Hansard

I am delighted to speak on behalf of the European and External Relations Committee on a report that details how we and other parliamentary committees have engaged on European issues over the past year and what the priorities for EU scrutiny are for the year ahead.

I thank the committee’s clerking team and our person from the Scottish Parliament information centre, who have been absolutely key to ensuring that we have been on top of all the issues, well briefed and with a good understanding of the impact of any new measures, legislation or directives coming from Europe. I also pay tribute to the committee members. On most occasions, we work extremely well together and all my colleagues on the committee seem to have a very Europhile attitude. We are committed to the benefits of Europe and how they impact on Scotland.

In reflecting on the past year, it would be remiss of me not to mention our colleague Helen Eadie, who passed away suddenly last year. Helen was a gregarious and committed member of the committee and her contributions were sometimes thoughtful, sometimes interesting and often very sparky. We could not reflect on the past year without remembering Helen’s role in the committee.

The coming year looks as though it will be an extremely interesting one, with European issues at the forefront of on-going debates—and probably most debates this week. We will have the European Parliament elections in May and the appointment of a new college of commissioners over the summer. As a domestic backdrop to that, there is the small matter of an independent Scotland’s membership of the European Union, which we might chat about quite a lot over the next few months as it has become a key issue in the run-up to Scotland’s independence referendum in September. All in all, EU issues will be at the top of the political agenda in 2014 and I look forward to working with my colleagues on the committee as we look at them.

When I was first elected in 2011, one of my friends who is not political asked me what I would be doing. I said that I was going to chair the European committee and she asked, “Is that no dead boring?” I did not think so, and I started to explain why. Over the past two years or so, we have realised that European issues are far from boring and have an impact on our everyday life. My friend is now a bit more educated about how Europe impacts on her life as well.

Although we might not all be on the same side in the independence debate, it is clear to me that we all share the belief that it is important that the Parliament engages on European matters, as they have a direct bearing on Scotland and its domestic policies and laws. The Parliament has always believed in the importance of engaging on European matters, as is evidenced by the fact that we have a mandatory European and External Relations Committee and the fact that this annual process ensures that scrutiny of EU policies of direct relevance to Scotland is undertaken effectively. As I have said before in the chamber, all committees are European committees, and with the rapporteur system that seems to be bedding in.

Before I speak about the report in detail, I thank the committees for their individual reports on EU engagement. The responses of eight committees are annexed to our report and I am grateful for their continued engagement over the years. The reports that we received this year were particularly informative—there was a lot of very detailed work on matters affecting Scotland.

This year has seen a strengthening of our engagement on the scrutiny of EU issues and I will explain why that has been the case. We developed the scope of the process by asking committees to draw on the Europe 2020 agenda and the Scottish Government’s action plan on European engagement, as well as on the European Commission’s work programme, when considering EU issues that would merit further scrutiny. The Commission’s work programme is an extremely useful document but, given the upcoming European elections in May and the limited time that will be available before those elections for the Parliament to consider legislative proposals, the document is less detailed this year than it usually is.

So this year, committees were asked also to consider the Europe 2020 strategy, which is the EU’s strategy for boosting sustainable economic growth and creating new jobs. It is underpinned by five key targets covering employment, innovation, education, social inclusion and climate and energy policies. The committees were also referred to the Scottish Government’s most recent national reform programme, which sets out the actions that have been agreed to support the delivery of the Europe 2020 policies.

Lastly, the committees were invited to consider the Scottish Government’s action plan on European engagement, which gives details of the Scottish Government’s four priority areas in relation to EU policies. Those are energy and climate change; the marine environment, including fisheries; research and creativity; and freedom, security and justice.

I believe that the committees of the Parliament, in considering the Europe 2020 strategy and the Scottish Government’s action plan on European engagement, have recognised the trend towards intergovernmental policy co-ordination in the EU and have taken a more meaningful and effective approach to EU scrutiny than one that is focused purely on EU legislative proposals.

I turn to my committee’s continuing role in mainstreaming EU issues in all committees. We have a “Brussels Bulletin” at just about every meeting and there is always something in it that we refer on to another subject committee in the Parliament—we make a point of doing that.

