 Welcome to the sixth meeting in 2016 of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, for we moved to the first item in the agenda. Remind everyone present switch off mobile phones, or at least have them on silent. You may notice some members of the committee consulting tablets that they use for the digitally available papers. Agenda item one is about decision on taking business in private. First item is to consider taking item 7, correspondence from the SRUC in private. We are also asked to agree to take our consideration of our draft legacy report in private of future meetings. Do the members agree that we should do so? Agenda item two is about subordinate legislation and the committee will take evidence on the Air Quality Scotland amendment regulations 2016 draft and welcome the minister, Dr Aileen McLeod, Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, Neil Ritchie, branch head, natural assets and flooding and Andrew Taylor, Air Quality Policy Manager. Good morning. Minister, do you wish to speak to the instrument? Thank you, convener, and I'm delighted to be here this morning as the committee considers these draft regulations, which I hope will make an important contribution to our ongoing efforts to tackle air pollution. We have made significant progress in improving air quality over recent decades. Emissions from industrial and domestic sources have been reduced through tighter controls, as have emissions from transport through increasingly stringent fuel and exhaust emission standards. However, pockets of poorer air quality remain in many of Scotland's towns and cities. In almost all cases, transport is the cause, as the increasing number of vehicles on our roads continues to outpace technological improvements. Unlike the dark smoke belching from factory chimneys and houses in previous times, pollutants, including fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, are largely invisible, but they are no less significant in terms of their impact on human health. Although poor air quality affects all of us, vulnerable groups in society are disproportionately affected, the very young, the elderly and those with existing respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. The Scottish Government is therefore determined to build on our achievements to date and to drive down pollution levels still further. In November last year, we launched Cleaner Air for Scotland, the road to a healthier future, which is Scotland's first distinct air quality strategy. It sets out a long-term vision for us to have the best air quality in Europe. One of the long list of actions in Cleaner Air for Scotland is a commitment to introduce a mandatory objective for fine particulate matter, known as PM 2.5. That is the subject of the regulations that we are considering this morning. An increasing body of scientific evidence shows that PM 2.5 is one of the most significant air pollutants in terms of its impact on human health. Based on that evidence, we have decided to adopt the World Health Organization's guideline value for PM 2.5 in Scottish legislation, making us the first country in Europe to do so. Achieving that will be challenging, but it does underline our commitment to continue delivering improvements in air quality in Scotland. I would ask the committee to support that instrument. Thank you. I would like to ask members if they wish to comment. Yesterday, there was a report out saying that 40,000 people across the UK will die early deaths because of air pollution. I was wondering if you could spell out for us, minister, the particular impact of PM 2.5 and how that affects people's health, and what difference that regulation will make in practice in terms of our cars, lorries and buses, and the vehicles, particularly in our cities, where we have failures in air quality management areas. I really want to get what difference that will make in practice and how that will impact on the logistics industry and people with cars that we use in their day-to-day lives. One of the things that the data published in 2014 by Public Health England covering the whole of the UK suggested that around 2,000 premature deaths each year in Scotland may be associated with PM 2.5 pollution. The new objective will provide a focus for addressing the issue, but I need to increase the number of PM 2.5 monitoring stations. Consultation on the proposals did generate overwhelming support and recognition of the Scottish Government's commitment to deliver further improvements in air quality. The important thing about PM 2.5 in health terms is that those particles are very small and penetrate deeply into the lung and cause respiratory and cardiovascular problems. The larger particles tend to be filtered out before they get to that stage. There is an overwhelming body of evidence that shows that PM 2.5 does have significant health impacts. As the minister has just said, this new objective will give us a focus for tackling that pollutant in the future. Up until now, we have not had a legal objective in Scotland for addressing PM 2.5. By bringing that objective into regulations, it gives us an impetus for taking action. It puts a responsibility on local authorities to monitor for the pollutant to assess what kind of levels of PM 2.5 pollution they have in their areas. Once those figures are available, it provides a focus for taking action and introducing measures into local air quality action plans that are going to tackle that important pollutant. If PM 2.5 is similar to other pollutants, which we tackle at the moment and which it is likely to be, then its major source is likely to be transport. A lot of the focus of the actions that are taken will be to try and reduce pollutant levels from transport emissions. Obviously, it is set out within the cleaner air for Scotland strategy as well in a whole series of actions for the short term, the medium term and the long term. In relation to health, the fact that we are including in legislation is Scottish objectives of the World Health Organization guidelines values for PM 10 and PM 2.5. We will also be requiring our NHS boards and the local authority partners to include reference to air quality and health in the next revision of their joint health protection plans that should identify and address specific local priority issues. Obviously, we have a long list of actions that we will be taking in the