Official Report 244KB pdf
Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2005 (Draft)
Our second agenda item is subordinate legislation. We have before us one instrument that is subject to the affirmative procedure. Parliament must approve the draft instrument before it can be made. We have before us a motion in the name of Ross Finnie, inviting the committee to recommend to Parliament that the draft instrument be approved. Members have a copy of the instrument, the policy statement and the regulatory impact assessment.
I would like to take the opportunity to ask for clarification on the nature and extent of the consultation that took place, particularly with elements of industry, before the preparation—
Sorry, Alex. Before we debate the content of the regulations, we will take an opening statement from the minister, as we always do, on why the Executive proposes to introduce them. After that, I will take your point first, as you have delicately got into the queue; I will then open up the discussion to the other members around the table.
I am pleased to present the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2005. They follow neatly from our previous discussion because they are the means of implementing the next steps that we require to take under the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003. The regulations introduce controls over activities that are liable either to pollute the water environment or to have other impacts on it through abstraction, impoundment or the artificial recharge or augmentation of groundwater. They also cover building, engineering and other works that are likely to have a significant impact on the water environment.
Thank you. Alex, are there any points that you want to follow up on the consultation?
The reason why I wanted to mention the consultation process is that, as you mentioned, convener, there has been an unusual amount of input into it and I detect that the group that broadly represents industrial users of water is concerned that, although it was involved in the consultation, it did not get as much out of the process as it would have liked.
I am happy to respond to those points. The consultation process was comprehensive. It engaged closely with the Scotch Whisky Association, the major hydropower operators and a range of other industry interests. People who have good reasons to want to be close to the process have indeed been engaged in it.
Are you confident that risk is directly proportionate to volume?
No. We are not saying that. You anticipate my next sentence.
All members have indicated that they have questions for the minister. I will try to get round to everyone within the time available.
I have a follow-up question.
All members may have follow-up questions. I will have to be brutal and to take questions from members in the order in which they indicated that they wanted to speak. The next person on my list is Karen Gillon.
I have been remote from this process and have only read papers, instead of meeting people. The papers suggest, minister, that you are proceeding with undue haste, that there is no requirement for regulations to be introduced now and that there is time for further consultation and dialogue. However, in its paper, SEPA suggests that the legal advice is that since April this year we have been liable for any new pollution that is caused. Can you explain why the regulations have been brought forward at this time and why they need to be implemented at the speed at which you suggest?
SEPA is required to put in place a monitoring regime by next year. Under article 9 of the European water framework directive, it will be required to recover its costs when it does so. The regulations have been brought forward now so that from 1 April next year we can have in place a licensing arrangement that allows SEPA to carry out assessments and monitoring and to recover its costs. That is part of the timetable that governs the process.
I thank the convener and the committee for giving me the opportunity to ask about the draft regulations. I welcome the minister's comment in the earlier discussion that interventions must be proportionate to impact. I want to focus on that point, especially in relation to licensing.
You will see from the policy statement that accompanies the draft regulations that they reflect the Hampton approach and seek to be risk based and proportionate. That is why the great majority—90 per cent—of activities that impact on the water environment will not have to go through a licensing process. That meets nine tenths of your question, although it does not meet the other tenth, which is the area on which you would wish me to focus.
When the Transport and the Environment Committee considered the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Bill, the whisky and hydroelectric industries made representations on it. They were concerned about the impact that the bill would have, but they were assured that a flexible approach would be taken. In the run-up to our consideration of the draft regulations, those industries sent us submissions that show that they certainly do not feel that a flexible approach has been taken. I hear your comment that not all distillers have taken the chance to provide data to SEPA, but what have your relations been with the hydroelectric companies?
The hydroelectric companies have been involved in the stakeholder consultation process. Clearly, if we considered the incoming regime from a hydroelectric company's point of view, we would accept that it may have some significant longer-term impacts, whereas, by contrast, the whisky industry might feel that it will have no significant longer-term impacts, given the limited impact that the industry has on the water environment. The hydro industry has been engaged throughout the process. Indeed, Peter Donaldson of Scottish and Southern Energy wrote to my officials last year to congratulate them on the extensive consultation process and the extremely competent and easily read consultation document that they had produced.
