Committee of the Regions (Membership)
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-3344, in the name of George Lyon, on membership of the Committee of the Regions.
We are here to determine who will represent Scotland for the next four years in the United Kingdom delegation to the European Union's Committee of the Regions. The Committee of the Regions brings together members from tiers of government below that of member states, enabling them to take part in the Community's decision-making process, in an advisory capacity, alongside the other EU institutions.
The COR has an important role to play in the conduct of European business, with one of its main aims being to strengthen the economic and social cohesion of the member states. The COR's responsibilities cover a wide range of areas that are important to regional and local authorities, especially here in Scotland, including transport, the environment, employment, training and social provisions, culture and health. It may also issue an opinion on its own initiative in cases in which it considers such action to be appropriate. That enables the committee to monitor closely the implementation of Community law affecting regional and local authorities. Therefore, the committee has an important role in striving to ensure that the subsidiarity that we all desire in European decision making is achieved.
All members must have an electoral mandate to be eligible to serve. Before devolution, all Scottish representatives on the United Kingdom delegation came from local authorities. Four years ago, the Parliament agreed that Scotland's representation on the UK delegation to the Committee of the Regions should be split equally between members of the Parliament and representatives of local government, giving them two full and two alternate members each. Therefore, I am surprised that the Scottish National Party appears to be opposed to that position. It is a bit like "Groundhog Day", in that the amendment is exactly the same as the one that the SNP lodged last time round.
Will the minister tell us how many of the 24 or so plenary sessions of the Committee of the Regions that have taken place since the First Minister was appointed he has attended? Am I right in saying that he has attended only one?
Ministers have attended more than one third of the meetings of the Committee of the Regions. Indeed, as we have to release ministers and representatives of the Parliament to attend the meetings, the SNP would do well to engage in proper pairing arrangements. It should also be noted that when Nicola Sturgeon served in Europe, she did not turn up to any meeting. People cannot even remember who she is, despite her being a chairman of one of the committees. Alex Neil would do well to check that he is not in the glass house before he throws stones.
Will the minister take another intervention?
I have to make up time; I have given the member an opportunity to have the debate.
I am puzzled by the suggestion that the Executive and Parliament should not seek to be represented on the Committee of the Regions. That would run against the COR's mission statement, which is that European, national, regional and local government working together is indispensable to the European decision-making process. The Committee of the Regions marks a formal opportunity for those tiers of government to contribute to European decision making on issues such as structural funds, which are particularly important to Scotland, interregional co-operation, promotion of the subsidiarity principle and bringing Europe closer to its citizens. Those issues are all extremely important to Scotland and representation on the Committee of the Regions allows the Parliament to influence Europe on those matters. Agreeing to the SNP amendment would deny Parliament that opportunity. I am sure that several Labour members would be delighted to support the amendment to stop Mr Lochhead going to Europe regularly; even so, we will be forced not to support it so that we get proper representation at the right level in Europe.
We should send Phil Gallie.
I think that we will be forced to resist that suggestion.
That is probably why every other country with legislative regions—including Germany, Spain, Italy and Belgium—sends representatives from levels of government equivalent to the Executive and the Parliament to the Committee of the Regions. I do not see why we should elect to be out of kilter and should refuse to join colleagues from Parliaments in Bavaria, Catalonia, Tuscany and Flanders in participating in the formal structures of the European Union, alongside using the other avenues available to us through the UK Government and groupings such as the group of regions with legislative power, or Regleg.
I turn to the nominations. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has nominated Councillor Corrie McChord of Stirling Council and Councillor Andrew Campbell of Dumfries and Galloway Council as full members. It has also nominated Councillor Graham Garvie of Scottish Borders Council and Councillor Jim McCabe of North Lanarkshire Council as alternate members. Local authority councillors who were nominated by COSLA have played an active part in the work of the Committee of the Regions and in furthering Scotland's interests, so I place on record the Executive's thanks for their unstinting efforts.
For those nominees who are to be drawn from the Parliament, the Executive considers that Scotland's interests would be best served by selecting members whose existing remits currently give them a substantial involvement in European Union business. Accordingly, the Executive proposes that Jack McConnell and Irene Oldfather should be full members and that I and Richard Lochhead should be the alternates for the First Minister and Ms Oldfather respectively.
Will the minister take an intervention on that point?
I am in my final minute—
You are beyond your final minute.
If the Presiding Officer is happy, I will give way to Mr Morgan.