transport sector as well. I am just picking up on that issue. I have some AQMAs in my constituency and it is more a technical question really just how practical will it be to upgrade the AQMA monitors in local areas to check for PM 2.5? Is that a fairly straightforward issue? Yes, that is an issue that we are looking at at the moment. We already have a fairly extensive network of monitors for PM 10, which is a slightly larger size fraction. We have got a good spread of those across Scotland and many of those monitors can be directly modified to introduce a PM 2.5 monitoring element into them as well. We are in the process of reviewing the network at the moment to see how many of those existing monitors can be modified in that way. After that, we need to identify gaps in the network in which we need to introduce completely new monitors. Do you have a timeline for that? That review should be complete in the next two or three months. After that, we will develop a programme for rolling out the new PM 2.5 monitoring network. Following on from that minister, there was recent news about local authorities failing to monitor the effects in particular streets, which was in the press. It seems to me that a lot of the work on that ties up with the monitoring equipment and the use of that. Are you confident that local authorities will be able to cope with those tasks and that they are ready to do so? Local authorities with air quality management areas have action plans in place, which contain a wide range of actions that are designed to improve local air quality. The Scottish Government is working closely with those authorities and other partners to help them to implement their plans. Claudia Beamish Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister, and to your officials. It was partly a follow-on from the convener's question. There wasn't any briar or anything, and it states that, in our information, there aren't financial consequences. I was just wondering if there would be actual costs to local authorities for developing further monitoring or where the costs would fall. While I appreciate that there is still a lot of research to be done into fine particulate matter, I noted that Andrew Taylor said that it was likely to be transport that was causing this. I am wondering the degree to which it is able to identify those very dangerous fine particulates. What would actually happen if it is shown that they are exceeding the limit? What action would be taken? Claudia Beamish On the first part, on the financial implications of the new objective, as I said previously, there is a need to increase the number of pm2.5 monitoring stations, but the aim is not to put an additional financial burden on our local authorities, but to utilise central Government budgets for this purpose. Where possible, we will certainly modify existing monitoring equipment to reduce costs. Andrew Taylor In terms of action that local authorities might actually take, as the ministers already said, many local authorities already have air quality action plans in place, containing a wide range of measures that are based on monitoring that has been done for existing pollutants of concerns such as pm10, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. By introducing the new pollutant pm2.5 into that process, we are simply adapting a process that is already well established rather than introducing a new requirement for local authorities. Any local authorities that identify a problem with pm2.5 issues in their local area following monitoring will be expected to develop further action plan measures that are specifically focused on that pollutant. In practice, in many cases, a lot of the causes and solutions for pm10 are the same as they are for pm2.5, so in practice a lot of local authorities will already be taking action. That is going to reduce pm2.5 anyway. As we have already said earlier, having this objective in regulations provides a specific focus for addressing that pollutant. I am still not clear what, for the record, for this committee and more generally, it would be very helpful for me to understand what sort of action can a local authority take. What are we likely to see in these action plans if there are fine particulate matters or other health-affecting particulates that will come from transport? There is a range of measures that local authorities can take. Obviously, it depends on specific local circumstances as to what measures authorities may decide to take. Cleaning out vehicles is a particular example. Local authorities may choose to make emissions improvements to their own vehicle fleets. They may liaise with bus companies and hauliers and try to make improvements to the bus fleet and the HGV fleet. They may consider measures that improve traffic flow. They may consider measures that involve restricting vehicle access to particular areas at a particular time. There is a range of measures that can be taken. Obviously, each local authority is going to have a different set of problems. Graham Deyden and Dave Thompson I want clarity here because it strikes me that there might be a far bigger picture that goes beyond local government, in fact, national government. I wonder where that sits with the World Health Organization report of about three years ago that identified that there was a problem with the filters on modern diesels where it had emerged that the filters had been tested in long-distance scenarios, rather than sitting idling in cities. It had emerged that those filters were spitting out particulates to a far greater degree than the older-style diesel filters. If those two things are related, it is a far bigger picture than anything that a council or a national government could address. I wonder whether there is any tie-up on what they are. There are a number of actions that can be done. First of all, I do not recall the reports two or three years ago that you referred to, but there is work at the European Union level around vehicle standards and specifying within the single market what is allowed to be manufactured and placed on the roads. There have been well-profiled discussions about real world omission levels over the past nine months. That is something that the minister will hear an update on next week's environment council. There is also work that we can do at the Scotland level. A lot of Andrew's work with colleagues in transport