Yet the companies are writing to us saying that the act would lead to a reduction in renewable energy produced by existing hydro stations.
If people believed that the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 went against renewable energy, they would not have voted for it. People voted for it because they acknowledge that a regime that protects the water environment is entirely compatible with hydropower, as long as the approach to remediation measures is proportionate, relates to cost effectiveness and recognises the importance of the social and economic impact of the industry.
So the industry will not be unduly penalised.
What we will require of the industry in order to conform to the 2003 act and to regulations under it will be proportionate and will reflect economic and social as well as environmental considerations, which are part of the sustainable development equation.
I would like to clarify a number of points. First, I might have missed something—in which case I apologise for my own deficiencies—but I do not fully follow how the licensing regime helps the environment. Secondly, you have outlined clearly how your department has worked closely with stakeholders. Again, I fail to reconcile that statement with the reasonable lobbying that we have had over the past 48 hours from people who are not given to outbursts of hysteria. The third point that I was going to make was made succinctly by Jackie Baillie. The fourth point relates to what you said about the licensing regime and SEPA being given wide-ranging flexibility. I would appreciate clarification of exactly what that means. The final point relates to what you said about ministers making the final judgment. I am trying to reconcile that statement with the fact that SEPA is the enforcing agency.
You have asked a number of good questions. I will start with the last one, about charging. Yes, SEPA is the enforcing agency and this summer it will consult on the charging scheme. However, in doing so, it will seek to come up with a proposal that it will put to ministers. Ministers will make the judgment, bearing in mind the need for proportionality and the impact of the charging scheme. Under article 9 of the European directive, SEPA is required to recover its costs. We will seek to ensure that the scheme that it puts in place achieves that in a proportionate way.
I also asked about flexibility.
I knew that there was another point. Yes, there is flexibility. Partly, that relates to the volume issue. As you will see, the volume of abstraction is not written into the regulations. That is deliberate; we need to be able to give SEPA the discretion to remove quickly from the licensing regime those activities that ought not to be within it because they are not having a significant impact on the water environment. Equally, however, SEPA must be able to upgrade those low-volume impacts that pose a significant risk to the water environment. There is a degree of flexibility to allow a proportionate, risk-based approach to the licensing of individual enterprises.
Can you say more about abstraction volume not being part of the whole mix?
The regulations define smaller-scale enterprises that do not even need to go through the registration in relation to volume; they do not specify those enterprises that will require to apply for a licence. Any business that abstracts more than 10m3 a day will require to make an application, after which SEPA will either issue a licence to that business and go through the full assessment process or simply register the business's activity.
Members have made some good points, and I would like to pursue a couple of them further. Do you accept that we are getting a bit of a mixed message? We are told that the Executive is willing to cut regulation; yet, at the same time, you accept that you may introduce a licensing scheme that may not be necessary. As members have mentioned, we have received representations from the whisky industry, among others, saying that there are better alternatives.
I will answer the second of your three questions, on the code of practice, first. Had the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 made provision for a statutory code of practice, that would be an option; however, as no such provision was built into the act, that option is not available to us. I have described our concern that we need to have something in place that has statutory force in order to make the thorough assessments that we require. A voluntary code of practice would not deliver the data and detailed assessment of individual operations that we require. There might have been an opportunity, two years ago, to consider including in the bill a provision for a code of practice; however, the issue was not raised at that time, as far as I am aware, and that was not done.
I have a brief question about the relationship between the volume of abstraction and risk to the environment, on which other members have touched. Do you believe that the whisky industry has an adverse effect on the water environment?
The process of finding the answer to that question is the process of assessment under the licensing arrangements. That is the fundamental point. It is clear that the volume of abstraction is significant for every distillery, but the level of impact on the wider environment will vary. I suspect that the assessments will show that in some cases most of the water goes back to more or less the place that it came from, with relatively little change. However, that may not be true in every case. The purpose of the licensing assessment is to allow SEPA to have access to the data that it needs in order to make an informed judgment. If its conclusion is that an operation does not require licensing because it does not pose a significant risk to the environment, continuing licensing of the operation will not be required. However, if the conclusion is that a distillery is having an adverse impact on the environment, for one reason or another, or that there is a significant risk that it will do so, conditions will be set in the licence in order to mitigate that environmental impact.
