European and External Relations Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, November 28, 2013

Official Report 389KB pdf

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“Brussels Bulletin”

Item 3 is consideration of the “Brussels Bulletin”. The bulletin is included in members’ papers. This week’s copy looks pretty hefty—it includes additional papers that enhance some of the work that we have done. For example, the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly report on human trafficking answers some of the questions that we have asked on that topic. The BIPA report on the Irish presidency of the Council of the European Union is also included.

Willie Coffey is a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Do you have anything to add to the reports that are attached to the bulletin?

As you say, I attend the BIPA. A piece of work that it reported on was an examination of the Irish presidency, which took place during the first six months of 2013. Ireland has considerable experience in doing such work. To its great credit, even with a budget 50 per cent lower than normal, it managed to convene more than 2,500 meetings during its term.

I asked Paschal Donohoe, who is the Irish Minister of State for European Affairs, the same question about the IT infrastructure budget that I put not long ago to our European MEP colleagues. His view was that that budget cut would likely need to be taken up by the private sector. I am not entirely comfortable that our members of the European Parliament are fully aware of what the impact of those cuts could be or the expectation that the private sector will step in to bridge that gap. Unfortunately, unlike the other two panel members, Catherine Stihler did not get the chance to answer my question on that topic.

In moving from that to the point that is made in the bulletin, I am confused about the picture that we are getting. Page 2 says that European

“Infrastructure investment is to be significantly bolstered”.

That investment includes Europe’s digital single market.

We are all over the place with this matter. On the one hand, we are getting a €9 billion to €1 billion reported reduction; on the other, we are being told that funds are being “bolstered”. I request that we get clarity on what the MAFF agreement is for such things as IT infrastructure, because it has quite an impact on how we progress the digital agenda in Scotland and throughout Europe. I know that we have raised the matter several times in the meeting, but we need clarity on where we are going with this.

10:45

Willie Coffey is absolutely right to say that we are looking for clarity. My personal view is that when the MAFF talks about bolstering the resource, it is talking about rural areas. If that is the case, we want to tap into it. We need clarity. We need to know what resource is left and how and where it is supposed to be spent. If it is for rural areas, we are up for it and we should be up there bidding for our share to ensure that we get the programme rolled out.

Both members have made valid points. Willie, it might be worth asking Scotland Europa for a briefing on the issue. Because the issue keeps coming back to the committee, I get the feeling that we might want to do a bit of work on it in the near future. We should also raise the issue with the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee; it is that committee’s patch and we want to make sure that it is not already doing any work on it, although it might have some additional information that we can use. I am happy to take that course of action.

Remember to stress that we are talking about IT infrastructure. I asked a question about it, but Mr Lyon might have picked me up incorrectly. It is not about the broader infrastructure but about broadband, connectivity and all those issues. I do not get the sense that our European colleagues are fully aware of the potential impact of the programme.

The problem is that two things are being conflated. George Lyon was talking about what is mentioned in the “Brussels Bulletin” about bolstering the overall infrastructure budget. Within that, there is a reduced broadband budget. Willie Coffey and Hanzala Malik are absolutely right that we need to know what money is available, what it is available for, and to where it is available. It would be interesting to get all that information; otherwise I think we are talking at cross-purposes.

Yes, we should seek further clarity. We will be looking again at the issue in the future so let us see whether we can get clarity on some of the points that have been raised today and then the committee can decide where it wants to go with that.

I would like to have a bit more clarity on the tangible and practical benefits of being a transitional region. If we take broadband as an example, the area that is a transitional region is the area that is suffering the most from the lack of broadband. I would like to find out more on that. Can I get some information from research here?

Yes, I think we can. We can also get some information from the Scottish Government on how the transitional region is being rolled out.

I do not really understand the difference between an ordinary region and a transitional region, other than the fact that one is meant to get more money.

Okay, we need to get a lot more clarity around all these points. The clerk is taking note of them all so we will get back to you.

The main point that I want to make is that I am glad to see that the MAFF has now been agreed, and it looks as though some of the ambitions and projects will go ahead.

There are two things on page 2 of the “Brussels Bulletin” that I want to raise. I am pleased to see that

“€15 billion, 40% higher than the equivalent programmes under the current funding period”,

has been allocated to Erasmus. That is important because, although many students visit Scotland, we have a proud record of welcoming them, and the British Council’s recent report on the perceptions of students visiting Scotland’s higher education institutions was very good, we must also encourage outward visiting by our own students. We should make sure that our students are taking advantage of Erasmus’s offers.

I also note that the creative Europe budget received a 9 per cent boost. I raise that because the Education and Culture Committee, on which I sit, took evidence this week on the creative industries. The film industry in particular had quite a bit to discuss. It was noted that other areas of the UK, such as Northern Ireland and Yorkshire, had been able to secure European structural funding for their film industries, but that that had not happened in Scotland previously. Both Creative Scotland and representatives of the film industry were interested in looking at that. I know that my colleague Hanzala Malik is always asking why we are not accessing all areas of European funding, so I thought that it was interesting that that issue had been raised at the committee.

I wanted to comment on the negotiations on the common agricultural policy. I know that the new CAP is due to start in 2015, but I was disappointed by what has happened with the CAP convergence uplift of £223 million, which has come to the UK only because of Scotland’s historically low level of payments per hectare and which has now been lost because of the way in which the UK did the negotiations.

On trafficking, I wonder whether we could get hold of a report from the Olympics committee about the situation before and after the games, to see whether there are any lessons that we can learn. I am sure that it is just a matter of making a request.