This year, we invited other committees to evidence sessions on issues such as anti-trafficking and European funding, which we knew would be of interest to all. We also heard from the Lithuanian ambassador on Lithuania’s priorities for the presidency of the European Council and from the Croatian ambassador on Croatia’s path to becoming an EU member state.

We conducted work on the new programming period for the European structural and investment funds and on how the programmes will be rolled out across Scotland. Along with my colleague Maureen Watt, the convener of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, I travelled to Brussels with a number of EU rapporteurs to attend meetings on the revised EU public procurement directives. We tried to reflect what we learned in the work that is being done here on the Scottish Government’s plans on public procurement. The directives have an impact on the Scottish Government’s Procurement Reform (Scotland) Bill. I hope that what we learned in Brussels will help to inform some of the process in the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee. Any legislation from Europe has to be transposed into Scots law. I hope that we have informed the process a bit better, not just for us but for other committees.

My committee has continued to highlight European legislative proposals about which subsidiarity concerns have been raised and has fed back its views on potential improvements in the way in which such proposals are dealt with to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, which is considering the standing orders under which committees deal with such issues when they arise. There has been some dubiety about how the Scottish Parliament is notified, and we raised that issue formally with the House of Lords European Union Committee as part of its inquiry into the matter.

We have taken an active interest in a number of EU issues, some of which have also been on subject committees’ radars, such as EU funding, justice matters and climate change. Given that a decision on the justice and home affairs opt-out is coming soon, there has been a particular focus on that.

As members are all too aware, 2013 was the year that the multi-annual financial framework for EU-funded programmes for the next seven years to 2020 was being prepared. Our committee, along with the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, the Local Government and Regeneration Committee and the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, has kept a keen eye on those preparations and has asked questions on small and medium-sized enterprises and access to EU competitive funding streams.

We raised concerns about the implications of cuts to the connecting Europe facility, which covers broadband. That is a huge issue for people living in rural areas, so we have asked the Scottish Government to keep us up to date on discussions. Other committee members will certainly raise that issue, too.

I highlight the on-going work of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee on the reform of the common agricultural policy and common fisheries policy. Agriculture and fisheries are always hot topics in Scotland and a number of committee members take a keen interest in them. It is reassuring that the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee continues to scrutinise the key policies that directly affect the support that is available to Scotland’s farmers, crofters and fishermen. I pay tribute to Jamie McGrigor, as he never misses a chance to bring up such issues in our committee and ensure that any information that we receive is fed back to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee.

As I said, justice matters have featured heavily this year, not least because of the United Kingdom’s imminent 2014 opt-out decision. My committee and the Justice Committee continue to consider that matter and its implications for Scotland. I am sure that my colleague Rod Campbell, who has kept a keen eye on it, will have something to say about it later.

This year, we have built on our previous work on anti-trafficking measures, which are of particular interest to me. The importance of eradicating the human tragedy associated with trafficking is uppermost in my mind and the minds of many other members of the Parliament. Next year, we will monitor the work of the UK interdepartmental ministerial group on human trafficking and follow the development and progress of the UK’s modern slavery bill—it seems to be pretty slow, but we will follow it anyway.

Climate change has also been an area of interest and the subject of rigorous scrutiny by all four committees. That is not a surprise to me, given the ambitious climate change targets to which Scotland has signed up. I am thankful that, across the chamber, we share the view that we should take very seriously indeed tackling the impact of climate change for future generations. We need look no further than how some of our friends and family in Somerset are suffering from floods and storms, which I believe are the impact of climate change.

However, it will take effort from everyone in the Scottish Parliament if the Scottish and European 2020 climate change targets are to be achieved. Therefore, the work done by the committees on the Scottish Government’s second report on proposals and policies setting out how those targets will be achieved has been invaluable.

When we went to Brussels to talk about procurement, we found that the recognition of where Scotland is at with its climate change targets and the process that it has taken to get there is extremely high. Many people wanted to speak to us about that. If we look in too much, we forget to look out and see that other people are interested in what we are doing here. We should evangelise about that a wee bit.

I am reassured that such an important area will continue to be scrutinised by our parliamentary committees.