Chamber and committees

Employment is a matter reservedto the UK Government. The Home Office has indicated that the Worker RegistrationScheme will be operational from 1 May 2004 and workers from the EU accession countries are beingadvised to register as soon as they start work unless they hold a valid work cardunder the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS). From 1 May, agriculturalemployers will be able to recruit workers from the accession countries either directlyor through SAWS operators.

We are still considering, withinterested parties, how to use the new beef national envelope provided for in therecent Common Agricultural Policy reform agreement. The legislation relating tothis new envelope provides for payments to be granted for specific types of farmingwhich are important for the protection or enhancement of the environment, or forimproving the quality and marketing of agricultural products.

Under the current subsidy arrangementsthere is an existing beef national envelope which is used to support suckler cowproduction in Scotland. Payments are made by way of an additional headage paymenton animals eligible for the Suckler Cow Premium.

The Executive requires the Scottish Environment Protection Agency to recover its regulatory costs. Following a recent review of charge levels under the Groundwater Regulations 1998 and public consultation, I approved the charges for 2004-05 and 2005-06 shown in the table. The increases over previous years and equivalent charges in England and Wales for 2004-05 are also shown.

Grazing committees in crofting areas are able to make a single application on behalf of a number of farmers. This allows the annual charges to be divided amongst the members of the committee, thereby significantly reducing the charge payable by individual crofters.

	SEPA’s 2004-05 charges	Increase Over 2003-04 (cash)	Increase over 2003-04 (percentage)	Equivalent charges in England and Wales in 2004-05*	SEPA’s 2005-06 charges	Increase Over 2004-05 (cash)	Increase Over 2004-05 (percentage)
Application fee	£167	£3	RPI (2.9%)	£106	£167 plus RPI	RPI equivalent	RPI
Annual subsistence charge:
- daily volume disposed: up to & incl 5m3	£145	£13	10%	£129	£160 plus RPI	£15 plus RPI equivalent	10.3% plus RPI
- daily volume disposed: exceeding 5m3 up to & incl 20m3	£242	£22	10%	£215	£267 plus RPI	£25 plus RPI equivalent	10.3% plus RPI
- daily volume disposed: exceeding 20m3	£483	£44	10%	£430	£535 plus RPI	£52 plus RPI equivalent	10.8% plus RPI

Notes:

*Charges in England and Wales for 2005-06 are not available.

All numbers are rounded.

In anticipation of a declinein the number of workers from the EU accession countries who will be working underthe Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) the registered scheme Operatorshave taken steps to increase recruitment from countries outwith the enlarged EUsuch as the Ukraine, Bulgaria and Russia. Workers from the accession countries can,however, continue to work under SAWS as long as they hold a SAWS work card issuedbefore 1 May 2004. They may also register to work in the UK outwith theSAWS scheme.

Employment is a matter reservedto the UK Government. The Home Office is responsible for running the SAWS schemeand for the registration of other workers.

The requirements for the identificationand traceability of cattle are set out in EC legislation which came into force in1998.

Cattle keepers must registertheir animals and apply for passports within 27 days of birth. Initially some flexibilityin applying the rules was permitted to allow keepers to become familiar with thenew requirements. This approach could not be sustained indefinitely as it jeopardisedapproval of our system by the EU and had implications for the reputation of ourbeef industry, particularly in relation to export. All keepers were written to inearly October 2003 to advise them of the removal of the initial flexibility andthe importance of complying with existing deadlines.

The deadlines for tagging areincluded in the EC legislation. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have providedrecommendations on how to tag safely as we and HSE recognise that handling livestockcan be dangerous. If HSE identify any serious issues from their monitoring, we willconsider raising them at EU level.

We do not expect that the measuresannounced in the Budget on 17 March relating to housing benefit, the landlords’energy saving allowance and the possibility of a “green landlord scheme” will havea direct impact on the availability of affordable housing. It is not possible toassess indirect impacts through the effect of those measures on the economics ofletting for individual landlords.

A number of other measures requirefurther development and it is not possible to comment at this stage on their likelyimpact. The Executive will liaise with colleagues in HM Treasury and the Officeof the Deputy Prime Minister on the development of any such measures and to ensurethat, where appropriate, they take account of the Scottish context.