Are you saying that it is virtually impossible for you to withdraw the draft regulations, to give the committee an opportunity to take oral evidence next week, and to bring them back before Parliament before the summer recess?
I am not saying that it is virtually impossible for us to do what the member suggests. I am saying that we are keen to keep to the timetable, to give the vast majority of businesses on which the water environment requirements will have an impact the maximum opportunity to adjust their forward plans.
So it is possible for you to withdraw the draft regulations and to bring them back before the summer recess.
It is possible for us to withdraw the draft regulations and to lay them again before the summer recess. However, if we did so the Parliament would not have an opportunity to scrutinise the draft regulations within the 40-day period.
So we have no options.
There are always options. However, from the point of view of effective regulation, we are keen that the draft regulations should proceed according to the timetable.
Effective parliamentary scrutiny is also an issue.
We will return to that issue before the start of the formal debate. Three members still have questions. I have let this part of the meeting run on for slightly longer than was planned because of the range of representations that were made and because all members had questions for the minister. We are going over some old ground, but from the point of view of scrutiny it is not a bad thing that we should all know exactly what the position is.
The minister has said that operators in the licensed category may be moved out of it, and that operators that are merely registered may be required to become licensed. The sticking point has been that volume is seen as an arbitrary point of shedding, if you like, between the two categories. That objection would be overcome if it were felt that operators were being moved into the licensed category for site or activity-specific reasons, rather than just on the basis of volume. If we approve the draft regulations, is there a technical way in which we can ensure that all operators are registered before consideration is given to whether they should be licensed?
As the member knows, the regulatory impact assessment considered a number of different options, such as registering all users. The process of assessment of impact is the key. We opted for the approach that we have taken because we want to minimise the number of businesses that are required to undergo assessment, when we think that their impact on the water environment will be low. By having the regulations exclude all operators that use less than 10m3 of water a day and indicating to SEPA that it should approach the question of which operators it needs to assess on the basis of volume, we exclude 90 per cent of operators that have an impact on the water environment.
If a person is required to go into the licensed category and must, for example, fit metering, are you saying that any expenditure would be reimbursed if they are then taken out of the licensed category?
No, I am not. The assessment should indicate at an early stage whether it is appropriate for the operation to be within the licensing regime.
The difficulty will obviously be at the outset, when it is decided who should be licensed and who should be registered. People feel that they might have to be licensed even though that is not reasonable, given their activities. You have still not answered my question. Leaving aside the people who do not need to be registered on a volume basis, is it possible to require everyone else to be registered and then to go through them and say that certain people have to be licensed and certain others do not? Can that be done, technically, if we agree to the draft regulations as laid?
Let me understand the question. Are you asking whether we will require all large-volume operators to apply for a licence?
No. My suggestion is that, given that anybody who uses less than a certain volume will be under the general binding rules, everyone else could register and we could then decide whether they have to be licensed. In other words, instead of putting those that remain in two camps at the outset, we could put them in one camp and then move some out.
I will turn to my officials on the issue, although I think that, in a way, we intend to do that, although the other way round. Operators will make licence applications and SEPA will say whether the full process is needed. Is that an accurate description?
It is. The thresholds that are set out in the policy statement are a preliminary risk assessment in their own way, based on volume. We had to determine how to split the various categories, which is why we came up with the proposal. In by far the majority of cases of people who will be required to apply for a licence, it is expected that they will need a licence, but a small minority are rightly concerned that they will not need a licence. We have asked SEPA to tackle those people first, in order to determine the risk to the water environment.
So you have all the potential licensees in one camp, but they will not be required to do anything that involves a cost until they have been assessed, after which they could drop out of the licensed category.
To be assessed, they will have to provide the data that allow the assessment to be made. In a way, that is our fundamental challenge. We are required to make an assessment of environmental impact, but we cannot do that without data. I entirely understand why small operators have been unwilling to provide data voluntarily. The draft regulations will simply put in place a mechanism that allows us to obtain the data, which we can then use as the basis for our judgments. We need the data in order to conform to the 2003 act and the water framework directive.
So you cannot require data from registered operators.
