Environment and Rural Development Committee, 09 Mar 2005

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 9, 2005

Official Report 121KB pdf

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Work Programme

Agenda item 3 is consideration of our future work programme. A paper from me has been circulated and I suggest that members comment on issues as we go through it. The paper sets out a likely work programme and gives an indication of what we are likely to do between March and June this year. It provides an extensive account of the work that we have to do. Do members have any general comments on the paper, before we agree recommendations?

I would like to raise a general issue, following on from our inquiry into climate change. The committee could agree in principle further to consider renewable energy in Scotland. We touched on the issue briefly during our inquiry into climate change, but it is important to the committee's environment and rural development remits. Given that a big debate is raging outside the Parliament in many communities throughout Scotland on the role of the different forms of alternative energy—especially wind energy—it would be good for the committee to consider the issue in the near future. We could launch an inquiry into the role of each of those forms of energy and tag it on to our inquiry into climate change, in which we did not have the opportunity to delve in detail into renewable energy.

If we were to put such an inquiry on our agenda in the near future, that would be welcomed by many communities around Scotland. We would be able to address some of the issues that have been flagged up in the inquiry into climate change and the general debate that is taking place throughout Scotland. I use the wind energy debate as an example. There are many conflicting views on that matter around Scotland. If we were to hold a parliamentary inquiry, we could address some of the issues that are being raised.

I am not clear about what Richard Lochhead is saying. Is he saying that there should be an inquiry into renewable energy? We know that the one proven method of producing renewable energy is by wind. There seems to be a scatter-gun approach to the debate that is raging in communities. There are lots of initiatives. Where would our inquiry begin, where would it end, what would it be about and what would we be looking at? Would it cover the issues that are exercising communities or consider the viability of specific methods of producing energy from renewable sources? What is the member talking about?

Our climate change report, which we have not got to yet, will have a lot of conclusions in it. When we get to the climate change report, we should reflect on future work programme issues that arise from it. The Enterprise and Culture Committee has already held an inquiry into renewable energy, so we must ensure that anything we do does not cut across or duplicate what that committee did. However, our climate change report will identify new issues, which will need to be examined.

In the light of the exchange between Alasdair Morrison and Richard Lochhead, I suggest that we pick up the issue once we have done our climate change report, so that we can identify a future work programme for ourselves. We might want to pursue work on renewables or other issues; we can come back and capture that and have a proper discussion about what we might do as a result of our climate change report.

Would that be satisfactory, Richard? It would capture your desire to do something, but it would do so in a more structured way in the light of our climate change report.

Yes. If we have a commitment to return to the issue at some point, I am perfectly happy with that.

With regard to Alasdair Morrison's very helpful comments, I should say that the Enterprise and Culture Committee's report considered electricity in terms of renewables. There is a wider debate about alternative energies, because electricity accounts for only 20 per cent of Scotland's energy use. Various debates are taking place outside the Parliament, and this committee is ideally placed to conduct a parliamentary inquiry into some of the issues.

I agree with the convener that when we reflect on our climate change inquiry, which is reaching a conclusion, that might be a good opportunity to look into the issue further. However, it is not my role to dictate the terms of the inquiry to the committee. It is up to the committee to discuss that in detail on some future occasion.

I am glad that Richard Lochhead appreciates that he is not in a position to dictate to this committee, or indeed to any individual in this place, what we do or do not do. I do not quite follow what he is getting at. There are on-going debates in communities. Are we to sit in judgment and look at the merits of one side of the argument in relation to planning decisions? Is that what the member is proposing? What he is saying is far from clear.

Nevertheless, the member has accepted that we can come back to the issue, have a more structured approach and make decisions on how to move forward as a committee.

A structured proposal would be greatly welcomed.

I am suggesting that, rather than inviting Richard Lochhead to give us a proposal, the committee as a whole should take forward the issue in the light of our report on climate change.

Absolutely right.

Richard Lochhead has logged with us his view that he is particularly keen for us to do that. There is agreement round the table that we would like to follow up our climate change report; part of that may involve looking at different aspects of renewables or energy policy. The matter has been raised with everybody. If we all put a bit of thought into it when we finalise our climate change report, we can pick that up and do something useful and structured.

If there are no other general comments, I shall take members through the recommendations to ensure that everyone is happy with them. First, we should note the likely timeframes for undertaking work in relation to future bills. We have Executive bills coming to us, and we could also have non-Executive legislation, which will give us something to do in terms of consultation and scrutiny. We also have our on-going likely time commitments in relation to subordinate legislation, and we can expect a raft of that to come towards us.

Members will see that there is a fairly lengthy comment on petitions PE517 and PE645; the paper recommends that we formally close our activities on those petitions, which relate to odour nuisance. We have been dealing with the petitions for more than two years and the committee has done a huge amount of work. We have had a result, in that we have managed to change primary legislation, we have secured a commitment on a statutory code of nuisance and resources have been identified with which the issue can be tackled. This is an occasion on which the petitioners' persistence has been rewarded.

