 Welcome to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee's 38th and final meeting of 2018. Before we move on to the first item in the agenda, I remind everyone to switch off mobile phones as they may affect the broadcasting system. The first item on the agenda is for the committee to take further evidence on the reach amendment of EU exit regulations 2019. This morning, I'm delighted to welcome Mare Gougeon, Minister for Rural Affairs and Natural Environment, Don McGilveray, Deputy Director of Environmental Quality and Circular Economy, and Lorraine Walkinshaw's list for the Scottish Government. Good morning to you all. We took some evidence last week on the reach notification. I'll start off with a broad question for your minister. Can you set out why the Scottish Government is satisfied to consent to the regulations? Generally, there is quite a complex mix of devolved and reserved powers within the SI. That is why we would agree to the SI as it comes forward at the moment and we would give our consent to that. Obviously, that is not an ideal situation for us. We believe that this is the best way forward to deal with a no-deal scenario if we find ourselves in that position. I think that if we were to deal with this or attempt to deal with this in a Scotland-only capacity, I think that that would benefit industry. I think that this is such a complex area. I don't think that we would have the capacity to do that either. I think that this is again not an ideal situation. We don't want to be in this position. I hope that we end up with the deal and we're able to work through this. In terms of the SI, we believe that this is the best way forward in the most realistic and pragmatic approach that we can take to dealing with the reach. It's really about continuity and given businesses and the sector some kind of clarity. Should there be a no-deal situation? Absolutely. What's being proposed is essentially a mirror image of what's of the current EU reach regulations at the moment and how that would operate in the UK. That's our concern and what that will mean for industry because this is a regulation that will have a big impact. We want to make sure that that process is as easy and straightforward as possible. It will be complex. The timescales are obviously very challenging in order for that to be achieved, but we believe that this is the best approach for that to be done for us to work together on a UK basis to enable that to happen. Obviously, things might change in the future. One of the things that I wanted to ask you is at the moment, obviously, that a shared framework with the UK, but is there scope in that, should the Scottish Government diverge in their approach to the regulations that they have the power, should there be a difference in view as to how we should proceed in the future? We currently have the power and that power wouldn't change within the UK system anyway. If there was a substance of concern to us in Scotland and we wanted to take action on that, we would still be able to do that within the new system. I know that, having a look at the evidence that the committee took last week, I know that there was a concern there about policy divergence. If there was a divergence from the different stakeholders that you spoke to, the way that it works at present, I cannot see that being too much of an issue. As far as I am aware, under the current EU reach system, other member states—I do not think that there has been an issue with other member states taking a different approach. Certainly within the UK, we cannot envisage that being an issue at the moment, but it is something that we would have to monitor closely as we went along. As I say, the power for us to take action if there was a substance of concern, we would still have that and we would be able to initiate a process where we can take action on that as well. However, it is not within our best interests for there to be any policy divergence. If anything, I think that I made the same commitment to the committee last week. We want to uphold the highest environmental standards possible and we want to keep pace with what is happening in the EU as well. I think that this is one sector in particular where industry would like us to see us keep pace with what is going on in the EU. I think that there will be close engagement as a result of that, too. The chemical science of Scotland last week in particular pointed to risk to export and import industries if we do diverge. I note that Switzerland and Turkey, although they are not members of reach, do legislate to keep pace with reach. Does the minister think that that is an appropriate approach for the UK to take? Clearly, given that Switzerland and Turkey have done it, we know that it is a possible approach for a state to take. Absolutely. I agree with that. Obviously, again, we do not want to be in this position, and I think that if we, hopefully, were not in a no-deal scenario, and that is what this SI is here to deal with, but if we find ourselves where we are able to get some kind of deal, we would be advocating that we would, first of all, remain members of reach if that is at all possible. However, if not, we would definitely try to keep pace. I think that industry would want to see us do that. Certainly, from a Scottish Government perspective, we want to maintain the high environmental standards that we have, and we want to keep pace with what is happening in the EU, so we would definitely be encouraging and working towards seeing that happen. Obviously, that is the passive side of the reach provisions. Are you concerned about the potential loss of influence in actively influencing how reach develops that might follow from departure? Absolutely. That is one of the key risks that we face in a no-deal situation, and that