The application that people make for a licence will be followed up by an exchange between the applicant and SEPA as to what further information is required.
It would not be appropriate to require all those who register at the right level to provide that level of data—that would become disproportionate.
It is worth saying that the reason why we have taken the approach that we have taken is that we want to minimise the number of people who are obliged to provide a lot of information. The reason why we do not require every company to register and then look only at some of them is that we would need to ask everyone who was registering to provide large amounts of information. We have reduced the number of people who have to do that by saying that only if companies are abstracting more than 50m3 do we require them to provide more information on their abstraction requirements. We have taken that approach to keep down the information requirements on the generality of abstractors.
Okay.
For partnerships, companies and corporations it can be the legal person. Only in the case of a friendly society, for example, would a named individual have to be identified, as is generally the case in Scots law.
My other point was that the SEPA paper talked about the European exercise to check member states' definitions of good status. What input do we have into that cross-Europe exercise?
We have contributed a number of sites as being potentially on the borderline between good and moderate status, as have all the other member states. An exercise is going on throughout Europe to identify exactly where the boundaries would be, to ensure that the sites are all being judged on a similar basis.
Good status means—to paraphrase—with no interference with the environment whatever.
With very minor interference.
Rob Gibson made a point about things that have been happening for a long period of time such that the environment has been changed. In such circumstances, that becomes the status quo. Where do those circumstances fit into the definition of good status?
The requirement to remediate will not necessarily require the achievement of good status in every case. There would not be a requirement to achieve good status if that was not proportionate or did not take into account the social and economic impact. For example, to return to the question about hydro power, under the directive and the act, ministers have discretion to require less than good status when that is socially and economically justifiable.
SEPA says in its letter to us that
I do not know the statistic off the top of my head. There are about 110 distilleries, and you can assume that each abstracts water from somewhere. I cannot give you a number of kilometres.
So, although that is an important question, there is not really an answer to it.
We want to make the assessments in order to get the answer to such questions.
It is particularly important to know the impact of whisky on our economy and river systems. In a small river there could be a large proportion of effort at one time of year but not at another. We have to hope that you will make the risk assessments proportionate. It seems to me that there are contradictions between the policy statement and the regulatory impact assessment documents, which I am concerned about. For example, if you are going to measure volume, can you tell me where? Is it going to be measured at the point at which water leaves a river to go into a lade at a distillery?
It is measured at the point of abstraction from the water body.
But 90 per cent of the water is being borrowed—it is not being used in the process. Why has the decision been made to do the measuring at the river, rather than at the point at which it enters the distillery?
What matters is whether the abstraction has an impact on the environment. That can be judged only on the basis of the assessment of the full data that we will require under the draft regulations. There has to be a measurement of something. There is a clear consistency in measuring the scale of abstraction for all users at the point at which water is abstracted from the natural watercourse. There is a clear logic to choosing that point, because it is the first point at which the operation impacts on the natural environment.
How much of a clear logic is it, given that you admitted earlier that many mill lades and so on are part of the inherited environment? You are intervening in a natural part of water flow by taking the decision to have the measurement made at the point at which water is abstracted from the river, rather than at the point at which it enters the distillery.
The lade is not quite part of the natural environment, although it is, as you say, in situ. That is something to be taken into consideration. Nevertheless, under the 2003 act we are required to ensure that we measure impacts on the natural environment, which must include the impacts of existing operations.
Do we expect the whisky industry to have a major impact on the water environment?
If we knew the answer to that question, we would not need to make the assessments. We need to make the assessments to come to a conclusion, recognising that the impact of one whisky distillery may be different from the impact of another, depending on the process of abstraction, on the process of returning water to watercourses and on the content of that water at the point of return. The answer may well be different for different distilleries; that is why we need to assess each operation on its own merits.
Indeed, but page 15 of the policy statement says:
The decision about what requires to be assessed in order to measure whether it has an impact on the environment must be taken at some point along the scale. We believe that it is proportionate to have a provision that excludes 90 per cent of water users from the requirement to enter the full licensing process and have an assessment done. We take the view that large-volume abstraction at least raises the possibility of significant impact on the environment, certainly to the point at which that needs to be properly assessed before a judgment can be reached.
