Convener's Report
The next item on the agenda is the convener's report. There are a number of items in the report, but do not panic—I am sure that we can get through them quickly.
Although the papers that we circulated to members said that we had not had any replies from the Executive, some have now been received—our papers have been overtaken by events. In the past hour or so the committee received a reply to its letter asking the minister for information about the hallmarking directive. The minister's reply indicates that the UK Government has told the Executive that it will oppose the directive, which was put back on the agenda by the Italians. Phil Gallie, who has a keen interest in the issue, is not here; if no one else has any comments on the directive today, we will ensure that all committee members have the papers, so that Phil Gallie—or anyone else—can raise concerns at a future meeting. In the meantime, we note the minister's reply. I am sure that many members will welcome the fact that the UK Government opposes the hallmarking directive, given its implications for the Scottish jewellery industry.
As usual, the devil is in the detail. The last time we discussed the matter, the directive had not been issued. I presume that, now that it has been, we will be able to give a full response to it. We should keep a close eye on the situation.
The second item for consideration in the convener's report is the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive. We wrote to the minister on this; however, although we have received Ross Finnie's response, it does not contain much information. He simply says that he will get back to us prior to any announcement by the Scottish and UK Governments.
As a result, we are not much further forward with this important issue. After all, one of the reasons we are interested in it is that the Scottish Government is currently considering whether the directive should be implemented on a Scottish or a UK basis. That is why we wrote for clarification to the minister. We have still not received that clarification and I think that the committee would be interested in finding out how the Scottish Government decides whether legislation should be applied on a Scottish or UK basis.
I have not had an opportunity to read the letter yet.
It is a great thin one.
I would like to read out the reply, which is actually from David Skilling, Ross Finnie's private secretary. It says:
"Mr Finnie has asked me to reply to your letter of 10 September on being kept informed about the implementation of the WEEE Directive.
Mr Finnie will write to you prior to the issue of the Executive's and UK Government's proposals for implementing the Directive. We do not yet have a date for this, but expect it to be in late autumn."
As members will see, we are not much further forward on the matter.
It might be helpful to write to the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee to find out whether it has made progress on this aspect of the directive. Sometimes it gets information before we do.
We have opened a channel of communication and begun a dialogue. That seems reasonable and important.
Convener, it seems that the letter is simply saying that the matter is still under consideration and that the Executive is happy to communicate with us.
If members are happy for me to do so, I will continue that dialogue with the minister to find out whether we can secure any more information on the subject. After all, there is a lack of clarity about the Scottish Government's approach.
I take this opportunity to welcome to the meeting Wendy Alexander. It is her first appearance as a committee substitute for the Labour Party. At this point, it is a formality that I have to ask her to declare any relevant interests.
I realise that. The answer is that I have absolutely no idea whether I have any relevant interests. However, to be on the safe side, I suppose that I should declare that I have a visiting professorship at Strathclyde University. That might be relevant if we discuss higher education at any point. I also sit on the Finance Committee and the Education Committee, but as they are part of the Parliament, there is no conflict in that respect.
I congratulate the member. I think that that is the first time that a member has declared any interests.
I declared that I am a farmer.
The third item in my report concerns the water industry. We wrote to the minister on the subject and have since received a response to our proposal. I seek members' agreement simply to note the response, which has been available for a while. I hope that members have had a chance to read it. Are members agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
The next item in the convener's report concerns new proposals for more information on external relations in the Scottish Parliament. Keith Raffan raised the prospect of receiving more information about inward and outward visits to the Parliament to ensure that members had more notice if they wanted to be involved in any such visits. Have you had a chance to read the report, Keith?
The paper mentions a proposal to
"make a direct ‘hyperlink' to new reports".
I am not too fussed about that, although I have to say that I do not know what a hyperlink is. Does it mean that you can get to reports quickly? Is it something to do with broadband?
Welcome to the 21st century, Keith. A hyperlink is a link on a website that takes you to another website.
