 Fy llwyddo, fel ydych yn gweithio i gael y 26 ymgyrch y Metgegrifiwr, Llanferdau Ynysgol I ac Ynysgol Cymru i ddweud y 2022. Yn ystod y bod yn y gilyddion, mae'n gweithio'r yrhaf yn ystod yw cyffredinol 6, 7 ac 8 yn gyfnod. Ymgyrch ymgyrch ymgyrch, mae'n cyfnod o debyn sydd o'r cyfrifio fyddain sydd ymgyrch yn y Llanferdau Cymru. Item seven is the consideration of the committee's work programme and item eight is the consideration of candidates for the post of adviser on climate change. Are we all agreed to take these items in private? We are agreed. Good. So the second item on the agenda is an evidence session relating to the legislative consent memorandum on the UK levelling up and regeneration bill and I refer members to the clerk and spice briefing papers on this item. The bill was introduced into the UK Parliament on 11 May 2022. On the 27 July, the Scottish Government lodged a legislative consent memorandum on the bill. It said that the bill touches on devolved legislative or executive competence in three areas, including environmental law through the proposed introduction of environmental outcome reports. Those will be the focus of our scrutiny and today we're going to hear from a panel of witnesses to hear their views. I'd like to welcome the three panellists, Lloyd Austin, the convener of the Scottish Environment Link Governance Group, Robbie Calvert, the policy practice and research officer at the Royal Tan Planning Institute and David Malhewys, the director of the Scottish Property Federation. I'd like to thank you all for accepting our invitations and we're delighted to have you here. We've got about 60 minutes for this evidence session and before I move to the first person who's going to ask questions, I'd just like to remind members that I am a qualified surveyor and have a planning interest behind me when I was in private practice. The first questions are going to be from Monica Lennon, Monica Lennon. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. I just want to begin by asking each of you to briefly state what your general views are on the levelling up and regeneration bill. I'll just start with Lloyd and work across the table. I think I'd say three things about the, not the bill as a whole, but part five, the environmental outcomes report section, which is what we're speaking to, but I'd say three things about that particular part of the bill. The first one, which is going to be limited, is a positive and that's the word outcome because I do think that in environmental law and environmental policy generally it's good to have outcomes. Having said that that's a positive, it's very unclear as to what the outcomes are going to be and how they're going to be determined. I think the second thing I'd say as an overview is that the provisions in general are very vague. There are lots of provisions to allow the Secretary of State to make regulations about this, that and the other without indicating how they're going to be done, what they're for, how they interact with existing regulations, whether they supersede or replace existing regulations etc etc. So there's an awful lot of what's commonly known as Henry VIII powers, in other words, vagueness and lack of clarity in regard to what's intended and how it's going to be done and who's going to be involved etc etc and in that regard environmental NGOs would put this in the list of issues of concern about the UK government's approach to environment, notwithstanding the fact that there is a kind of high-level rhetorical commitment to environment when you actually look at some of the detail, it's unclear what's going to happen and in the context of other measures like the retained EU law bill for instance. I'm going to interrupt you because I probably haven't had enough coffee this morning when I asked the question I meant to say your views in the context of how it interacts with the wall policy so just to give the rest of the panel the heads up so if I can maybe drill down into that briefly. That was going to be my third point. My third point relates to devolution and it has to be said that a lot of the bill is for England only. There is reference to some reserved matters which obviously apply UK wide and apply to Scotland and part five does extend to Scotland. I mean it needs to because of those reserved matters but it's actually a bit unclear when it comes to devolution in so far as it specifically allows environmental outcome reports for devolved areas. In fact clause one two one says that they may make regulations in relation to devolved environmental law subject to consultation with Scottish ministers. But the specific references to environmental assessment regulations etc don't list the devolved ones so there's a lack of clarity there as to what they mean whether it should apply to devolved or it shouldn't apply to devolved and finally our final point on this is that you know if environmental law is devolved then we think it should the secondary provisions that might be set up by there should be subject to the consent of Scottish ministers and the Scottish Parliament in the same way that primary legislation is that that's the I mean that this debate your consideration of this legislative consent memorandum today is an example of you scrutinising this particular piece of primary legislation so shouldn't the same provisions apply to regulations under this if they apply to devolved laws so we would argue that clause one two one should be amended to to require consent of Scottish Parliament. Thank you. I see Robbie from Artipair Scotland nodding part of the way through that so keen to hear what you think Robbie. I'm completely in agreeance with Lloyd regarding section one two one and we also support amendments to that which were tabled at some of the bill readings so that's one seven eight one seven nine and one eighty so that's sort of necessitating consent for the devolved nations and yeah I think even if there is changes solely to English law I think we still need to consider that there is cross boundary SACs and SPAs so for example the River Tweed the Solway Firth and the Berkshire and Northumberland coast so going forward we want to see how these kind of cross boundary issues are going to be taken into consideration if you do have deviating systems of environmental law in the first instance yes there's a lot of confusion at the moment there's a lot of unknowns we are expecting a consultation on the EORs and so I hope this is the beginning of an ongoing dialogue that we have and I imagine when that's published we'll be called for evidence again in the first instance we would like to see the need to change EIA, SEA processes evidenced and we'd like to look to see that in a consultation as well and I know there's a lot of intention to streamline processes and we also support kind of move to more outcomes focused processes but this could lead to a lot of uncertainty and complexity and actually create delays and significant resource and impacts on consent in bodies as well. Thank you and David Byrden minds looking to hear about impacts on devolved policy what's your view? Yes I mean in many ways I think the initial view is one of a lot of uncertainty among members as they've discussed it the bill with us this particular part five section subject of today's meeting has been the key one that's been raised EIAs are obviously a fundamental part of the development process understood over a number of years yes we understood that whatever whatever the views you may have the exit from the EU would mean that there would be some replacement framework and as an iterative process that had to be addressed at some stage but the what we have now I think at the moment is there's not really enough detail on the EIAs to really know what they mean I mean in principle I think Lloyd touched on this the idea of focusing on outcomes as a policy principle is enticing but I think we really need to see what it actually means in practice in terms of the actual detailed legislative proposals before commenting further and we're obviously focusing on Scotland the rest of the regime is very much looking at competent authorities which one way or the other find the direction legal framework etc from this parliament and so you know there's probably concern and some potential duplication or confusion if you like between between the regulatory regimes at this stage so I think that's the initial view and probably unfortunately in our in our submission later this month the may very well be if more questions than actual answers for the committee's interest but I think that's where we find ourselves in this process at this stage okay so I'm hearing there's still a lot of uncertainty if I just go back across the table then just to get um maybe a yes or no answer if possible but in your view do the powers for the secretary of state proposed in part five of the bill respect the devolution settlement back to David's I mean potentially they may not as far as as he can she can go at the moment to mean if we've heard that you know powers that can potentially overwrite previous status in the parliament then you can only really conclude that there's the potential for for some conflict in the regulatory regime between the UK and between this parliament we hope that would not be the case we think that's an important matter where we'd very much like to have seen if you like more of an understanding between the administrations UK before we got to this place thank you Robbie yeah as we said we support extra safeguarding in arrangements of consenting between the nations and that's those amendments 178 179 180 to clause 121 I think one more question may have us about environmental common frameworks which I know the committee consoled on in June and for example one on air quality that we responded to I don't know how they would interface with with these proposals here so that's a big question mark we have okay and Lord I think we've already got a written submission from Scottish environment link identifying specific concerns with the bill surrounding the school convention and the possibility of the UK parliament altering Scottish environmental laws do you want to expand on that I'll just reiterate that I think I agree with David that potentially there's this bill as it's