Can I follow up Rob Gibson's question, to get some clarity? Once the assessment process has been carried out, a blanket approach will not be taken to every distillery. I presume that, once the assessment has been done and SEPA has the information, different potential actions will flow from that. Rob Gibson's question is fundamental and links to Maureen Macmillan's earlier point about mill lades, which are now seen as part of the natural environment because they have been there for a long time. To what extent will the licensing scheme have an impact throughout the whisky industry? To what extent is it about assessing what is there already and keeping tabs on it, and to what extent it is about saying to the existing whisky industry, "We expect you to change and make significant investments"? That is at the heart of the nervousness around the table. What do you expect and what discussions have you had with SEPA?
I agree that that is at the heart of the issue. The judgment is that any large-volume industrial user of water will potentially have an impact on the water environment—certainly, to the degree that that needs to be properly assessed. Those large-volume users will be required to make an application to allow that proper assessment to take place. The clear intention—I state it very clearly to the committee—is that those applicants will be assessed during the subsequent two-year period to determine whether they have a significant impact on the environment and should be required to continue in the licensing regime. My intention is that users that are borderline, which may include many operators in the whisky industry, should be assessed early, so that they have clarity as soon as is reasonable.
I will strike a slightly different note from that of my colleagues. The consultation has resulted in a significant streamlining of the draft regulations. I want to ask about the general binding rules, under which some significant works now appear. Those include the laying of pipelines under rivers and the dredging of quite small burns. Such works on their own might not have a significant effect but, in combination in a catchment area, they could have a significant cumulative effect. How will you ensure that such effectively unregulated activities, which do not come within the view of SEPA, will be regulated?
You are correct that such works do not have to be notified to SEPA because there is no requirement to register them. However, SEPA has a general duty to maintain the water environment—that is part of the provisions in the 2003 act. If SEPA comes to the view that a number of small activities have a cumulative impact, it may step up the level of notification that is required. In other words, if SEPA takes the view that an activity that is subject to the general binding rules is having a larger, disproportionate impact on the environment, it can require the operator to register or to apply for a licence, should that be appropriate. There is flexibility in both directions. The arrangements allow SEPA to exclude large-volume operators that have a minimal impact on the environment and to include small-volume operators that have a disproportionately large impact on the environment.
Okay. That reassures me.
Everybody else has asked a pile of questions and now I would like to ask you one or two, minister. I have been listening carefully to what has been said about our choices for complying with the legislation and I have read through the options in the policy statement. It is a pity that the policy statement does not analyse the issue of the code of conduct that we could have had and say why that option was ruled out. The industry has made it clear that that would have been its preferred option, although you have clarified why it would not now be suitable—as you say, it would need statutory underpinning.
That is a fair point. I see no reason why SEPA should not act quickly in relation to those companies and operations about which it already has the data that it needs. As I said, we expect it to make assessments across the board in the two years before the next European deadlines kick in in 2008. I have already said that I look to SEPA to deal with borderline cases early in order to reduce costs and uncertainty for those large-volume operators that might prove to be low risk. There is no reason why SEPA should not give priority to those operations on which it already has all, or a good deal, of the data that it requires. I hope that that addresses your point.
It has been suggested to me that, although the regulations are meant to be a proportionate response, paragraph 22 in part 3 of schedule 10 means that everybody will have to go through the process. It has been suggested that the draft regulations do not reflect what is intended.
Did you say paragraph 22 in part 3?
I refer to paragraphs 22 and 23. The issue is how paragraph 23 impacts on the people who are referred to in paragraph 22, who have to apply for authorisation under the regulations. You say that not everybody will be swept up in that, but those paragraphs will trigger a much larger number of people being swept up in the licensing process.
That takes us back to a point that we discussed earlier. There will be a requirement on all operators to make an application, but a judgment will be made quickly on whether they require a licence or whether registration is adequate. In the first instance, the judgment will be based, as a shorthand, on volume, which will exclude most applicants from needing to complete the licensing process. Part 3 of schedule 10 accurately describes the process that will be required. It conforms to regulations 7, 8 and 9 and produces that effect.
