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Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee 08 December 2020

08 Dec 2020 · S5 · Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee

Item of business

Subordinate Legislation

Invasive Non-native Species (EU Exit) (Scotland) (Amendment etc) Regulations 2020 [Draft]

Gougeon, Mairi SNP Angus North and Mearns Watch on SPTV

I am happy to explain how the committee and the scientific forum will be formed, and I will give a bit of background. An invasive species programme board was established in 2005 to deliver the strategic consideration of the threat of invasive species across Great Britain. That board includes senior representatives from England, Scotland and Wales and relevant agencies that exercise responsibility in their own areas as representatives of wider interests. The programme board will remain as a separate non-statutory body that comprises members from Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Even though the new committee would be a separate body established by the 2020 regulations, its members, who would be appointed by each of the Administrations, would be the same as the members of the programme board. We already have similar mechanisms in place for the scientific forum. It would be the people on the boards that are already in existence who would form the committee and the scientific forum. We work closely with all the relevant agencies. Scotland would have representatives on each of those, and we do not envisage that changing. They would still have some input, and we work very closely with the other nations of the UK.