European and External Relations Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Official Report 410KB pdf

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Committee of the Regions

Item 4 is consideration of the Scottish Parliament’s membership of the Committee of the Regions. As members will recall, we recently received a letter from the Presiding Officer, seeking our views both on current arrangements and on an alternative proposition for membership before a final decision is taken on the matter. We previously agreed to respond to the Presiding Officer in a bit more detail and to seek views from current and previous members of the Committee of the Regions. Members’ papers contain all the feedback that we received from everyone whom we contacted.

I seek the committee’s thoughts and feelings to allow the clerks to compile for the Presiding Officer a comprehensive and detailed response on our position.

I am keen to maintain the status quo, with Scotland having four full and four alternate members, and for us to retain the previous arrangements under which Irene Oldfather and Stuart McMillan were the Parliament’s appointed representatives.

Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland share Committee of the Regions membership between their Parliaments and local authorities; in England, membership is allocated wholly to councillors, which I do not think is the right approach. Belgium and a number of other European partners—including, I believe, Italy, Spain and Germany—share the work between local authority and parliamentary representatives.

The work of the Committee of the Regions fits in with what the Scottish Parliament has been advocating, which is that we should get early intelligence about legislation coming over the horizon from Brussels. That can be done in a number of ways. It can be done formally, at committees, but it can also be done through networking. If that happens correctly, we have a better chance of stalling something that might have an adverse impact on our people than we would if it were nurtured and the gestation period were longer. The opportunity to be involved at that level is important. Although no votes are taken in the Parliament in relation to those matters—our involvement does not include decision-making powers—it is possible that we underestimate our influence. Thanks to each and every one of us in this Parliament, no matter which party we represent, Scotland has influence. We help to make a difference by being individual ambassadors in our own ways when we are out and about in society and we are very good at promoting our Parliament and the Scottish people.

The most important aspect is to ensure that good legislation comes from Europe. Much of the European legislation has been good. Europe is the origin of all the environmental legislation that Scotland enjoys and which has benefited us. Similarly, mobile phone charges have been regulated by Europe—that regulation needs to continue to be improved.

England might do things one way, but Scotland has earned the right to do things differently, and we should continue to send people to the Committee of the Regions. Whenever the Scottish National Party Government does something right, I will always give it credit. It is absolutely right for the minister to fight to get a greater ministerial voice at the European level. However, parliamentary back benchers need to have a strong voice in Europe as well, and we can do that quite powerfully by networking.

I hope that colleagues agree that we should continue the status quo, whereby we continue to send representatives from the Parliament and Scottish local authorities.

Thank you for that heartfelt contribution, Mrs Eadie.

I can see both sides of the argument, and I acknowledge that a lot of the responses have suggested that we move to a situation in which we pool representatives from the local authorities, to the exclusion of any representatives from the Scottish Parliament. I can see a logic in that but, on balance, at a time when, because we do not yet sit at the top table in our own right, we need all the voices that we can get speaking for Scotland in any world forum, I would argue that we should retain the possibility of having parliamentary representation as well, even if there were six local authority members and two MSPs.

Some of the responses erred on the side of having only council representatives partly because of practical concerns about MSPs not being able to attend. It would be important to ascertain, as far as is possible, whether the MSPs concerned would be able to attend the meetings. If they were not, we would be back to a situation in which we were not operating at full strength.

I agree with Annabelle Ewing. If this committee decides to go down the route of continuing to send our MSPs to the Committee of the Regions, we need to have a look at the issues around timetabling and clashes between the work of the Parliament and the necessity for members to attend the core plenary sessions of the Committee of the Regions and the meetings of the various commissions.

15:15

Much more effective mechanisms need to be put in place to enable members to report back to this committee. I am in a difficult position. I was out in Brussels working in the European Parliament for five years and I still think that our focus must be on the institutions that have legislative power, such as the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers. However, I accept that the Committee of the Regions offers another avenue for networking. In the past, our representation from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and this committee has been slightly unco-ordinated in that regard. We need stronger mechanisms for reporting back.

From what I have read and heard about the Committee of the Regions, I think that its value should be reviewed altogether, to ascertain whether it gives value for money. If it is shown to be valuable, MSPs should be on it.

In our first meeting, I suggested that we need to be clearer and more focused about the direction that the committee will take in its representations in Europe, and to consider whether we will engage with regional authorities, which have traditionally worked on overseas issues, or take charge as a Parliament and deal with overseas issues ourselves.

We are entering an era in which it is imperative that we have strong representation in Europe. Particularly in the context of the entry of new countries into the EU, there is a huge clamour for funds from Europe. We do not want to lose out in the process, and unless we proactively pursue our interest we will be left behind. I agree that representation from the Scottish Parliament is critical. More important is Aileen McLeod’s valid point about how we engage, report back and get support to continue that work, so that we can benefit from our engagement. Representation from this committee is pretty important.

