Seòmar agus comataidhean

I do not want to be cheeky by just saying yes—but my answer is yes. However, I stress to Mr Golden that, if there are areas where the committee wants more transparency or more understanding of the decision-making process, I am, as I have said a number of times now, prepared to actively consider those suggestions. I also hope that those are the matters that are being discussed between our officials.

You asked for brevity, convener, so the short answer to Mr Golden’s question is yes. We have a system that works, and we are finding our ways through it as best we can with regard to being transparent, but I am open to specific ways in which that can be improved.

I draw Ms Boyack’s attention to the report as published, which partly answers that question as it gives an example of where we do not intend to align. I drew attention to that in my opening statement.

The list of EU legislation that does not apply to Scotland because of geographical proximity or because it relates to specific regulations for industries or agriculture that have no direct impact whatsoever for Scotland illustrates why having an exhaustive list of regulations that do not apply is not an effective and efficient way forward for the Government, given the transparency that we are keen to deliver. You have just heard my colleague outline that.

On the point that people want to understand which regulations pertain in Scotland, if we use the example of electronic vehicles, people know exactly what the regulations in that area are in Scotland, so I am not entirely sure how we could proceed in a way that would satisfy Ms Boyack’s concern. I underline that, if there are better ways in which the process could be explained to the committee and, through it, to the Parliament, I am very open to our officials making suggestions about that and to taking them on board and introducing them if they are practical and proportionate.

First, I would not want the impression to be created that there is not a general position of wishing to remain aligned with the policy and initiatives of the European Union. That is the case. I could draw your attention to a whole series of examples from regulations on single-use plastics to food and feed safety, and I could go on. You have picked up on a particular issue that relates to building regulations and, I think, electric vehicle charging measures.

I signal to colleagues who are on the line that they may add anything that they wish on the subject after I have said what I have to say.

I will briefly address the specific point on the reference to the use of electric vehicle infrastructure regulations in the previous annual report. The Scottish Government did not consider using the powers for the relevant regulation over the period of that report. Consideration was made of using the power in relation to its potential application during the reporting year that has now ended. The implications of measures that are proposed in the EU legislation still need to be carefully considered in terms of the outcomes that they will support.

I think that we all understand that the pivot towards electric vehicles is very much an on-going situation. In this case, it was important to consider the evidence that was held in reaching a decision on our approach to EV charging, and aligning with the regulation in question would not have supported the outcome that is sought in the transposition timescale. We may seek to align at a later date and we are committed to keeping the matter under review.

As I have said to the committee a number of times, we are committed to remaining aligned in the broadest of senses, but specific measures will come forward that, for a number of technical reasons, may not need to be introduced in their entirety or at this time. We are not following a blanket alignment policy with 100 per cent transposition of everything, not least because many measures do not impact on Scotland in any way whatsoever.

That is my answer to Mr Cameron’s question. Are there any colleagues on the call who would like to add any technical insight into the particular regulation that Mr Cameron asked about?

With the greatest respect, the procedure is clear, in as much as we report to Parliament as part of our legislative process. I am back in front of the committee and we are engaged in an on-going process of seeing whether there are specific ways in which we can provide increased transparency and satisfy committee members’ demands—which I appreciate, having sat in their position doing exactly the same job in the United Kingdom Parliament.

I will definitely reflect on how we can ensure that, if there are major proposals that may have relevance to Scotland and we have decided for whatever reason that legislation is not required to be aligned, that information can be shared. Maybe that is a part of the process that our committee officials and Scottish Government colleagues need to address directly.

I am not aware of anything crossing my desk where a decision not to align through the adoption of policy or legislation has not been reported. Were there to be such a case, I would want to make sure that people were properly informed of it. I will take that question away to reflect on and will make sure that what happens is, in fact, what I believe to be current custom and practice.

