and S III on time. The matter affects every part of Scotland and members of the Parliament want to know the details behind what is going on, so the Environment and Rural Development Committee should take the lead by asking questions of the minister and, if possible, Scottish Water. We should also invite Professor Alexander to give the committee his side of the story. That would help the process. Tomorrow's debate will inevitably be short, whereas the committee can probe deeper beneath the surface of a fundamental service to people in Scotland. Further investigation would be of considerable benefit to the people outside the Parliament who want to know about development constraints and whether they will receive the service that they expect to receive. I suggest that we invite the relevant parties to the committee for a good reality check.

Members' faces are showing different expressions. We need to think about what we should explore. The Q and S implementation programme is a key issue.

The ministers have the ultimate responsibility in the matter and Ross Finnie and Rhona Brankin should appear before the committee to answer our questions. Professor Alexander is no longer associated with Scottish Water. He is a free citizen and he is at liberty to articulate his views on his previous role in any forum and at any time. We should hear from the ministers, who bear the political responsibility.

We could write to the ministers first, to lay out our stall. We could then use their answer as a basis for our questions, rather than come to the matter cold.

I do not know whether members read the submission on the first development in the programme and the debates around that. The submission was pretty lengthy. We should certainly ensure that we ask the right questions.

I certainly do not disagree with the suggestion that we should ask the ministers to appear before us to explain what went wrong, but I do not see why we should not invite Professor Alexander to come along, too. It is true that, as an individual, he can say what he wishes whenever he likes, but it might be useful for the committee to have an opportunity to quiz him.

We could make it clear that if he wished to come, we would be happy to hear him, but I would not want to burden him by inviting him. I would not be comfortable with our putting such pressure on him.

Do you not think that Professor Alexander might wish to put his views into the public domain in front of the committee?

There is a difference in emphasis between saying that we would be quite prepared to hear Professor Alexander if he wanted to come and inviting him, which I think would put pressure on him that would be inappropriate.

We have the statements on Professor Alexander's resignation that were made at the time and the statements from the minister. The issue is what happens next with the investment programme. It is clear that there is a difference of opinion on what it will be possible to deliver. My first inclination would be to write to the minister to get that information in writing. Members who have been following the press will know that a number of articles have been written on the subject. I would like us to obtain a proper written explanation from the minister, after which he could appear before us for a question-and-answer session. That is my top priority.

I have talked to Mark Brough about all the options. Although I keep trying to restrain members from adding more things to our agenda, it would be possible to create a slot that would allow us to hear from the appropriate minister over the next few weeks—although I warn members that any such session would probably be added to the stage 2 proceedings on the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill. I would be quite happy to do that, but any session that we arrange must be effective. We need to think about what we want to get out of it.

I will take the bones of what Rob Gibson and Maureen Macmillan have suggested and propose that we write to the minister and commission the Scottish Parliament information centre to prepare some background information on the debate on the water investment programme. Both we and the Finance Committee have discussed the issue on previous occasions. We could pull some of that information together in a package and then have a session with the minister. Does that meet members' main concerns?

I take Rob Gibson's point. We could have a whole gang of people in front of us. My starting point is consideration of what will happen next with the investment programme. For example, we need to find out when Scottish Water will issue that programme. I had understood that that would happen on 1 April, but I do not know whether the resignation will result in a delay. I think that we should seek a response from the minister on such practical matters.

In general, I agree with that, but it is important that we do not rule out taking further evidence once we have heard what the minister has to say. I understand that that might be a delicate process, in which people such as Professor Alexander might not wish to take part—as an individual, he is at liberty to do what he wishes. It would be sensible to leave open the option of taking evidence from other witnesses in due course.

That option is always available. The question is what we want to agree to today. My reading of the situation is that there is full agreement to our firing off some questions to the minister, getting his written response and following that up by inviting him to give evidence to us. It is open to the committee to do more if it wants to, but I would have thought that that would be a sensible way to proceed at the moment.

The issue of when Q and S III ought to start is time limited. When we receive the minister's reply, we will have to discuss matters fairly quickly because, like you, members of the public are concerned about what will happen.

That is my intention. I know that a number of possible dates are available in the near future and I need to work with Mark Brough to ensure that we get things organised.

A common feature of the committee's proceedings is that both the nationalists and the Greens are always asking us to hold lengthy and involved inquiries. However, they never suggest which aspects of our legislative scrutiny we should jettison to make time for the inquiries that they seek. We should make a commonsense and appropriate response to the situation affecting Scottish Water by listening to the ministers.

I do not want to extend this discussion for ever, but I will take comments from Maureen Macmillan and Nora Radcliffe.

Could it be the minister, rather than the deputy minister, who comes before us?

Could it not be the minister and the deputy minister?

We do not need them both but, as the letter has come from Ross Finnie, I thought that it would be appropriate for him to come and speak to us.

We can certainly invite him. Scheduling the session for later in a meeting might make it easier for him to come, because he will be at a Cabinet meeting first thing in the morning.

You mentioned the possibility of getting a background briefing to pull together all the strands. That would be helpful.

Yes. I think that we have reached agreement on that.

I thank you all for attending but, before you go, I would like to say a couple of things on the record about the arrangements for stage 2 of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill. At its meeting yesterday, the Parliamentary Bureau formally designated us as the lead committee for stage 2—no surprises there. I therefore propose to hold the first stage 2 meeting on 15 March. My target is to complete sections 1 to 16 on that day; that is the animal health part of the bill and the section on the definition of "animal" in the animal welfare part. We would not go beyond that at that meeting and it is up to members whether we reach that point. At the moment, I have scheduled two further meetings, on 22 and 29 March, for completion of stage 2.

As you know, the clerks are happy to advise members on amendments. There are already some amendments in the Business Bulletin and the daily deadline for lodging amendments to appear in the Business Bulletin the following day is 4.30 pm. The deadline for lodging amendments to sections 1 to 16 for consideration on day 1 of stage 2 will be 12 noon on Friday 10 March. I hope that members are clear about that and will think about amendments that they want to make. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 8 March.

Meeting closed at 11:52.