Chamber and committees

Good morning, and welcome to the first meeting in session 7 of the Economy, Tourism and Energy Committee.

We have one apology, which is from Kristopher Leask, who has had trouble with his transport. He is flying down from Orkney. There is a chance that he might join online, but that looks unlikely.

That also covers off members who might be attending remotely.

I am very excited about the committee. We have a tremendous remit, and we will be discussing a very broad spectrum of things. The economy touches on everything. There is momentum in the Parliament to start talking about growth and how we get it, so that will be an exciting issue to look at. We will talk about that a bit later, in relation to our remit.

Tourism is a key part of that economy and is important for every community in Scotland. Energy is also a key input. I am very excited to be looking at that in the committee and working with all the members. I look forward to working with everyone constructively and collegiately.

Agenda item 1 is the declaration of our registrable interests. I refer members to paper 1. I will start and then go around the table to ask each member in turn to put on record any registrable interests that are relevant to the work of the committee.

I have just finished employment as a senior economist in the oil and gas industry. That employment ended during May, but is still a registrable interest of mine. I am a councillor on Aberdeen City Council. I have a shareholding in a dormant limited company that was used for consulting.

I voluntarily declare that I am a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland—ICAS. We may well see some evidence from it in the course of our work, so I wanted to mention that.

I think that we will do that under item 4 or 5.

Under the next item of business we will choose a deputy convener. I refer members to paper 2. The Parliament has agreed that the deputy convener will be a member of the Scottish Labour Party. Daniel Johnson MSP is the proposed deputy convener and I am happy to nominate him for the role.

Daniel Johnson was chosen as deputy convener.

I congratulate Daniel Johnson on his new role and look forward to working with him.

That is a good point. The only thing that we can do is query the minister in the chamber this afternoon to try to gain an understanding of why the Government has changed its initial opinion. You make an excellent point about the fact that a last-minute change of opinion changes the debate somewhat.

The next item of business is on the timing of the legislative consent memorandum for the United Kingdom Government’s Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill. I refer members to paper 3.

I will provide background on the timing, clarify the committee’s position and explain to members why we could not consider the memorandum in committee and why the motion is going directly to the chamber. Last Wednesday, the issue of the referral of the memorandum was raised in the chamber. When it was first raised with me by the committee clerks, I took advice on the normal process for considering an LCM, which highlighted that it would not be possible for the committee to consider the LCM before recess.

Normally, an LCM is lodged by the Scottish Government and then referred to the committee. The committee considers the LCM during a formal meeting and decides whether to take advice and from whom. Once the committee has completed its work, a report is produced and debated in the chamber, with a conclusion from the committee on whether to recommend consent to the relevant provisions in the bill.

Last week, the Minister for Parliamentary Business made it clear that there would be no opportunity for the Scottish Parliament to consider granting legislative consent to the bill after the summer recess and that it had to be done before the recess, which meant that the first opportunity to discuss the LCM would be at today’s meeting.

Ordinarily, for a bill such as this to receive appropriate scrutiny, we would have had representatives from companies, such as that operating the Dalzell plate mill in Motherwell, and, potentially, representatives from Community, which is the union that represents steelworkers in Scotland. We would have had to give them notice to appear, which is normally 24 hours. We would have wanted to hear directly from the Scottish Government, probably at the same meeting or, more usually, the next day. We would then have needed to produce a detailed report summarising all the evidence and our views, which we would have needed to agree at a subsequent meeting. That would then need to be published and debated in the chamber by all MSPs, where the decision would be taken.

Even with the best will in the world, it would have taken two or three further meetings to achieve all that. I was content for the LCM to be referred to the chamber, as I was advised that the timeline was simply not considered possible. Ultimately, I was resigned to that fact. It was simply the case that the timing of the bill at Westminster and our summer recess meant that there was not enough time to undertake the level of scrutiny that the committee would normally take. Therefore, the decision was taken to refer the motion directly to the chamber.

I agree with everyone that the committee’s role is to effectively scrutinise these types of bills. I want to assure all members that, when future legislative consent memorandums come to my attention in the committee, we will discuss them as formal items of business and carry out scrutiny in the committee to the best of our ability.

That is the outline of the decision. I am happy to take questions on the matter.

That is for the ministers to answer.

Good morning, Kristopher. Thank you for making it to the meeting. I will bring you in at the end.

How do we deal with Kristopher Leask’s declaration of interests?

Does anyone have a comment on whether we are able to identify United Kingdom legislation that comes through Westminster?