European and External Relations Committee, 20 Jun 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Official Report 131KB pdf

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Convener's Report

Agenda item 6 is my regular report to the committee.

The first item is a draft letter from the committee to the European Commission that responds to part of the green paper on the European transparency initiative. We agreed to send the response at our previous meeting, but I wanted to give members sight of the letter before it is signed and sent. Do members have any comments on it?

No.

Everyone is obviously delighted with it. Shall I move on?

It is eloquent.

The second item is information on genetic modification-free zones, which Bruce Crawford requested at a previous meeting. Do you have any comments, Bruce?

When I looked at the list without reading the text at the top, I thought, "Wow. There are lots of regions that have declared themselves GM-free." However, in reality the standing of GM-free zones is no stronger than the standing of nuclear-free zones. The response led me to ask the following question. It might be the declared wish and intent of those areas to be GM free, but how many of them have adopted that into policy—via planning or other processes—and put it into effect? I do not know whether we can dig further and find out, but it would be useful for me to know.

We can certainly try.

It would be interesting to know how the Highlands and Islands declared themselves a GM-free zone. I am not sure what forum there is for them to do that. Highland Council could—

They could, but it would not mean anything.

No. I am just not sure where the islands would come into it.

Perhaps the island authority, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, took the decision to do it along with Highland Council.

I do not remember.

Does anyone?

It may well be the same as for nuclear-free zones, a declaration on which has been made in other parts of Scotland and which John Home Robertson tries to encourage so much. The underlying question is: what are the powers to do that? I am being a bad man again, John.

We should go for nuclear-free zones—[Interruption.]

There is a lot of whispering going on.

I was just saying that we should go for nuclear-free zones all over Scotland, apart from in Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire and East Lothian.

I think that we should leave the subject for another time.

The third item in my report is a copy of a letter I sent to Jimmy Hood MP, following our discussion on the next meeting of the European Chairs-United Kingdom group—see how quickly I managed to act. Of course, that meeting brings together the chairs of the European committees in the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly. Do members have any comments?

No.

The fourth item is correspondence from the Scottish Executive on a Council directive on the minimum rules on the protection of chickens that are kept for meat production. I suggest that we note the information that it contains.

I think that I asked for clarification on that. The information that we have received from the Executive is helpful. I note that the proposal applies only to flocks of more than 350 birds. I will follow up the information by way of written questions.

Good.

The fifth item is to update members on the latest position in respect of the legislative consent motion on the UK Parliament's Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. Members may remember that we took evidence some time ago on the original legislative consent memorandum for the bill. We expressed several deep concerns about the proposals.

Yes. What has happened about that?

I am about to tell you.

Oh, good.

I could do it if you would just be quiet.

I want to get George Lyon back and give him another doing.

Mr Home Robertson, that is hardly gentlemanly.

It is now in the Official Report. [Laughter.]

Okay. Since that time, the bill has been amended significantly. John Home Robertson will be pleased to know that the Executive is due to come back to the committee to give evidence on the bill again. However, the timetable at Westminster having slipped, we will not be considering the bill again until after the summer recess. We put a few slots into our agenda for it, but we were advised of the slip in the timetabling; the Executive also told us that it could not come back on the matter until the timetable was clear.

The Executive has said that it would like to have the motion agreed before Westminster reconvenes in October. Before we make our report to the Parliament, I am sure that everyone will want to have the appropriate time in which to consider the bill properly, take evidence and satisfy ourselves that all our questions have been put and our concerns raised. Therefore, I have provisionally scheduled an evidence session for our first meeting after the recess. That should give us sufficient time to consider our draft report before the motion is timetabled for chamber debate.

Will we have the information by that time? Do the clerks expect to receive the revised document in time?

Yes. However, having said that, we have felt that way before. Surely this time, when we are talking about a date that is only about two months away, we should get it. We need to give the bill ample discussion; the strength of feeling when it came before us previously was such that that is warranted.

The penultimate item is to update members on the fact that we still await a response from the European Commission to our letter on public sector pensions.

The final item is to update members on the latest position on petition PE804, which was submitted by the Cod Crusaders. We still have not had a response from Ben Bradshaw to the invitation that we sent back in April. Last week, the clerks were in touch with Mr Bradshaw's office to press the issue. We were asked to resend the invitation, so we have resent it. The clerks have been told that the issue will be brought to Mr Bradshaw's attention again this week, so we are hoping for a quick response. Even though recess is coming up, I will keep pushing until we get a response. Time is passing.

I appreciate the work that has been done to keep the pressure on. However, although the invitation was passed to Mr Bradshaw, our original intention was to speak to one of the ministers responsible for constitutional matters, especially those relating to Europe. Mr Bradshaw is not really the person we wanted to speak to. If his response is negative, the invitation should perhaps be resent to the minister we originally intended—the Minister for Europe.

We sent the original letter to Douglas Alexander, who was then the Minister for Europe. Mr Alexander's office got in touch with us to say that it did not feel that the invitation was appropriate for him and that it would refer the matter to Mr Bradshaw. That is how the present situation came about.

I am grateful for that explanation.

I must admit that I am starting to get annoyed about this. I will keep on, and if we do not receive a satisfactory response from Ben Bradshaw, we should go back to the Minister for Europe, in the new incarnation.

I am perplexed. Why were our clerks asked to resend the invitation? Was the original lost in the post?

The person whom Nick Hawthorne spoke to seems to have been unaware what the invitation was, so it was resent.

Phil Gallie's remarks have made me think. Douglas Alexander is now the Secretary of State for Scotland. If Ben Bradshaw were unavailable, there are two possibilities: either we view it as a fishing matter and invite Ross Finnie; or we issue the invitation to the Secretary of State for Scotland, Douglas Alexander, given that he has a background in Europe. A third possibility is Geoff Hoon, who is now the Minister for Europe.

If we do not get a response within the next couple of weeks, I intend to write again. Geoff Hoon would have to be in the frame at that point. I do not see why we should not write to Douglas Alexander as well to say that he will be aware of the invitation and we still have not had a response. Is everyone content with that?

Members indicated agreement.

We are now almost at the end of the public part of our meeting and there is something that I would like to say. Many of you have worked with Nick Hawthorne for a lot longer than I have, especially Irene Oldfather, Dennis Canavan and Phil Gallie.

He is not leaving us, is he?

He is. Nick was very quick to point out to me today the Official Report of last week's meeting where I said:

"What would I do without Nick Hawthorne?"—[Official Report, European and External Relations Committee Committee, 6 June 2006; c 1961.]

[Laughter.] All joking aside, I am not saying anything against the lovely Emma, but I am a bit worried that Nick will not be with us any longer. He is moving on to another committee. He has been a fount of information and has helped me so much in the short time that I have been convener, and I know that others feel the same. I put on the record that I thank him very much.

Is he on a Bosman contract or can we demand a transfer fee?

As someone who has worked with Nick for a very long time, I wish him all the best on behalf of committee members. He will be very much missed.

Thank you.

We will go into private now before we all start crying.

Meeting continued in private until 16:04.