drafted at the moment doesn't respect the current evolutions settlement in terms of the seeking the consent of this parliament in relation to legislation the devolved areas thank you I think the deputy committee might have questions in this area but we're going to go to Jackie next with her questions we'll come to the deputy committee later thank you convener and good morning panel and can I ask what your view is on the current system of environmental assessment in the UK and do you think there is a need to simplify the current system following the EU exit I think I'll start at the other side this time I'll work my way across if you don't mind David of course that this is a hugely complicated technical area I mean modern development major development sorry particular is very very complicated I mean talking to members in the process of looking at returning evidence to the committee the I mean the costs of the eyes themselves developments you between 80 120 000 per per development and that's in many ways that's just the start because of the complexity of the framework so again looking at simplification which which we do understand is behind some of the intentions of the levelling up part is is enticing however I think our suspicion is that regulation does tend to get more complex and demanding and to a degree you know better the devil you know which we do know at this stage in the system in Scotland other regimes probably colleagues elsewhere in the organisation would have to have to speak to I'm afraid I I think Robbie would would have a good view on that but certainly you know in Scotland and I think a message you like to underline to the committee is you're talking potentially hundreds of major planning applications determined per year most of which will require EIAs and related assessments I mean this is you know this is if you like a mini industry that's tens of millions per year so it cannot really be underestimated in terms of the impact of changes in policy that you're you're considering okay thank you Robbie yeah I mean I think we're always welcome improving existing processes I think in the first instance and providing the correct resource to consent in bodies so I'm sure the committee are well rehearsed with some of our stats on the matter about 42 percent cuts to planning departments since 2009 and a third reduction in staff so in the first instance I think resourcing consent in bodies effectively would certainly improve processes and we also think there's clear opportunities with digitisation as well and digital EIAs so hopefully committees got sight of our written evidence but I've referenced a report there on from AIMA I think 2020 and that suggested a number of potential improvements to existing processes and opportunities therein within Scottish Government's digital planning strategy as well so that's things like developing sort of shared cloud-based data resources around planning and place data and establishing this foundation of data that's robust and trusted and I think there is good examples of that already happening and for example Crown Estates offshore wind evidence and change programme so yeah I think there's a number of existing improvements we could do to current processes I think it's good to consider you know how many projects EIAs do actually apply to so AIMA have done some work on this in England but I think it was 99.9% of projects did not need an EIA so it is you know larger more significant projects the kind of timeframes though that a lot of these larger more significant kind of infrastructure projects do work to is a concern because if changes were to come down the line in 2023 2024 and that's actually quite a short time frame for large infrastructure projects and change could cause uncertainty and potentially delay as well. So simplifying is not always the best then? No always not. Okay, why do you get the time? Yeah first of all I reiterate Robbie's point about the number of applications that do require EIA rather than don't need it at all. The threshold to needing EIA is a potential significant effect on the environment so you know you're if you're going to reduce the number of applications that are going to be assessed then you are in effect risk taking decisions about things that could have a significant impact on the environment without considering them. That doesn't mean that we're sort of in principle opposed to improved implementation or simplification. The one thing I would say is that when these issues are looked at it's often the case that it's not the original law or the original process that's an issue it's a question of streamlining the implementation the administration the processes Robbie was talking about digitisation those are things that can make the system work better for everybody. In general I would take the view that the EIA system is very well known by all parties by government by the agencies by developers by communities and NGOs and if there was going to be significant change I would expect those proposing that significant change to provide some evidence as to what's wrong with the existing system and I've not seen that evidence and it's not been put forward in the explanatory notes of this bill or anything like that so my view is that there isn't in principle an objection to the idea of doing things in a better way but in order to get to a better way you need the arguments to be well evidenced and a clear proposal of what you're going to do instead which this isn't. My next question convener was going to be about if the current regime was actually working and I think the panel's already answered that for me so I'm not going to go and ask yous again so thank you very much. Thank you Jackie and thanks for doing that. Mark you've got some questions. I think you've touched on some areas already but I guess I wanted to get a bit more information from you about the part five of the bill and particularly those clauses that really set out how this new system will work you've covered some aspects of that already but can I just sort of go around and get some views on on the specifics of what's currently laid out as we know it and how it will actually work. Lloyd, do you want to? Well I think one of the challenges is that it's all about making provision for the Secretary of State to make regulations and then we haven't seen even a draft of those regulations or a policy explanation of how they're going to work so it's very difficult to determine but I'll draw attention to one thing. The explanatory notes and the UK Government in the debates in Westminster on the bill so far have often referred to clause 120 subsection 1 which is the issue where they call it a non-regression clause that says that the environmental protection should not be less than provided by the environmental law at the time this act is passed. My view is that that's actually a rather poor non-regression clause in as far as it's a rhetorical statement of good intent but I don't think it has very much well meet to it, if I put it that way. It's phrased that the Secretary of State may make EOR regulations only if satisfied that making the regulations will not result in environmental law providing an overall level of environmental protection that is less than provided by environmental law at the time the act is passed. So to test is the Secretary of State's satisfaction which is you know if the Secretary of State is satisfied and says he is or her she says she is that that is in my view if you're going to have a non-regression clause that is meaningful then there has to be an objective measure of that non-regression or it has to be based on the view of independent advice from the environmental agencies or natural England, Nature, Scott, SEPA, Environment Agency or climate change committees someone of that type who can provide objective advice rather than simply the Secretary of State's satisfaction because you know if the Secretary of State is making regulations it's almost inevitable that he or she will say they're satisfied. Does that relate to international obligations? I mean are they baked into this provision or against that part of being satisfied? International obligations is the next clause it says they may not contain provision that is inconsistent with the implementation of international obligations of the United Kingdom relating to the assessment of environmental impact. So in relation to one specific set of international obligations that is referenced but it doesn't relate to wider environmental international obligations so for instance the Irish Convention wouldn't necessarily fit under that definition of an obligation so I think they could both be broadened and made more objective in terms of their impact. Can I just ask you, are there any other points you want to raise in relation to the detail and I know you mentioned earlier that there's a sense of vagueness with it but I'll stick to that. Just to extend on discussions there about international obligations so it was confirmed at one of the bill committee hearings on 8 September that the UK Government would still meet its obligations under the Arhus and Esbu conventions and that's something we would support and we'd encourage the committee to continually press for this approach. Yet there's not a lot of detail that we have and we do understand that the proposed reforms will affect 18 different consenting regimes one being planning of course which in itself interacts with other consenting regimes and their respective EIAs. As set out in the legislative consent memorandum from the Scottish Government there's still a lot of detail we need so for example the proposed contents of EORs how they're to be taken into consideration by public authorities in decision making and what extent they're to be considered and what plans and consents are to be subject to procedures and actually well unclear about the environmental common frameworks as I pointed out earlier but also whether different countries could in fact have different outcomes and that's why we've asked for proposals to be mapped out across other proposals that are going on not least planning reform but for example different approaches to biodiversity net gain that have been taken in England and Scotland how would that be taken into consideration when we