Food and Feed Imports (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
Sprouts and Seeds (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
Animal Feed (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
Food Additives, Flavourings, Enzymes and Extraction Solvents (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
Agenda item 2 provides an opportunity for the committee to consider five further proposals by the Scottish Government to consent to the UK Government legislating using the powers under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 in relation to a number of proposed UK statutory instruments.
A private paper has been circulated to colleagues that highlights a range of issues and some points of clarification that we might wish to seek from the Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing, who has already been to see the committee in relation to other regulations.
I hope that members have had the opportunity to look at the questions. They will see that the essence of them is to obtain clarification on a number of areas. Do colleagues have any comments to make on the suggested further questions that we might want to put to the Scottish Government?
I have read through the papers—thank you for providing them. There are lots of issues that I would like to raise, but I will just ask about the recurring theme of costs. Who is going to bear the costs? Will it be the public purse, the Scottish Government or local authorities? It appears that local authorities will have to meet some costs. I am interested in finding out a wee bit more about that. Four or five of the issues come back to the fact that it is going to cost, but we do not know how much.
That is fair enough. The advice that we have had from the Scottish Parliament information centre and the legal department says that we should go back to the Government on costs.
Your point about local authorities is also fair and it might be worth adding that to the questions. We could ask the Government to confirm whether there will be additional costs for local authorities.
I think that there will be.
Indeed.
Convener, the letter that you received from the minister says that the Scottish Government has not yet had
“sight of the final SIs and they are not available in the public domain at this stage.”
I have made this point before and I want to put it on the public record. Although we are likely to ask for more information, the committee is being asked to approve the instruments as part of a legislative process. The jeopardy in that should be obvious to us all. Trying to agree something without having seen it when it could go off in different directions and there are competing views on whether it is category A or category B is difficult.
However, I have no objection to the questions that are suggested in the briefing being asked of the Scottish Government. I was probably less concerned about costs, or at least about those that might fall on the Scottish Government; that is part of the nature of government. However, I have no problem with the questions being asked.
Thank you. The general point about seeking confirmation from the minister that we will get certainty about the final content of the statutory instruments is something that we can accommodate within the terms of our questions.
I just want to put it on the record that I previously intimated to the committee that I and my party will be dissenting on all such regulations that come before us, for two principal reasons. The first is to do with the level of power that they will confer on ministers without the scrutiny of Parliament, and the second relates to my party’s general resistance to all aspects of the EU withdrawal process.
That is noted. If members agree to seek further information on the instruments, we are not at the point of coming to a final conclusion on them. However, Alex Cole-Hamilton’s point is noted with reference to these instruments and to others.
I thank colleagues. There seems to be general agreement that we should seek the further information that has been described.
11:07 Meeting continued in private until 11:38.