Official Report 128KB pdf
Agenda item 2 is European issues. Members should have before them the seventh of my regular reports on European Union developments on issues that are relevant to the committee. My report takes us through the key areas of recent activity on environment, fisheries and agriculture issues that fall within our remit.
Convener, why do we not start on page 1?
Ah. You are in the annex.
Sorry, I have just talked us through the core issues on pages 1, 2 and 3 of my paper. I think that it is useful to have on the record the huge range of issues coming through in our portfolio, so that people outwith the committee can see that. I have structured the paper like this because our discussion is intended to help us to shape the issues on which we want to focus when we take evidence from Ross Finnie. Rob Gibson is right that I have moved on to the annex, which goes through all the key issues in depth. I did not want to read each one out, because our discussion of them will be in the Official Report.
On the biofuels strategy, when we receive the Executive's response to our biomass industry inquiry, I presume that we should be able to marry up both those issues in some sort of committee response to the minister.
Yes, I think that we should. We pretty much had agreement around the table on our report. In considering where we take the issue next, we can ask what opportunities the EU strategy provides for moving ahead on the issue.
I know that the European and External Relations Committee is conducting an inquiry into energy efficiency in a European context. Many of the issues should tie up, but I do not know whether we have been approached to provide an input to that committee's inquiry. I mention the matter just now because we are dealing with the environment section of the convener's report.
We have not been approached at all by the European and External Relations Committee, which has formally started taking evidence as part of its inquiry. I found that out relatively recently. I would like us to be able to give our input based on the work that we have done. Mark Brough and I have discussed how we should do that, but the issue will come back on to a future agenda item.
Can somebody tell me what a "second generation" biofuel is? The section of the report on biofuels mentions
That is a good question to put to the minister. We can ask him about second-generation biofuels.
Son of woodchip.
The paper sets out that the EU's biofuels strategy has three objectives:
Before that session, can we have a short background paper on where Scotland is with regard to biofuels and how our position compares to that of other countries?
Okay, we can put that request into the system. It would be good to have that.
I can invite members to a presentation by Balcas in committee room 4 at lunch time. It will be about wood pellets.
It is a quiet day, so I am glad that you picked today for that.
Okay, I think that we have agreement round the table on biofuels.
We ought to ask what work is being done at the moment to set up mechanisms to put the directive into practice. Many directives need quite a lot of lead-in time to put mechanisms in place.
We can ask the Scottish Executive what its timescale is.
We should ask what preliminary work the Executive is doing in anticipation of the requirement to collect batteries that need to be disposed of.
We can ask what scoping work the Executive has done and what the scale of the challenge is.
If we have a role in the series of energy efficiency action plans at member state level, we should know what our input is and whether there are disaggregated Scottish targets.
Okay. The next issue is the draft directive on flooding, which might be interesting.
I am very interested in that from a constituency perspective and from the national perspective, given the debate about climate change. The issue is a big one for many communities in Scotland and for many members, but it has a low profile in Parliament. The committee should perhaps examine the issue to find out where we are, particularly in relation to the rest of the UK. As the paper makes clear, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is taking the lead in the UK input to Europe, but the UK tends to go at a different pace from that of Scotland on flooding issues, according to British insurers. I wonder whether simply discussing the issue with the minister as part of his overall session on European matters would do the issue justice. Perhaps we could have a short evidence-taking session of half an hour or 45 minutes specifically on flooding.
We discussed—was it two weeks ago?—an update from the minister about flooding issues.
Can you clarify what format that was going take?
Do you mean the framework for preparing national flood risk assessments?
Were we just to get a letter from the minister?
No, we discussed the issue in the committee.
Do you mean in relation to the legislation?
Yes. We had an update on the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003.
Sorry; I thought that you meant that we had requested information.
No. Flooding was highlighted during the update. Several members asked questions about it and we debated how far we had moved on the issue. The first point that we should raise with the minister is probably about our preparedness to put in place the national flood risk assessment, in the light of the work that has already been done through the 2003 act. The Executive should be well down the road with that.
The paper mentions flood risk maps. There has been considerable anguish about flooding or inundation from the sea in the Western Isles in the past two years. When we think about flooding, we usually think of inland areas, but flooding from the sea on to the land must be considered. I hope that any document that is drawn up bears that in mind.
We should raise that as a separate issue with the minister, as I am not sure that it falls under the flood risk assessment.
That does not fit into the water framework directive—it would have to be separate.
Yes, but nevertheless—
I am not saying that we should not consider the issue.
I do not think that the issue fits in with the water framework directive, but we can ask the minister where it does slot in.
The issue is relevant to the debate about marine spatial planning and how we manage our coastal areas. We may need to do some work on that, too, at some point.
Perhaps all those issues could be gathered together and considered during the committee's away day, with a view to doing some work on that after the summer recess. Alternatively, the issues could be included in the committee's legacy paper.
Every time a member says that they want to put X on the agenda, Mark Brough, the clerk, writes that down and we panic about when we can discuss it. As Elaine Smith says, we need to collect all those thoughts and come back to them.
That shows the importance of thinking about directives well in advance, which is what we should do with the batteries directive, so that we do not land in the same shemozzle.
Okay.
How the Scottish approach to sustainable development compares with the United Kingdom's approach in drawing up its guiding questions could be considered.
The approach in "Choosing Our Future: Scotland's Sustainable Development Strategy" in particular could be considered.
We need an update from the minister on where the action plan is going. From what I have heard, the regional advisory committees do not appear to be working particularly effectively, as some of us predicted. Our own fishermen do not support them. There should be more involvement in the committees, but the fishermen appear to think that they are more talking shops than anything else. Getting the minister's perspective on the matter would be useful.
