European and External Relations Committee, 07 Oct 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 7, 2003

Official Report 184KB pdf

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Constitutional Treaty (Civic Engagement)

Good afternoon. I welcome everyone to the fifth meeting of the European and External Relations Committee in the second session. I have received apologies from Gordon Jackson, Dennis Canavan, Phil Gallie and Alasdair Morrison.

Without further ado, let us move on to the first agenda item, which is on the proposed debate on the constitutional treaty. Members will recall that we decided at our last meeting that there is not enough time to take evidence and to hold a proper inquiry during the forthcoming intergovernmental conference. Instead, we decided to take evidence during the conference from Scottish and United Kingdom ministers and, thereafter, to hold information events in Edinburgh and perhaps around the country. I hope that everyone has had a chance to read the briefing paper that outlines the options and discusses how we could proceed. I invite comments from members.

I have some suggestions about the options. If the information event is to be held in the chamber, I suggest that it should not last for a full day—I think that John Home Robertson will agree with me about that. Last time, we held an event that lasted for a full day. We encourage people to travel from throughout Scotland and, if we start at half past 9 and finish at half past 4 or 5 o'clock, that makes for an incredibly long day. Last time, people coming from my constituency had to leave at 7 am.

I suggest that the chamber event should be a half-day event, particularly as we are thinking about supplementing it with other meetings throughout Scotland. In that vein, option 2 on the briefing paper proposes that the locations of public meetings or hearings might be Edinburgh or Glasgow. If we hold a chamber event, people from Glasgow would come to Edinburgh anyway; I presume that we would take that into account. A reasonable spread of other possible locations is given and those options include the areas that most members of the committee come from. I am sure that Phil Gallie would, like me, be particularly interested in an Ayrshire event.

In Edinburgh and Glasgow, there is a preponderance of groups—such as the European Movement, the Europa institute and other interested academic bodies—that are holding public meetings to inform people about the IGC. If we keep our event to a half day, that might have the additional advantage that we could hold the meeting on a Tuesday or a Wednesday morning, instead of having to hold it on a Monday or Friday. As we are planning well ahead, there might be the opportunity to timetable it for a Tuesday or Wednesday. Presumably, the IGC will not conclude until January or February; we are considering holding an informative event after that, so we have quite a bit of lead time to arrange to occupy the chamber.

I do not entirely agree with Irene Oldfather. It would be a good idea to run the event over a fairly short day—perhaps from 10.30 or 11 am until 4 o'clock—rather than over a half day, which would disappear very quickly.

There should be events in Aberdeen and Dundee as part of the series of public meetings across Scotland. I should be careful about what I say, as we have new cities, but it is important that there are meetings in the four major cities.

I want to raise a few points. Will the meetings be introduced by a specialist? How will they be run? Will the Scottish Civic Forum retain a role or will we use the Parliament's civic participation fund? As Irene Oldfather indicated, we do not know when the IGC will end, but it is desirable that we organise the meetings to be held before Easter and before the campaign gets under way. We would be well advised to go ahead with the selection of venues and perhaps with a tentative selection of dates in March. March is not far away, so if we want a reasonable choice of venues we must go ahead now. The meetings should also be linked to activities that encourage people to vote in the June elections to the European Parliament.

A bit of a tennis match is going on between the committee and the Executive. The Executive talks vaguely about national debates without proposing anything specific and then asks us what we are going to do. We will probably go back to the Executive to ask it about its plans, now that we are doing something. We should put pressure on the Executive to do something, but whatever it does should be integrated with our plans.

We have been round all the roundabouts on the issue and many of us appreciate the importance of involving the civic population of Scotland. I have read the briefing paper carefully and I do not object to Irene Oldfather's idea that we should have only half a day on the subject in the chamber. There is a feeling in other parts of the country that everything becomes centralised in Edinburgh. On that basis, I suggest that we take up option 4 in the paper. We should include not just Aberdeen, as Keith Raffan suggests, but Inverness, as there are extensive implications for the Highlands.

Inverness is mentioned in the paper.

Yes, but you mentioned Aberdeen so I mention Inverness. I recommend that the committee adopt option 4.