No. I said that you were beyond your final minute.
I am sorry, Mr Morgan. Had I not been ruled out of order, I would have been delighted to take an intervention.
The First Minister has already contributed to an important COR opinion during the debate on the future of Europe. He will attend the next COR plenary meeting in October, when he will also meet key players in the EU and convey to them the Scottish Executive's views and its keen desire to play a role in all aspects of EU decision making.
The presence of Scottish ministers in Brussels is very much appreciated there, as it ensures that key decision makers and opinion formers are familiar with Scottish views. In nominating two ministers, the Scottish Executive has recognised that it is important that all tiers of administration in Scotland continue to be represented on the Committee of the Regions.
I hope that the Parliament will support the nominations, even that of Mr Lochhead.
I move,
That the Parliament endorses the Scottish Executive's proposal to nominate as representatives of the Parliament Jack McConnell MSP and Irene Oldfather MSP as full members and George Lyon MSP and Richard Lochhead MSP as alternate members on the UK delegation to the Committee of the Regions for the forthcoming session from 2006 to 2010 and notes that the representation from local government will be Councillor Corrie McChord and Councillor Andrew Campbell as full members and Councillor Graham Garvie and Councillor Jim McCabe as alternate members.
I call Alasdair Morgan. You have four minutes.
Do I have only four minutes?
Four minutes.
I have only four minutes, whereas the minister was given seven.
As Mr Lyon said, the SNP amendment is similar to that of four years ago. Basically, there are three reasons why the Scottish representatives on the Committee of the Regions should be from local authorities.
The first reason, which I will not go into at length, was the subject of the previous debate in October 2001. The participants in that debate included such people as Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Russell, Ian Jenkins and Ben Wallace, all of whom—apart from the last mentioned—have gone on to better things. Basically, our first reason for opposing the motion concerns whether the Committee of the Regions should have representatives from national Government or from local government. Clearly, the view that the SNP takes is that it should be the latter.
The second reason is that we need some proportionality between voting and representation, and if all eight members were taken from the same source, that would make proportionality much easier to achieve. The white paper that led the way to the setting up of this Parliament stated:
"it is … important to provide for … proportionality".
When Andy Kerr summed up the debate on the Local Governance (Scotland) Bill, he said:
"The bill will put voters first".—[Official Report, 23 June 2004; c 9454.]
He said that because the bill introduced proportionality. We need to ask whether the motion before us will provide that.
Given that there are four full members and four alternates, it will always be difficult to get a solution that coincides entirely with proportionality. The issue is made especially difficult by the fact that the alternate members are very much third best, with much lower status than the full members. How has the Labour Party recognised the need for proportionality? When we last nominated COR representatives in 2001, Labour took two full and two alternate members on the basis of 36 per cent of the local votes and 43 per cent of the Scottish Parliament seats. Four years later, although Labour's representation has gone down from 36 per cent to 33 per cent locally and its share of Scottish Parliament seats has gone down from 43 per cent to 36 per cent, that has not been recognised by giving Labour a lower proportion of COR members. Instead, Labour has decided to keep the same total number of positions, but has upgraded one of them from an alternate to a full member. Thus, Labour will have gone from two full members to three full members. On that logic, if Labour loses more votes at the next election, it will be entitled to have all the full Scottish members on the delegation.
How does that compare with the treatment of the SNP and the Conservatives? The Conservatives have 15 per cent of the local authority votes and 14 per cent of Scottish Parliament seats. Under this type of proportionality, that gets them no COR members. The SNP got 24 per cent of the council vote—
Will the member give way?
I am sorry, Mr Lyon, but I have only a minute and a quarter remaining.
Given that the SNP got 24 per cent of the council vote, one might have thought that we would get a quarter of the local authority COR seats or even a miserable alternate member. However, COSLA decided that 24 per cent was too much for the SNP. So much for proportionality.
The third reason why I oppose the motion is that, as Mr Lyon has just admitted, it is hugely impractical for MSPs to attend the Committee of the Regions. The plenary sessions of the Committee of the Regions are on a Wednesday and a Thursday, with the result that nearly all our members, from our benches or the Executive's, or their alternates, cannot go.
Even if the First Minister had managed to attend more than one of the 24 plenary sessions that he was entitled to go to, the nonsense then would be that the main function of the Committee of the Regions is to be consulted by the Council of Ministers. I am sorry, but I thought that, where appropriate, Scottish ministers represented this Parliament at the Council of Ministers. We are being asked to send the First Minister to Brussels so that he can be consulted by himself.