We listened intently to what the cabinet secretary said about how Scotland can make an impact through the Scottish Government and its connections—however they are trailed. Irrespective of the way in which the Scottish Government exists as an Administration within the EU, if the Scottish Parliament does not take every opportunity that it has we are kidding ourselves on. We have to be serious about the matter. We must ensure that delegates from the Scottish Parliament can actually attend. We need to think about how that is going to work.

That might be a job for party whips.

I cannot remember whether it was Stuart McMillan—

Stewart Maxwell.

Either Stewart Maxwell or Irene Oldfather made the interesting point in their response that they had come to an arrangement—I do not know whether it was formal or informal, but that struck me as a good way forward. In the first and second sessions of the Parliament no pairing was allowed, and in the third session there were unofficial pairing arrangements. Pairing needs to be allowed when members of different political persuasions are away. Members are right to say that we cannot just send names; we have to ensure that individuals are empowered to attend.

You are absolutely right; we need representation out there. I take the point about numbers and splits; I do not know whether we want to go for 6:2 or 4:4 or leave the decision on that to other people. There is a clear view from this committee that the Parliament needs and wants representation. However, with such representation must come responsibility. We should seek assurances from the Presiding Officer on attendance, so that priority would be given to enabling representatives from the Scottish Parliament to attend. There would need to be some discussion with political groupings about that.

The other issue is that of reporting back. From the start the committee’s ethos has been to take a team Scotland approach—how can we push Scotland’s interests forward? Reporting back must take that approach. There are issues on which we will not agree with the Government and issues on which we will agree with it and on which we can work alongside it.

We will be working on issues that arise as part of the Parliament’s Europe strategy. The representatives on the Committee of the Regions play a key part in informing this committee. We have the work that Ian Duncan does in the “Brussels Bulletin”, but we also have the information that we find out informally at networks, which can be valuable and can get us further forward much earlier than would have been the case otherwise.

We need to be clear to the Presiding Officer that this committee would like a formal—rather than an informal—mechanism to be put in place to allow for appropriate reporting back.

There is still room for discussion on the make-up of the representation. We should not rush into making a decision today about how we break up the numbers.

We should look more closely at how focused we can be, what responsibility is being taken and by whom, and how many people will ultimately represent the interests of Scotland in Brussels, whether or not we have discussions with COSLA. We can discuss that first and try to focus on what we are trying to achieve and who is going to take ultimate responsibility. If there is to be reporting back to the committee, it may be that we will take the lead. However, we may want others to partner us and assist us in that process.

You are right. The only problem is that we have missed the deadline for a response to the Presiding Officer. I suggest that we do not say anything about numbers but make the point that every committee member feels strongly that the Parliament should maintain its representation and leave it at that.

If that is the view of the committee that is fine, although I put on record that I am in favour of the status quo.

I think that the 6:2 suggestion is based on practicality: it might be more practical to release two MSPs than to release four. The convener’s suggestion—which is to say that the committee supports the position that MSPs represent us on the Committee of the Regions—might be the wisest course.

The only problem is that that might be perceived as a diminution of involvement. The message that we send to our colleagues in Europe and to people in Scotland would seem to be that we do not feel that the issue is important enough to release two parliamentarians at once. There is clearly a divide in the committee. Perhaps the thing to do is to let the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body arrive at a view.

There is a clear issue that unites us, too, which is that every one of us believes that Parliament should still have representation on the Committee of the Regions, although we have arrived at that conclusion in different ways.

For me, we should emphasise the importance that we attribute to our representation by sending out the message that we should keep the status quo. However, I hear what you are saying, convener.

Ian Duncan has just suggested that if we append the Official Report to the letter, the Presiding Officer would see members’ different opinions on the issue.

Fine.

Yes.

It seems to come down to practicalities. However, if other members of Parliament agree with us about the importance of the issue they will sort out the practicalities for us. It is not our job to sort that out; it is the job of the business managers.

We can attach the Official Report to our letter and draw the Presiding Officer’s attention to it.

Reading between the lines, the 6:2 proposal seems to be informed by practicality, in respect of finding a solution that is workable and at least retains the possibility of sending some members of the Scottish Parliament to the Committee of the Regions. However, given that some of those who responded have indicated that they do not feel that any MSP should be sent, the proposal might be seen as a sort of compromise between the two quite strong positions on either side of the divide. I offer that up having read briefly the opinions that we have received.

We will write to the Presiding Officer saying that we believe that we should have membership of the Committee of the Regions. If we draw her attention to the Official Report she can take cognisance of everyone’s opinion. That is not to forget Hanzala Malik’s point—Jamie McGrigor made it too—about looking at the value of the Committee of the Regions. If we get a reporting-back mechanism, we can perhaps consider the issue of what needs to be reported back, how it should be reported back and so on. In that way, we will not miss out that piece of work.

Are members happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

We agreed previously that we would take item 5 in private. I thank the public for their attendance. I also thank Leonie Hertel, who is a German intern in the European Parliament information office.

15:26 Meeting continued in private until 15:56.