Environment and Rural Development Committee, 14 Sep 2005

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Official Report 274KB pdf

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Work Programme

Item 3 is our forward work programme. Members have received an update on the programme and an indication of the likely work of the committee in the period from September 2005 to January 2006. It is worth drawing members' attention to the legislative timetable. Shortly we will deal with the Environmental Levy on Plastic Bags (Scotland) Bill. We expect to complete the stage 1 report on the bill before Christmas, with the stage 1 debate taking place sometime in the new year. I remind members that the Parliament has agreed that we will complete stage 1 by 27 January, which is a tight timetable for us.

We have completed stage 2 of the Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Bill, and the stage 3 debate will take place after the October recess.

To the best of our information, we will deal with the proposed animal health and welfare bill and will receive a paper on stage 1 scrutiny as soon as the bill is introduced. We are likely to have about five meetings on the bill in November and December—possibly more in January—to take oral evidence. A stage 1 report will be made sometime in the new year, possibly in January or February.

That will be in the Official Report, so it will give external organisations and members of the public a sense of what we will be doing.

Our next item is to consider and agree our approach to pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposed crofting reform bill. There are two things to draw to members' attention. The first is that the committee must agree to take evidence at stage 1 outwith Edinburgh in areas that are affected by the proposed crofting bill. I do not know whether we would be the first committee to do that at stage 1 of a bill.

No, we did it for the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill.

Okay, so it would not be a first.

We would be the first committee to do it for a crofting bill.

Thank you for that useful piece of information. It would be good practice for us to get out into the localities that will be affected by the bill. Having talked to members of all parties, I know that there would be sympathy for that.

The second thing to draw to members' attention is the fact that I propose that we take evidence on the proposed crofting bill on 2 November. There has been quite an extensive public debate about the principles that are suggested for the bill. It would be in the public interest for the committee to flush those issues out formally with the minister.

Members are invited to note that we have a draft proposal from Mark Ruskell for a bill on greenhouse gas emissions targets. That might come to the committee.

One day.

Is the committee content for the Local Government and Transport Committee to consider the proposed Sewel motion on the UK Civil Aviation Bill? It is being sent to that committee by the Parliament. We have an interest, as there are suggested emissions targets for airports in the bill, which are within the remit of our climate change report. We will keep an eye on that debate, but are members happy for the Sewel motion to go to the Local Government and Transport Committee?

Members indicated agreement.

We may want to discuss the next item further. It is stage 2 scrutiny of the 2006-07 environment and rural affairs budget. My report contains a few suggestions as to how we might deal with that item. One of our objectives will be general scrutiny of the figures for 2006-07, longer-term trends and changes that have taken place since the estimates for 2006-07 were set out. We definitely need to keep a long-term perspective of what is happening in the budget, which is why I suggest that the committee should have a briefing on it. It will be difficult to scrutinise the budget this year, but I think that we should have one session on it and get advice from the Scottish Parliament information centre and Professor Arthur Midwinter. I would not like us to lose track of the issues that we have raised year on year.

I invite colleagues to reflect on how much further they want to go on the budget this year. My report makes a number of suggestions, including getting information on efficiency savings projects with regard to reform and administration of the common agricultural policy; the Forestry Commission; the Scottish Environment Protection Agency; and Scottish Natural Heritage. We might want to get a report from the minister on that issue and see whether we want to pursue our scrutiny of any of those projects. It might be difficult, as we do not have a huge amount of time. Nevertheless, it would be useful for us to undertake some meaningful scrutiny of the budget.

It is a good idea to ask for some more information about some of those things and then narrow our focus. We do not have time to cover the whole gamut, and it would be useful to get a little bit more information to allow us to focus.

I agree with what Nora Radcliffe says. Once we move to the second stage, we will have identified which agencies we want to take evidence from. SEPA should perhaps be top of the list, given the fact that it had a public spat with the Minister for Environment and Rural Development over its budget and its inability to meet the new responsibilities that it has acquired over recent years from within its current budget.

The issue of efficiency savings and how they affect an organisation's operation is of interest to us.

It is important that we deal with SEPA, because there are knock-on issues regarding development constraints and Scottish Water, in which SEPA has a considerable role. We need to find out whether SEPA has enough personnel on the ground to deal with that, which would fit into our previous scrutiny of Scottish Water's activities.

So there is broad agreement to have a session in which we examine those issues, and to commission information from the minister on the four areas that we have suggested with a view to exploring them in more depth. However, it has already been suggested that SEPA might be an issue for us to consider in depth.

We need to consider and agree further action on petition PE653, on the Scottish Agricultural College. Long-standing committee members will remember that it was the first issue that we debated as a new committee in 2003. We never formally completed our consideration of it. Do members agree that we should write to the minister asking for an update, to enable us potentially to close the petition?

It is important to get an up-to-date statement of the position, so that we can formally close the petition or pursue any issues that arise.

I should declare an interest in that I used to live on the Craibstone estate and I am a graduate of the SAC. It is important to write to the petitioners to get an update from them on where they see things developing on the estates and on whether their concerns have been in any way addressed in the intervening period.

Will Charlotte Gilfillan still be a student? I am concerned that if she was a student she may have graduated and gone by now. Do we have any other contacts?

Mark Brough has indicated that we may have a list of names. We can pursue that and see whether somebody is still out there.

The next issue is to consider whether to seek oral evidence from the minister in advance of the December agriculture and fisheries council, and whether—as we discussed at our away day—we should commission research on fishing stocks from SPICe to summarise the current state of play to inform that discussion. Are members happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

We will programme that.

We are pretty swamped by legislation. I propose to update members about every six weeks, so that we can programme future inquiry work and add to our agenda issues to which members feel the committee needs to give attention. We can also consider what we will do in October, which will be our first opportunity to add new topics. We might want to address particular issues after our climate change report. We have already talked about biomass, biofuels and forestry, and the energy report that was commissioned by the Scottish Executive. They are in the background, but we could formally come back and explore those and other issues that members may have. Do colleagues agree?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you. That completes all our on-the-record discussions today. We move into private session.

Meeting continued in private until 13:08.