is going to be unavoidable. That is why we do not want to find ourselves in a no-deal situation and why we do not want to be in this position. The position that we have taken with this SI is making the best of a bad situation, but that is one of the things that we will lose. We will lose the influence that we currently have in terms of the reach system. Can I ask you questions about building a UK reach database and the implications of the transitional period? What are the implications of not having access to the EU reach database following EU exit, given that it will be up to two years before the new UK database will be populated with full data about chemicals used in Scotland? That will be a big issue for industry. That is undeniably something that will have a significant impact on businesses and on industry across the UK, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises. I am sure that you heard that in your evidence last week. That is why we are trying to work together with the UK Government to make sure that we have a system in place that minimises the disruption as much as possible to businesses and industry. However, there is no getting away from the fact that there will be a significant impact and there will be additional costs for many businesses and industry for going through this process. We are trying to minimise that disruption as much as possible by working with the UK Government and HSE to make sure that, when that system is established, it is as streamlined as possible and to make sure that it is as smooth as possible for businesses and industries across the UK. Fair enough. Are there implications for the rights of access to environmental information by consumers and the public during the transitional period? Will the public still have the same access to the information that it currently enjoys? I believe that they would still do, but I will hand over to my officials. What you are touching on there, Mr Scott, is that, essentially, in a no-deal scenario, the access to the underlying commercial data in the eco-data base will fall away, so that the UK and Scotland will no longer have access to that information. Then there is a two-year transition before you fully build up that information within a domestic UK context. What you have is a balance between the speed of the transition in terms of trying to get to a fully regulated, fully informed position as quickly as possible, but also making that transition such that businesses and industry can cope with it, cope with the timescale and cope with the demands that it places on them in terms of submission of data. It is a bit of a compromise that is being taken in that two-year period, but there is definitely a transitional period where you lose something by exiting eco in that no-deal scenario. In a practical sense, what will be the impact of that on day-to-day consumers, or will it be something that will impact particularly and only on businesses? If that has an impact on businesses and industries who are currently part of the system, then there will be a knock-on impact further down the line. I think that we will also see some businesses who previously have not had to register with a system before having to register with a new UK system now. I think that there will be a bigger knock-on impact of that. I do not know whether you have anything to add to that. It is very difficult to judge the impact on consumers. Essentially what we are talking during this transitional period is that those are substances that are already registered on the EU system. They already have a registration and authorisation at EU level, but, yes, there will be a period where that underlying data is not available to industry or consumers for a period if it needs to be accessed. It is about trying to make that transition in a period that is as short as realistic for industry to cope with as the situation that we are trying to achieve. If I have understood it correctly, then there will not be any risk to consumers or business because those are already registered substances, but there may be a lack of information as easily accessible as it once was. That is my understanding. Thank you. Can I ask about the common framework that is described in the notification? Are there more details about that framework and how is it progressing? How is the development of that framework progressing? That the work in the establishment framework is coming along well, but in terms of further detail of that, that is something that we do not have at the moment. However, it is progressing well, but obviously engaging as closely as possible to make sure that we have a framework established. However, we do not have the final outcome of that yet. What is the process for that? What is the timescale for getting more certainty as to how that framework will operate? What should we be looking at as a committee in terms of what then comes back? The process is essential. At present, there is a foreign nation discussion among first officials. For example, there are a series of meetings and workshops taking place. The most recent of those took place in Edinburgh a few weeks ago. Essentially, what we are trying to do is work through what are the main areas that the framework should cover at the moment, and then what are the governance and internal decision making processes that will help to support the statutory framework that is being put in place. Obviously, ideally, we want that framework to be as advanced as possible for end of March, start of April. Can you keep the committee informed of the workshops and what is coming out of that? Absolutely, we will do, but the priority has been in trying to make sure that we are able to function as of 29 March and find ourselves in a no-deal scenario. That has been the utmost in our