Official Report 251KB pdf
End-of-Life Vehicles (Storage and Treatment) (Scotland) Regulations 2003 (SSI 2003/593)
I welcome committee members, witnesses, the press and members of the public to the meeting. I remind everyone to turn off their mobile phones, as I have just done.
I am not sure how the various bits and pieces are going to be extracted from cars, given that the current practice in some parts of the Highlands and Islands is for a crusher to go round crushing all the cars. That has seemed a good solution to the problem of the dead cars that litter the islands in particular. What are we going to do now, however? Will it be worth taking the vehicles back to wherever to have their bits extracted? Surely a balance must be struck.
I agree with what Maureen Macmillan has said. I have looked into the current approach to licensing and there is a question about whether people can be licensed in the islands to deal with the problem. Is there enough work for people to bother to obtain licences? I would like that to be clarified. It is essential to those island areas that we do not go backwards with the legislation.
There have been issues in the past about people abandoning cars on their own land. Nothing could be done about that, because the car belonged to the owner or the crofting tenant, who was not terribly willing to do anything about it.
There are issues about ownership and responsibility and the tracing of information through the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.
The clerks might wish to speak to Western Isles Council, which has invested in an excellent mobile crushing machine.
How do people get the bits out of the car once it has been crushed?
They do not, basically.
I wish to comment on the extract from the Official Journal of the European Communities that is appended to the instrument. How can we legislate for producers to take stuff back? How do we legislate for Toyota, for example, to take bits back to Japan? Article 5 of directive 2000/53/EC, which is cited on page L 269/37 of the Official Journal of 21 October 2000, states:
Page 7 of which part?
The main body of the document.
The document says "of" instead of "or".
Yes. There are two sad people.
Will you direct me to the exact paragraph?
It is paragraph 3(c) of part 2 of the schedule to the regulations. We think that it should say "the removal or neutralisation".
Excellent. I am grateful to both members for doing their job of scrutiny properly.
Why did the Subordinate Legislation Committee not come up with that?
Quite.
Even though our job is only to scrutinise the policy, you found a typo. Very good.
An issue that concerns me, but which has not yet been raised, is how one identifies who is responsible for a vehicle, particularly if it has been abandoned.
Maureen Macmillan raised that issue in passing. We should ask questions about the DVLA, to clarify the ownership issue. I am not going to bring the minister in, although he could probably answer the question.
I am champing at the bit.
There are important issues about implementation. It is not that we are unhappy about the regulations, but we have to get on and get things done properly. I ask the committee to agree that we write to the minister and ask him to respond to us in due course.
If the minister has a response now, that would save a sheet of paper, would it not?
It would do so only if he can answer all the questions to our satisfaction and I do not want to put him in that position.
Is the issue not on the agenda to be discussed later?
No. We are dealing with it now. We have to report to the Parliament by 19 January and I do not suggest that we should invite you back next week.
Members indicated agreement.
We will get feedback from the minister in due course.
Solvent Emissions (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (Draft)
The second instrument that we will consider is the draft Solvent Emissions (Scotland) Regulations 2004. For this item, I welcome the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development, Allan Wilson, and his officials. As the regulations are to be considered under the affirmative procedure, Parliament must approve them before their provisions may come into force. Motion S2M-751, in the name of Ross Finnie, invites the committee to recommend that the instrument be approved.
On my right is Richard Robertson, the Executive official who has been involved in drawing up the draft Solvent Emissions (Scotland) Regulations 2004. The regulations complete the transposition in Scotland of European Council directive 1999/13 EC on the
That was a good introduction, which gives us a sense of the key priorities. Given that we have Mr Robertson with us, do members wish to ask technical questions?
Will the operations be carried out inside a factory or are we talking about operations that might be carried out in people's houses? I am thinking of treatment for woodworm or industrial cleaning in a hotel or on another site. If timber treatment and surface cleaning happen outside, how will you control the emissions?
My understanding is that the directive and therefore the regulations apply to commercial and industrial premises only. They do not apply to domestic premises.
What about a hotel?
The regulations would apply, because hotels are commercial premises.
So if I get someone in to treat my woodworm, the regulations would not apply, but if I were a hotel owner, they might apply, depending on how extensive the infestation was.
That is my understanding. The interpretation of the regulations will be down to SEPA in the first place, but I understand that they apply to commercial premises and that hotels are likely to fall within their scope.
