European and External Relations Committee, 23 Sep 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Official Report 204KB pdf

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Convener's Report

We move to the next item on the agenda, which is the convener's report. Before I proceed, I point out that we have not received any response from the Scottish Executive on the hallmarking directive or on the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive. As members will recall, we sought information on those directives; it is unfortunate that we have not received those responses because that means that we cannot discuss the matters at this meeting.

The first item in my report concerns initial feedback from the Irish on the likely agenda and priorities for their presidency of the EU. It makes very interesting reading. Does any member wish to comment briefly on the paper?

It might be worth our while to invite the Irish consul to come and give oral evidence to the committee about the Irish presidency's priorities.

We will take that comment on board. In any case, we will receive our six-monthly briefing from Irish representatives.

I support Dennis Canavan's suggestion. I presume that the Irish ambassador will also visit early in the new year. I must say that I found the Minister for Foreign Affairs's presentation to be unusually impressive. By that, I do not mean that the presentation was impressive for the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs; it would have been an impressive and comprehensive achievement for any foreign affairs minister.

I agreed totally with the Irish wish to move Africa and the problem of HIV/AIDS further up the agenda. That issue comes under our external relations remit, particularly given our country's strong, long-standing and historic connections with sub-Saharan Africa, and is precisely the kind of thing that we could raise with the Irish consul. I cannot speak for other members, but I strongly support the Irish line on the matter. As I said, I found the presentation to be very impressive and agreed with all of it. For a small country, Ireland seems to be very well organised—I know that Margaret Ewing will agree with me totally on that.

I am also quite sympathetic to that point of view.

The next item in the report concerns the monthly report on the Parliament's external relations activities, which gives the usual run down of inward and outward visits.

Last week, when we considered the paper on our inquiry into promoting Scotland worldwide, we agreed that we would find out what the external relations unit is doing about tartan day. Perhaps the convener will clarify when we will receive that information.

I was also a little bit surprised to notice on the Parliament website a press release saying that the committee would be evaluating tartan day, given that we had agreed at the previous meeting that we wanted further information on the matter to allow us to determine how far we could go down that line. It would have been helpful if that information could have been brought back to the committee before the press release was put out.

My understanding is that the press release refers to our overall inquiry and lists some of the areas that would be included in it. We all agreed that tartan day would be one such area. I cannot answer the specific question about when we will receive the information. That matter is in other people's hands.

I think that it was I who first raised the possibility of examining the value or otherwise of tartan day. However, I did not intend our examination to target only tartan day, but to take in Scottish-American relations in general.

That is my understanding as well. I do not think that Irene Oldfather or anyone else was suggesting otherwise.

I gather, from a motion that has been lodged, that the idea has now spread to France and that 4 April will now be the French tartan day. Obviously, that will be worth considering when we conduct our external relations inquiry.

Many of the Parliament's visitors are from Commonwealth countries. I am involved with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, along with Margaret Ewing, and I think that it might be worth suggesting to the external relations unit that its invitation lists might be widened in relation to meetings with visiting politicians from the Commonwealth. It should not be only members of the CPA executive, the Scottish Executive and those who have asked for an invitation who meet such visitors; members of this committee should be able to do so too, particularly in view of our widened remit, so we should be on the mailing list.

We could raise that point informally with the relevant authorities.

I know that a number of members met the Speaker of the Estonian Parliament when she was here last week, but I think that she was collared by the Executive for most of the hour and a half that she was here—I hope that she found that to be productive. It is important that, whenever possible, members of this committee meet politicians from Europe. I am a bit disconcerted that one hears about such visits only when one is informed in the chamber that there are visitors in the gallery. I understand the background issues because I make the effort to find out about them, but I maintain that it would be extremely useful for us to meet European politicians when they come to Scotland. Many parliamentary officials seem to give those people briefings, but some of us would be prepared to do that.

That is mainly a housekeeping issue, but I will let Stephen Imrie have a quick word.

The Parliament's external liaison unit makes the committee's clerks fully aware of all visits to the Parliament. When visitors express interest in meeting the committee or discussing European issues, we seek expressions of interest from members of this committee and attempt to find out who is available. When the incoming people do not express particular interest in European issues, we make a judgment. If members would find it useful, we will let you know informally about all visits to the Scottish Parliament, regardless of whether the visitor has asked to meet members of the committee. If a particular member has an interest in a particular visit, I am sure that the external liaison unit would be happy to accommodate that member's wishes.

I remind the committee that its external relations remit applies to scrutiny of the Scottish Executive's external relations policy, not the Scottish Parliament's external relations activities although, in the first session of the Parliament, Sir David Steel and Paul Grice informed me that they were always happy to receive informal comments on such points and that they wanted to have a good relationship with the committee.

That is helpful. I disagree with the convener, however, that it is a housekeeping issue—it has been a matter of concern to me for some time. The Commonwealth politicians who visit the Parliament meet an incredible number of officials but few members. Of course members are busy people, but I think that we should, in relation to this issue, take possession of the Scottish Parliament at last. It is up to us to decide whether we can meet visiting politicians. I think that we should meet them as a matter of general courtesy if at all possible.

On the committee's remit, we are allowed to question the Executive's strategy and priorities and we are able to suggest that other elements be included. In that case, we can widen the remit.

