Official Report 503KB pdf
Agenda item 3 is our “Brussels Bulletin”. Do members have any comments, questions or requests for clarification?
The issue of transparency is raised on page 3. It would be interesting to know whether there was any debate about whether the principle of transparency should be applied retrospectively—it is coming in on 1 December.
We can find that out. Yesterday, Alyn Smith sent round a newsletter that I passed on to the clerk, Katy Orr, which gave us a bang up-to-date explanation of the situation. The policy on transparency is evolving and more information seems to be added to it every day.
I draw members’ attention to the section on regional policy, on page 9, which tells us that €11.8 billion is aimed at cohesion policy funding that includes allocation for youth employment. Committee members have been quite interested in how that will pan out in the future, so I ask that we keep a close eye on how it develops particularly for those parts of the west of Scotland that are included in the initiative.
We have agreed to do some work on that in our next inquiry, so it will be addressed anyway, but we can get an update.
I draw the committee’s attention to the post-G20 call for states to declare their intentions in relation to combating climate change in preparation for the 2015 Paris climate summit. I do not know whether a timetable has been set for states to clarify their national intentions, and I would be quite interested to know that.
Okay. We can check that out.
Under the heading “Transatlantic Trade”—we have just had an evidence session on the subject—we are told:
“The European Commission has ... launched an online survey for SMEs, to better understand the difficulties they face in doing business with the United States.”
Given where we are at with our TTIP inquiry, it might be useful for us to get a better understanding of Scottish companies’ involvement with the US in terms of markets and exports. We might be able to follow that up.
Katy Orr is way ahead of you on that. We have been looking at American business speakers who have done some work on the subject, and the next round table will include a few Scottish businesses that you will recognise. I think that we have got the Scottish Salmon Company coming, but we are still waiting for replies.
Have you heard from Marine Harvest?
We are still awaiting responses from a few people whom we have contacted.
There are all the whisky companies.
They are on the list, too.
Will it be easy enough for us to be given a briefing note on what kind of trade we are doing with America?
Yes, we will have that ready for the next meeting. That sentence jumped out at me as well, because it almost suggested a fait accompli, in the sense that people were already talking about how things could work better.
I agree that we should understand the implications for big companies such as Marine Harvest and for the whisky industry, but it would be good for us to look at the implications for small and medium-sized enterprises, too. I read an article recently about a microbrewery that had managed to get into the American market.
We are way ahead of you. The company that you are talking about is Innis and Gunn, is it not?
Yes, so that is fine. I should have known better.
You were right to mention it, because there might be a time when we are not way ahead of you and we will need to know.
I noted that Cecilia Malmström, the EU trade commissioner, said a few things about TTIP. Obviously, she was quite pro it, and there is a paragraph about that on page 5.
I wanted to ask about plastic bags. I see that the EU wants to phase them out completely. We have put a charge on plastic bags, but I do not think that a 5p charge will ever phase them out. In a wet climate, people could be walking around with lots of paper bags with the bottoms falling out while they are doing their shopping.
Are you picturing oranges rolling down the street?
In Italy and other places, they use paper bags, but it is a very hot country. If you put a paper bag down on the ground and it gets wet, the shopping falls out of the bottom.
Have there not been some initial figures for the first month of the charge on plastic bags? I think that it has reduced usage by 420 million plastic bags, or something like that.
Yes, because people bring their bigger plastic bags to put the stuff into.
Mine are all hessian.
Maybe they are made of hessian. I do not know. Carpet bags, perhaps.
It would be quite interesting to know where we are after the first few weeks. The target was to reduce annual usage to 90 bags per person.
Will the Food Standards Agency allow people to go on putting food into the same plastic bags again and again without having to wash them? Presumably someone will sooner or later get food poisoning. I bet you they will.
What about non-chlorinated chicken?
It is good stuff for lawyers.
I return to the TTIP issue. Our colleague Stephen Boyd from the Scottish Trades Union Congress told us that, no matter what we do, we have to ask that any data that is presented by way of argument supporting the initiative should stand up to scrutiny. Liz Murray give contrasting examples of how good TTIP was on the one hand and how bad it was on the other. I know that it is not our role to do that analysis and scrutiny of the value of TTIP to the European Union, but whoever comes to see us should be able to cite data in support of their respective arguments. We should look at that, because it is fundamental to be able to scrutinise the data that people are presenting to support their arguments.
We have invited the UK trade and investment person.
I do not wish to add to the Scottish Parliament information centre’s workload, but the preparatory work on TTIP for future meetings is probably a moveable feast, and I would like us to be able to ask pertinent questions.
I do not know whether it has already been mentioned, but I noticed that on 10 November at the agriculture and fisheries council the UK was represented by Rupert de Mauley and Richard Lochhead. That is an advance, is it not? That is what the SNP has been asking for.
It depends who calls the shots.
Richard Lochhead was representing the UK. It says that.
He was not allowed to speak.
Was he not allowed to speak on 10 November? Are you sure? He cannot have represented us if he was not allowed to say anything.
Indeed.
Are members happy to bring the “Brussels Bulletin” to the attention of our colleagues on other committees?
Members indicated agreement.
Agenda item 4 is draft budget scrutiny, which we agreed to take in private.
10:55 Meeting continued in private until 11:05.