Right. I did not realise that that is what it is called.
There are an awful lot of visits and one hears about them only when the Presiding Officer welcomes visitors to the VIP gallery. When people visit the Parliament, they have a limited amount of time. I mentioned to the external liaison unit that members are sometimes not involved enough, and I was told that there is great pressure on members' time. It appears that visitors to the Parliament tend to meet an awful lot of officials and very few members.
Given the work of the committee, we should be given the opportunity to meet such visitors whenever possible. The business managers are also involved in that, as they tend to e-mail us to ask whether any member is able to meet a group of visitors, especially if the visit has been arranged at short notice. Obviously, the more notification that we can get, the better. I realise that many such visits are arranged at short notice, but I think that we should be given the opportunity whenever possible to meet those who are visiting the Parliament.
I will allow Stephen Imrie to say a few words as he has been in negotiations with the Parliament's staff.
I had a productive meeting with the officials in the external liaison unit on the question of visitors. We have a good relationship with that unit. At the start of every month, we will endeavour to inform committee members of any visits that are taking place in the Scottish Parliament, irrespective of whether the visitors have indicated an interest in meeting members of this committee. We will ensure that members get that list at the start of every month. Even if the visitors have not expressed a specific interest in European issues, if any committee member has an interest in meeting the visitors, I am sure that that can be accommodated.
I am grateful for that. I pay tribute yet again to the work of the ELU, which does an amazing amount of work with very few staff. They do their work extremely well and I am certainly not trying to add to the pressure that is on them. Wearing another hat, in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association executive along with Margaret Ewing, I have worked closely with the ELU and I have always been impressed by the quality and quantity of its work.
If I may turn over the page—I made some notes when I read through the papers—my final point is on the proposal for three-way meetings involving the convener, the Presiding Officer and the Scottish Executive. I see that the convener is trying to revive these meetings. I am not quite clear about their purpose, although I am sure that they have a distinct and clear objective.
My understanding is that, previously, occasional informal meetings involving the convener, the Presiding Officer and the Scottish Executive took place to discuss the external relations of the Scottish Parliament and get the viewpoint of Executive ministers. I am keen to revive that. I have not attended such a meeting as yet, but I would certainly be happy to do so if one were to be arranged.
I think that the deputy convener used to be invited to those meetings. At that time, that was John Home Robertson. I am sure that you would not have any objection to extending that practice.
No. I would not have any objection to your attending, Irene. I am delighted that you brought that point to my attention. It had slipped my mind.
We will move on to the next matter that I felt should be discussed by the committee. For the European elections, various things are going on behind the scenes that we might want to take an interest in, including the continuing situation regarding the number of Scottish MEPs, the Electoral Commission's current proposals for a pilot for postal votes and the funds that are being made available to encourage a high turnout. It is important that the committee is made aware of those three issues, as we may want to express a view on them.
On the number of MEPs that Scotland should have, the committee's position is already that we want to maximise Scottish representation in the European Parliament, so we need only restate that. On the other two issues, I know that some people in Scotland are concerned about the pilot for postal votes—although others will support it—and I am sure that members will have a view on how funding should be used to promote turnout at the elections.
I share the concern of members throughout the Parliament on the potential reduction in the number of our MEPs. I hope that the number of MEPs for our nearly 5 million people will not go below seven, but that will still be in stark contrast to Lithuania, whose 3.8 million people will have 13 MEPs. That is a matter of concern. I know that representations have been made already but, like all these things, it is now a bit late in the day.
I am concerned that the Electoral Commission is organising the postal ballot very late in the day. I understand that individual political parties have already made representations—I know that mine has done so. I am not in any way against postal voting, which was certainly successful in a council by-election in Stirling, where it raised the turnout to over 65 per cent. That was pretty remarkable, although I do not say that that would happen in European Parliament elections. My main concern is that it is very late in the day.
The expenditure of the funds that are available to the Electoral Commission to promote turnout in Scotland—which I understand are relatively limited—should be concentrated on the immediate lead-up to the campaign and the campaign itself, for maximum impact. That is important.