minds, but, obviously, we want to be as open and transparent throughout this process as possible, so we will definitely keep the committee informed and engaged with what is happening. One of the things that might have been discussed at these workshops would be around stakeholder engagement. We know that, with ECA, there is this architecture within the committees where stakeholders can get involved, they can be represented perhaps as non-voting members. Is a concern that we are hearing from stakeholders about whether they will have their views represented, articulated in some way in the new structure? How will this new system deal with that? Those discussions are at an early stage as to how that engagement would happen or how that would work. I would envisage that there would be a role for that there, but I cannot give a categorical answer as to how that will look or how that will operate in practice. Is that something that you are putting on the table? It is one of the headings that we have discussed amongst officials, is that aspect of how to engage more widely within that process. Do you think that there should be more involved stakeholders? There is certainly a role for stakeholders in having good communication between any Government structure that is set up on stakeholders. That will be an important part of the process, is the way in which I would put it. Especially given the concerns that you heard from industry and stakeholders last week, we want to make sure that, at all stages of the process, we are trying to make that as streamlined as possible for industry at the moment. That is definitely something from my perspective. We have to keep people engaged. I would be keen for us to develop that, but we will definitely keep the committee updated on that. Can I take you back to frameworks in terms of the potential of those frameworks not being established by 29 March and potentially being a no deal scenario? What are the implications of that to someone who is a lay person like me? If you can explain that, the implications are not being frameworks. I would say that the statutory framework is still going to be there, but I think that we are working so that we do not end up in that situation without any frameworks and without anything in place. That is the priority. We know that we have that deadline. It is a very tight deadline. Again, we do not want to be in that position, but that is what we are working towards to make sure that we have the basic legislation in place and we have a system that will function come 29 March if we find ourselves in a no deal situation and that the framework would be established by that time, too. That is what we are working towards. It is hard for definite to say what any potential risk of that might be, but that is what we are working towards at the moment and that is the position that we will hopefully be in by 29 March. I am not meaning to tease you, but I hear what your aspiration is, but what is the default position? I think that the situation will be that the Governments will simply do what they need to do to make it work. There simply will be less of a template and less of a governance structure around that. Officials will still talk to each other and the solution will be fine. Constant engagement between officials and the different Governments anyway, so I think that that will definitely still continue. Again, we would want to have those frameworks in place because I think that that is important between the different Governments as well, but also in terms of how we work with the parliamentary process to engage with the committees and further scrutiny. I would like to go back to the continued access to imported chemicals and the safety of those chemicals. The notification says that there will be an interim notification system. However, the Cabinet Secretary, back in 4 December, suggested that she wants to avoid barriers to trade to ensure that they have an effective regulatory system. However, if there is no deal, there are real issues about unsafe materials entered in Scotland. Do the proposed regulations address the Scottish Government's concern about the risk of unsafe materials entering Scotland under a no-deal scenario? Again, we do not want to end up in a situation where we see that kind of situation take place, where we essentially become a dumping ground for materials that we would not have had previously. If there is a material of concern to Scotland, we can take action on that as it stands at present, and that will not change under the current proposals. I would not envisage that. We would not be too much of an issue, particularly when we can still take action. We would be aiming to keep pace with the rest of the EU and working together on a UK-wide basis to do that, because that is within the best interests of industry and businesses. We would not want to see any dilution of our standards here in Scotland. There was a specific suggestion that there was a risk to the chemicals that are used to purify water. Is that still an issue? Do you have any other concrete examples of industries or services that might be at risk for disruption in chemical supplies? There is a contingency plan in place in case there is any disruption to that. Scottish Water, in my understanding, has been working with the other water companies across the UK to put in place a significant contingency plan to make sure that there are sufficient supplies of the chemicals needed for water treatment to make sure that there is no disruption to water supplies. My understanding is that there is a high degree of confidence in that contingency plan, as it stands. That is the situation for the water industry, as I understand it. Is there any other industries that might be in the same situation as Scottish Water? Not as far as we are aware