I know the people in the external liaison unit, because I work with them in relation to the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body. One of the difficulties that we have is that a lot of visits are not reported back to other members in any meaningful way. We cannot always be there because of travel arrangements and constituency engagements, but I wonder whether, given our remit for external affairs, we could make an arrangement with the ELU for some form of either written or oral report to be made to the Parliament on the events that are taking place. I suspect that most of us do a weekly column, and it would be nice to be able to write about people who have come from Trinidad and Tobago or people who have been to the Cook Islands or the Falklands, but if we do not know about it, we cannot write about it. I would like the Parliament to promote its external affairs.

Some of us do not quite know what the situation is on that issue, so I suggest that we ask the clerks to draw up a brief paper explaining what the situation is just now, who is notified, who is in charge of those visits and what the relationship is between this committee and the Parliament's external relations strategy. That is an issue that has been raised two or three times in the past four meetings, so it might be helpful to have a paper that will put us in the picture about exactly what our role is.

I agree entirely with Margaret Ewing on the matter of reports back to Parliament. I raised the issue some time ago with the Minister for Parliamentary Business and was told that reports would appear on the Parliament's website. I have not checked to see whether that is the case in every instance of an overseas delegation, but it would be interesting to find out.

I do not want any of the remarks that I have just made to be interpreted as a criticism of the external liaison unit of the Parliament, not that anybody was—

You have offended everybody else.

Only you, John.

I will survive.

I think that the external liaison unit does an extraordinarily good job. Roy Devon, Grahame Wear, Margaret Neal and their new colleague, Douglas Millar, are all doing an exceptionally good job. Considering the number of people who come through and the amount of work that they have to do, I think that they are marvellous, but that does not mean that we should not have an input and work closely with them. I think they would welcome that.

Thank you, Keith. I think that you have dug yourself out of that hole quite well.

A group from Saxony is due here on 24, 25 and 26 September. I believe that their principal interest is in the justice committees, but no reference at all has been made to their visit, although they are coming from a European federal state.

We shall take all those points on board and ask the clerks to come back with a paper so that everyone understands what the issues are.

The final item in the convener's report concerns a response to a parliamentary question that was answered indicating that the Executive has no plans to join the Nordic Council of Ministers. I thought that it was worthwhile to put that on the agenda, not to discuss whether or not Scotland should join the Nordic Council of Ministers but simply to use the answer as a hook to get an update from the Executive on its plans for dealing with the council, given that it is a priority for the Parliament and has been shown to be a priority for the Executive in the past.

I totally agree with you. There have been media reports about that and I am concerned and saddened that the Executive seems to have taken the position that it has, particularly as we had the Nordic Council conference in the chamber not so long ago. Many of us participated in that, and we hoped that we would develop closer relations with the council at parliamentary level and at Executive level. I fail to understand the decision, in view of our historic and current strong links with the Nordic countries. It is absolutely right that you should have drawn the answer to our attention and proposed the action that you have suggested.

I am not quite as animated about the issue as Keith Raffan is. I do not recall question S2W-2070 being asked, although obviously there are good reasons why there are links between the Scottish Parliament and the Nordic Council.

Whichever minister responded said:

"The Scottish Executive believes that closer co-operation between the Scottish Executive and the Nordic Council of Ministers will deliver benefits for Scotland."

Nothing in the answer suggests that ministers will not have close links with their Nordic cousins. I really do not see why members are so animated. What is the difference between close relations and complete and absolute membership? I am not too sure.

I do not think that many of us are very sure.

I continue to be animated, because I feel strongly about this. There is a difference. Alasdair Morrison did not quote the next sentence of the answer, which states:

"It is not necessary to become a member of the Nordic Council to enjoy these benefits".—[Official Report, Written Answers, 5 September 2003; p 605.]

Let the ministers come and tell us how we are going to get the same benefits without being a member. I will continue to be animated until I get a convincing response from the Executive.

I do not recall the matter coming before the committee before. Given that there is a written answer, there must have been a written question. I assume that it came from the convener. I just want to check how the issue got on to the agenda.

I came across it in press coverage and asked the clerks to check whether there was a parliamentary question and there was, so I thought it was worth drawing to the committee's attention.

We will have long agendas if they are going to be based on press cuttings.

Some members of the committee feel that we require clarification from the Executive, because we are here to scrutinise the Executive's external relations policy.

You used the word "housekeeping" in another context. I hardly think that this is how we should be conducting business. I am sure that members could e-mail the clerks with a list of 15 items every fortnight if we were to respond to some of the nonsense that appears in the much-maligned press—maligned by Keith Raffan, of course.

You should declare your interest.

I do not think that we should dredge up issues that appear in the media, because each of us could insist that a host of issues appear on the agenda and we would be here till doomsday every fortnight.

All members are free to e-mail the clerks about any item that they think should appear on the agenda.

That is a change from the days of Hugh Henry's convenership.

I put my own issue on the agenda. I get the feeling that most members are content to get an update from the Executive on relations with the Nordic countries.

It is useful to have this sort of item on the agenda. I take a different view from that of my colleagues. Well done, convener. Surely the committee is all about examining issues of interest to it.

Hear, hear.

That is why I asked whether the convener asked the question.

It was a parliamentary question, but I did not ask it. If members are content, we will get a report and bring the matter to the next meeting.