think of biodiversity enhancement as a potential outcome of EORs something that we really need to consider thoroughly. So yeah so I'll leave it there for now. Is there is a clarity over plans and programmes whether they may or may not be captured by this? Yeah yeah so we don't have that at this stage I expect that to come out with the consultation. Okay of course. David? I think I've said earlier the problem is that there isn't the detail there for us to get to grips with underneath the top level principles and certainly our understanding and assumption had been that the intention was to not go backwards in terms of standards and the level of regulation but I must admit having listened to Lloyd I think I'll re-ask our members the same question on that as to how satisfied they are at that level but again it just underlines the uncertainty we've got. Can I just add as well that this is not just for obviously we represent mostly private sector developers and companies and that but the the regime is such that obviously this is a huge issue for the public sector as they take forward infrastructure projects in someone as well so I think that really doubles down on the uncertainty as to where we're at at the moment. To refer you to one particular clause which underlines the vagueness and that's clause 1177H that's a clause that says that the EOR regulations may include provision about or in connection with how and to what extent environmental outcome reports are to be taken into account or given effect by public authorities in considering or making decisions in relation to relevant consens or relevant plans so that indicates that you know it doesn't say how they're going to be taken into account it says that some future regulations are going to say how they're going to be taken into account so that this is a cynical in extremist position but under this bill if it's passed the secretary of state could make provisions that says that the environmental outcome reports don't need to be taken into account when making a decision now I'm not suggesting that that will be the case but you know what is the point of providing a bill that provides regulations that provide the possibility of the opposite effect of what you're trying to get you know it's so open and every possibility is available that you can't actually determine from what's on the face of the bill what's going to happen and just finally I mean obviously viral assessment is a well established practice and it relates to the habitats directive and there are a set of you know tests I guess including a public interest test that that apply there again we're trying to speculate here as to what may or may not happen but do you see that kind of practice of appropriate assessment of application of key tests continuing or you know if we look across to other bills that are being introduced is there a potentially a change in relation to habitats as well which would seriously you know relate to an impact on assessment well in terms of the habitats directive the first thing I'd say is the habitats directive a couple of years ago was subject to a very thorough appraisal called the refit process that was led by the commission at the instigation of the then UK government I have to say so it was a good process and it concluded the habitats directive was fit for purpose and that there were challenges in implementation that needed to be resolved and that's what in the EU that remains member states are engaged in but in relation to this bill it's clause 127 that deals with interaction with existing environmental assessment legislation the habitats regulations and once again it's just incredibly open and vague it simply says that any option is on the table in a sense in relation to what the regulations may may say they can they can include provision for for amending and disapplying the existing regulations etc but what what actually is going to happen in those regulations is is unknown so I would A underline the vagueness and B say that the existing tests particularly article six of the habitats directive that deals with significant impact the tests in relation to ensuring protection of protected sites but equally the tests of where that protection can be overridden in cases of a riding public interest that is all clear there's lots of good case law in relation to that and how and if it will be changed as a result of this is not defined in the in the bill or in the explanatory notes David or Robbie I mean the only thing I think I'd add is from our member's side it's an industry now it's very driven by institutional investors and other types of investors with demanding requirements on environmental social governance kind of related criteria so good regulation that's clear that gives them a good framework with which to make their proposals in a better knowledge that they'll be compliant and well received as well not just by the authorities but by communities as well is helpful and it's what they want to do and and it's not just the right thing to do it's actually in their interest to do it for the reasons I've just spelled out so I think the you know where we're at now they the authorities are not pushing against you know a negative industry that is resistant of good regulation and I think the opportunity would be there to to make sure that we do get an agreed way forward with the authorities whether it's UK whether it's devolved administrations but what they would be very worried about was potential schism within those regulations and and if they're not really as well synchronised as they could be between this Parliament and other areas Robbie yeah I mean just you know we we would support there is elements of the process which we think we can do better and I think one to sort of focus on is better public engagement I think EIA SEAs are as much assessing impact potential impact as they are about transparency and kind of accountability as well again back to my sort of comment on sort of digital innovations potentially there as well but you know that's an area we would certainly look for some improvement in a new system and we we would also sort of advocate for the retention of consideration of alternatives as part of the existing process but but in our submission to the levelling up regeneration bill we have asked for a sort of expansion of assessment in terms of population health obviously that have to be aligned with health impact assessments that's something that's come through in the planning act. Is this coming through the refit process in the EU as well are they responding to the needs for for reform around public transparency and wider public health? I mean I assume they will be to some extent but I couldn't give you any detail on Lloyd's got anything on that point for our handbags at convener? Okay thanks. Liam the next question is yours. Thank you convener good morning panel. Lloyd Austin you began an answer to Monica Lennon by briefly mentioning EU legislation. Now the Scottish Government took a decision to as it says keep pace with EU law what impact would these provisions have on that decision and if it turned out that these provisions turned out to enhance and improve on protections presumably it would be right to go to those protections rather than dogmatically follow an EU position. That's a hypothetical question but in that if that circumstance arose yes. Thank you. Robbie Calvert, Lloyd Austin talked about clause 120 earlier on and suggested I think that it could be amended to be better. In your view Robbie Calvert clause 120 sets out safeguards that ensure that the UK continues to meet its international obligations and includes provisions on non-regression which are also in the UK EU trade and cooperation agreement. In your view does clause 120 provide sufficient safeguards against a weakening of existing environmental protections? This is not something that we picked up on in our written evidence but I think from what I can gather I think I'd be a bit wary of supporting that clause in its current form from what Lloyd said today so yeah I'd be concerned on that clause. David Mill who wished you wish to offer anything? I mean I think as I said earlier I understood that the intention was well not to regress as the clause goes or to drop below our obligations so I think that and I think that's welcome that's what would be mostly expected but I think what we'd like to see therefore is that spelled out in agreement between the devolved administrations and the UK government as well which I think would then complement what the UK has agreed with EU and wider I think that would be our answer on that front. Thank you. Lloyd Austin I'll just come back to that first question I asked you because you answered the second part of it I think in answering that it was a hypothetical but the first part of the question was what impact would these provisions have on the decision to keep pace with EU law which I don't think is hypothetical? Well first of all it would depend on the nature of any regulations under these provisions which is the thing that we don't have because all these all this bill does is provide the power for the Secretary of State to make regulations and those regulations haven't been seen or even a detailed policy proposal and Robbie mentioned the consultation is still to come so you know the question that you've put although you've not phrased it in a hypothetical way it is hypothetical in a sense because of that absence of the site of the regulations or the policy for those regulations but hypothetically if they made any impact on the Scottish law in a devolved area that implemented past EU law retained EU law whatever you call it and made a change that regressed in some way then that would be contrary to the Scottish Government's policy position of keeping pace but the keeping pace provision in the continuity act is a discretionary one for them to choose to use when they wish and or otherwise because of course they can keep pace by other provisions as well in existing environmental law not just through continuity act and so you would have a potential position where the UK Government was legislating in a devolved area in contradiction to what the Scottish Government desired and so you would end up with a situation that was a sort of clause one to