Official Report 265KB pdf
The next agenda item is the convener's report.
I have previously expressed concern about the matter. All that happens each time that we discuss the matter is that I get increasingly concerned that we seem to be getting into a game of ping-pong, without there being any score. Obviously, the First Minister has passed the buck to the Minister for Finance and Public Services, external relations and everything else, and we should certainly get him along to the committee. We must get comprehensive answers. The matter has gone on and the First Minister has apologised. One letter said:
I know that more members want to speak, but I remind the committee that there are options. The committee has the power to summon ministers, of course, but other options are continuing to write back or continuing to seek a date on which Andy Kerr can appear before the committee.
I am in favour of seeking a date on which Andy Kerr can come to the committee. To be honest, I thought that what was proposed last time was a bit counter-productive, but I went along with the committee's wishes. The previous letter was quite clear in saying that responsibility lies with Andy Kerr. We could have got on with the business and we could have had a date, which would have been my personal preference. We should not waste any more time in playing ping-pong on this. We should just get on with the business and invite the minister with responsibility along to the committee so that we can get answers to the questions that members of the committee rightly have.
We attempted to get Andy Kerr for today's meeting, but that did not prove possible. At our previous meeting, John Home Robertson suggested that we write back to the First Minister.
Convener, I wonder whether you or the clerk could enlighten us on our power to summon ministers to give evidence. Do we have the power to summon a specific minister, including the First Minister, or do we simply have the power to summon an unspecified minister?
My understanding is that we have the power to summon any minister to appear before the committee. I will ask the clerk to elaborate on the guidelines in the standing orders.
I would be reluctant to give a full explanation of section 23 of the Scotland Act 1998 without looking into the detail. Parliamentary committees have the power to summon individual ministers who have specific responsibilities in their portfolios. If the committee wants further explanation of the power, I will get back to it on that.
We should at least leave open the possibility of summoning the First Minister on this specific matter, bearing in mind his responsibility in chairing Regleg.
It might be clever to let the First Minister's private secretary know that this discussion has taken place and that it would be helpful if the First Minister could let us have a reply and come to give evidence to us as soon as possible. There is no need for us to press that particular button—that should not be necessary.
Last week, the committee received quite a lot of publicity for its report on structural funds. Articles have appeared in the press saying why the UK Government ministers were wrong to snub the committee. That should be drawn to the attention of the First Minister, as he could similarly be seen to be snubbing the committee. He, not Andy Kerr, is the president of Regleg and he should come and tell us what he is doing in that role.
I fear that if we invite Andy Kerr to the committee, he will offer to write back to us a few times as he does not attend the Regleg meetings in place of the First Minister.
John Home Robertson has pointed to a way out. This discussion is on the record, and perhaps a copy of the Official Report should be sent to the First Minister's office. We should not have to press the button. Frankly, I hope that an amber warning light will be flashing in the First Minister's head when he reads some of the comments that have been made today. If it is not flashing in his head, we will have to press the red button, but I would rather that the amber one worked.
Okay. We will do that if the committee is happy with that way forward. We will not meet again until after the summer recess. If we wanted to have Andy Kerr before the committee because the First Minister, for one reason or another, could not attend or because we made a different decision, we would have plenty of time to arrange that. In the first instance, we will write to the First Minister, asking for information and enclosing a copy of the Official Report of today's meeting. We will have the whole summer in which to make progress on the matter.
We have all these questions—when are we going to get answers to them? They are pretty routine. I am beginning to wonder whether anything has been done with Regleg. Before any minister comes before us to give evidence, we need a full briefing and answers to some of the questions so that we can pursue them further.
I am not in favour of writing to the First Minister again. Keith Raffan has put his finger on the issue: they are pretty routine questions. We would be summoning the First Minister to a committee meeting to answer pretty routine questions. I do not see what the difficulty would be with our inviting Andy Kerr. I am really not in favour of ping-pong; it has gone far enough with the letters going backwards and forwards. I was not in favour of sending a letter the last time, but I went along with the committee's wishes and I am certainly not in favour of sending another letter, because sending letters is not getting us anywhere. I agree that time is wearing on and that we should get the answers to the questions, but the way to do that with routine questions is to summon the minister who has responsibility for the relevant area.
I clarify that my understanding of John Home Robertson's proposal, which is supported by a number of other members, is that we copy the Official Report of this meeting to the First Minister's office and, after the summer recess—
I would not copy anything to anywhere; we should just pick up the telephone.
