Environment and Rural Development Committee, 19 Dec 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Official Report 160KB pdf

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Sustainable Development (Scrutiny)

We are delighted that Marja Ekroos, the clerk to the Environment Committee of the Parliament of Finland, is able to be with us by video link. I am the convener of the Environment and Rural Development Committee. Let us introduce everyone round the table so that Marja can see who we are and will not be surprised when the television camera flashes to one of us.

I am the member of the Scottish Parliament for West Renfrewshire.

I am the MSP for Gordon.

I am one of the MSPs for the Highlands and Islands.

My deputy convener, Eleanor Scott, is to my right.

I am another MSP for the Highlands and Islands.

I am also a Highlands and Islands MSP.

I remind my colleagues of one or two key ground rules to make the video link work best. I will try to bring everybody into the conversation when they indicate in the usual manner that they want to speak. We need to speak relatively slowly to help Marja Ekroos, who will be translating simultaneously from English. We must not speak over one another, although I am sure that we will not be having that kind of argument. We should try to avoid rustling papers. There will be a slight time delay in sound. Everybody is on screen all the time, even when we are not speaking. Our mobile phones and BlackBerrys must be turned off.

Ted Brocklebank, Richard Lochhead, Alasdair Morrison and Elaine Smith have sent apologies. Trish Godman is attending the meeting as a Labour Party substitute for Alasdair Morrison.

The committee is considering best practice for sustainable development and how we scrutinise it in our parliamentary work. Last week, we took evidence from our Minister for Environment and Rural Development and our Sustainable Development Commission. This morning, we want to ask Marja Ekroos about practice in Finland, because our researchers have identified the Parliament of Finland as one that leads on sustainable development. We do not expect perfection, but we are interested in how you have slotted sustainable development into your Parliament's considerations. Nora Radcliffe will kick off with the first question.

Good morning. External research has suggested to us that it would be useful for the Scottish Parliament to develop a checklist to help committees assess sustainability. Do you do that in Finland, and if so, how well does it work?

Thanks for the question and good morning to you all. I am sorry that Mrs Hautala could not be here today, but I will try my best to answer your questions. I hope that you can hear me properly.

I do not know how much members already know, but I will try to describe our working habits. The Prime Minister's office has just published our new principles and guidelines for sustainable development. Our sustainable development commission is located in the Prime Minister's office, and members of our committee are involved in its work so that we can contribute to setting the guidelines on how to proceed towards sustainable development.

In the new publication, we have once again set out our goals and highlighted various targets. We do not have any special checklists, but we have identified areas of substance on which we need to make progress, which include adaptation to climate change, restriction of CO2 emissions, the promotion of methods of sustainable consumption, sustainable use of renewable natural resources—especially wood—and sustainability in building, planning and traffic. Those are the areas in which we are trying to make progress. We are focusing particularly on the promotion of sustainable consumption methods and have just decided to establish a special material-use efficiency centre. The idea is that the centre will provide all members of society with information on how to advance in the use of sustainable materials.

It sounds as if your new publication contains a list of actions that people should take under various headings. Is that correct?

That is right. One could call the document a set of guidelines on various areas in which, naturally, the Administration is the main focus. It is primarily the various ministries that need to take action on the matters of substance, of course, rather than individual citizens, although that level is reached indirectly. The idea is to get something more concrete done to achieve the goals.

We need to create ways in which to promote the adoption of sustainable consumption methods—we cannot just transfer the responsibility to individual consumers. Information needs to be gathered and relayed and products and policies need to be developed so that consumers can make decisions on how to behave.

That outlines clearly how the Government sets its framework for thinking about sustainable development. How does the Parliament take the lead in scrutinising whether the Government is achieving its objectives through the guidelines? Is that the Environment Committee's responsibility or is it shared by a number of parliamentary committees?

I would say so. Even though the guideline document is accepted by the Council of State or the Prime Minister's office, it contains no concrete indicators on how to measure development. When the Environment Committee handles a law proposal or deals with a European Union matter, it must assess how the Government has reacted and check that any bill is in accordance with the guidelines. That is what we do when we write a statement on a law proposal. We analyse how it aims to achieve the goals that have been set out, which are extremely remote. It is a baseline document. When the Government drafts a bill, it needs to outline how the environmental aspects have been taken into account. We analyse whether we agree with the Government on that part of the bill.