one situation where currently it's about consultation and if agreement was reached then that would be fine but if there was contradiction you could have two Governments submitting to their two separate parliaments contradictory legislation and which one you know I think the preference from our point of view would be for a provision that if matters are devolved then it should have the consent of this Parliament and therefore agreement should be reached to achieve that consent. No further questions convener. Thank you Liam for that sorry just caught me a little bit I think there's a deputy convener coming in Natalie sorry Natalie yes sorry I apologize Natalie I missed you thank you thank you thanks good morning everyone I think we've touched on this a little bit but I'd like some further explanation on it how might the proposed system of EORs affect public and stakeholder participation in decision making on new developments and I'll turn first to Lloyd please I think the answer to the question is it all depends again on what are the regulator what's the content of those regulations that flow from the provisions of this bill I'm seeking to recall whether there are any things that say that the regulations have to include provision for public engagement and consultation and so on and I I think they do at some point but again I I think the answer has to be it depends what's in those regulations that follow so we come back to uncertainty we come back to uncertainty and lack of clarity here okay I don't know if you both will have the same answer for that but I'm happy to to bring in I was going to come to Robbie next yeah I mean yeah we we don't have the clarity at the moment but it's certainly an area where we could improve do we need a new set of regulations to improve in that area well I'm not sure about that so much as I said with some of the digital engagement for example and tools there we could use to enhance community engagement but it's certainly something that we've set out in our response to the levelling up regeneration bill that we want to see that that part of the system enhanced I mean compliment really what was suggested and as Robbie's just said obviously there's you know there are work streams to improve digitalisation of the wider regime I would suggest that I mean some of the experiences our members had over the over the period we've had over the last two years is with the fact that there was much more online public engagement involved with I mean the increase in participation was really noticeable and so I think it's those kind of lines and areas that can be improved respecting the fact that you know not everyone will be conversant with online engagement and so on so in person events are you know we're still very much a part of the system but but no I'd really support what was said by Lloyd and Robbie. Thank you all thanks no further questions. Thanks actually and now it's the deputy convener. Thank you convener and good morning I'm interested in policy coherence clearly environment and planning legislation is devolved I want to come to Robert Carver first and I'm interested in how might part five of the bill impact upon the fourth national planning framework specifically it's all come to to Robbie and then I'll come to David. Yes so as I mentioned we want to see these proposals mapped out into existing proposals including planning reform I think I mentioned earlier about different policy approaches in terms of biodiversity net gain and the policy that's sitting within the draft mpf4 at the moment we have a wider concern that the draft mpf4 as it is at the moment will be an additional amount of duties for decision makers within that and as a part of that there'll be a resource implication but also a sort of skills issue there as well in terms of planners having to deal with a huge amount of additional issues essentially so we're quite concerned that any reform in this area could could cause a significant issue to a planning system that's already in flux we're struggling in terms of resource both both financial but also personnel as well at the moment we are working with Scottish Government to push forward an apprenticeship scheme to deal with that but yeah there's a huge issue there around skills and is this a good time for the planning system to implement a whole new reform and environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment yeah a big question mark over that I think from our side of things so it's and David the interaction between the bill we're looking at the LCM on the bill we're looking at and the mpf4 draft what's your view? Well just to add to obviously obviously mpf4 now will incorporate a Scottish planning policy which details out the development management system so obviously if we're looking at a motion now which you'd hope wouldn't conflict in detail with the principles and requirements of EIAs as we know them and assessments we don't know because we don't see the detail yet so yeah I think that's a concern in particular the timing I mean you know we're expecting to see mpf4 come back imminently and you know we had wider concerns I think other stakeholders had with you know looking at some of the delivery and some of the detail behind the original propositions mpf4 so I think the prince the timing is a particular concern right now as well as the you know the underlying principles behind potential conflict okay thank you and I'm content to Lloyd Austin now and in terms of the the lack of detail we know that bills from both Governments at a specific point you will have lack of detail until you necessarily have regulations granted but we've heard obviously concerns from particularly English NGOs environmentally about what might happen we've got a new government obviously at the UK level and in fact one of the first things that they've announced as of Monday is exempting business with fewer than 500 employees from reporting requirements of the regulations they've also said in the statement that the change in the threshold would apply to all new regulations under development as well as those under current and future review including retained EU laws now perhaps one of the early clarifications we might get is if we if we if the UK government saying there's going to be non regression in terms of environmental law if they could clarify that the non regression would apply to this that would give very early indication that action on regression will stand is that something that you should yes i think one thing i was i got into in answer to Monica Lennon's question which was premature i apologize for that but the context in which this these provisions are being considered includes the retained EU law bill as well as the sort of new proposals that have come out in the last last week or so and many of those suggest weakening of environmental law of one type or another indeed the NGOs in England have started a campaign about the the attack on nature as as it's put and that is a very serious concern because you know if if you were to exempt any business with under three 500 employees from all environmental regulations which would be a potential interpretation of that that phrase that would mean well most businesses it would certainly mean most farmers and landowners most businesses and that does give you some degree of concern as to what's the point of environmental legislation if you then exempt 99% of the of the people having an impact on the environment one way or another or potential impact on the environment so there is serious concern and and as I say that the one clause in in part five of of this bill that calls itself a non regression clause is is in in my view weak and there are ways in which that could be improved but you know in in some ways those other provisions whether it be the retained EU law bill or other policy ideas that are floating around in the last week or so are in other bits of legislation but they do appear to be inconsistent even with the intent of the non regression clause in this bill verification by the UK government of what they've announced on monday which at least give us some certainty as to me i mean i have. If I can then move on to trying to understand this from a very practical point of view what will it mean for projects in particular and maybe turn it to Robbie next. In relation to outcomes and the EOR's environmental outcome reports you can see a sense in that from a policy point of view there are some concerns right you can see the sense of it but if you were to take large developments either on short or even potentially offshore that from an environmental assessment need some kind of mitigation but the mitigation might not be able to happen on a very granular small scale but may have to happen elsewhere. Who would decide that would that be a Scottish minister would decide where the mitigation would take place or would that into this legislation be the secretary of state that would decide where the mitigation from the environmental outcome would be because that's a very practical the old thing that could happen. I'm not entirely sure I think that one may be better placed for Lloyd at this stage and I'm not sure we've quite got the detail at the moment. My understanding of your question is who is responsible for taking a decision about mitigation I think the answer is whoever is responsible for the consenting of the project so if it's a devolved matter it's Scottish ministers and if it's a reserved matter it would be the relevant secretary of state. So clearly in some areas and perhaps it may be more for offshore where planning is actually devolved and it's because energy is reserved that may be an issue that we might want to pursue to say who would decide where the mitigations would be because the consenting should be devolved. And offshore mitigation and compensation plans need to be agreed strategically because as well as mitigation and compensation they don't necessarily the responsibility for the mitigation and compensation could fall with the other jurisdiction but equally that mitigational compensation might be delivered in a different geographic jurisdiction so you could imagine for instance a offshore windfarm in Northumberland that the developer agrees through the EIA process that there's a requirement for