European and External Relations Committee, 13 Mar 2007

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Official Report 203KB pdf

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Transposition and Implementation of European Directives Inquiry

The inquiry is on the agenda to allow us to consider related correspondence. Members will recall that John Home Robertson raised a concern following the Scottish Environment Protection Agency's evidence to the committee on 16 January and that the committee wrote to SEPA seeking clarification. We have now received a response. I ask members whether we should follow up the matter and, if so, how. I know that John Home Robertson has a view, so I ask him to speak first.

I am grateful, convener. I apologise for being a sort of semi-detached committee member today. I am also a member of the Communities Committee, which is meeting upstairs, so I am trying to be in two meetings at once.

I am perplexed by the reply from the chairman of SEPA. I should probably defer to Jim Wallace, as he raised the subject when the SEPA representative gave evidence but, from the Official Report, it seems to me that Jim Wallace raised a specific question about road planings. The witness sought to justify the fact that the use of road planings is regulated in Scotland but not, as far as I know, anywhere else in the European Union by saying that the regulation results from a petition to the Parliament and recommendations of the Public Petitions Committee. Understandably, Jim Wallace left the matter at that.

Later, I made inquiries and established that the petition was to do with spreading sewage on land, which is a rather different issue. I raised the issue in the committee and then wrote directly to Sir Ken Collins, the chairman of SEPA, to suggest that the evidence that the SEPA witness had given might have been misleading and that he might want to reflect on that. As I said at the outset, I am perplexed by the reply. I expected Sir Ken Collins to apologise for the misunderstanding and clarify the matter. However, he seems to rebut us rather strongly and suggest that what happened did not happen. It might be more appropriate to hear what Jim Wallace thinks, given that he asked the specific question. However, it seems that we were given rather misleading evidence.

That is the procedural point. There is also the bigger point about how we have got into a tartan-plated situation in which Scotland, uniquely in Europe, has a licensing system for the reuse of planings from public roads to repair people's farmyards and tracks, which seems odd.

I am grateful that John Home Robertson did the initial spadework in following up the matter with SEPA. The clerks have helpfully provided an extract from the Official Report of the meeting of 16 January, which confirms my recollection that I asked specifically about road planings. I am in no doubt that I did not pursue the line of questioning because the reply was that the Parliament had asked for the measures. It may have been Mr Gordon, whom I was sitting next to that day, who said to me that that was a bit of a show-stopper of an answer. There was no suggestion that the petition was on sewage sludge. Therefore, we did not try to identify why, if the use of sewage sludge triggered the measure, it is wide enough to embrace road planings.

John Home Robertson is right that there are two issues. One is that it seems that we were not given a frank and accurate answer. I am disappointed that Ken Collins did not simply admit that. The second is the issue that relates to road planings, which the committee did not explore because of the answers that were given to us.

SEPA's reply does not clarify the matter much at all, as it seems to confuse two issues. It would be more honest if SEPA had just admitted that the person who gave evidence made a mistake. By the way, there is also a mistake in SEPA's letter, unless there has been a misprint. The third last sentence does not make sense. It states:

"The Report was also references as one of the drivers",

but I think that it should state, "The report was also referenced as one of the drivers". Anyway, the reply is unsatisfactory. We have put it on the record that we feel that SEPA should be more honest and admit it if the witness made a mistake.

There are two issues. The first is the obvious disappointment that the committee feels at SEPA's response. It seems to me that SEPA either misunderstood or deliberately misunderstood the questions that we asked following the meeting. The response is certainly not adequate, given the issues that John Home Robertson and Jim Wallace have raised. I suggest that we send to SEPA a copy of the Official Report of today's discussion asking for its comments, with a covering letter saying that SEPA has not really addressed the issue on which we wrote earlier.

The second issue is the substantive one, which Jim Wallace was not allowed to follow up, on the licensing of the use of road planings. We have run out of time to investigate the matter, so I suggest that we ask either the Environment and Rural Development Committee or the committee that has responsibility for the environment in the next session of Parliament to deal with the matter.

Clearly, we have run out of time and the committee can do nothing further. On the substantive point, a strong case can be made for asking the future environment committee to consider the issue, with a view to making changes so that a uniquely Scottish burden is lifted from industry.

On the procedural point, I honestly feel that the reply from Sir Ken Collins makes the situation worse. I am prepared to accept that there was an honest misunderstanding and that a mistake was made when the evidence was given in committee, but I cannot understand our getting a letter suggesting that that was not so and that everything was entirely appropriate. I hope that a pretty strongly worded letter will go back to SEPA—perhaps copied to the agency's sponsoring minister—to emphasise the point. Perhaps our successors could look at it, too.

We are in danger of making a mountain out of a molehill, but there is a significant procedural point and, among it, there is also a substantive point about an unnecessary restriction on industry.

I suggest that, in writing the letter in the terms that John Home Robertson stated, we ask for a response before dissolution so that we can make it public. I hate the idea of this procedural issue being taken into another parliamentary session. It would be far better to knock it on the head before the end of March.

I agree, and John Home Robertson's point about copying the letter to the sponsoring minister is good. Indeed, were it not for the fact that we are reaching the end of the session, I would be minded to suggest that we ask Ken Collins to appear before the committee to answer our questions. However, that option is not really open to us.

Does the committee agree to write the letter?

Members indicated agreement.

Do you have to leave us, John?

I am afraid so.

Thank you for coming for that item; it was important.