of particular issues like that unless you have any further information to add to that. The supply chains for chemicals are so complex that it is very, very hard to pin down where the pinch points will come. It is basically industries that are users of a wide variety of different substances, process industries, manufacturing industries, cleaning product manufacturers. Those are things where there is a range of different chemicals used in significant volumes. Those are the ones that are most likely to be affected, but it is very difficult within that wide scope to pin down exactly where pinch points might come. There are no specific concerns about any particular industry having issues. There is no contingency. There is nothing that is coming up in the radar. In terms of Scottish Water, there is the contingency there, but in relation to other industries, we do not have that information. Thank you, convener, and good morning, Minister and officials. Could I explore further with you the government and agency preparedness, particularly in terms of capacity and staffing in relation to chemicals? I just highlight that the House of Lords EU Energy and Environment Committee had expressed concerns and I quote, we are not convinced that the government's preparations are progressing quickly enough and in some respects the government appears to lack a credible plan of action. That is obviously the UK government. Also, the ECHA, I understand, has over 5,000, sorry, 500 staff. There was reassurance last week about the capacity of SEPA, but I wonder if you could expand, Minister, a bit on that in view of those comments that have been highlighted to me? In terms of SEPA, we do not anticipate there being too much of an additional burden on what they do, and I believe that you heard that in your evidence from them last week. They potentially have an increased role in the proposed new system if we find ourselves in a no deal compared with what they have at the moment. I do not think that there will be too much of an additional burden, but we obviously liaise closely with SEPA. It is a situation that we would have to monitor if they did need additional resources or if there proved to be any problems. That is of course something that we would be monitoring closely and looking to deal with. However, I cannot answer for HSE preparedness. I would hope that that is something that the UK Government is considering in terms of the workload that it will have to deal with. Because I have some of the registration statistics here, there are 91,536 registrations with ECHA. The UK proportion of that is 12,449. 5,749 substances are registered from the UK, which represents 1,773 companies. I think that it will be a big additional role and a big additional responsibility that it will be taking on. I understand also that the EU reach regime contains a board of appeal. I wonder if we, as a committee, could highlight to you to be sure that things are not held up in that way, hopefully, if a chemical company needs to appeal a decision or whatever. I take it would be a UK arrangement now, rather than a Scottish one. Yes, the appeals would go to the first tier at Tribunal, but I think that as far as I am aware, I am sure that I will be corrected if I am wrong. However, since the EU reach regulations came into place, there have only been 148 appeals over the whole of that time. Again, we do not anticipate that being too much of an issue. I think that number is correct. Did my homework well? We do not anticipate that being too much of an issue. I have already covered the implications for the Scottish chemical industry. You mentioned earlier, Minister, that you are trying to keep it as streamlined as possible for industry. Perhaps you could expand on the assessment that the Scottish Government has made of the potential impacts of transferring to the UK reach system on Scottish businesses. Are there any particular considerations regarding impacts on small and medium-sized businesses? The Scottish Government has been engaging with the federation of small business. It is one of those things that is going to be particularly difficult because there will be a significant impact, particularly on SMEs, purely because of the additional administrative burden that they will have to deal with that additional cost. That is a particular issue for small businesses because they may not necessarily have the capacity to deal with that. In terms of the information that they are being asked to provide through that initial registration period and the additional information that they would need for that two-year period, that is an issue. We have been engaging with the federation of small business to try as far as we can to make those businesses aware. That has been the role mainly of the UK Government and HSE to engage with industry and the sectors as a whole. Rather than having the Scottish Government doing different levels of engagement, that has been led by the UK Government, but we have certainly been engaging with stakeholders to make sure that they are aware of what is coming and as engaged with the process as possible. Do you know if the HSE will be able to give practical help with the administrative burden? I cannot answer for the help that HSE will be able to provide. I know that there have been a number of stakeholder engagement workshops, especially when it comes to the new reach IT system that is being proposed and to make sure that we are as ready as possible and that businesses and industry have tested that system to ensure that it is as easy to operate as possible, but in terms of their engagement in being able to ease that administrative burden. I think that they probably would not be able to do that given the number of businesses and the number of companies that we are talking about here