compensation and they effectively come to an agreement with the Crown Estate and landowners to deliver that compensation in the further forth which would be in the Scottish jurisdiction. So because birds and whales and dolphins and wildlife move across borders all the time so there needs to be join up between the two administrations and that's one of the reasons why I would always fall back on the fact that there should be agreement to offer them. So that comes back to consent rather than consultation. Finally David you talked about the importance of enabling infrastructure investments and developments and I suppose that's what I'm also interested in is how if the environmental outcome report is the jurisdictions of the secretary of state only in consultation with the devolved administration how is that with that enable or hinder developments because we actually want to make things happen but it's actually the speed at which decision making can take and the issue is whether that's better done more locally but land based probably would be more devolved quite clearly more devolved unless it's a big energy project for example when you clear whatever. Yeah and again really this is why we need to know the who there is the potential for a lot of delay in the system and the process by which the decision makers are actually allowed to come to their decision as well which we just don't have at the moment in any detail. It's not to argue that the current regime is flawless faultless you know there are several different competent authorities for different aspects of the environmental assessment system you and there are situations where decisions are prolonged over periods of time to the extent that even relatively smallish major developments can take years and years and years and do not materialise just because of a lack of decision making between competent authorities and you know there is this I can think of that mean that you hundreds of houses in fact an example comes to mind affordable houses do not actually get delivered just because of that standoff between various competent authorities we're not arguing the current system is flawless but at least we know what it is. Thank you very much. Thank you I've got a couple of questions I might just oppose at the end he regulations interesting environmental regulation because it ends up and by nature of it pickling things in as big and not allowing things to change we tend to feed into it and they tend to follow a precautionary principle that no damage can be done and whilst that may be right there may be benefits from what's happening do you think the um and I've heard Lloyd your comments on it I'd be interested in David and Robbie's comment on it as far as the EU precautionary principle on on environment do you think that is gives enough flexibility David do you want to go with that or you're writing it feel ready Robbie I'm happy to go with you Robbie it's you would support the precautionary principle I think even going back slightly there to Fiona's point as well and there's no clear evidence that the EIAs are necessarily the part of a process in development which does delay developments and I reference back to my written evidence there so there's a report from my email on the matter levelling up EIA to build back better it's called they set up a number of reasons why there is delays in projects and and as far as we haven't seen the evidence at the moment to evidence change we haven't we haven't seen conclusive evidence that the EIAs are necessarily what's what's holding up large infrastructure projects and there's a number of other things and a lot of that touched upon things that I've spoke about earlier regarding resourcing for example of not only planning departments but statutory consulties as well I think Robbie I'm not saying they're holding things up I'm just wondering if they're preventing development which may have benefits across the whole environment rather than just the original area that may have been designated or fall within a designation for speeches of floral fauna? Well I think it depends project to project and you know that I don't think these decisions are easy to make I think you know there's some tricky you know it's not black and white and that's why we have these process in place and yes there's a desire to simplify them but you can only simplify them to a certain degree because they are inherently complex decision making processes that we're dealing with. Okay David do you want to come back on that? I suppose the answer that we have is sometimes which is very helpful but an example does strike me that you know concerns you know based on precautionary principle around certainly species have delayed developments and then found actually several months down the line to not in actual fact have been material to the development in process so sometimes they can there can be a tendency towards caution understandable in many ways if you see that there be you know something legal first down the line or by a decision making authority a competent authority so I think I can possibly only answer you that sometimes it does. Lloyd very briefly you want to come in very briefly. Just on context in terms of the precautionary principle it's one of four so-called EU environmental principles that were embedded in the Treaty of Lisbon before we left. All four principles are now incorporated in domestic law they're incorporated in Scotland through the continuity act that the UK government has carried them over into domestic law for England and for reserve matters as well in the Environment Act 2021 so they are and that Environment Act also applies to devolved matters in North Nile and so the gap is Wales that needs devolved legislation on EU principles. Whether the precautionary principle is overzealously applied or not is a matter of I think judgment and so on but I think as Robbie says it's case to case the principle itself in principle is a good principle and it's good that the all the respective governments have put it into domestic law in the absence of it being in EU law now that we've left the question that the issues that you raise as being a potential problem are about the implementation and interpretation of it and that is both governments have consulted on guidance in terms of the interpretation the application of it neither government has yet finalised and published that guidance but that would be the place to to address your concerns I would think and not necessarily concerns it I may be delighted that the precautionary principle is there because it overrides a lot of decisions in relating to environmental law and therefore I would argue that it's actually a good thing and maybe strengthens this whole act by the fact that it is in UK and Scottish legislation so just turning to the three areas I seem to have picked up on is you feel that the word consults in clause 2121 isn't sufficiently strong enough and you are concerned that there are regulations which you haven't seen which could be worse but aren't definitely worse and you're worried that the regression clause is is not strong enough at clause 120 if there was a bit more detail on those would it would it resolve all your concerns you could give a yes or no answer but I suspect you won't Lloyd you want to start off on that whether it's whether we answer yes or no to that would depend on whether or not the the the proposals that sought to address the concerns did address the concerns would have to it would be kind of it's a kind of a hypothetical question again if I mean it it is possible that all of the regulations when they are published and the guidance that goes with them etc it it's a perfectly benign type of proposal but we haven't seen it that's what's so in a sense difficult to make a judgment about that's why we don't necessarily think it's bad or badly has a bad intent but it it's just too vague to to be clear about Robbie to briefly understand that yeah I mean I think you can capture some of our issues at the moment and agree with Lloyd we need to see further detail to see if any other potential issues arise from those David I think I just had how it relates to the existence policy making regime and regulatory regime I think that that's critically important for those embarking on complex major developments okay thank you unless there's any other questions for anyone thank you very much for for taking time and I think a quite short notice as well for some of you anyway so I appreciate you finding the time and coming to the committee this morning I'm briefly going to suspend the meeting to set up for our next agenda agenda item so the meeting suspended thank you everyone and welcome back our third item of business today is to take evidence on a consent notification on the biocidal products health and safety amendment regulations 2022 this is a forthcoming UK statutory instrument on which the Scottish government consent to legislatures sought the Scottish parliament has a role subject to a protocol and scrutiny of the Scottish government consent to UK secondary legislation in devolved areas arising from the EU exit there is a short report deadline on this notification as such we'll be hearing from the Scottish government on its proposals to consent today we're going to hear from Murray McCallan the minister for environment and land reform Dan Merkel chemicals team leader and Luigi I'm not going to get that right I apologize right there we go thank you I got it right then solicitor for the Scottish government we've got about 25 minutes for this and I'm gonna ask the minister to make an opening statement and I believe there's a slight alteration or correction you want to make regarding the notification minister so over to you thanks very much convener thank you for having us and for the opportunity to just give some opening remarks which I'll do on the substance of the SI which I hope will be helpful because it's complicated and then I'll address the error afterwards so this SI relates to the process by which biocidal products which are namely those used to control or protect people animals materials are articles from pests or bacteria it controls the way these are considered for access to the GB market the overall purpose of the SI is to put in place temporary measures