We can do either.
I agree with Keith Raffan that the questions are routine and that such routine questions should be easily answered, whether they are answered verbally before the committee or in writing, which would mean that we would have the answers before we resume after the recess. I would appreciate it if we could have the answers sometime during the recess rather than having to wait until the autumn. That would give us a way forward without escalating the matter's importance, although it is important. I am sure that our clerks are capable of using a telephone and reminding the First Minister's office and Andy Kerr's office that we have a number of outstanding routine questions and that they would appreciate a letter that could be sent to committee members during the recess.
There is no huge gulf between what Alasdair Morrison proposes and what was proposed before.
I am glad that Alasdair Morrison agrees with me that the questions are routine and I agree with him that they are important, so what is the problem? Why are ministers not replying to the questions, which are simple? The First Minister is chairing Regleg for the first time ever and it is likely to be the last time for 50 years or whatever—I do not know when the presidency will come round to us again—so why is he so reluctant to come to the committee to raise Scotland's profile and talk about what he is doing on the international stage?
The other thing—[Interruption.] Sorry, convener.
I was just going to try to summarise what we have consensus on.
Just to help you in that summary, I am saying that we are asking routine questions with straightforward answers and that we should get those answers in writing before the beginning of the next term.
There is clearly a lot of frustration on the committee that we have asked the questions before, but on the basis of a combination of the suggestions from John Home Robertson and Alasdair Morrison, I suggest that we ask the clerks to pursue with the First Minister's office the answers to the questions and the outstanding invitation. We will revisit the matter after the summer recess, because there is nothing that we can do before then anyway. It will be on the agenda when we come back after the summer recess and other members will no doubt want to contribute at that point.
Can we give the clerk the go-ahead to get a minister at our first meeting after the summer recess so that we do not waste any more time?
That is happening anyway. It was supposed to happen for this meeting, but we could not get a minister. That will continue, but we will pursue the answers to the questions with the First Minister's office. Is that agreed?
The next item in the convener's report is the proposed co-operation agreement between the Scottish Executive Education Department and the French ministry of youth, education and research. As committee members can see from their papers, I have received a letter from Euan Robson outlining the potential for an agreement between France and Scotland. Do members have any comments?
I very much welcome the agreement, which is great news. A tremendous amount of work is going on at local authority level on exchanges between young people from regions and local authority areas throughout Scotland and France, but it is good to have that work formalised in the agreement. My local authority, North Ayrshire Council, has a number of exchanges with schools in France and we regularly have young people coming from France to Scotland and going in the other direction. To my mind, that is one of the building blocks of the European Union; investments in enthusing and motivating our young people and giving them such experiences are investments in the future of the EU.
I am thankful to Euan Robson for letting us know about the agreement, but I would like more detail on the substance of it. I note that the French approached us, not the other way round, so I would also like to ask the Education Department whether it intends to follow the initiative, which is the first such agreement, by pursuing agreements with any other countries in Europe or whether it is waiting to be approached.
Are you suggesting that we write to the Executive to find out about that?
Yes, I would like some more detail. The minister might not have much more information at the moment but we should ask to be kept posted of any developments and whether the Executive intends to replicate the initiative with any other country in the European Union.
I agree, but I think that we should express strong support for the idea in principle.
Do we agree to accept the recommendation but to write to the Executive for more information?
Members have before them quite a big document, which is the briefing paper on the proposed early-warning system in relation to subsidiarity, following on from the agreement of the EU constitution—by the heads of state, that is, rather than by the member states as such. I suggest that we do not spend too much time on the matter at the moment as this is quite a big issue. We will discuss future inquiries at the away days that we will hold over the recess, and the EU constitution will creep up in those discussions in some shape or form.
I agree with your suggestion. This is a complex issue that I have a number of questions about and it merits greater attention than we can give it at the moment. I welcome the clerks' work in putting down some initial thoughts on the matter. I agree that we should deal with this at one of our away days. We could take the time to go into the detail of the matter during one of our future inquiries. It is important that we get this right.
For clarification, the reason why the matter is in our papers today is that this is our last meeting before the recess. That is why we asked the clerks to produce the paper, for which we thank them.