What about circumstances where commercial or industrial practices, such as woodworm protection, are going on in what are normally domestic circumstances? Would the operator responsible for that service be covered by the regulations?
The key point is that industrial activities are covered. If something was being done within premises for domestic reasons, it is likely that it would fall outwith the scope of the regulations. If the activity was a key part of the organisation's purpose, it would fall within the regulations.
So the company providing the woodworm protection would be covered by the regulations if it was working on my house.
If a company was engaged in an activity that fell outwith the scope of the regulations but discovered a problem within the premises that solvents were required to treat, that alone would not be sufficient to bring the activity within the scope of the regulations.
Thank you.
I do not know whether this is the right time to ask about this, but I am concerned about the fact that dry-cleaners are now being brought within the scope of the regulations. A lot of dry-cleaners are small businesses run by people who do not have English as their first language. What has been done to inform people that their business might come under the scope of the regulations and has anything been done to provide leaflets, guidance or information in languages other than English?
There was widespread consultation with industry, which extended to small businesses more generally and to dry-cleaners in particular. The charging regime, which we propose to introduce in conjunction with the extension of the regulatory framework, discriminates specifically in favour of dry-cleaners by imposing smaller charges than those that would be appropriate for other businesses.
What about people understanding the guidance? Has anything been done to provide information in languages other than English?
SEPA is considering that. It is well aware that the dry-cleaning sector has been unregulated hitherto under environmental protection legislation; it is also aware that a large number of dry-cleaners are one-person organisations and that those people might not have English as their first language. SEPA knows that it needs to engage actively with the individual organisations and the trade associations that cover the sector. It will consider different means of doing that, including making available guidance in different languages.
It has been suggested that, when similar regulations were implemented in Germany, there was a reduction by a third in the number of companies providing dry-cleaning. Do you think that the regulations might militate against small companies in remote areas or islands, where alternative opportunities for cleaning might not exist? Did your survey include companies that are not based on the mainland?
Yes, that scenario has been identified as a possibility. In drafting the regulations, we have taken specific measures to alleviate the regulatory burden on the dry-cleaning sector in particular, as the minister said. SEPA proposes to impose much-reduced charges on dry-cleaners. In addition, the regulatory burden on the dry-cleaning sector will be reduced in terms of the requirements that it has to meet to comply with the regulations. Moreover, the application process for the sector will be simplified substantially. Taken together, those factors will keep the regulatory burden on the sector to an absolute minimum.
Make no mistake, I am not suggesting that there should be no regulation—the sector clearly needs to be regulated. I am just concerned that we might be dealing with businesses that are small and cannot be replaced. I hope that the minister will be able to assure us that there will be a review of the regulations within a short period of their implementation, although I know that that is several years ahead.
Yes. SEPA will seek to use the period between now and when the regulations come into force for existing dry-cleaning premises to discuss with businesses whether they will have difficulties in implementing the regulations. As has been said, the new regulations have been simplified considerably, specifically for dry-cleaning businesses. There is, however, a problem for dry-cleaning in that the regulations quantify VOC emissions from that source and seek to reduce them by a factor of 2.7, which is a significant reduction in emissions over the piece. As you say, we have an obligation to introduce the regulations throughout the sector, but we want to balance that with a light regulatory touch to ensure that small businesses such as dry-cleaning businesses, which are being regulated for the first time, can cope with the new regulations and remain in business to provide a service that is necessary on the islands and in other remote and rural locations. We will keep an eye on that over the piece.
I have a few questions that are probably more technical than policy oriented. The regulatory impact assessment is very good. In the past, the committee has complained about some of the RIAs that it has seen, but this one is good in letting us get to grips with what the cost and the benefits of the regulations are. On page 2, the RIA talks about risk assessment. Most of our questions are about the impact of the regulations on industry, but I want to ask about safe levels of ozone. Paragraph (iii) on page 2 of the RIA draws on research that has been carried out over the past decade, and a couple of things stand out. The first is that it is estimated that
You raise an interesting point. My colleague can take up some of the technical issues about thresholds and such like. The power of the individual to make a difference is obviously limited, which is why the power of Governments to impose regulation becomes important. It is especially important in this instance that we have a Europe-wide solution. We are talking about regulating the industrial output of volatile organic compounds in Scotland to reduce their impact, but the problem of increased ground ozone exists throughout the European Community and is arguably a greater problem in other parts of the EC—reference was made to Germany—than it is in Scotland. The fact that a Europe-wide directive is being transposed into new regulations across national boundaries is important for bringing down levels of ground ozone throughout the EC and dealing with chronic problems that arise because of higher levels. That is a good example of how effective Europe-wide action also produces individual benefits in Scotland.