to allow the health and safety executive sufficient time to process a very large number of applications that were received under transitional arrangements following EU exit so the GB regime as I'll refer to it ensures that any products placed on the GB market are safe to use and efficacious suppliers or manufacturers of biocidal products have to apply for authorization from the HSE to be able to sell or use their products and that within specific time frames now transitional arrangements under the the GB regime have seen the health and safety executive receive a very large influx of applications they cannot deal with these within the the legal deadlines of the GB regime as it stands and so this SI reports to extend them for certain applications now the authorization procedure in the GB regime depends on the type of application being made and the changes made by this SI will affect the the legal deadlines across various different applications so the HSI is sorry that the health and safety executive is confident that amending the regulation as proposed will allow it to process the applications that it's received and that within the extended deadlines they will applications will be processed on a rolling basis work has already started on this and it's expected that the majority will have been processed before 31 December 2027 i even new deadline now Scottish ministers consider the situation should have been foreseeable the events that have made it necessary were not of our choosing but dealing with the situation in hand we do think that the risk to businesses to consumers and to the environment of not agreeing the extension and thereby hindering the operability of the new GB regime would pose a greater risk to the environment and to public health the economy than allowing this temporary extension and of course if consent is not granted the practical application will be that as current evaluation deadlines pass large numbers of biocidal products legally would need to be phased off the GB market now thank you for the time to set that out i'll just very briefly address the error this was in the notification and the notification summary that we submitted to the committee on 23 September the error is that the notification does not accurately describe just one of the proposed legislative changes but this is a minor change compared with the effect of the SI overall i'll explain it for the record it's very complicated so bear with me the original notification it stated that the SI introduced a new transitional provision into the GB regime and it said that this would allow applications to modify an authorization made under the EU regime before the implementation day and that that would be transferred to the the GB regime provided that the application and relevant information had been resubmitted that's what we put to the committee instead it should have stated that the new transitional provision will allow applications made to HSE before implementation day completion day and that under specifically under implementation regulation 414 2013 which are subject to the simplified authorization procedure and for biocidal products that are identical to another that is already authorized or under assessment that they should be resubmitted and considered for authorization under the GB regime my officials have informed me that this was the result of oversight and drafting and that we let the committee know as soon as we could but i can only express my apologies convener for this oversight and what is clearly a very technically complicated piece of work thank you minister and thank you for the explanation and thank you also for notifying the committee by letter so we had a chance to consider it prior to the meeting today so i think the first questions this morning are going to come from Jackie is that you thank you good morning um what what are the current deadlines set out in the GB biodiesel products regulation sorry it's a bit of a mouthful and how will these proposals change that yeah thank you i'll um i'll we know this is technical i'll try and address it to the questions in turn but i do have both my legal and my policy colleague with me to help me on that i'd like to think of the timelines in this regime as being in two tiers first of all the timelines by which applications had to be resubmitted in the transitional period this was is 90 days for applications where the UK was originally the evaluating member state and 180 days where an EU member state was originally the evaluator that then once resubmitted that triggers with the health and safety executive the need to validate these without delay and that's the term that's used in the legislation the the applicant then has to pay a fee which i understand is is 30 days and once that has been done this triggered the period in which the hse have to consider the application now previously that would for most for the most part or for certain applications that are touched by this si that would have been 365 days what we're now proposing is that the deadline be 31 december 2027 and that's in order to give the health and safety executive the time to evaluate the influx of applications that they've had since we since EU exit so that's that that's the principle change i can ask any of my colleagues if there's anything that they want to add to that for you and you're on okay thank you all i was going to say was i was going to turn to my uh my legal colleague luigi to to answer the question on timescales a little bit further so as the ministers outlined the gba regime sets out their deadlines by which an application has to be authorised and the trigger point for the start of those timelines is the date on which the hse the health and safety executive notifies the applicant of the relevant fees the relevant fees will depend on the type of application in question once notified the applicant as the minister said has 30 days in which they must pay the fees and once they've paid the fees after 30 days the health and safety executive either needs to accept or validate the application the distinction between acceptance and validation depends on the type of application and thereafter the evaluation period starts to run and that will be 365 days if it's for a kind of standard authorization and national authorization but it might be shorter if it's a different type of application what the proposed law does is it prespones the date on which the hse the health and safety executive needs to notify applicants of that date i pushes it back the 31st of december 2027 so it then means that if an applicant is notified of the fees at that later date the application evaluation period will start to run from that date onwards where a applicant is notified of the fees sufficiently in advance of that date the 31st december 2027 so that the hse can complete its evaluation before the 31st december 2027 then it has then has to complete its evaluation by that date okay thank you can i ask the minister what discussions that you've had or the scott's government have had with the UK government about the impact of the loss of access to EU data on hse's timescales for evaluating applications for authorizations yeah absolutely um so i mentioned in my opening remarks that this we're trying to work through what i think would be fair to call you know a situation that we didn't want to find ourselves in and that isn't of our making and since throughout the the whole preparations for EU exits scott's government was absolutely clear that negotiated access to the EU's chemical database was important and should be pursued that hasn't transpired progressively UK government pursued the hardest of brexit's and we don't have access to the EU database anymore but your question is about you know to what extent has the scott's government made representations to the UK government we have been doing that since right throughout the preparations for brexit thank you nashley thanks very much and good morning minister yeah my question kind of follows on directly from that so in terms of the loss of access to that data will that result in delays in evaluating applications for authorizations in the long term so beyond this yeah i'm sort of hesitating because i think it's actually very difficult to to predict with certainty what all of the implications of of this are across biocidal products across the chemicals regime of EU exit and our attempts to try and manage GB wide processes as best we possibly can because of course we've moved from a situation where it was you know authorization was done on a on a EU wide basis where in some circumstances you'd have mutual recognition between nation member states so if it was authorized in one country you know you would have mutual recognition elsewhere and that clearly reduced the workload for the authorizers but to give some confidence to the committee for i think for normal applications we would expect most of the information that's required to be on the face of the application and therefore you know in those circumstances not having access to that EU database shouldn't hinder the authorization process but there's no doubt that this is complicated and it's very difficult to foresee sometimes what the problems will be before they arise thanks very much thank you minister just before we go move on from that i mean a lot of chemical applications will be for unlabeled use but a different permutation of the chemical application so they will have datesheets anyway and if they've applied for a use in the european union surely they'll be submitting that information voluntarily and the questions asked by the european union regarding to that chemical use in the in the UK to the hse so it shouldn't slowed up that much surely i think the i think on your latter point of understanding you correct the information that would be required to authorize an EU and in GB are very similar and they will be similar and yes i think you know as i said the we would expect for normal applications for the information that would be required to be on the face of the application and therefore for normal applications i wouldn't expect delays to run beyond this transitional period which is just delayed owing to a big influx of applications rather than not rather necessarily than a lack of information on each of