Official Report 199KB pdf
Item 3 is on our European Commission work programme tracker. We have our regular paper, tracking the items on the European Commission's work programme that the committee has identified as being potentially important to Scotland. Do members have any comments?
Sorry—I was not paying attention.
I noticed that you were not paying attention. Do you want me to read that whole thing again? Would you give us your comments on the tracker paper straight away, please, Mr Jackson?
It was an excellent paper, I thought.
Before I comment on one or two individual items, I understand that guidelines were agreed last week in relation to institutional reform, which will give MPs the opportunity to respond to proposals from the Commission before they become law. That relates back to the previous agenda item and to what Bruce Crawford was saying about having an early influence on the agenda, which is something that the committee has discussed for a long while.
Before you go on, I will respond to that. Like you, I am familiar with the issue, and the clerks both at Westminster and here have been discussing it. The House of Lords European Union Select Committee asked for comments on the proposal some time ago. I remember reading about how it would be a different matter for the committees of devolved legislatures to get involved than for committees of the nation state legislature, because of the scrutiny reserve and so on. As I remember, we commented on that at the time. I suggest that we do a quick résumé of the issue for our next meeting.
That would be helpful. As far as I am aware, nobody has come back to us on our interest in participating in some way. I think that we said that we would try to identify a few developments with particular Scottish relevance and do our best to influence them. It would be helpful to get an update at our next meeting.
It would be useful if you could report to the committee on the outcome of that. When will that be, did you say?
October.
When we visited Brussels, we homed in on the JESSICA and JEREMIE programmes—joint European support for sustainable investment in city areas and joint European resources for micro to medium enterprises. I notice that those have been approved in the main, and that the two funds are very near to being launched. It might be worth while to do something on that.
Gerry McInally and Iain McIver from the Scottish Parliament information centre are going along to the London event. We have our own seminar on Monday 4 December.
That is what I had in mind.
We will get a report back from them.
Can we get a report back from Ian Duncan, too?
Yes. Ian will be going to the Brussels event.