Yes. That approach totally undermines the policy objectives.
I support some of what Ted Brocklebank said. We urgently need an update on what is happening, not least on what the Government's input into the review of the cod recovery plan will be. According to the paper, review of the plan will start some time this year and may continue into next year, which is, unfortunately, a long timescale. We must find out what the Government's views are. There are other issues, such as the rising costs of fuel, which are hitting the fishing industry badly. There has been talk about the Commission introducing various measures, but some of those have been put on the back burner. We must find out our Government's views and how we can help the industry to cope with rising costs.
I presume that we would not want an agreement that enabled such things to happen.
No.
Perhaps the issue is the extent to which the minister has a plan B and where the political judgment in European countries lies on the matter. Turning back the clock would be catastrophic.
Focusing on the European fisheries fund would be useful. I think that the minister agreed in a debate in the Parliament last year to an amendment to a motion that required him to consider specific things within the fund and to try to push measures through Europe. It would be useful to return to that debate and see how those arguments played out in the recent discussions. What specific measures is the Executive pushing rather than simply increasing the size of engines? It would be good to unpick that.
It is all about trade-offs.
We will indicate to the minister that we would like a pretty decent discussion on those issues to find out where we are going.
I am concerned about that. We need to get a clearer idea of what the proposal involves. For example, which oysters are used for seeding is a moot point because non-native ones grow more quickly. There are also issues about species of fish—such as the Arctic char, which we have mentioned before—being brought in from Canada. It concerns me that we do not have a clear statement on how Scotland will handle the matter. I am sure that many other members feel the same.
Is there a read-across to the fisheries bill that we will look at next? Is there a relationship there?
There should be. If there is not, I will be worried. We need clarity on that.
That is the obvious point that occurs to me. We are about to consider legislation on inshore fisheries and aquaculture, so if there are new discussions about non-native species, they must be part of the picture on that bill. It would be useful to ask the minister to outline the relationship between the two.
It is interesting that different responses have been made to avian flu in different countries. We can see how the French responded with regard to ducks and geese and compare that with the response here. It is important for us to find out whether the minister has an overview of the different responses and how he responds to that.
I think that, globally, there has been a 14 per cent drop in the consumption of poultry. That has a huge effect on our domestic industry, because we are all trading in a world market.
I am concerned that we are not prepared for the vaccination of birds. It would be useful to get some clarity on vaccination and to know how prepared the Executive is to use it as another tool in the box in the event of an outbreak. We have a contingency plan for avian flu but there are concerns throughout Europe about vaccine stocks. To my knowledge, sufficient stocks have not been built up in the UK. There are key questions about preparedness and the use of vaccination as a tool.
It might be good to get some technical guidance on vaccination, which is a complicated issue. I remember from our work on foot-and-mouth disease and the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill that vaccination is not as simple as it seems. There are a lot of technical complications about having the right vaccine for the right strain of flu, for example. It would be possible to have huge stocks of something that was entirely useless.
Our next discussion with Ross Finnie will be on 21 June. We will see whether we can get a note on the Executive's thinking on vaccination issues in general.
There must be some background information or advice dating from the previous outbreak that would still be useful.
I would have thought that the chief vet would have given the Executive some advice and guidance, particularly about flocks. The committee needs that information so that we can discuss what is happening at the European level. Is that agreed?
The next point in the paper concerns the end of the export ban on beef. I imagine that colleagues welcome that.
The beef industry is certainly pretty keen on it. It is a huge step forwards.
It opens the door, but we have to talk our way into the market.
Yes. We should ask the minister what happens next on promotion.
We have been out of the market for 10 years and other suppliers are filling it, so we must fight to get our share back. It is only the start of a long process.
Not only that, it is about rebuilding confidence. There are technical issues with having been out of the market, but confidence building is important as well. Perhaps we could ask how that is being tackled.
We will add that to the list.
About a year or a year and a half ago, we were promised that the Executive would launch its own consultation on co-existence and liability, but that has not arrived. The most recent promise was that it would be produced in the spring of this year but nothing has been conclusively reported yet. We need to revisit the issue and find out whether the Executive is hanging back because of the European report that will come out later this year.
If we believe the Scottish Farming Leader, NFU Scotland and others have provided the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department with information and had discussions with it about separation distances. Therefore, we are awaiting a response from the minister. It would be interesting to hear his view about what the co-existence regime should be, his view on the European Food Safety Authority's credibility and what input the Scottish Government is making to those debates. The two matters of consumer confidence and farmers' confidence about whether they can grow crops and get any kind of market for them if they are next to GM crops are tied together.
There are specific issues with cross-contamination to organic crops, such as what the appropriate residue levels and separation distances are. Do committee members agree to ask for an extensive update on that matter?
Paragraphs 40 and 41 of the paper concern regulations on protecting local food and drink. They are about being able to brand local produce and make it unique to its area.
Arbroath smokies, for example.
Yes.
We should indeed.
Can we also find out the candidates for PGI status? In other words, on whose behalf is the Government batting to try to get the status? We know that the Arbroath smokie is swimming in safer waters, having qualified.
I imagine that it would be a long list, but we will clarify that matter.
I presume that our allocation is dropping by 20 per cent because, given the incoming countries, the money has to be spread more thinly. The paper states:
Yes; the money is made up by the UK Government. There is discretionary spending, too.
The issue of the overall budget, which in turn influences the size of the rural development budget and the size of the cut that Scotland will suffer, was controversial. Can we ask the minister what his input into the debate was, to see whether he was fighting for Scotland's interests, and how he intends to cope with the cut?
Okay. We will have to return to that when we next consider the budget.
That is a good idea.
It will be interesting to see what that means.
Meeting continued in private until 12:22.
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