The truth is that this is just a tawdry stitch-up. It is old-fashioned Labour politics in all its unproportional, unrepresentative glory. The truth is that Councillor Keith Brown, who is the current SNP full representative on the council, was too much in the face of the Labour Party. He upset Labour members by being a member of the Committee of the Regions bureau, by being president of one of the political groups in the Committee of the Regions and by being successful at representing Scotland. Today's proposition is his reward—or, more likely, his come-uppance—from the Labour Party.
I move amendment S2M-3344.1, to leave out from "endorses" to end and insert:
"supports the Committee of the Regions as an institution of European co-operation based on the role of regional government and, in promoting the regions of Scotland in that role, proposes that the full and alternate members representing Scotland are elected members of Scotland's local authorities, including Councillor Keith Brown, Councillor Corrie McChord and Councillor Andrew Campbell as full members and Councillor Graham Garvie and Councillor Jim McCabe as alternate members and instructs the Executive to return to the Parliament with three additional names of councillors as nominees."
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Mr Morgan indicated that he was unable to take interventions on the basis that he had one minute left to go, and he has spoken for one and a half minutes beyond that.
Oh!
Order. I cannot hear the point of order.
Under the circumstances, I want that to be noted in the Official Report.
Let us indeed note in the Official Report that both the minister and Mr Morgan overran on their speeches, and that one of the consequences of that, and of the point of order, is that someone else will have to forgo that time at the end of the debate. I wish that I could say that it would be Ms Oldfather, but it will probably not be.
I call Mr Gallie.
On this occasion, we will support the Executive's proposals. We do so on the basis that although we stood against the Parliament in the original days, we have accepted it and are intent that the Parliament should play a full part in Scotland's affairs and in wider affairs. It would be wrong if we were not represented at parliamentary or Executive level on the Committee of the Regions.
I am concerned to hear of Jack McConnell's poor attendance and I wonder whether the Executive has selected the right individual to represent it. I acknowledge that Irene Oldfather has been an assiduous attender at the COR's meetings in the past and, on that basis, I feel that Parliament should support George Lyon's motion.
However, I hope that full use is made of the alternates. I am an alternate for the Parliament on the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe, and one of the difficulties that I have had in the past is a lack of clarity on when I would need to cover, with notification coming at very short notice. If we are going to name the alternates, they should be given the courtesy of early notification when ministers, members or councillors decide that they will not be present.
Is Mr Gallie aware whether there is any guarantee that the alternate who is summoned would be somebody from the Scottish Parliament delegation, or could it be anyone from the UK delegation? On how many occasions has that happened?
As far as I am aware, if the Scottish representative advises an alternate that they will be needed, that alternate will be nominated to fill the position, but I accept that alternates can perhaps be used to cover other vacancies. I myself was used to cover a Welsh member on one occasion.
Considering the issue further, I believe that there are currently so many important issues in Europe that division on this particular issue is a bit irrational. Quite honestly, although it is important to have a voice on the Committee of the Regions, to my mind its importance is fairly minimal. On that basis, I do not see that playing party politics with the issue, one way or another, is worthy of the Parliament.
I am sure that Irene Oldfather will want me to keep her strictly to four minutes.
I was going to start my speech by making many consensual, constructive and philosophical comments, but I will have to scrap them and go straight to the background of the Committee of the Regions.
At the intergovernmental conference of 1991, when preparations were being made for the institutional reform that was to lead to Maastricht, there was an opinion in key member states with strong regional tendencies, such as Germany, Belgium, Spain and Italy, that the voice and views of regional and local authorities should have greater input to European policy to improve policy making and redress what had been seen up until that point as a democratic deficit within Europe. The Committee of the Regions was set up in 1994 and it is refining and developing its work as it goes.
The mission of the Committee of the Regions is to defend the common interests and viewpoints of local and regional authorities before the other European Union institutions. As Mr Lyon said, it issues opinions on matters of importance to Scotland such as economic and social cohesion, trans-European networks, public health, education, culture, employment, social policy and structural funds. It is also a vehicle for entering into dialogue with both the European Commission and the European Parliament.
The Committee of the Regions promotes the work of local and regional government throughout Europe. At the next plenary session in October, which will be attended by John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, it will—in partnership with the European Commission—promote an open day on the theme of working together for regional growth and job creation. I would have thought that the Scottish National Party would want representatives of this Parliament to be in attendance at that event.