Keith Raffan is dead right. It is important to co-ordinate our actions with those of the Executive. It would be silly to duplicate explanations or activities that encourage people to vote.

I also strongly agree with what Irene Oldfather said about the risk of running an all-day event in the chamber. When we do that, the usual suspects from lobbying and pressure groups in Edinburgh tend to hog the whole thing. It is important that what we do is seen to be accessible by people all over Scotland. A half-day event need not take up either a morning or an afternoon; it could take place over the middle of the day to facilitate transport.

I agree that the event does not have to take a whole day, especially as there is consensus in the committee that we should avoid bringing in the usual suspects. We must make an extra-special effort to engage the public—as opposed to officials who are paid by lobbying groups. I hope that the Parliament's civic participation unit, which is making great efforts to drive the Parliament down that road, will advise us on how to achieve that level of engagement with the public. In addition, the fact that events will take place around the country means that we could make the Edinburgh event shorter.

The final part of option 4 suggests that the committee secure a debate in the chamber. It might be an idea to have a debate during the IGC as well as after it, given that the subject is so huge. There is no guarantee that the Parliament will have a debate during the IGC process unless this committee secures one. Do members agree that we should try to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

That is a good idea. I always welcome an opportunity to debate Europe in the chamber. Would our bid go in through the Conveners Group with those of other committees, as was the usual procedure in the last session? Alternatively, should we write to the Executive? I know from experience that the earlier bids are placed, the better.

In the first instance the committee should put in a bid through the Conveners Group, if members are happy about that. However, the committee and ministers are continuing discussions about the Scottish Executive's time in the chamber, so the situation might change.

Now that we have agreed an outline of the process for civic engagement that involves meetings throughout Scotland and a debate in the chamber, it is important that we give a fair amount of attention to the format of the meetings—in particular the ones that will take place around Scotland. We must consider how to conduct the meetings and whether they should be introduced by a specialist such as an academic—although that might put people off.

I will ensure that the clerks keep members up to date. It is important that there is a dialogue between clerks and members about the meetings. Members who represent different parts of the country might want to have an input into the organisation and nature of the events in their areas. If members agree, I hope that we can treat that as a housekeeping issue, rather than bring papers to and from the committee.

On the format of meetings, is a video or DVD—or something similar—available from the European Commission, the European Parliament or the Scottish Executive, which could be used as a kind of warm-up for the guest speaker, whoever that was? The material that I get from the Parliament's visitor centre is certainly helpful when I visit schools. Something of that nature would be helpful, so perhaps we should apply to the Scottish Executive to see whether it will produce an objective piece about the constitution.

Fine. That is a good idea. I encourage members to direct their ideas to the clerks.

I draw members' attention to the second paper that relates to this agenda item. At our last meeting, we requested information on the ratification procedures that member states use when they adopt new European Union treaties. I record our thanks to the paper's authors and for the legal advice that the committee has received about the Scottish Parliament's powers. The information made interesting reading and will be made available to the public on the web. Do members have any comments on the paper on ratification?

Yes. It is an excellent paper and I congratulate everyone who worked on it. It gives the clearest exposition that I have seen of the various ratification procedures. I have a comment on the final paragraph, which says:

"Given the relevance of EU issues and Community law in most fields devolved to the Scottish Parliament the Committee may want to consider approaching Westminster in order to input into the UK's ratification process."

How can the committee do that? Should we meet UK ministers at Westminster or should we ask them to come here? How do we go through that process? I am sorry to be an administrator, but that seems to be a critical factor. We have read the paper—and the sift paper—and we are very keen to do something about it.

That is an important point, but I do not want to debate it just now. Scottish and UK ministers will be invited to give evidence to the committee and the paper on ratification would form an ideal basis for committee members' questions. It would then be for the committee to reflect on the evidence and discuss views on the ratification process.

I endorse what Margaret Ewing said. The paper is excellent and very clear—when I read it, I realised how great my ignorance was. To follow her point about the final paragraph of the paper, it is not clear at this stage what the ratification process will be, given that the Government party is maintaining the position that it will not hold a referendum, while other parties are pressing for one. We should certainly monitor the situation and ensure that we have some input, whatever the process that is eventually agreed.