I would be happy to invite the Electoral Commission to give evidence at our meeting on 4 November, for half an hour, if members would find that useful. The Electoral Commission is responsible for both the funding to promote turnout and the postal voting pilot.
It seems to me that a useful group for progressing some of these issues would be the EMILE—European members information liaison exchange—network. I wonder whether there was any discussion of any of these issues at that group's most recent meeting. It would be helpful if we tied in with our European parliamentary colleagues on this, to find out exactly what they are doing and how we can assist them.
There will be no EMILE meeting until December. If we took evidence or discussed the matter with the group, we might want that to be on the record so that the Parliament would be aware of it.
I put it to the committee that we could invite the Electoral Commission to give evidence for just half an hour, which would give all of us the opportunity to ask the questions that we clearly want to ask. We could also invite a cross-party delegation of other MEPs to our next meeting on 4 November. Would members be happy with that?
Members indicated agreement.
I am delighted by the idea of inviting the Electoral Commission to give evidence, as I have a load of questions to ask.
Although it may be well down the road, given the fact that it appears that the decision about the number of MEPs will be taken next month, it would not do the committee any harm to submit again its view that there should not be a reduction in the number of MEPs from Scotland—for all the obvious reasons.
If there are no objections, I am happy for us to restate that view. There is no difference in our position. We will find out what the latest position is at our meeting on 4 November. There may have been an announcement by then.
The next item in my report is the issues surrounding the role of the Executive and the Scottish ministers in providing a market analysis of the proposed new members of the EU—that has been raised a couple of times before in the committee—and their role in leading trade delegations when they are making outward visits elsewhere in Europe or beyond. Members questioned the Minister for Finance and Public Services about that when he attended the committee a couple of meetings ago. He stated:
"Scottish Development International will be taking care of most of the trade missions. I am advised that no minister-led missions are planned, but there will be trade missions and I will come back to you with the details."—[Official Report, European and External Relations Committee, 9 September 2003; c 63.]
That could be part of our inquiry into the promotion of Scotland overseas, which is now under way.
A trade mission was arranged in parallel with the visit to Catalonia as part of the Scotland with Catalunya week, which I was privileged to attend on behalf of the Parliament. It appeared to be very successful. One thing that we could do today is congratulate the Executive on the fact that that trade mission was arranged.
It would be useful to have more details of that visit and what it achieved. That information may be on the web, in which case I am happy to go and search for it. However, I would certainly be interested to know more.
As you know, I feel strongly about the issue and put an oral question to the minister on it. The Scottish Council for Development and Industry is obviously carrying out trade missions; nevertheless, I remind members of what I said following my recent visit to Lithuania. The ambassador told me that there is €2 billion worth of contracts, over the next three years, out there and waiting to be grabbed—although road and rail infrastructure is perhaps not our forte, but never mind—and that there are three nuclear plants waiting to be decommissioned. We ought to be in there, and I think that the Executive should do something about that.
I understand the sensitivity of Scottish ministers on reserved issues. I appreciate the fact that they do not want to step on the toes of UK ministers. However, it is important that Scottish business is able to maximise contracts abroad and that we build on trade, especially with those countries with which we have historic links, such as the Balkan states and Poland, to name just four.
I hope that our relations with Lithuania are convivial following Saturday's crunch football match at Hampden.
Ben Wallace produced a very good report on enlargement. When the committee discussed it, we considered what assessment was taking place of the social and economic impact of enlargement on Scottish business. At the time, I understood that Scottish Enterprise might commission some research on that. It would be helpful for us to know whether that research has been completed and whether the Enterprise and Culture Committee is taking an interest in the matter. There may be lessons for us to learn. The European and External Relations Committee does not want to reinvent the wheel. The previous European Committee published a good background report, but it would be helpful for us to know how some of the issues that the report highlighted are being picked up by the Enterprise and Culture Committee, Scottish Enterprise and SCDI, which is very active in this area.