I will give an example. At the moment, we are dealing with a law proposal on the energy efficiency of buildings, which emerged from a directive. The basic question that we are analysing is whether the Government's proposal goes far enough. Building standards in Finland are already high because of the cold climate, but new technologies have made it possible to go much further. That is a concrete example of a discussion that we are having about whether a proposal is in line with the aim of sustainable development and the restriction of CO2 emissions.

Do you find that there are any tensions between the Environment Committee and other committees, which may be more concerned about economic development or the social impact of legislation? Sustainable development obviously involves the balancing of environmental, social and economic factors. Has there been any training for members of the Finnish Parliament or for civil servants in sustainable development issues?

That is a good question. If I were an MP, I do not know how I would answer but, as a clerk, I can say straightforwardly that there are tensions. You are right that sustainable development has three dimensions. Although the Environment Committee tends to concentrate on the ecological side of things, it is becoming more obvious in the eyes of the Parliament as a whole that we cannot separate the economic from the ecological, so the more effective one is ecologically, the greater the economic benefits will be, especially in the long run.

A good example is energy-efficient buildings. It may cost 1 or 2 per cent more to build an energy-efficient building, but that will be got back in five years or—if oil prices increase—two years. These days, we can find ways of combining the economic and ecological aspects more effectively. The fact that the effects of climate change are more obvious is making it easier to combine those two elements.

Has there been any training for civil servants or members in the principles of sustainable development?

Not specifically. The members of the Environment Committee have received their training in everyday life, because sustainable development is part and parcel of all our work in everyday life.

Have you had any cross-border discussions on sustainable development? If so, what have you learned from them?

Do you mean discussions with our neighbouring countries?

Yes.

As far as discussions with Russia are concerned, because the levels of environmental impact are so different we do not always agree. We have daily discussions with Russia on environmental impacts on, in particular, the Baltic sea. The growth in the transportation figures is amazing. One of the main issues is that oil and chemical transport is increasing terribly. Another major issue is the rapid development of industrial installations—nuclear power plants among others—that are being built very close to our border; Russia has not ratified the Espoo convention on analysing the environmental impacts of such installations, but we try to keep the discussion going. It is true that the border is one of the deepest in the world, so to speak, when we consider the differences between the economic situation on each side.

We are on a level playing field with Sweden and have more normal relations. I do not know whether I have answered your question. It is, of course, a very special neighbour.

You said that the Environment Committee tends to take the lead role in scrutinising the Government in relation to sustainability. What is the Committee for the Future's role? I do not understand what it does.

The Parliament and the Environment Committee have taken a proactive role in drafting legislation. We tend to analyse it more deeply than we did previously.

In the past 10 years we have developed an active international role, which means that we take part in all major international convention meetings, such as the climate change meeting in Nairobi in Kenya a month ago; the meetings on the biodiversity convention; and meetings on the certification convention. We have been at all the major climate change conferences, including the environment and development conference in Rio in 1992. In that way, our role differs from that which is played by your Parliament and the Parliaments in other European Union member states. We try to be an active player on international conventions. Of course, there are meetings between the Governments and we do not have a seat at the negotiating table. However, we want to be at those meetings because we believe that being there gives us a better opportunity to understand and analyse more deeply the final implications of the negotiations when it comes to drafting a bill and putting provisions in articles. I have noticed that that is different from other countries.

Does your Committee for the Future have a role in sustainability? Is its focus economic, or does it also consider environmental issues and sustainability issues?

Our Committee for the Future? I am sorry; I misunderstood you. Our Committee for the Future decides case by case what to handle. It could handle an environmental issue, but at the moment it is working on issues related to Russia and its previous inquiry concerned health issues. Perhaps the Committee for the Future believes that there are other issues that it is more appropriate for it to handle now. Perhaps the Environment Committee has such a strong role in the Parliament on environmental issues that there is no room for manoeuvre.

Does the Environment Committee consider the sustainability of every piece of legislation that comes before the Parliament? Does it examine all legislation?

We consider all draft proposals that might have environmental implications. We are responsible for handling environmental issues, but when the Parliament deals with energy issues we always give our statement to it. When there is a proposal for an environmental law, it is for the Environment Committee to write a report on the basis of what is decided on in the plenary, but when a proposal on another matter might have environmental implications, we give our statement to the committee that will write the report. In that way, we can contribute on all the issues that might relate to the environment.