Most committee members will agree that, sometimes, such issues can seem a bit dry and distant and that they do not impact on us that much—notwithstanding, of course, the fact that we are beginning to look at regulations that impact on the likes of drinking water, which affects us all. However, there is a world of difference between the process of understanding specific and on-going new proposals emanating from the European Union and a process that could potentially see the cliff edge—which is political language for “the end”—of legislation that has been a part of European Union membership over the past 47 years. It is of a qualitative magnitude and a scale so much bigger than that of dealing with the month-to-month proposals that currently come out of EU institutions.

Perhaps through you, convener, and the committee, I should say to anybody and everybody who knows and understands the importance of European Union legislation and the high standards and safeguards that it has provided to us all, that we really need to wake up and smell the coffee about what is coming towards us with this proposal from the UK Government. We will have to think very clearly about how we marshal the needs, interests, concerns and expectations of citizens and stakeholders to ensure that, as we go through the process, we are able to protect everything that we would wish to protect. That is certainly the ambition of the Scottish Government, and I imagine that that will be the case for committee members, too.

These things currently operate through a central team in the Scottish Government’s directorate of external affairs, which works closely with Scotland house in Brussels and Scottish Government lawyers in supporting policy directorates to consider the Government’s policy of maintaining and advancing EU standards where appropriate. The team supports the work as part of DEXA’s on-going business of enabling policy areas to understand the international context of their work, and it also ensures that policy areas consider where alignment might be possible and how they can support ministerial decision making in considering alignment alongside the range of information and other priorities that the Government must consider in reaching policy decisions.

My view is that that has to be done across the piece with regard to proposals emanating from European Union institutions. If any particular aspects of European legislation, regulations or directives need to be considered—I think that everybody on the committee appreciates the difference between those three types of proposals—we have to ensure that we capture them across the piece.

I am very interested in Dr Whitten’s highlighting of that particular issue, and I want to make sure that we have an understanding across the full range of European Union proposals to ensure that there is no passive drift—I am not quoting exactly what Dr Whitten had to say here—or unconscious drift in alignment. Again, that would be another area in which if there was any particular thinking on the committee about the risks and how they could be ameliorated, I would be very happy to hear it.

I am in a slightly curious position in that I have received assurances from the United Kingdom Government that the Sewel convention will be respected in relation to retained EU law and the bill that is going through the UK Parliament. In normal circumstances, if the Scottish Parliament did not give legislative consent, the bill in question would not—you would imagine—proceed as currently drafted. If you took that commitment at face value, you might imagine that the United Kingdom Government would be prepared to amend the bill, or to accept amendments that had already been tabled in the House of Commons this week. I have not yet had an indication whether the United Kingdom Government is actually prepared to do that.

As committee members will appreciate, given that our position in Scotland is to try to remain aligned—which means trying to protect the legislative framework that we have inherited as a past member state of the European Union—we could save ourselves a lot of work. If the UK Government were serious about working collegially so that we could deliver on our respective mandates and priorities, framing UK legislation that actually reflected that position would be the best solution. I am still working towards trying to make that happen, but we will have to wait and see whether the still relatively new Prime Minister and other ministerial colleagues have a different view to their predecessors.

Therefore, we do not know the answer to your question yet, Dr Allan. In the meantime, my Welsh colleague—with whom I had discussions this week for this very purpose—and I are trying to renew our efforts to help the UK Government understand that we do not want to see it continue as it plans to. We very much hope that the new Prime Minister and his colleagues will listen to and respect that view and, notwithstanding that, will actually live up to the promise to respect the Sewel convention in specific respect of this legislation.

Having said all that, and in light of Sewel being breached, I think, seven or eight times now and the UK Government carrying on regardless of what the Scottish Government or the Welsh Government has said in past instances, I think that we have to work on the basis that the UK Government might just plough on regardless. If it does so, we face a significant challenge, not least because it will have an impact across Government. After all, a significant proportion, if not a majority, of areas—areas for which the Scottish Government has responsibility—have a European or European legislation dimension.