I can arrange for us to get that information and an update on Scotland with Catalunya week. We can give the Executive the good news that it has four weeks within which to provide us with a reply, as we do not meet again for four weeks.
The next item in the convener's report is a proposal to hold an event in Scotland to mark enlargement, to which we could invite the European committees of the Parliaments of the new member states. The issue was discussed informally during our visit to Brussels and members appeared to agree unanimously that it was worth pursuing. A number of members are not here today, but I invite comments on the proposal.
I was not on the visit to Brussels, but is there a risk of duplication in holding such an event? Have you liaised with the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee, as I presume that it intends to do the same thing around the United Kingdom? It is important to co-ordinate matters.
I would be happy to have the clerks look into the matter.
It is important that they do so. It would be ridiculous for us to arrange an event as a one-off if the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee were doing something similar.
We would not expect committees to visit Scotland twice within a few weeks. We will find out what is planned.
The committee has done a great deal of networking, but that has tended to involve other regional Parliaments. We formed the network of regional parliamentary European committees—NORPEC—and have relations with the European committees in Catalonia and Flanders. The proposal that we are discussing relates to a different network altogether. As John Home Robertson suggested, it could overlap seriously with the work of the Conference of Community and European Affairs Committees of Parliaments of the European Union—COSAC. A protocol to the draft constitution contains a reference to the work of COSAC. The event proposed is quite different from what we have done in the past, which has involved networking with committees of other regional Parliaments.
I feel that we are jumping in on this issue and I support John Home Robertson's point about the need for us to work with Jimmy Hood. A network of European committees of Parliaments of member states has been established. We could seriously tread on toes and upset our regional partners. We have discussed how we may build on the NORPEC arrangement and have said that we will not widen it immediately. We will try to deepen it and will invite new regions to join on an incremental basis. The proposal relates to something entirely different and needs further consideration. I was not on the visit to Brussels and was not party to the discussions that took place. I am not happy with the recommendation as it stands.
The proposal is for an event to mark enlargement that would be separate from other initiatives in which the committee is involved.
I am a new member of the committee, whereas Irene Oldfather is speaking on the basis of her considerable experience in the previous session. I am enthusiastic about the proposal.
The idea is good, but it is complex and may be difficult to implement because of the number of committees that are involved. It is important to consult others to prevent overlap. I have noted several queries. I presume that we are talking about holding the event in late June or early July next year, after the European Parliament elections. That would be good timing.
In view of the long-standing connections that many accession countries have with Scotland, it will be important to involve local communities—whether those of Poles or Lithuanians, whom I mention again. In "The Scottish Nation 1700-2000", Tom Devine mentions them, along with Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants for the importance of their influence on the west, so I have an excuse to mention them again. It would be useful to tie in with those strong communities in Scotland.
A number of executive committee members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association's Scotland branch have contact with Cyprus and Malta, because they are members of the British Islands and Mediterranean region of the CPA. Several of us know parliamentarians in Cyprus and Malta, so it would be useful to involve the CPA, particularly because of those two countries.
The informal feedback is that the date should be as soon as possible after 1 May, which is enlargement day, although that week would be impractical for many people.
I am one of the enthusiasts for inviting the 10 new countries to send representation to our Parliament. The idea is excellent. We should celebrate the Community's enlargement and the fact that those states are, on the whole, the same size as us or even smaller. Such an event would be interesting.
We spoke earlier about trade missions, but political connections must be made, too. It is important not necessarily to refer everything back to the House of Commons or COSAC, but to take the initiative. An initial aspect of the discussion is the question whether the countries would be interested in sending a delegate. Could we host one day for the 10 accession states, or are we expected to meet committees of our own size, which would require 10 days of our time when we have other work to do? Representation from the accession states might be the most effective option.
