Handling European Union Obligations
Item 5 concerns a paper by the clerk on the Scottish Government's draft guidance on handling European Union obligations in Scotland. The Government's draft guidance and covering letter are attached at annex A. Committee members will note that the minister would welcome any comments that we might have on the guidance by 31 December, so it would be useful if we had a bit of a discussion about it.
It is important to give a warm welcome to the progress that has been made. The committee has done a lot of work on the matter, which has focused on pointing out the advantages of early engagement, including stakeholder engagement. The Government has taken that work on board.
Another area that we highlighted was the involvement of the Scottish Parliament in the transposition plan, which the Government has acknowledged. However, there are one or two details that we have not yet fleshed out. The clerks have noted those from paragraph 10 onwards. I suggest that we go through them to check that committee members are happy.
Although we welcome the progress that has been made, the clerks have drawn attention to a number of points in relation to discussions that we have had, and we may want to reflect those in our response to the minister. We will take them section by section. The first section concerns engagement with the Scottish Parliament. The point is that scrutiny is an on-going process. We want to develop our scrutiny of the Scottish Government on EU issues, particularly at the pre-legislative stage.
Are committee members content with paragraphs 10 and 11?
Members indicated agreement.
Perhaps we can short-circuit the discussion. Personally, I am happy with the paper and to accept the recommendations without discussion. We have been discussing transposition for more than a year and are dancing on the head of a pin.
If committee members are content to go straight to the recommendations—
I am just saying what the others are all thinking.
We will raise the specific points that are set out in the preceding paragraphs. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
That takes us to item 6, which concerns the EU budget review. We agreed to take that item in private, so I thank members of the public for attending and ask them to leave.
Meeting continued in private until 11:30.