Meeting of the Parliament 24 October 2023
I speak as convener of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee to highlight part 6 of the bill, on which the committee focused its scrutiny. This important part of the bill relates to the environmental outcome reports, which are a new approach to the environmental assessment. The bill sets out a framework for environmental outcome reports, but much of the detail is left to subordinate legislation, which means that in the bill as introduced, broad powers are given to the UK Government to make regulations in devolved areas without the consent of the Scottish ministers. That prevented the Scottish Government from recommending consent to those provisions.
The committee’s report encouraged both Governments to agree an acceptable outcome to the matter, and the bill has now been amended so that the consent of the Scottish ministers is required before those powers are used in devolved areas. That ensures that the Scottish ministers can decide whether to agree to adopting the proposed environmental outcome report approach or to maintain the current approach.
It is welcome that the Governments could reach that agreement. However, the committee has also highlighted the lack of clarity about the role of the Scottish Parliament in scrutinising proposed regulations in the area. Now that agreement between the Governments has been reached, I would welcome any thoughts from the Deputy First Minister on how parliamentary scrutiny can be assured. I am sure that we can all agree that that is hugely important in the Parliament.