The Budget report refers to arecommendation in the report of the review of housing supply carried out for HMTreasury by Kate Barker, in which she proposes the introduction of a planning-gainsupplement to capture some of the development gains that landowners benefit from.While the UK Government agrees in principle with this proposal, it wishes to besure of a number of matters before deciding whether to proceed with such a measure.

The Budget statement announceda consultation on property investment funds If introduced, property investment fundswould be designed to improve the efficiency of property investment and improve supplyin the rented sector.

The Budget statement confirmedthe intention, announced in the 2003 pre-Budget report, to introduce a derelictland tax credit after further consultation to favour the development of brownfieldsites over greenfield sites.

Other fiscal announcements inthe budget relating to housing concern the government’s devolved responsibilitiesfor housing in England. In particular they relate to housing aspects of the2004 spending review for England and have no direct impact on the availability of affordablehousing in Scotland. The Executive’s 2004 spending review will take accountof the current review of affordable housing.

I attended the Agricultureand Fisheries Council in Brussels on 22 and 23 March together with Margaret Beckett,Ben Bradshaw and Ian Pearson.

The Council marked itsrespect for the victims of the Madrid bombs with a period of silence.

The main item of fisheriesbusiness was a discussion on the Commission’s proposals for a regulation toreduce the level of small cetacean bycatch. After a long debate, politicalagreement was reached on the regulation, marking an important step forward inCommunity protection of these important species. During the debate, many memberstates expressed concerns about the resource implications of the proposal, bothfor the fishing industry and government. The UK lifted its request forexemptions from mandatory use of acoustic deterrent devices (“pingers”) in the0-6 nautical mile zone while arguing against a wide exemption for under 12metre vessels. We also expressed concerns about an exemption for vessels under15 metres from observer requirements. In the final agreement reached, however,these vessel exemptions were carried. Nevertheless, the UK welcomespolitical agreement on the regulation. Importantly, the debate shaped the regulationso that it now offers increased flexibility for those member states thatalready have robust bycatch data to design appropriate monitoring schemesalongside provisions for mandatory monitoring schemes for those that do not.Pilot projects will now be introduced to study the impact of pinger usage andto assess bycatch on vessels under 15 metres. Such schemes have to be designedto deliver good quality scientific data which will be used to review the regulationafter two years’ experience. Agreement was also reached on phasing in the useof pingers in the Eastern English Channel (ICES sub-area VIId). Finally,the regulation also provides for the progressive phasing out of drift nets inthe Baltic, which will culminate in a total ban on 1 January 2008.

Aregulation was also adopted to provide long-term protection to an area of coldwater coral reefs off the north west of Scotland (known as the Darwin Mounds) from the impact ofdamaging fishing activities. We were pleased that agreement had been reached toset the emergency, temporary measures forprotecting the area, put in place at the UK’s request in August last year, on amore permanent footing.

The only agriculturebusiness was further discussion of the Commission’s proposals for reform of theolive oil, cotton, tobacco and hops regimes, together with some technicalamendment of existing regulations to accommodate the new member states joiningthe EU in May this year. The Presidency acknowledged that several delegationswere not in a position to conclude negotiations at this Council and announcedan additional Council on 19 to 20 April in Luxembourg to deal specifically withthis package. Discussion concentrated on cotton, olive oil and tobacco andlargely re-confirmed existing positions. I stressed the case for theCommission’s proposal of 100% decoupling in the tobacco sector and joined thosearguing for a higher level of decoupling than that proposed for cotton.

Under other business,Commissioner Byrne reported on a recent visit to the USA,Commissioner Fischler reported on progress in EU/Mercosur trade talks and Austriaraised a point on harmonisation of approval procedures for pesticides.

No. Directive 2001/18/ECrequires GM products to be considered on a case-by-case basis. There is noscope within the terms of the directive to designate a particular geographicalregion GM-free. Whilst there would be a theoretical possibility of seeking aderogation from Directive 2001/01/EC by invoking Article 95(5) of the EuropeanTreaty, such action would require new scientific evidence relating to theprotection of the environment or the working environment and the identificationof a problem specific to Scotland arising from the adoption of the directive. None ofour statutory advisers has identified such evidence.

There have been a number ofresearch studies which have looked at the potential for transfer of transgenicDNA into animal and human cells and these are cited in the GM Science Reviewpanel report.

This information is not heldcentrally.