the applications so sorry sorry just so i understand this they'll run in tandem both for the EU and the UK for an application and so a lot of the information will be asked uh will be similar by EU and UK so i can't see how if the company's developing that that's going to slow things down i'll bring my colleagues in i don't think there's any guarantee they run in tandem we have asked hse i think to consider the way that they prioritise the applications that they get but i don't think that running in tandem is something we can do and i'll bring you in on that i mean it's unlikely that the most chemical manufacturers will see the UK as a big enough market to develop something will they not be doing it in tandem um oh yeah i don't think things will run in tandem i think the thing to bear in mind there are many different kinds of applications here it's not just one type of application unfortunately so where there's prior knowledge say um in the EU system that we may not have access to in GB system that could result in delays i think um but where we have normal applications that the subject of this SI shouldn't result in any delay as the minister says the information available in the data package as submitted should be sufficient to allow the hse to conduct their their evaluation um so it as we've said all along i think in the minister has said it's a very complicated situation with lots of different kinds of applications different provisions to make sure that everything is assessed in time in the GB regime and that's against the sort of backdrop of this sort of staggered approach in the EU anyway where evaluations are entirely driven by when an application is made to a competent authority in a particular member state of the EU which can happen at any time and maybe it's worth mentioning as well that delays in EU member states evaluations are quite common and are still quite common in the EU system so that there's all these sort of competing elements going on that mean it's very difficult to sort of compare the two regimes in terms of time scales okay thank you deputy convener i think that's to you now so interesting sounds as if for what i've heard it would be possible to piggyback on EU applications but you'd be reliant on the information that the applicant themselves has provided to the EU as opposed to the database of the approvals of consideration is that correct yes i think so if the applicant was interested in trading in the GB market as well as the EU market there's nothing to stop them submitting an application to both regimes so on the same yep but you're relying on the applicant as opposed to the the approvals and on the issue about volume of work can i just ask what discussions that the Scottish government has had with the UK government about how it's ensuring that the hsc is sufficiently resourced to effectively carry out these functions and to reduce delays in processing authorisations under this GB biocidal product regulatory regime yes of course i mean i think as would be expected there was a lot of work done in preparation for EU exit and in anticipation of what hsc on behalf of devolved ministers and and secretary of state the UK government would be undertaking because the hsc is our agent in these matters so the kind of work that was undertaken there was a scaling up of i can't actually remember the name of the division within hsc that other chemicals regulation division there was a scaling up of that particular group in order to make sure that they had the resources this was matched by financial resourcing being scaled up as well all in preparation for the work that was coming and you know just to give some context to that five-year period that hasn't just been it's not just been surmised by hsc that that's the amount of time that they'll need that has been based on modelling of how quickly they're getting through applications as is so there has been a scaling up it's been on-going as part of EU exit preparations and the time that's now being asked for is based on modelling of what they think's possible and how does that compare to progress in pace with the EU in terms of their approvals or indeed non-approvals and so how will the delays that we're hearing about impact the Scottish government's ability to keep pace with the EU in this area i think there is undoubtedly scope for a lack of alignment now between the GB regime and the EU regime where you know something could be approved in the EU and not in GB and vice versa and I know Dan mentioned that you know the EU regime can be subject to delays and things as well so there is there's undoubtedly scope for for a lack of alignment whether the you know the practical implications of that are very different depending on the type of product the you know whether it was on the market already priority EU exit and whether it's a new product so it's all it's all different but there is scope for misalignment okay thank you communist mark ruskell with the delayed evaluations that will be done is there a danger that will be running behind the science and what assessment is there being around what the potential risks might be to environment human health of that yeah i think it's it's a good question and again it's there's lots of different permutations different products different times they've been on the market different conditions of use so it's difficult to answer on one go i suppose something that i take a lot of comfort in is that the EU have informed hse that the active substance within the product which makes it biocidal will have been part you know party to an EU wide consideration and we've been given comfort on the the effect of it the active substance itself and you know there's there's different treatments of different products so for example what we're saying here is that if you have a product that was already on the market prior to transition it's going to be able to stay on the market for a bit longer to allow this influx of applications to be processed but the conditions of use will still be in place and if you are if you have a new product you're not going to be able to be on the market until after that extended period so you know i again take comfort in that but having said that i might hand over to Dan just to see if he's got anything else to add and i think it all comes back to a point which i tried to make in my opening remarks which is that you know we need a process of oversight and authorization to work and to work properly and the risks to the environment and to human health and indeed to the economy are greater in not allowing that extension and having the authorizations take place albeit that we wouldn't want to be here Dan, i've probably said all that there is to say but just anything else yeah i'll probably just try and emphasize something the minister mentioned which is the bpr in gb and and the eu is a two-tier system so all of the active substances that actually have the biocital action in a product they all have to be approved and they have to go through a rigorous safety and efficacy assessment to be put on a place on a list that means that all approved active substances have to have to be on this list and when that evaluation takes place that the applicant has to also submit one example of a product type that the active substance is used in to check for kind of safety in that product so the hsc have confirmed that all of the active substances in in this very large number of products that they need to evaluate have been through that process so it does give us that baseline of safety and maybe the other thing to mention is that if we were to have intelligence that a product in the eu had not been approved sorry authorized following evaluation by a member state we would hope that the hsc would prioritize that particular product if it's in the gb system here for evaluation yeah we would hope that's the case wouldn't we can just ask about the potential for increased animal testing because that's something that's been raised in relation to reach i didn't quite hear that question i'm sorry can i raise the issue of potential for increased animal testing because that's been raised in relation to reach and implementation of of that can i just ask mr ruskell just to elaborate a little further on on the question please yeah it was a it was a point that actually raised by michael gove he actually took it quite seriously but obviously if there's a process of going through evaluation um could could an impact of that be increased animal testing if particular products have to effectively go through a reevaluation process at any point or any any active ingredients within those products yes sorry i see what you mean now and i and i can see why that would be a pertinent question in the context of chemicals regulation generally i think when it comes to this because of the specific timescales et cetera and the tweaks that this is seeking to make and because of the fact that no new product will enter the market within the within the time frame and any existing product which has had its time on the market extended will do so under the current conditions of use i think i would be comfortable that there wasn't a a risk there but dan would you is there anything you would like to add to that i mean mark perhaps we can come back to you with some more information minister i think dan actually gave the answer that all the chemicals that were sitting within this packet of chemicals looking for authorization already had a non-label use already being used so therefore they wouldn't need to be tested and revalued again is that not what you said yes so that the applications are there already basically so unless the applicant has put in a data waiver so they've sort of tried to demonstrate they don't need to conduct a particular test that the testing is already has already been conducted for the particular cases that this SI addresses but i understand the MSP's point and it is a wider concern across the gb chemicals regimes okay thanks um liam i think you wanted to come in with a question at that stretch yes thank you convener good morning panel given the potential for risk and significant delays in evaluating authorizations why is the Scottish government not engaged or consulted with stakeholders to assess the impact of these