I do not have time to list all the important joint initiatives that have been undertaken by the Committee of the Regions in conjunction with the European Parliament and the European Commission, but a document is available to anyone who wants to read it that outlines the 10-year plan for regional impact assessment and what has been achieved in 10 years of the COR. The Parliament should rest assured that Scottish members have played a full part in discussions and reports on a wide range of matters of importance to Scotland. Those include economic and social cohesion; decentralisation of the Lisbon agenda; environmental standards; restructuring and its role in the European and global economy; and better regulation.
Will the member give way?
I want to make an important point, but if I have time I will give way in a minute.
I wanted to raise a point with Mr Morgan, but he was not able to take time to hear it. Mr Morgan has been clear about the importance of there being SNP representation on the delegation to the Committee of the Regions—he made particular mention of Mr Keith Brown. I asked COSLA today about its process for electing its representatives on the delegation, and I have a letter from it, from which I will quote Barbara Lindsay, COSLA's strategic director. It states:
"On the day, Labour and the Independents came to the meeting with nominations as did the Liberal Democrats. Unfortunately, the SNP Group came with no nomination as a ballot still had to be conducted within the party."
The issue was so important to the SNP that it turned up on the day without an SNP nominee.
There was no point. It is the usual suspects.
Do not intervene from a sedentary position, Mr Swinney.
I conclude by saying that there is no precedent in Europe for the SNP proposal.
Ms Oldfather must finish now.
No member state that has regional government or parliamentary representation is withholding all places from the regional or Government representatives in favour of representatives of local authorities.
I support the motion.
It is important that those whose remits include European matters represent Scotland on the Committee of the Regions. I believe that that is administratively more efficient and will enable nominees to build up more effective networks of contacts. Irene Oldfather has networked extensively throughout Europe and has spent significant amounts of time ensuring that Scotland's interests are represented on the Committee of the Regions.
I turn to Mr Morgan's argument—[Interruption.]
Order.
Mr Morgan's argument about proportionality would have had more substance if he had argued that Parliament members should take up all our places on the Committee of the Regions and that Tories, the Greens and others should be considered for a place under the proportional system. He would also have been on much safer ground if the SNP had turned up at COSLA and nominated a councillor to represent the SNP's interests. Why did that not occur? Perhaps Mr Morgan can tell us.
Because it was a stitch-up and we were told in advance not to bother coming with any nominations. How will Mr Lyon address the problem caused by the fact that the Committee of the Regions meets on Wednesdays and Thursdays? I thought that we were paid first of all to be in this place.
Mr Morgan has a lame excuse for what happened with COSLA. The SNP had the opportunity to put forward a nomination, but it did not bother. Now the SNP turns up here with an amendment that is trying to override the proper process that COSLA went through to nominate representatives from local councils. I think that the SNP is a bit late. It would be on much safer ground if COSLA had supported the position that the SNP takes here today. As Irene Oldfather rightly pointed out, the SNP's arguments would have had much more credibility in that case.
I turn now to Mr Gallie.
I thank the minister for giving way. There seems to be a lack of information about what members achieve on the Committee of the Regions. Can we have a commitment that members will come back with written reports that are put on the Parliament website?
I take that point on board and I am willing to consider it. Indeed, if I represent us on the committee, I will consider writing to Mr Gallie to let him know all the important things that have been done in his name while I am there.
I thank Mr Gallie for his support. As members will know, he is highly sceptical of Europe, but he recognises that important decisions are taken there that influence what happens in Scotland and that the Scottish Parliament should be represented in Brussels to ensure that our voice is heard.
The SNP's proposal would deny the Parliament the right to be heard in the Committee of the Regions. Indeed, when Nicola Sturgeon was nominated as the SNP's representative, she did not bother to turn up once. Therefore, I do not understand how the SNP can criticise the Executive for attending only one third of the meetings that we would have hoped to attend. If members want to improve attendance at the Committee of the Regions, they might wish to agree pairing arrangements on a Wednesday and Thursday to allow us to be properly represented in Brussels.
I hope that the Parliament will recognise that we need appropriate representation in Brussels, where we can influence decisions that are important for Scotland. I believe that we have got the balance right with our proposal and I hope that members will support us and ensure that we are represented in Europe and have influence there. I hope that members do not accept the SNP's position, which would deny us the opportunity to influence the events in Europe that are so important to Scotland.