Official Report 495KB pdf
That point is well made and we should look at it when we are looking at the structural funds in their entirety.
The report from the Government suggests that we did very well from the seventh framework programme—FP7—which was the predecessor of horizon 2020. Perhaps we should look at how we punched above our weight in that and ask how we maintain, sustain and grow that performance. Perhaps we should look at that in more detail, too.
The Scottish Government talked about an information portal, so we could perhaps ask for an update on how that is progressing.
09:45
A favourite issue of Helen Eadie was how to get hold of that type of information and make it easy to understand and easy to apply for funds. Helen always, quite rightly, raised the issue at committee of how Scotland gets access to available funds. That particular fund is entirely demand driven, so if companies do not ask for any of it, none of it will be allocated to them. It would be very helpful to follow up on that.
Yes. We can definitely do that.
I was very interested in the biofuels section on page 7 of the bulletin. Obviously, that has been a contentious issue in some respects—when developing world countries have been used to grow palm oil, it has had an impact on food generation in those areas. I was also very interested this week to hear about a research project that is using a by-product from whisky to create biofuels.
It would be really interesting if, at some point, we could follow up how that research project is going, what the global impact is of the biofuels directive, what happens in the case of biofuels that are grown outwith the EU and imported into the EU and what effect that has.
That is another one for the list.
I wish to pick up on the directive on nuclear safety. Apparently, there is a strengthened regulatory framework; co-operation across borders is also mentioned. The bulletin states:
“The Directive ... strengthens transparency by ensuring the public has a right to participate in the decision-making process relating to nuclear installations.”
I think that that would be of interest to us all, given that energy is—pardon the pun—such a hot topic just now.
Again, we should perhaps seek some additional information on what that directive actually means, including what it means for existing power stations and what it means for proposed future nuclear power stations.
Are members happy to make the “Brussels Bulletin” available to the relevant committees and to highlight the points that we have discussed today?
Members indicated agreement.
Thank you very much. Our next agenda item is our evidence session with the minister, Humza Yousaf. I suspend the meeting briefly until the minister arrives.
09:48 Meeting suspended.
Agenda item 3 is the “Brussels Bulletin”.
Am I right in thinking that we have the Italian ambassador coming at some point?
We have—the ambassador is coming on 9 October.
That struck me, because Italy is taking over the presidency of the Council of the EU from Greece. The priorities are economic growth, citizenship, justice, tourism and global engagement. We should perhaps prepare to question the ambassador on all those issues when he comes in October. That is the only thing that I drew out of that point in the bulletin.
Yes. We have a business planning day in September, when we will plan business for the rest of the year, so we can have a more detailed conversation then about how we want to formulate that session. [Interruption.] I have just been reminded that the business planning day is in October. It is usually in September, but we have a slight change of business in September this year.
I do not want to create more work for the committee, so I am not quite sure how best to try to achieve this. It is on the question of ports and Scotland’s links with Europe. I am not sure what we would do—perhaps we could get a briefing. In my constituency, we have the port of Rosyth and a regular daily ferry used to run to one of the European ports. That service has now ceased and it would be good to get a better understanding of which ports are operating in Scotland and what cargo and passenger links there are with Europe. Could we look at that? I am not sure whether the committee needs to do that piece of work, or whether it could be done for us.
The Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee has been looking at that issue in detail, so we could ask our clerks to co-ordinate with the clerks on that committee to ask whether we can have a briefing. We can decide where to go from there. If that committee has already done a big piece of work, we should not cross over that but there may be areas of it that we could pick up on from the EU point of view.
That would be great. Thank you.
The bulletin mentions access to finance for research and innovation. Members will see that, through the Commission and the European Investment Bank, there is a potential pot of €24 billion for research and innovation for small and medium-sized enterprises. The question is how we ensure that companies in Scotland get sighted on that.
Members will notice the point on page 9, which says that the money is demand driven; if companies do not ask, they do not get. It is important that, when we see fantastic information like that—there are great opportunities there for Scottish companies—we think about how we can make companies aware of those opportunities. It comes under horizon 2020, but it would be great if there was a mechanism to alert companies in Scotland to the potential of that kind of thing because if they do not make any applications for funding, they will not get any funding. There are no prior regional or geographic allocations or anything like that. It is an important pot of research money that Scottish companies would love to hear about and to find out a little bit more about.
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