I welcome the fact that the paper has been produced. I am sorry, convener, but I think that it is worth discussing the issue. The subject with which the paper deals is central to the European constitution and its effect on the Scottish Parliament. We are told that the constitution has massive benefits for parliaments such as the Scottish Parliament and the United Kingdom Parliament. However, the report before us demonstrates that article 9 of the constitution is, in effect, nothing more than meaningless guff. There is no possibility of us carrying out meaningful communication in the six-week period that is laid down in the constitution. We are talking about, at best, a two to three-week consultation period for the Scottish Parliament's involvement. Given that we all know that we cannot even get out of ministers letters that we have been waiting for since last November, as Keith Raffan pointed out, what chance does article 9 have of providing any benefit at all to the Scottish Parliament?
I am sure that there is some sympathy for your view, but there will be plenty of opportunities for you to air your concerns at a later point.
I strongly disagree with Phil Gallie. An early-warning system, even if the period involved is short, is better than no warning system at all. The issue concerns one of the areas in which there is potential for greater co-operation between the national and regional parliaments.
If there are no further comments, we will put the matter back on our agenda for consideration after the committee has discussed how it will handle the whole issue of the EU constitution, which has taken a step forwards.
If we are to take the matter forward, a lot more preparatory work will be needed. I am new to the committee in this parliamentary session, so I am not aware of previous discussions, but it seems to me that anything that is called a forum in Scotland has problems. The Scottish Civic Forum was very slow to get off the ground and earlier today Mr Bird said that the jury is out on the effectiveness of the Scottish international forum. We should be careful about setting up another forum unless we know that it can work and we should consider the experience from elsewhere, such as that of the Institute of European Affairs in the Republic of Ireland, which is mentioned in the convener's report. The idea is certainly worth progressing, but we should hasten slowly and ensure that preparatory work is done so that the forum is not a damp squib, but has clear objectives and is effective.
I suggest that we arrange the informal dinner with academics, at which I hope that we will reach agreement on how to take the matter forward.
What could such a forum achieve? To be honest, it strikes me that it would be another talking shop and I wonder whether the academics would be talking to the right people anyway. Members of the Scottish Parliament have no influence whatever over the issues that the proposed forum would address, as we are all well aware. Perhaps the academics should talk to Westminster members of Parliament or members of the European Parliament. I cannot envisage any benefits that would come from the forum.
I understand that a Scottish institute or forum would be a broad church in which anyone who is interested in European affairs could be involved. For example, academics in Scotland would no doubt undertake research, work with parliamentarians and other interested organisations and invite prominent speakers to Scotland from around the world to speak on EU affairs. That is why the committee has supported the idea in the past and why there is support for it elsewhere, too. Phil Gallie will have an opportunity to contribute to the discussion—
Would there be a cost, convener? You know quite a lot about the matter.
No costs are involved at the moment.
Would there be a cost to the Scottish Executive?
The idea is not a Government initiative. There would no doubt be discussions about who would fund the forum.
If someone wants to fund it.
I could not disagree more with Phil Gallie. I accept that things become talking shops and I do not like the word "forum" for that reason, because it is suggestive of a talking shop, whereas "institute" sounds different—although it is a question of "What's in a name? A rose by any other name" and so on.
I was involved in discussions about the proposed forum in the European Committee in the first session of the Parliament and I was very much in favour of the idea. Drew Scott has long supported the idea, which is about the academic community and others working in partnership with elected members to try to advance a stimulating agenda on Europe, harness ideas and tap into the thinking and research that are happening, not just in Scotland but throughout Europe.
Okay; thank you.
I just noted down here that our visits overseas for the current inquiry have not been noted in the outward visits. I think that they should be. Any outward committee visits should be on the record.
I will ensure that the clerks give that information to the people who put together the report.
I am sorry. I know that the United Nations secretary general's executive co-ordinator for the millennium development goals campaign—that is quite a mouthful—is visiting on 30 June to speak to the international development group. It might be helpful if even just two or three members of the committee met someone like that on such visits. It is part of our remit and it has come up in the current inquiry. The whole point of being given these lists of visits is so that we can participate in them.
Anyone who wants to go along to such events is welcome to do so. They should give their details to the clerk.
It might be useful for members of the committee to have a separate meeting, especially when someone as important as this is coming to the Parliament.
That is a fair point. I just remind the committee that the visitor is a speaker who is visiting a cross-party group and who has expressed an interest in speaking to members of the Finance Committee, so the ball was in their court to a certain extent. I will certainly take your comments on board.
Perhaps such visitors should be redirected towards us.
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