I think you said that Environment Committee members were involved in both the Committee for the Future and the national commission on sustainable development. How does that work?

I am sorry; my comments have been unclear. Environment Committee members are not all members of the Committee for the Future. Some might be, but not all of them.

So, there is a crossover. Parliamentarians are members of the Committee for the Future and of the national commission on sustainable development.

Yes. Some of our members are also members of the national commission on sustainable development and some, but not all, are members of the Committee for the Future. The committee has 17 members; not all of them can be on all three bodies.

I will explain the situation so that you get the correct picture; I am sorry for being unclear. The national commission on sustainable development is a broad-based commission, which is an initiative of the Prime Minister's office. Therefore the commission, which includes members of various ministries and non-governmental organisations as well as members of Parliament, is not a parliamentary organ. The Committee for the Future, on the other hand, is a parliamentary committee.

Thank you—I understand now. What is the benefit of having MPs on those bodies?

We get everyone involved. Because Finland is such a small country—we have only five million people, so we know one another—we always try to involve everyone and reach compromises. As a result of that way of thinking, contacts between the Government and the Parliament are pretty tight—perhaps the links are closer than they are in other countries. The NGOs are also pretty closely involved in discussions from the beginning. I would need to know more about other countries' systems before I could make comparisons with Finland, but I believe that Finland's being such a small country makes it more possible for people to work together from the beginning, which sometimes makes things easier at the end of the process.

In Sweden, there is a commitment to be carbon free by 2020. An overarching strategy like that can more easily be agreed in a small country such as Finland. Can you give an example of a similar policy in Finland and tell us how it emerged through the bodies that you have described?

We do not have as strictly defined a policy as the one that you mention. In Finland we are rather pragmatic and tend not to set aims that are tied to dates, such as an aim to be carbon free by 2020 or 2030. Instead, we set out overall aims. The guidelines on a sustainable Finland that I mentioned consider more generally how we can become carbon free. Perhaps because of cultural differences in Finland, which partly relate to our historical experience, we like to set aims that we know we can achieve. The principles of adaptation to climate change and restriction of CO2 emissions are in our document, so our goals are the same as those of the Swedish statement. We think that perhaps we need to move more quietly in that direction, but our aims and even the measures that we are taking are pretty much the same as the approach in Sweden—it is the political announcements that are different.

Is the document that you mentioned translated into English?

Unfortunately I did not have time to check before the meeting, but I will do so. I think that the document is translated into English—if it is not yet translated, it will be, and I will be happy to send you a copy. The 20-page summary of our document on promoting sustainable consumption methods has been translated into English.

It would be helpful for the committee to receive copies of the documents, either on paper or through e-mail.

I think that we can provide them.

It has been useful to ask you questions, but I am conscious that we must not keep you all morning. Will you reflect on the difference that the Finnish Environment Committee's scrutiny has made? Also, to what extent are parliamentarians who are not members of the committee willing to accept the committee's judgment when, for example, it asks for more demanding legislation than the Government proposes? Do parliamentarians think that the Environment Committee's view should be listened to, or do they simply note the committee's view and move on?

That is another good question. Of course, it depends on the matter being considered: parliamentarians are more difficult at some times than they are at others. However, from my three years' experience I can say that the situation looks pretty good. Times are changing and how we discuss climate change, for example, is a million years away from how we discussed it three years ago. There has been rapid development. There will be parliamentary elections next March and the arguments and aims that the Environment Committee emphasises, on restriction of CO2 emissions or waste generation, for example, can be found in every party manifesto. Such issues prepare the ground for all subsequent work and we need to get down to the basics, by promoting sustainable consumption from the outset.

On behalf of the Environment and Rural Development Committee, I thank you for your helpful answers. Our committee is trying to work out how the Scottish Parliament should best scrutinise the Scottish Executive, which has produced documents that are similar to the ones that the Finnish Government has produced. There are policies on climate change and sustainable development, and our job is to test the success of programmes as they are implemented. It is helpful to hear your comments on how the system works in Finland. I am particularly grateful to you for stepping into the hot seat this morning. Your answers were very clear. Thank you for taking part.

Thank you very much. I hope that it was helpful to you.

It was helpful, thank you.

I suspend the meeting for five minutes so that the television sets can be removed. I ask people to bear with us, please.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—