Okay. That was probably the longest clarification session that we have ever had, but given members' concerns it would not have been right to have acted differently. Should we move on to our discussion? Richard, are you wanting to propose that we ask the minister to withdraw the regulations?
There are concerns about the impact of the regulations on the whisky industry and the hydroelectric sector, both of which made representations to us, along with others. Those concerns are shared by members of the committee. I am not convinced that withdrawing the regulations would have a substantial impact, given the timescale. There are also implications for parliamentary scrutiny. Today is 25 May and we have been told that we must take a decision by 30 May. I am sure that members are keen to hear the industries' responses to what we have heard today from the minister; we need some time to do that. No matter what we decide today, at some point we will have to take oral evidence from the people who have made representations to the committee. I would be happy to move that we recommend that the regulations be withdrawn.
I invite comments from other colleagues.
When the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Bill was passed some years ago, it became inevitable that we would have regulations of this nature. I presume that all members of the committee believe that such regulations are required and will meet with the committee's approval at some point in the future. However, having read the submissions and heard today's discussion, I have the impression that the regulations as presented are somewhat immature and that they have been laid before Parliament prematurely. I would like to have more time to deal with the issue.
I understand what members are saying. However, I am not convinced that the industry will ever be happy with the proposals, regardless of how much discussion we have. I am not sure what would be the point of withdrawing the regulations. Having listened to the debate, I think that we are in this situation because the industries did not provide the necessary data in the first place. That is partly their responsibility and partly SEPA's. Questions must be asked about the powers that SEPA has to get information relating to its environmental role. I do not know whether, if it withdrew the regulations and returned to the issue at another time, the Executive would come up with different regulations that would take the whisky industry, which seems to be at the core of the problem, out of the regime.
I am concerned that we are expecting SEPA to do the work in a short time. Despite the fact that the agency is extremely overstretched, we have received no indication of whether new resources will be available to enable it to do some quite exacting work. SEPA will be required to assess the conditions in which major parts of our economy, such as the whisky and renewable energy industries, work and affect the water environment.
Regardless of whether we should go ahead with the regulations, nobody has asked what happens to everything that has been the subject of previous regulations and which will have to transfer. I am worried about the impact of having a gap between where one set of regulations stops and the next set begins. We have concentrated on one small, albeit important, aspect of the regulations and I feel somewhat reassured about how the regulations will be handled in that respect. Nevertheless, we should not forget that that is not the sum total of what the regulations will do.
I was on the Transport and the Environment Committee, which was the lead committee on the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Bill. I knew that the regulations would come along and that there were concerns within the whisky industry and the hydroelectric companies four years ago. I was, therefore, glad to hear the minister say that there would be flexibility and that socioeconomic factors would be taken into account. When the whisky industry spoke to me, it was concerned about flexibility. Another issue is how much it would cost the whisky industry to meter its water usage. I was given the figure of around £40,000 to £50,000. I would like to put that to the minister, to see whether he recognises it as being a realistic estimate. However, having received reassurances from the minister about flexibility, I am much happier about the direction that the regulations have taken.
I would have great concerns if the regulations were not put in place by October. If that happened, the industry would face real problems, as it needs the time to adapt and to make the transition from the existing regulations to the new ones. Our scrutiny has come at the end of an extremely lengthy process that has involved all stakeholders, including the whisky industry. Indeed, as the minister said, there have been substantial revisions to the scheme over that period. In an ideal world, I would like greater parliamentary scrutiny, but I would have serious concerns if that put back the October implementation date. I do not think that that would be in the industry's best interests.
Do any other members of the committee have a point that they want to make? If not, I invite Jackie Baillie, as a visiting member, to make a brief comment.
Thank you, convener. I did not realise that you were going to allow supplementary questions, otherwise I would have asked more.
I realised that afterwards.
Yes, but there you go.
That was reasonably brief.
Having listened to the representations that have been made, and being willing to provide assurance that, of course, we will maintain a dialogue with the stakeholders, I intend to move the motion that the committee recommend that the draft regulations be approved.
Okay. We move to a formal debate on the motion. I invite members to think about what they might want to say in the debate and I ask the minister to speak to and move motion S2M-2748.
