European Chairs—United Kingdom (Meeting)
Item 4 is feedback from me again—members will be sick of listening to my voice—this time on the European Chairs-United Kingdom group meeting, which was in Belfast. I was accompanied by Jenny Goldsmith, Jen Bell and Ian Duncan, which was very helpful as they cornered different parts of the agenda and gave me the right advice as we went along.
The main event of that meeting was the briefing by the Irish Government’s Minister of State with Special Responsibility for European Affairs, Lucinda Creighton, on the Irish presidency and Ireland’s plans for the European Council. Ireland’s presidency starts in January 2013 and it seems extremely well geared up for it. From the answers to some of our questions, it seems that it is a bit ahead of the game.
The Irish Government has three main priorities for its presidency, which I will read to you so that I get them exactly right. The first priority is to restore stability by implementing the EU’s new economic governance rules and procedures. It seemed very optimistic about achieving that, which was good to see, given Ireland’s own challenges. The second priority is sustainable economic growth through boosting competitiveness and creating jobs. An aspect of that is that Ireland is looking at a capital programme for creating jobs, which is something that we have looked at here. The third priority is a focus on the multi-annual financial framework, which I think will be a challenge, but one that it seemed well genned up for. The key issues up for resolution are obviously the negotiations on the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy, horizon 2020 and the cohesion policy. This committee is interested in all those aspects that Ireland will take forward.
The EC-UK group members then had a question-and-answer session with the minister, which went into a lot of detail on how Ireland has taken forward some of its plans and how it is seeing very tentative recovery in Ireland, which is welcome. Dominic Hannigan, the chair of the Committee on European Union Affairs from the Houses of the Oireachtas, also attended and gave us an update from there.
Issues covered in discussion with the minister included enlargement, which we have just spoken about. Ireland was disappointed that it would not be the presidency that welcomed Croatia, but it wished it all the best. The discussion also included the EU integrated maritime policy—specifically blue economic growth—and fishing disputes on mackerel. Jamie McGrigor will be very interested that Ireland, being a fishing country, is very interested in resolving that issue.
There was a decent presentation on the peace programme 4 in Northern Ireland, which is an EU-funded programme and the next stage of the peace process. Interestingly, the Northern Irish people at the meeting said that if sectarianism is stripped out, the key issues in Northern Ireland are poverty, lack of opportunity and jobs, which are also issues here. The peace programme 4 will address those key issues, because lack of opportunity and poverty can create division and resentment, which is one of the issues that they are working closely on.
In the main EC-UK group meeting that followed, there was a discussion involving all the chairs. We gave an overview of our committee’s work, and the other chairs did the same for their committees. We gave an update on progress on the Scottish Parliament’s EU strategy. There were a few questions on that and a lot of interest.
We also discussed the Foreign and Commonwealth Office review of the balance of competences, which is an issue that we will come back to with the House of Lords, and scrutiny of EU secondary and delegated legislation, which is a concern that will be discussed further. There was also a robust discussion on the impact of subsidiarity and proportionality.
Do we want to expand on any of that?
No. That was a comprehensive review.
Any questions or comments?
That was helpful, convener. It is good to have the kind of report that you have given, with headlines about what you discussed. I was a member of this committee in a previous parliamentary session, and I do not remember any convener giving a report in the way that you have done, so well done.
Thank you.
Was there any discussion in Belfast about the UK Government’s plans for corporation tax and air passenger duty for Northern Ireland? I attended the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly recently at which the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers, announced that she supported the measure for Northern Ireland but was keen to put it on ice for Scotland until after the referendum in two years, which I found a particularly interesting position to adopt, given the competition that there could be in that regard. Was there any chat or discussion about that?
There was not. There was a conversation about it on the radio this morning, because apparently some businesses and airports are feeling the pinch on this one. Perhaps we can look at that and take it forward.
The air passenger duty issue is important for attracting airlines to Scottish airports. Perhaps we can determine what the difference will be, because it has been suggested that it will be £1 per passenger. More important perhaps is how much it will be per plane and how much more it will cost the airline operators. That is what could determine whether a passenger travels from, or uses or does not use, a Scottish airport. Perhaps we can try to tease out the difference in that regard. It does not necessarily need to be reported at the committee; you can simply send me that information, convener. If it is significant, we can bring the issue to the committee, but if it is not, that is fine.
I should add that this is not about a comparison between Scottish airports and other UK airports, although I think that that comparison should be made. It is a comparison with airports abroad. One of the comments that I heard on the radio this morning was that people are bypassing Scotland and not stopping off here but going straight to Amsterdam and Paris, so we are losing out again to European airports, which are much more open and friendly in that respect. However, do members agree that that is worth a bit of investigation?
Members indicated agreement.
We agreed at the beginning of the meeting that we would take items 5, 6 and 7 in private. I thank the members of the public for coming along.
10:54
Meeting continued in private until 11:10.