European and External Relations Committee, 25 Apr 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Official Report 178KB pdf

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Convener's Report

Our final agenda item is my report. The first item is a reply to our letter to Tom McCabe regarding the Executive's contribution to plan D. As members can see, the Executive is not planning a direct response to plan D but is focusing on its building a bridge between Europe and its citizens project. Do members have any comments on that or on the second item, the related letter from Douglas Alexander on the UK Government's proposed activities?

The letters reflect the earlier conclusion that the committee drew that the timescales for plan D consultation are total nonsense. It is little wonder that Europe is so misunderstood by people—

You always have to spoil it, Phil.

I must make the point. This is exactly the sort of thing that brings Europe into disrepute. The plan D exercise has been farcical.

Convener—

I knew that she would not let you away with it, Phil.

I was just going to say—

That you agree with me.

I agree with your point about the timetable. However, I wanted to welcome the information that we received from John Edward of the European Parliament about the process that is being undertaken in the Basque region, where a conference is to be held on the matter. It would be helpful to get a detailed report on that in due course because I know that the Basque region is also a partner of ours in NORPEC.

The third item is a letter from Ross Finnie to the Environment and Rural Development Committee, a courtesy copy of which was sent to this committee. It concerns the use of section 57(1) of the Scotland Act 1998 to allow the Intellectual Property (Enforcement, etc) Regulations 2006 to be implemented for the UK as a whole. The explanation for the proposal is given in the letter.

The fourth item is another letter from Ross Finnie—who has, obviously, been busy in the past fortnight—advising the committee that the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2004 entered into force on 6 April 2006 on an all-UK basis, for the reasons given.

The fifth item is a response from the Scottish Executive to two points that we raised at the last meeting under pre and post-EU council scrutiny. The first relates to language learning, which was raised by Irene Oldfather, and the second relates to the definition of vodka, which was raised by Phil Gallie.

The Executive's reply to Irene Oldfather's point is an absolute disgrace. The committee agreed to ask the Executive how Scotland was performing on modern language learning, and noted the importance of Scottish children learning two languages other than their mother tongue. However, I see no statistics for children learning two languages other than their mother tongue. The percentage figures for children from primary 6 to secondary 4 are difficult to believe.

On the number of pupils who sat national qualification examinations in languages—not the number who passed—the Executive uses global figures rather than percentages. There is no indication of what percentage of the cohort those figures represent. We should express our dissatisfaction with the Executive's response and ask for more detailed figures. My guess is that the Executive is trying to hide how bad Scotland does on language learning compared with other EU countries. It should be more honest and give us fuller statistics.

My concerns mirror yours, Dennis. Irene, as you raised this important issue, would you like to say something?

Dennis Canavan has picked up the points well. We are told that 99 per cent of pupils in primary 6 are studying languages but I get the impression that that might be a 15-minute slot somewhere in the week. Of course, that is not reflected in the statistics. The response does not adequately answer the questions that were asked. I think that we should write back to the Executive.

Do we all agree to do that?

Members indicated agreement.

Phil Gallie, what are your thoughts about the response to the vodka question?

I am grateful for the response. I am slightly surprised by it but I will take the issue forward with Diageo and others and try to confirm what the Executive has said. It might be that English products use measures other than grain measures. That might well affect Scottish producers with respect to bottling and so on. I just do not know.

The sixth item in the paper is a letter from Tom McCabe, which follows up on the evidence that he gave to the committee on 28 February on the outcomes of the G8 summit. The letter updates us on progress on the recommendations that were made in the committee's report on the Scottish Executive's preparations for the summit and the UK presidency of the EU and Scotland's contribution to those events.

Members will note that Patricia Ferguson is appearing before the committee at our next meeting to discuss progress on the Executive's international development policy, which ties in with this item.

Finally, I draw to members' attention the Civicus world assembly in Glasgow from 21 to 25 June. Members will remember that Kumi Naidoo, the chief exectutive of Civicus, visited the Parliament when we debated Africa prior to the G8 summit. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations met him the other day. It has made a successful bid for the Civicus world assembly to be held in the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow for the next three years, which is marvellous. Almost 1,000 delegates from civic society around the world will come to Glasgow for those three assemblies.

Civicus is an international organisation whose aim is to promote civil society around the world, especially in those areas where democracy and freedom of association are threatened. I hope that there will be ways in which members of this committee can take part in the assembly. There will be lots of workshops and sessions and I believe that a delegation will come to the Parliament. Under the auspices of the cross-party group on international development, Des McNulty and I will be hosting SCVO when it comes to give information to MSPs about the Civicus assembly and how people can contribute to it. I assume that all members of the committee will be extremely enthusiastic about taking part.

Will you send us full details?

Yes.

That brings the meeting to a close. The committee will next meet on Tuesday 9 May at 2 o'clock.

Meeting closed at 15:09.