This exchange of information has laid out clearly the purpose of and requirement for the draft regulations. The regulations will implement our European obligations and give businesses and stakeholders that have an impact on and make a living from the water environment the opportunity to make whatever adjustments will be required between 2006 and 2012. The regulations are proportionate and risk based. They exclude the great majority of those who have an impact on the water environment from the requirement for a detailed assessment and they make provision for a detailed assessment of all high-volume users. As I have said, we will ensure that the consequence of that detailed assessment will be rapidly reflected in the requirements that are placed on individual operations that are covered by the regulations.
I think that we should not approve the draft regulations for two reasons. First, we should consider the interests of parliamentary scrutiny. The committee is acting on behalf of the whole Parliament and I do not think that we have had enough time to scrutinise the regulations. Time and again, regulations come before us that we feel we just have to approve because of the lack of time to take evidence and because everything would fall if we did not approve them. We should not approve the draft regulations. We should ask the minister to take them away and bring them back after we have had the time to give them further parliamentary scrutiny by taking oral evidence from those who have made representations to us, who in turn will have had time to reflect on what the minister has said today. That would give the committee the opportunity to suggest amendments to any future draft.
In the interests of Scotland's water environment, which is a matter of concern to every citizen in Scotland, it is essential that statutory instruments such as the one before us today are subject to an appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny and that they ultimately receive the support of us all. I am concerned that an identifiable stakeholder group within the process has felt it necessary to make so many representations to committee members. If we are to serve Scotland's environment as we should, we need to take everyone along with us and to ensure that proper consultation has taken place. In my view, taking all the stakeholder interests along with us is of greater importance than sticking to a time limit. Therefore, I will oppose the motion to approve the instrument.
During today's detailed discussions, the minister has mentioned the two important words of flexibility and dialogue. On flexibility, there is some delicacy about the role of SEPA, which will both provide advice to ministers and monitor and enforce the regulations. However, on the question of the ministers' role in the appeal process, the minister stressed that the final judgments on a wide range of issues would be made by ministers.
Frankly, I do not see what difference we would make by postponing our approval of the regulations, as it is unlikely that any new set of draft regulations will be substantially different. As I said earlier, there are other reasons why the regulations are necessary. Also, I am not sure that we would get anything extra from oral evidence that has not been raised in the detailed written submissions that we have discussed, scrutinised and debated at some length this morning.
In the long term, the regulations are vital for our economic competitiveness. The image of many Scottish industries, including the Scotch whisky industry, is built on the health of Scotland's water environment, so it is important that we push ahead with the regulations, which will not place prohibitive costs on the whisky industry. As the minister said, identification of the status of a high-volume user is a trigger to ensure that a risk assessment takes place. That may well lead to an exemption if it is found that an activity does not have significant environmental impacts.
The speed with which we must consider regulations raises issues. At some point, we might want to take up with the Procedures Committee whether the current parliamentary timescales are adequate for the processes that committees require to follow, particularly when they are in the middle of considering a bill or carrying out an inquiry, as we were. At one point, the number of issues that we were running with was cumbersome. Perhaps we need to examine that.
Each contribution has raised further questions about the process and the likelihood of the system being effective when it is put into practice. The industries that have lobbied us have a strong claim that they, like all of us, require a clean environment—there is no argument about that—but there has been a problem with interpreting the policy statement and the regulatory impact assessments and trying to match up what they say.
As no other colleagues want to speak, I will make a couple of points before the minister says something.
I am more than happy to engage in continuing dialogue with the industries that you mentioned. Alasdair Morrison asked about dialogue thus far. Officials have maintained a dialogue, and I will ensure that dialogue continues at official level and ministerial level. We want to ensure that we take stakeholders with us and that if they are not entirely persuaded of the case for proceeding in the way in which we do, we continue to receive feedback from them so that we are able to implement what we must implement in the most effective way.
The question is, that motion S2M-2748, in the name of Ross Finnie, be agreed to. Are we agreed?
No.
There will be a division.
For
The result of the division is: For 6, Against 3, Abstentions 0.
Motion agreed to.
That the Environment and Rural Development Committee recommends that the draft Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2005 be approved.
We will report to the Parliament that we have agreed to the motion.
Members indicated agreement.
I hope that that will be helpful.
Meeting continued in private until 12:52.