As I have said already, the UK Government is not in a position—or is not prepared—to point out the impacts on the devolved areas. Certainly, it has not included that information in the tracker that it has established. Therefore, we will have to go through a phase of working all that out and then a phase of working out how we can retain that legislation on our statute book. After we have done that, we will have to work out how parliamentary time will be used to do all this work. We are very much at the beginning of the process.

Convener, you will no doubt have me back soon to talk about that process. I have heard what you said about the committee taking evidence, and I am happy to come back, but I should say that it is a very fast-moving situation. There are significant resource implications for us and our Welsh colleagues in having the expertise and capacity to go through 47 years of European Union legislation, and there are also resource implications for parliamentary time and the Government’s existing legislative programme. The answer to Dr Allan’s question, then, is that we are facing a very big challenge.

First, I very much hope that stakeholders engage on an on-going basis with the process of alignment and of remaining aligned with the European Union. I very much welcome stakeholders’ reflections on decisions that have been made; as it is a live and on-going process, rather than an event, it is therefore an iterative approach, too. As I have said, I very much welcome stakeholders becoming part of that process.

Thus far, though, stakeholders have not flagged up anything about the process to me, have not said that there is too much or too little of something and have not made specific suggestions about different ways of doing things. However, were that to be the case, I have no doubt that it would influence the thinking of civil service colleagues, and that anything of significance—that was proportionate to and commensurate with my responsibilities—would be flagged to me, and I would look at it very closely. Through the committee, I have this opportunity to say to other stakeholders who follow these issues that if they want to reflect on things that form part of the report, or if they have more general issues related to realignment, I would very much welcome people’s input.

We were told—[Inaudible.]

That is very kind, convener. I hope that you can hear me now. I was beginning to come to the end of my statement by talking briefly about the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, because of the relevance that it has to Scotland remaining aligned with the European Union, and by touching briefly on a number of report-related issues. If you are still able to hear me, convener, I will conclude there.

The implications that the retained EU law bill might have for our approach to preserving and advancing what we have are profound, and it remains to be seen what impact it will have on Scotland’s ability to act in its own devolved interests. The bill means divergence, and, to quote Vice-President Šefcovic’s comments last week to the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly,

“divergence will carry even more cost and will further deepen the barriers to trade between the EU and the UK ... divergence means more friction and less trade—simple as that. And again, this in times of severe economic strains.”

In taking forward alignment in Scotland, I am determined to proceed in a way that others can understand. Much of this can feel arcane to our fellow citizens, which is why I welcome today’s evidence session and why our policy statement, as agreed by the Parliament in June last year, commits us to going beyond the requirements of the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021 to provide detail on the impact of our commitment to aligning in respect of all relevant legislation that is brought forward.

We want to ensure that the Parliament and the public understand how and where EU standards are being preserved and advanced in Scotland, and I commend the fact that parliamentary officials are working with my own officials to ensure that we apply the commitment effectively. Only by working together well in this way will we have the best chance of delivering our shared interests and allowing the Scottish Parliament to fulfil the role that it has been assigned in the devolution settlement.

I will just make a brief comment about the draft report that the committee is considering this morning. It covers how the section 1 regulation-making powers have been used in the most recent reporting period, which runs from 1 September to 31 August 2022. As I have explained, it is a subset of the overall application of alignment.

The most important development is that we are now taking forward planned use in respect of World Health Organization requirements on the quality of water that is intended for human consumption, as detailed in the recast EU drinking water directive. It is a really good example of how we are applying our alignment commitments, because we are able to align with the directive’s provisions using the most effective powers that are available to us in a way that protects and advances standards. It also demonstrates that we have to carefully consider how and when we implement certain aspects of EU directives, and the section of the report that details considered use over the reporting period—in this case, on decarbonisation—does likewise.

The detail of the water quality regulations is, of course, a matter for Michael Matheson’s portfolio and the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, but I am very grateful to be accompanied this morning by civil service colleagues from the environment and EU secretariats. We will do our best to answer your questions and help you consider any written representations that the committee might wish to make.