The clerk tells me that we had written to the Scottish Government about plans for the Commonwealth games, which I know are predicated on lessons learned from the Olympic games. We can chase up that request and take things from there.

I note what the bulletin says about SME access to finance. It states that the European Commission’s

“report on Access to Finance of SMEs ... shows that one out of three European SMEs did not get the full finance they needed in 2013.”

Does that refer to what they should have got or to the total sum that they needed? I do not quite understand what that means. I am thinking back to the horizon 2020 conference, at which we heard a lot of representatives of SMEs talking. Is the bulletin referring to money that they should be getting but are not getting, or to other money that they need?

I am not sure.

The bulletin does not make it clear.

I think that it is based on feedback from SMEs that applied for funding and did not get it. I do not know the details, but perhaps it is something that we can pick up with Scotland Europa.

Could we do that?

Yes. I think that we should tie that in with one of the questions that I wanted to ask, which is not in the bulletin, about the progress of the banking regulation union that is being discussed across Europe but which failed to get support in the House of Lords this week. All those issues are tied in with how we regulate banks and how we ensure that businesses get the finance that they need to generate the economic growth that we all need. In that context, the clarification that Jamie McGrigor is looking for would be quite helpful.

I agree with Jamie McGrigor that that paragraph does not make sense—or at least, that it is not as instructive as it could be—because it does not tell us where that money was meant to be coming from. Was it money that the businesses had hoped to get from local banks or through the EU?

I also noted that the competitiveness of enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises programme will provide £2.3 million to SMEs to support competitiveness and to push jobs and growth, so it might be interesting to link those two things together, get clarification on the current issues for SMEs, as identified on page 1 of the bulletin, and also find out exactly what the new programme is going to do for SMEs and how Scottish SMEs might be able to benefit from that.

That would be a worthwhile piece of work.

If there are no further comments on the “Brussels Bulletin”, there is one final thing that I wanted to mention. It is not in the bulletin, but it is topical. I noted that David Cameron spoke yesterday about a renegotiation on the free movement of workers, which I think is an extremely dangerous line to go down and quite worrying. It comes on the back of the supposed subsidiarity issue that we had recently with the directive on the free movement of workers, and it seems as if a theme is developing. That worries me no end because some workers in my area have contacted me this week to say that they are extremely concerned. They are worried that they might no longer be allowed to work in Scotland and that they might lose their job. The potential impact on workers in Scotland of what David Cameron is proposing is a huge issue, which it would be remiss of the committee not to look into. I do not know how members feel about that. Yesterday and the day before, I noticed some of the reports on the issue.

Surely that is a devolved matter. How would we be able to have an impact on that? I do not understand what remit we would have to overturn what central Government decided.

You mean that it is a reserved matter. You are absolutely right, but if there is any uncertainty about whether a worker has a right to work, that will have an impact on Scottish business.

I am not sure whether that is the case, but I would be happy for someone to look into it. I am not saying that we should not do work on the issue; I am just wondering whether we want to go down that route now, given our timetable and the business that we already have to deal with. I suggest that we wait and see how the proposal pans out. At the moment, it is in its early stages. It might not happen, because the UK Government might not have time to change the legislation, so we might be chasing a ghost. I suggest that we wait to see what legislation is introduced before we start thinking about the impact that it will have on us.

The way I read the situation, David Cameron is to go to formal Council with his proposal in the very near future. That makes the issue pretty urgent. I am not suggesting that we do a huge piece of work on it, but I would like Scotland Europa to look at what is proposed and the possible impacts.

I hear what you say about uncertainty, which is compounded by what David Cameron has said about renegotiating the UK’s position in Europe. He specifically said that he would not let us know what the renegotiation terms would be. There is a great deal of uncertainty in that area, and I can understand that it is having an impact on workers in Scotland.

With all due respect, there is no impact at all on us at the moment, because no such legislation has been put forward. It is only in the event that legislation is introduced that there might be an impact, so I suggest that we let things pan out, because the situation is not clear. There is no clarity whatever, and I do not think that David Cameron has the time to pass the necessary legislation. There is nothing in the air at the moment—there is no programme for action. I suggest that we err on the side of caution and wait for another couple of meetings.

Patricia, do you have any thoughts on the matter?

I would like to be a bit clearer about what David Cameron is saying and what remit he has to act on his views. It may be that we should come back to the issue at our first meeting in the new year and make a call then, once we have obtained some background information.

Funnily enough, I had been going to highlight the point in the “Brussels Bulletin” about the proposed changes to the conditions of seasonal workers, which will be extremely helpful. Given that those changes relate to seasonal workers from outwith the EU, I am not sure what David Cameron’s view on them will be. That will be interesting to watch.

I think that we should come back to the issue, but I would like us to get a bit more information about it before we decide to go down a particular route.

Perhaps we should flag up to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee the fact that there is to be a vote in plenary on climate and energy policy on 9 January, given that some in the European Parliament have made what are, to my mind, quite unhelpful proposals. We need to watch that.

My proposal on the free movement of workers issue was that we should seek information, so that we can come to a judgment. Because it is a “Brussels Bulletin” issue, Scotland Europa should be our first port of call—we can get it to find out some information.

In relation to Patricia Ferguson’s suggestion about raising the vote on climate and energy policy with the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, we always agree to send the bulletin to all other committees. In some circumstances, we write directly to committees when a specific point has been raised, and we will endeavour to do that.

Are members happy for us to send the bulletin to other committees and to follow up on Patricia Ferguson’s suggestion?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank all the members of the public for coming along. We now move into private session.

11:00 Meeting continued in private until 11:29.