proposals thanks for the question i certainly agree with the the first part of it that there is potential for risks known and unknown but on the second part we since 2017 have had on-going engagement with stakeholders industry trade environmental NGOs and that through the Scottish chemical policy network and that is a network exactly for on-going consultation and engagement with stakeholders who we encourage at all stages of this complex journey to come forward and to raise issues with us forgive me minister might i've just pressed you on that because the type one notification that you submitted to the committee says these new measures are aim solely at ensuring the functioning of the gbpr bpr and therefore we have not undertaken any engagement or any formal consultation about specific amendments which is i think is rather odd with the answer you just gave would you like to just no of course happy to clarify the the the network has been set up in 2017 since 2017 as a forum for what by which stakeholders could approach Scottish government with concerns across you know as i said industry trade NGOs so it's not true to say that we don't consult on it and the forum is there should stakeholders wish to raise matters with us and we actively encourage them to do so forgive me minister but the type one notification says that there hasn't been that formal consultation and i'm just i understand i think what you're saying to me is there is an opportunity there but the actual engagement consultation hasn't as a fact been carried out as we've the committee's been notified in the type one notification is that correct yes no that that is correct the opportunity is there it's been there since 2017 it's a live forum and it's the way that in a sort of reciprocal basis we engage with stakeholders across the piece now you know what you're quoting there is right and you know i can maybe hand over to dan to say a little bit more about the decisions that were made about what to consult on specifically and when but there is that forum is there and it operates well as a go between between government and stakeholders dan do you want to add anything to that okay thanks minister um yeah i'd probably emphasise that it's a gb regime so um the market is obviously across the whole of gb for biocidal products um so any consultation would probably be arguably be better done at a gb level as the minister says we've got this forum in place which allows stakeholders in scotland to approach us with any issues um that they may have and it's probably worth also mentioning that um we were made aware of this issue um i think but in may this this year so it's it's not something we would have actively had the chance to consult on because we were only made aware of it quite late on thank you no further question thanks Liam and Monica the next question is yours thank you convener good morning minister and your officials um just uh hopefully an easy question we've had your written submission but i just wonder if you can advise the committee if you're aware of any change the proposed laying date at Westminster which we believe is the 17th of october is that still the case yes that's the case as far as i'm concerned and i'm not aware of any changes 17th of october is the date in mind however i know that i know that officials have been engaging with hse on this but i i don't i assume you don't have anything else to say on that dance 17th of october as far as we are concerned good so you're confident of that there's been there's been discussion given the short timescales involved here um which is meant that this committee's only had a a short time to consider the notification um i think roughly 10 or 11 days instead of the 28 days normally available for scrutiny um just for the record can can we hear minister from you why the notification was not sent to the committee until friday 23rd of september yeah absolutely and i should like to open just by apologising to the committee for the the short timescales that have transpired here it's been a combination of factors of us i think you know dan mentioned it's a gb wide piece of work we have received drafts which have then changed and that's not anyone's fault that's just the nature of what we're doing here it's a very complicated set of provisions which require a lot of close consideration by officials and by legal colleagues and then of course we did have the the morning period for queen elisabeth's passing which did affect the point at which we could officially come to the committee but i can only apologise for it and just say that we're glad to be able to be here today to give you evidence thank you for that minister and also for acknowledging you know how complex this item is so it is important that the committee gets you know as much time as as possible just on that because you've mentioned a combination of factors including the death of queen elisabeth and the national period of morning is is that something in terms of contingency plans how we can avoid delays in future if there are other royal events or national events because clearly there's a lot of pressure on on officials as well so is there anything that could be done differently in future to try and protect time because the scrutiny timetable is important i'm sure you will agree yeah no i absolutely do agree and i think for our part we you know we commit to continual improvement when it comes to time to assess the drafts that we receive times to give Scottish ministers views on them and to and to get them to the committee i think when it comes to something quite an extraordinary event like the passing of the queen you know we all had we all had practical issues that we had to think about and deal with and it was a quite unusual situation and now of course we'll have learned from that we hope not to have to do that very often but certainly we will have learned that and about interaction with committee during periods like that but certainly on on the parts that were entirely in our gift we commit to to continually trying to improve thank you minister thank you monica i should actually i know the minister doesn't need defending but she came up very short notice today because this wasn't planned till the latter past of last week so there has been some flexibility from the government to the committee which i would thank you for minister um does anyone have any further questions okay on that basis thank you very much minister and your officials for for taking part and we're going to move on to agenda item four which is the consideration of the consent notification for the biocidal products health and safety amendment regulations 2022 which has yet to be laid the Scottish government proposes to consent to this instrument as we addressed in the previous agenda item there are several options of course open to the committee all of which results in a letter to the Scottish government stating our view the first that if members are content we can approve the proposal to consent the committee will then write to the Scottish government indicating that the second is members can approve the proposal to consent and in the letter confirming this seek any further information if members have any further inquiries and if the members are not content with the proposal the recommendations we can make to the Scottish government are in paragraph nine of our paper three and these include the Scottish government should not give consent to propose the Scottish government should produce an alternative Scottish legislative solution that the Scottish government requests the provisions be made in a UK SA laid in both parliaments under the joint procedure or that the provision should not be made at all those are options I hope I've made it clear to any members have any comments on what the evidence they've heard this morning on the basis of not seeing anyone leaping in to make any comments my question is to move to the substantive question on this item which is is the committee content of the provision set out in the notification should be made in the proposed UK statutory instrument do we agree we are agreed gosh that was simple and so did it going to a vote so we will write to the Scottish government to that effect by its deadline of the 11th of october my question to the committee therefore is the committee content to delegate the authority for me to sign off the letter to the Scottish government informing it of our decision today Natalie I hope that you're not going to say no thank you very much we have agreed the fifth item on the agenda and minister yes please do slip away because I know you're busy is on the agenda this morning is a consideration of another consent notification for a UK statutory instrument the instrument is the persistent organic pollutants amendment EU regulations 2022 which has not yet been laid the scottish government proposes proposes to consent to this instrument which as clerks papers indicate relates to the new UK chemicals regulatory regime for persistent organic pollutants as discussed in the previous item a protocol has been agreed between the scottish government and the scottish parliament for situations where the government is proposing to consent certain types of secondary legislation made by the UK government as a result of the EU exit the protocol sets out how the scottish parliament may scrutinise these decisions there's a statutory requirement that the scottish government's consent must be sought for this proposal and I refer members to paper for agenda item five again there are multiple options open for this committee the first is now I'm not going to go through all of these proposals again but they're exactly the same as in the previous codes I've just wondered if there are any comments that members wanted to make in relation to this if there are no comments can I just move to the substantive question and is the committee content that the provision set out in the notification should be made in the proposed UK statutory instrument we are agreed therefore we will write to the scottish government to that effect and I assume that everyone is happy to delegate authority for me to sign off that letter that's agreed now that concludes the public part of our meeting and we are now going to move it into private session thank you