and the scale of that. It is really about trying to ensure that everyone is aware as much as possible of what they will be required to do and to give them as much information as possible to make it as easy a transition as possible. However, it is a big ask, and it is going to be a significant burden, particularly on small businesses. Would the Minister like to add that she has not covered already? I think that that is most things, but if there are any questions that come up as a result, please write to me and I will be happy to get back to you with responses. Thank you very much for your time this morning. I am going to suspend this meeting briefly just to allow the panel to leave. The second item in our agenda this morning is to consider a number of requests from the Scottish Government to the committee to consent to the UK Government legislating using the powers under the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018 in relation to a number of UK statutory instruments. The first of those is the trade in animals and related products amendment of EU exit regulations 2018. Do any committee members have any comments on this? Stuart Stevenson? It is maybe the next one. Is the committee therefore content for the Scottish Government to give its consent for UK ministers to lay those regulations in the UK Parliament? The second of those instruments is the import and trade of animals and animal products amendment UK EU exit regulations 2018. Just looking at the quite lengthy list, there is, in the annex to what the Government provided, the EU regulations that are affected. I have one or two questions. They are not questions that cause me to suggest that we should not prove that. The first of those is number 2 in the annex, which is commission decision 93 oblique 352, which is about the conditions for approval for border inspection ports located in ports where fish is landed. Clearly, I have a constituency interest, as some others may have. I am confident that it makes no difference, but I would quite like to have that explicitly stated that for the operation of vessels, UK and foreign vessels who land at Scottish fishing ports are unaffected by that. In particular, EU nationals who may be part of the crew of vessels are not affected in a material way by that, because clearly they will have a new status. The many Filipino nationals who work in the industry already have a status as foreign nationals that I imagine will be unaffected by that. Point 2 relates to section 43, number 43, commission implementing decision 2013 oblique 519, and commission implementing regulation number 577 oblique 2013, which is paragraph 45. Perhaps paragraph 21, which is commission decision 2007 oblique 25 oblique EC. All of those relate to the movement of non-commercial animals, dogs, cats, ferrets and birds, presumably in the custody of their keeper across borders. Clearly implementing that covers the import by people to the UK, and I am reasonably satisfied with that. However, the related question is whether there are effects on people taking their pet animals out of the UK and into the EU, which might be appropriate to draw our attention to. It may well be that that is a question that is not currently capable of being answered, but I think that it is probably important at least to post that it is a question. I will not reiterate what my colleague Stuart Stevenson has raised, but I was going to highlight one of those issues about non-commercial to and through. I would just like to highlight although it would not prevent me from supporting the decision today. I would like to highlight any concerns about staff capacity in relation to customs. I appreciate that it is an EU issue, but with Conran in my constituency. All the discussion about pet passports is also an issue. Also, more broadly, the importance of the fact that there are very serious animal diseases that we suddenly do not want to be importing into the UK. That capacity to check is absolutely fundamental. We will reflect all those points. I am supportive utterly of all those instruments, but with regard to the part 2 England-only instruments, the bovine seem in England regulations 2007 and the trade in animals and related products regulations 2011, they do not apply in Scotland. Therefore, do we have our own regulations in Scotland? Can I just seek clarification on that? I presume that we must. Therefore, if we do, do they not need amended as well? Does that come under a separate piece of work or are they already amended? I am just seeking clarity around that if I have expressed myself coherently, which is probably. In our letter, we can reflect a lot of the clarity that we are seeking around a number of these. Is there any other points that we would like to include to Stuart Stevenson? It is merely an observation in relation to what John Scott has just said. The draft essay covers five GB-wide instruments. In other words, it does not cover Northern Ireland, and I think it is as well just to note that. I believe and understand that that is because they have their own regulations and of course having a land border with another state. There are some issues that would not in the same way apply to ourselves. No one has come up with anything that would stop you from supporting us by writing a letter. Just to check with everyone. Can we confirm that the committee will write to the Scottish Government in relation to the instruments that it has considered today, taking all those points into consideration? That concludes the items of the committee's agenda in the public session. At its next meeting on 8 January, the committee will continue its consideration of EU exit notifications. The committee will also consider a draft report on the climate change emissions reductions target Scotland Bill at stage 1.