What Margaret Ewing said hints at thinking a little more about our objectives for the meeting or conference. Three laudable objectives are involved and the ideal would be to have a single event of sufficient visibility to cover them all. One objective is visibility to the wider public of enlargement and the fact that the Community is going from having 15 members to 25. Keith Raffan's point is that we have the opportunity to showcase Scotland's links with some of those communities and to show that they are Europeans coming back into the fold. Links with the communities that are based here provide one way to do that. Irene Oldfather mentioned the third objective. One great anxiety is that because we are at the western periphery of Europe, Scotland's companies will not take sufficient advantage of opportunities to trade in eastern Europe.
The idea is that one event should be of significant impact to touch all three bases—political links with the new Europe of enlargement, the role of communities in Scotland, and trade. It would be easier to do that if the subject was not also a source of political conflict and tension. As the chair of the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee happens to be a Scot, we should have an early meeting with that committee about what it is doing in other parts of Britain, what it is planning to do in Scotland and whether an opportunity is available for a joint initiative—an event that would touch all those bases—that might be of more significance than one in some of what we might call the less well-known regions of England.
That is helpful.
Wendy Alexander triggered an idea in my mind. I do not know whether members are aware that Canada is being active in Scotland at the moment; a major exhibition is to open in the Royal Museum called "Trailblazers—Scots in Canada".
At our party conference I bumped into the Canadian High Commissioner, who said that he was coming up not just for the exhibition, but for a full day at Edinburgh city chambers on how to trade with Canada, with which the exhibition is being tied in. Those events are doubling up. As there is a long lead-in time until next June, we should consult not just the European Scrutiny Committee in the House of Commons, which is very important, but Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Council for Development and Industry and ministers, whom we should make fully aware of what we are doing, because there is an opportunity on the trade front, too.
Wendy Alexander has come up with some good ideas. It is a good idea to celebrate enlargement, but we need to widen things. I have a problem with the idea of linking in exclusively with parliamentary committees, because I do not really think that we should be doing that. If we can widen out the process and extend it to discussions with our colleagues at Westminster to see what they are doing, that might provide a way forward.
I welcome the support for the objectives behind the proposal. There is much consensus on some of the benefits that could accrue to the Scottish Parliament if some kind of event were to take place. It is the first time that the issue has been an item for discussion on the agenda, so if the committee agrees, we will take members' comments, including the idea of finding out what is happening elsewhere, and put the issue back on the agenda for 4 November. I expect that we will have to make some kind of decision on 4 November, because it is clear that we would need some time to organise. The Parliament will be able to take the lead but, as members have pointed out, we should be able to get other organisations to build on that. In the first instance, we would have to find out whether other people would visit what is happening in Westminster and elsewhere.
The final item under my report is feedback from the visit to Brussels. As I look around the table, I see that Keith Raffan and Margaret Ewing are here; they were on the visit to Brussels. My view is that it was a productive and worthwhile visit. Although there are lessons that we can learn for future visits, there were some items on our agenda there that proved to be highly productive. In particular, I found the briefings from the United Kingdom permanent representation to the European Union and from Scotland Europa to be productive and informative.
We want to record our thanks to the staff and the organisations that were involved in helping to set up the visit. Do members—especially Margaret Ewing and Keith Raffan, who were in Brussels—have any comments on the visit?
What comes to mind is the very effective way in which the issues were addressed by all the people who spoke to us, both formally and informally. I would like to thank them all for the time that they gave to organising the visit. I also send a special message to Liz Holt of the European Commission, who hosted our lunch on Tuesday.
Liz Holt, who is sitting in the gallery behind Margaret Ewing, has a big broad smile on her face.
I endorse what you and Margaret Ewing have said. It was a brief visit and some people may not have been entirely happy about our mode of transport, but if those who complained can travel to such meetings in a relaxed way, they have obviously got far more time than those of us who are overworked.
What was that about?
You obviously do not read the papers.
The UKREP meeting was a valuable opportunity to learn informally about how things work, rather than through the formal structures. I thought that the relaxed attitude about members meeting civil servants and others was something that the Scottish Executive could learn from.