European Committee,

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 8, 2001

Official Report 177KB pdf

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Petition

The committee will consider petition PE246, which calls for the Scottish Parliament to request Scottish Natural Heritage, the Scottish Executive and the Scottish ministers, as appropriate, not to proceed with the designation of the South-East Islay Skerries special area of conservation.

We have not been invited to consider whether the area should be designated; we have been asked to look at whether the procedures have been followed and the petitioners have been adequately consulted and informed. The recommendations have been circulated. It seems that the procedures have been followed and I therefore recommend that the committee takes no further action, although the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions may have something to say about designation.

Can you or the clerk please explain why the petition was forwarded to us as well as to at least one other committee? What is the role of the European Committee as perceived by the Public Petitions Committee?

I refer you to item 2 on the agenda, which relates to implementation of EC or EU legislation in Scotland. The Scottish Executive is under an obligation to designate areas as special areas of conservation. It is within the committee's remit to scrutinise activities related to implementation, which is why the petition was forwarded. The Executive is responsible for implementation and the committee monitors such activities, which is why the Public Petitions Committee referred the issue of whether the procedures had been followed to us.

It was obviously thought that the issue involved the implementation of European regulations.

So special areas of conservation are set up under European legislation, not domestic legislation.

Can I chip in something? The issue is to do with seals. There are few seals in the European Union, but there are a hell of a lot in the Skerries and other parts of the Scottish coast. Scotland has the bulk of the European population of grey seals and common seals. That raises an interesting point because those on mainland Europe or in the Mediterranean might become excited about seals and regard them as important and to be protected, and rightly so.

People in the Skerries and along the Scottish coast, however, would recognise the fact that the seal population is healthy and expanding. Far from the seals needing to be conserved, other species that are eaten by seals may be in more urgent need of conservation. I do not think that we can consider the petition, but it raises a point of principle.

When decisions are made in the European Union, it is important that account is taken of local circumstances. The fact that there are no seals in the Mediterranean may not be a terribly good reason for requiring a seal population that may have expanded to the extent that it presents a threat to other endangered species to be further conserved in an area such as the Skerries.

I simply offer the committee those thoughts.

Is it worth making that point to the Public Petitions Committee? While we do not want to comment on the procedures, there is a general question about the decision-making process, which we hope will take account of local circumstances more specifically.

Yes. That would be helpful.

I believe that such designations are made under a European directive and that they are implemented over a lengthy time scale. Britain is well ahead of many of its European partners on designations, but it is not clear whether the relevant directive set out a clear consultation process or whether such a process has been followed. Checking whether consultation with the community was undertaken by the Administration of the day would fall within our remit, and there is no proof that the correct consultation procedures were followed. Perhaps we could follow that up.

When the Public Petitions Committee referred this petition to the European Committee, it attached its correspondence with Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish Executive in which it asked the questions raised by Ben Wallace. The correspondence from SNH and the Executive, which should have been circulated to members in advance of the meeting, sets out the procedures and states whether they were followed.

Those two parties could be wrong. We need to see how they transposed the EU directive's consultation procedures. If they did not follow those procedures, they are in the wrong. They cannot be expected to referee themselves—it is for us to do that.

My point is similar. I find it difficult to disentangle whether the area should be designated a special area of conservation from whether measures will be taken against us if the area is not so designated. Why should we be penalised for not designating an area if it can be argued that it should not be designated?

I am the deputy convener of the Public Petitions Committee and was present when that committee discussed the petition. I recall that George Lyon spoke to the petition and made a number of important points. As with many other directives, it contains some qualifying words, such as, "the directive has given authority for X, Y and Z to happen" and then goes on to say, "but regard must be paid to social, economic and cultural diversity at the local level." The point that was made at the Public Petitions Committee was that paying such regard is not always taken on board, particularly in relation to social and economic issues. That was one of the key points that the petitioners promoted.

It would be valuable to follow John Home Robertson's suggestion and to endorse your recommendation, convener, that the petition should go back to the Public Petitions Committee with that qualification, as it captures the flavour of the views expressed by the petitioners.

I will ask the clerk to investigate some of the points that have been raised, including the general point raised by John Home Robertson. I think that we should refer the petition back to the Public Petitions Committee and put it back into the system.

Who were the signatories to the petition? Were they local people?

They were locals.

John Home Robertson's comments might cover part of what the Public Petitions Committee asked us to consider, which is laid out in three bullet points in paragraph 3 of paper EU/01/06/7. The third bullet point asks us to consider whether the procedure sufficiently takes into account the views of local communities. Are we going to leave open the other issues that the Public Petitions Committee specifically asked us to consider? Those issues are whether there should be a right of appeal and whether the designation process should be changed.

Stephen, do you have any information about who signed the petition?

Yes. I can advise the committee that the petition was signed by the Kildalton and Oa community council, the Kilarrow and Kilmeny community council, the Kilchoman and Partnahaven community council, Councillor J Findlay and Councillor R Currie.

I am not sure whether the European Committee is able to suggest changes to the designation procedure for special areas of conservation or whether there should be a right of appeal against designation. The suggestion made by John Home Robertson and Dennis Canavan is covered by the third bullet point—the process is not as robust and open to local influence as it could be.

We should reflect on the views that have been expressed and the clerk will try to get some further information. As far as the designation process is concerned, we should feed in a comment that the decision-making process should reflect the views of local communities more robustly than appears to be the case at present.

It would be fair to say that there is confusion on the targeting of conservation. This particular area has been designated a special area of conservation because of seals, which are under threat from no one—it is a robust population—but in the same area there are other species that are under a lot of pressure. That is particularly the case for the Atlantic salmon—and the seals are eating a lot of that salmon. It could be argued that the salmon need protection, not the seals. There could be some confused thinking about both conservation and consultation.

We will give members an update on what we manage to find out.

We agreed to take items 7 and 8 in private. I thank the members of the public for their attendance and move the meeting into private session.

Meeting continued in private until 16:30.