European and External Relations Committee, 26 Apr 2005

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Official Report 172KB pdf

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Scottish Executive Priorities (Luxembourg Presidency)

We move on to agenda item 3, which is a paper on ministerial priorities for the Luxembourg presidency of the EU. The Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, Mr McCabe, has written a covering letter to the paper, which contains a long set of comments by ministers on the Executive's priorities for a variety of policy issues.

I am not sure whether members want to raise issues for further examination. The matter does not relate directly to the committee's remit, but I noticed that significant issues remain in relation to the rural development regulation and the less favoured area situation, which will interest members from constituencies around the country. That was the only point that I wanted to raise. Do members have any points for further inquiry?

As you said, the paper is long. Page 5, which is the second page of the statement by the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, says that the European Union Bill

"impacts on devolved issues in only a small number of technical areas".

That comment is deeply flawed.

Exactly what page are you on?

I am looking at what is in effect page 2.

You are talking about the EU constitution—what a surprise. I should have known.

The statement suggests that the constitution will have a relatively small impact on devolved issues, but that is not the case. Can I make a proposal? Rather than taking up a long time—

Hold on. The minister says not that the constitution will have limited effect on devolved matters, but that the bill will have limited effect.

The bill will have a major effect. Debate about the bill at Westminster will cover the constitution overall. After that debate and the holding of the referendum, if by some miracle the referendum resulted in the UK's signing up to the constitution, it would have a major impact on Scotland and devolved issues. To save us from dealing with a range of issues, I suggest that in the not-too-distant future we should ask the minister to discuss the paper with us.

The committee can obviously decide to do that. However, the difficulty is that one part of the paper is signed off by Mr McCabe, one by Mr Wallace, one by Cathy Jamieson, one by Andy Kerr and others by uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all. That takes us into the realms of the Luxembourg presidency's impact on every policy sphere of the Executive. If we took evidence on that, we would go against the grain of our argument that other committees should become actively involved in the EU's impact on their policy agendas. I simply say that for context—I am not saying that we cannot hear from the minister.

In that case, I modify my request. It is within the convener's remit to suggest that as the paper was submitted on a cross-departmental basis, the Parliament would warmly welcome the opportunity to debate the issues in it, just as Westminster eventually will. I do not believe that the Sewel motion that will be lodged will give us the time to go into the depth that the paper does. Given the important impact on devolved issues, it would be worth while asking the Executive to pursue a full debate in the Parliament.

We must be careful about the ground that we are on. The paper sets out the ministerial priorities for the Luxembourg presidency, which could in theory be the subject of a debate in the Scottish Parliament if the Parliamentary Bureau decided that.

A separate issue that Phil Gallie has highlighted concerns the European Union Bill and the European constitution. Ministers have yet to lodge a Sewel motion about that bill. They have taken the committee's view so far, but consideration of the Sewel motion on that bill will have to wait for the outcome of the general election. We need to be clear about what we would want to ask the Government to do. Legislative consideration of the European Union Bill is a matter for the Government and for the Parliamentary Bureau. However, the question whether we should have a wider parliamentary debate on ministerial priorities for the Luxembourg presidency is slightly different.

I would like us to debate both those issues, but I was trying to compromise.

Clearly, the paper on ministerial priorities for the Luxembourg presidency is a helpful statement of progress. However, as we have almost reached May, I think that we should look towards the UK presidency rather than spend a lot of time on the Luxembourg presidency.

Notwithstanding the points that Mr Gallie and the convener have made, I believe that the Parliament will have an opportunity to discuss the Sewel motion on the European Union Bill. The minister has already given evidence to us on the Sewel memorandum. Also, we will have a whole year to discuss the EU referendum. I very much look forward to having that debate with Mr Gallie and others both within and outwith the Parliament. That will be an interesting time.

As I understand it, the paper before us is an update on where we are at. However, as we are almost three quarters of the way through the Luxembourg presidency, I suggest that we should not spend too much time on it unless there is an issue of particular relevance to us.

Like Irene Oldfather, I welcome the paper and the information that it contains. However, it is not that useful to have a letter dated 14 April on the Executive's priorities for a presidency that started on 1 January and which will finish on 30 June. Tom McCabe's covering note states:

"we are currently re-visiting the … document with a view to becoming more strategic and forward-looking".

As well as more strategic and forward looking, I suggest that the document needs to be delivered more promptly. If the information is to be of any use to us, we need it at the start of the presidency.

We could ask ministers how many of their priorities they have succeeded in achieving.

I remind committee members—I excuse Iain Smith—that recent practice has been for the current presidency and the forthcoming presidency to be involved in developing continuing presidential objectives. As we are in a rolling programme, the objectives for the Luxembourg presidency will form the basis of the UK presidency. On that basis, the paper can be seen as an update on what will become in effect the programme for the UK presidency.

I think that we have now knocked the issue around appropriately. When we take evidence on other issues from Mr McCabe during the course of our work over the remainder of this year, I am sure that we can ask him about ministerial priorities on EU matters. We can decide how best to go about that in our future work programme.

We will simply note the ministerial paper.