The solvent emissions directive is just one of a range of measures that are designed to reduce VOCs, which are precursors to ground-level ozone. One of the main sources of VOCs is traffic emissions. The Executive and other Government departments in the UK are specifically addressing that, so the new regulations must be seen in context. They will make a valuable contribution to the overall reduction of VOCs, but they are just part of the jigsaw whose objective is to reduce VOCs.
I have just a quick question, which I ask out of curiosity and not to get at anybody. I notice that the directive was supposed to have been put into effect in April 2001. What caused the hold-up?
The hold-up was caused partly by the complex nature of the legislation under consideration. It was also to do with the impact on small and large business and the need to strike a balance between the impact on business and the impact on public health and the environment. All that led to delay, which is undoubtedly regrettable. However, given the time scale within which we propose to make the changes, the delay has not led to any adverse impact.
I return to my questions on the research that has been carried out—1995 research is quoted in the regulatory impact assessment—and the issue of thresholds. If my questions cannot be easily answered now, I would be happy with a written answer. However, a couple of aspects struck me about giving people up-to-date information. I recognise the necessity for the regulations, but I am interested in what has happened to views on ozone and public health in the past decade.
We can certainly ascertain what information is available post-1995. I am happy to write to you about that.
I want to add to those questions. Who measures ground-level ozone, how often and where? There must be some sort of mechanism for measuring air quality. I would like an overview of that.
Is such measurement part of the local air quality strategy or is it a national matter?
I believe that the measurement of ground-level ozone is not currently part of the air quality strategy but that it is proposed to add it to the strategy. However, we will certainly check whether that is the case and reply to you formally.
It would make sense for measurement to be part of the air quality strategy. There are several areas in my constituency, for example, that fail to reach air quality targets because of traffic emissions. It would be useful to see how measurement fitted in with the overall approach.
It is not a technical question. I want to return to my point about providing information in languages other than English. If SEPA is reducing its charges to the business sector but at the same time will have a more expensive relationship with businesses, who will fund the provision of information in other languages? For example, does the Executive have an equal opportunities fund that would enable SEPA to do a good job of communicating with people whose first language is not English?
Those are obviously operational matters for SEPA. We provide it with sufficient funding to enable it to charge appropriately to ensure that the polluter-pays principle has precedence. However, SEPA has scope to vary charges. Indeed, it has proposed to do so in this instance following an extensive consultation that concluded only last week. There should be no reason why small-scale operators are unaware of the proposals. The proposed charging regime contains specific provisions to make its implementation simpler and to make it appropriate to such operators' circumstances. From what I can see, there is no requirement to supplement SEPA's budget beyond what is required for the charging regime.
I thank Nora Radcliffe for that question, which sparks the thought in me that, although we are good at considering the equal opportunities implications of primary legislation, we tend not to think about them with secondary legislation. We should hold the issue in our minds as statutory instruments come before us.
A couple of interesting points have been raised, particularly the point about equal opportunities in secondary legislation, which you and others may wish to consider further. I assure the committee that, in our regular discussions with SEPA, we will impress on the regulator the importance of taking equal opportunities issues into account.
I now open the floor to other members.
The regulatory impact assessment lists five options but, as far as I can see—although I read it on the train and made notes on it that I now cannot read—the Executive chose option 4 over option 5. Why was that choice made? The difference seems to be that option 5 involved more stringent regulations that might have a greater cost implication for industry. I seek assurances that we will not fall foul of subsequent directives or regulations and have to return to the issue and beef up to option 5.
The minister can pick up that question at the end of the debate.
Two important points were made by the convener and deputy convener, which go to the heart of why initially there was a delay and why we sought this balanced approach. The environmental case, which you outlined, convener, is substantial. Some parts of the country experienced their highest concentration of ground-level ozone for 10 years, so there is clearly a problem that we have to address on a pan-European basis.
The question is, that motion S2M-751, in the name of Ross Finnie, be agreed to.
Motion agreed to,
That the Environment and Rural Development Committee recommends that the draft Solvent Emissions (Scotland) Regulations 2004 be approved.
The motion is agreed to, and we will report back to the Parliament, as is our duty.
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