European and External Relations Committee, 20 Jan 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Official Report 234KB pdf

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Scottish Executive (Scrutiny)

The next item on the agenda is pre and post-council scrutiny. Members have the paper containing the Scottish Executive's submissions. Do members want to make any comments before we consider whether to accept the recommendations in the paper?

I have a comment about the paragraphs on the agriculture and fisheries council. The committee has expressed concern about the enforcement of current animal welfare regulations across Europe but—here we go again—new animal welfare regulations are being considered. It would be good to know that the Executive is still aware that the existing regulations are not being enforced.

Will you clarify what action you would like the committee to take?

We should write to the Executive to say that if the Executive supports high standards and is prepared to consider changes to the system, it should also consider the implementation of existing animal welfare regulations across Europe.

The level playing field argument.

Yes.

This might be a silly question, but I am looking at annex A, which summarises our recommendations. We usually follow the same format for such recommendations; we welcome the information that has been provided and we add riders, queries or requests for more information or action. Annex A contains five recommendations, but a different form of language has been used in the first one, on the fisheries council, which says that we "note" rather than "welcome" the information that has been provided. Is that significant? Was the wording deliberate?

Well spotted.

I was not being pedantic. I wondered whether the wording was deliberate or just happened to take that form.

Well noticed—I had not noticed that. I do not think that there is any significance in that at all—

That is all right. I just wanted to be sure that it was not significant, as the fisheries council is such a touchy subject.

That is right. This is the first time that I have noticed the difference.

The forthcoming agriculture and fisheries council has been cancelled, so the note that predicts the content of that meeting is now irrelevant.

I seek clarification on the third sentence of paragraph 6, on page 2, which says:

"It is here that the Committee may wish to have a final engagement with a minister prior to critical decisions being taken."

What is meant by "final engagement"? How would we slot such a final engagement, whatever that means, into the schedule for those critical decisions?

Will the clerk briefly clarify the matter before I comment on that?

Perhaps I should apologise to members for that paragraph, as I have an unfortunate habit of updating previous papers with new documents that have been received. Paragraph 6 was part of a pre and post-council report that the committee considered before the December fisheries council meeting.

So the paragraph should not have been included.

The clerk need say no more. We accept his apology.

Since the paper was produced, the fisheries minister has provided feedback to the Environment and Rural Development Committee, which is another reason why that paragraph has been overtaken by events.

If there are no further questions on the report, I return to Phil Gallie's suggestion that we write to the minister to ask for information about the steps that are being taken to ensure that there is a level playing field in Europe in relation to animal welfare standards. Do members agree that we should ask for that information?

Members indicated agreement.