Do members have any comments?

We have had a good result. I congratulate the petitioners and MSPs such as Susan Deacon who have pursued the matter.

I have circulated at least one letter that we received from a community council in the light of the parliamentary debate.

Do members give their assent to the proposal that we write to the petitioners to tell them that we have closed the petitions?

Members indicated agreement.

On how we monitor European matters, the paper invites the committee to agree to take oral evidence from the Minister for Environment and Rural Development in September on the Executive's priorities during the United Kingdom presidency of the European Union. I suggest that we still take the quarterly update from the minister in May but that we also have a discussion with him in early September, as the UK kicks off its presidency. Are colleagues happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

I ask members to note the arrangements for budget scrutiny. The question is whether we want to follow up the issues that we raised at stage 2 of the 2005-06 budget process. Our report asked questions about targets and outputs and the lack of connection between the two. We also highlighted the fact that some targets had changed over the years. We asked the minister for an update towards the end of the year. Are colleagues happy that we pursue that further?

Colleagues should note that we will not produce a formal budget report this year because there will be no annual evaluation report this year.

I think that we can all breathe a sigh of relief about that.

I agree, but we will want to return to the issue of effective budget scrutiny, which has been of concern in the past.

Instead of looking at future spending proposals, more effective budget scrutiny might be provided by our looking retrospectively at what happened in a chosen spending area. We could compare the budget plans in the previous year with the actual spend and outcomes during that year and ask why any differences occurred. That might be a more robust way of scrutinising the budget. It can be difficult to do anything meaningful with the high-level totals that we receive.

We have all experienced that frustration. In the past, different committees have looked at specific topics. As I remember, the then Transport and the Environment Committee went through the whole budget programme to see how it affected Highlands and Islands Airports Limited.

The process is much more meaningful if we can drill down into the details.

In principle, following a particular topic would be a good approach instead of trying to cover the entire environment and rural development budget. However, we will need to spend some time thinking about which would be the most useful budget line to scrutinise. Over the next few months, we will consider rural development in our inquiry. Let us hold back just now and think about the issue before the next time that we consider the budget. If members can think about that in the meantime, we will be able to have a focused discussion.

The next issue to consider is whether to bid for time in the chamber to debate our committee reports, such as the report on climate change that we will discuss later. As members will recall, we were unsuccessful in our bid for debating time for our sustainable development report because the Conveners Group prioritised other topics. Shall we bid for time for our climate change report? If we keep going with our report, we should be able to secure debating time for it before the summer recess.

We should press for debating time for our climate change report, because the debate will flag up all the things that people out there will need to do to make climate change not happen or slow down. Every opportunity to give people information about what can be done to mitigate, slow down or reverse climate change is important. Part of the feedback that we receive from people is that they say that we need to tell them what to do. The debate would be a way of highlighting the sorts of things that people can do.

I support the proposal that we should choose climate change as the topic for our next debate in the chamber. The chamber would be a good place in which to fulfil our role of holding the Government to account on its policies, about which we heard many criticisms throughout our inquiry.

Are we agreed that we should seek debating time for our climate change report?

Members indicated agreement.

The next issue is the annual report that the Executive is required to lay before Parliament under the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003. Ours is the committee that tends to scrutinise that annual report, so we need to think about how we will do that. One obvious way of scrutinising the report would be to receive a briefing from Executive officials on what they have been doing and to take oral evidence from the Minister for Environment and Rural Development. That would let us have a good chew over the issue. Are members happy if that evidence session is programmed in for May?

Members indicated agreement.

The final issue to consider is the principle of whether to hold an away day this summer, for which we would need to seek budget approval. We did not have an away day last year, but we have had a couple of changes in committee membership since then. As we will be halfway through the parliamentary session, an away day might be a good opportunity for us to escape from the day-to-day agenda. It would allow us to stand back and reflect on how we have done in the past couple of years and to set out a future work programme. Now that we have agreed the other items on today's work programme, I am quite confident that we will be busy until September. At the away day, we could consider how we will use the next couple of years. Obviously, there are some ideas floating around about what issue should be the subject of our next report.

Do members agree in principle to seek permission for an away day?

Members indicated agreement.

In due course, Mark Brough will produce a paper that will outline potential venues. If members have thoughts about what they would like to discuss, they can feel free to talk to me about them.

I reiterate my view that we should use such opportunities to meet the public. Wherever we go, we could have a public meeting to give the public an opportunity to meet the committee.

There will be time constraints, as an away day would usually include an evening, a morning and an afternoon. We will look at that suggestion.

Thank you, colleagues. We have a lot of work ahead of us. I hope that our discussion of our work programme will give people outside a sense of what the committee will do over the next few months. Interested parties and others who scrutinise the work that we do will be able to read the Official Report of today's meeting.

Meeting continued in private until 12:43.