Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, 28 Oct 2009

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Official Report 365KB pdf

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Whisky Industry

The final item on today's agenda is a research report on the Scotch whisky industry that we commissioned from the Scottish Parliament information centre. I thank the SPICe researcher, Scherie Nicol, for turning around such a comprehensive report within a short space of time. That has been very helpful indeed.

Do members wish to comment on the report? Do they want to take any further action as a result of the information that we have received?

I have so many comments that I think that we ought to schedule a discussion of greater length at another meeting. Otherwise, we will not get through the research report and its implications.

I suggest that the import of Scherie Nicol's excellent report is such that it raises plenty of questions that the committee should follow up. Like Chris Harvie, I think that we need to schedule ways of considering the range of issues that the report throws up. We should schedule those sessions for as early a time as possible, given the need to look at how one of Scotland's key quality products lacks development and faces issues that might undermine its future viability. We need to analyse those issues carefully. I hope that we can get a commitment from the whole committee to do that quickly.

I am sorry that I missed the beginning of the conversation.

We ought to consider carefully the international trade issues that arise in the paper as part of the investigation that we intend to carry out in the new year. We may want to take evidence from employers and trade unions on some of the workplace and workforce planning issues that are implicit in the paper. Such a session would cover the areas in which the committee has most interest. As members have said, whisky is an important industry.

I concur with the comments that have been made about the quality of the paper—it is an excellent piece of work. I am close to Chris Harvie's position. There is so much in the paper that it is not feasible for us to do justice to it today. I would be content to leave it to the convener and the clerks to work out when the issue can be slotted into our work programme. I agree with Rob Gibson that that should happen sooner rather than later, but I cannot remember exactly what we have pencilled in for each of the next 10 weeks or so. The sooner we can get a session in, the better.

We have a heavy programme for the finance inquiry, which will dominate our time until March. However, the paper will be one of the inputs to the scoping discussion that we need to have for our trade and productivity inquiry, and we should look at the prominent way in which whisky features in that. Presumably, the scoping session is scheduled for the end of January or the beginning of February, so that we can start on the trade inquiry immediately after Easter. Like other members, I think that we should leave the matter to the convener. The paper should come back to us when we scope the trade and productivity inquiry, which is our next big piece of business after finance.

Given the problems in Kilmarnock and other places in Scotland, we should discuss the matter before then.

We already have a fairly hefty programme of witnesses for the banking inquiry, so it will be difficult to fit in anything meaningful quickly, but we can make further inquiries based on the work that has been done. If members agree, we can write to the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and Diageo to request progress reports on what is happening in relation to Kilmarnock and Port Dundas; we may also wish to write to Whyte & Mackay.

Many of the issues that are highlighted in the paper fall neatly into our forthcoming inquiry into exports, trade and inward investment, especially our consideration of how we support the Scottish food and drink industry. As Wendy Alexander suggested, they can be drawn into that inquiry. There may be scope, when we can find a suitable slot in the programme, for a one-off state-of-the-economy hearing of the sort that Lewis Macdonald suggested, to see what issues arise. Are members content for the clerks and me to work on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

When legislation on minimum pricing is introduced, we may wish, as a secondary committee to the Health and Sport Committee, which will handle the bulk of that work, to consider holding an evidence session specifically on the impact of minimum pricing on the industry.

I thank everyone for their forbearance. It has been a long meeting, but we had a lot to get through in a short time. We were not helped by the fact that the session with Scottish Enterprise was not very helpful.

Meeting closed at 13:29.