Scotland elsewhere across the government is around providing support and tools to local authorities to deliver real world benefits on the ground, rather than replicating them 32 times. As we move forward, we are working with SIPA to see how it can provide further technical support to deliver those targeted local actions. I am not in any way against this at all. I absolutely need to do it, but it was a point of information as to where we thought this issue sat. It was a world health organisation report. It is probably three to four years ago. You can be near morning, minister and officials. Of course, electric vehicles have zero emissions, and that is one way to ensure that there is no PM2.5 or anything else for that matter, but there still seems to be an awful lot of misinformation or misunderstanding out there. As the minister will know, I recently got an electric vehicle myself, a Nissan Leaf, and I know that electric vehicles are being used on Maul very effectively on the island, but I saw a lady from Maul being quoted as saying that it would be very good in a city and very good in an island, but in the longer distances fossil fuels are better. That is not actually true. I have used my vehicle to drive up and down from Inverness to Edinburgh two or three times now. I went via Fort William just over a week ago. The only hindrance is the number of rapid charging points, which restricts you a little bit and you have to plan well in advance, but that is improving. Local authorities and others and other public bodies could be moving more rapidly towards electric vehicles. The batteries are improving all the time, so if we could put more effort into that, minister, and I am interested in your view on that, then that might help to resolve a lot of those issues. You are absolutely right, David Thomson. The Government has invested £11 million in the development of the Charge Place Scotland network of electric vehicle charge points, which are now comprising more than 400 units, which equates to more than 800 public charging bays, with many more that have been commissioned over the coming months. There is work to provide high-powered rapid chargers on strategic routes connecting Scotland's towns and cities. We have probably seen more sales in the past year than we have in the past five years. I will never let it be said that the Iraqi committee fails to look at the minutiae of particulates, as well as the minutiae of secondary legislation. That is all very interesting. There will be no further questions at the moment for the minister. In which case, we move to agenda item 3. The third item today is consideration of motion S4M 15453, asking the committee to recommend approval of Air Quality Scotland amendment regulation 2016 draft. The motion is that the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee recommends that the Air Quality Scotland amendment regulations 2016 draft be approved. I invite the minister to speak to and move the motion. I want to briefly say that I very strongly support that, but, as has been teased out in the questions from members across the committee, although it looks like a really boring statutory instrument, it is potentially quite radical in terms of adding to the monitoring process in our local authority areas. I had a members' debate on air quality before Christmas and the discussions that we have been having about bus fleets, lorries, council vehicles and cars. We will need to make quite radical changes once we get more monitoring out in our communities. I know that, in my patch, we have several areas that regularly fail the air quality management targets. That is why I do not think that anyone expected us to ask lots of questions, but that statutory instrument needs to be a trigger to wider change in terms of our transport strategies and to support our local authorities clearing up our air. Minister, to wind up if you wish. Quite happy not to do so, convener. Thank you then. I will put the question. The question is that motion S4M-15453, in the name of Aileen McLeod, be approved. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed that we will record that. We will take a short break to change officials. Agenda item 4, subordinate legislation, concerns the reservoirs enforcement, etc., Scotland Order 2016 draft. We welcome the minister and her officials, Dr Aileen McLeod, Neil Ritchie once again and, at this time, Claire Dodd, the reservoirs policy officer. Minister, do you wish to speak to the instrument, please? Thank you, convener. I am pleased to still be with the committee to support the committee's consideration of the reservoirs enforcement, etc., Scotland Order 2016. For the first of April this year, reservoirs in Scotland, with a capacity of 25,000 or more commit meters, will be regulated by SEPA under a new regime, provided for in part 1 of the reservoirs Scotland Act 2011. Under the new regime, SEPA will regulate each reservoir, taking into account the risk that each reservoir poses to public safety. In particular, SEPA will be responsible for ensuring that reservoir managers comply with the duties imposed on them under the new regime. A number of sections in the 2011 act have already been commenced and regulations brought into force which create the detailed framework for implementation of the 2011 act. This order is part of that framework and makes provision for a number of new enforcement measures for SEPA. Those enforcement measures will provide SEPA with a better range of interventions so that it can enforce part 1 of the act in an effective and proportionate way. The order will give SEPA the power to serve. First of all, a stop notice to prohibit a reservoir manager from carrying out certain activities until specified steps have been taken. Secondly, a restraint notice to secure that non-compliant acts do not continue or recur. Lastly, a restoration notice to require steps to be taken to restore the position to what it would have been if previous non-compliant acts had not been committed. Those measures are also part of a wider framework of enforcement measures open to SEPA and that they will not be used in isolation. By virtue of separate legislation that has been made under the Regulatory Reform Scotland Act 2014, SEPA also has the option of imposing monetary penalties or of accepting enforcement undertakings in relation to specified offences under part 1 of the 2011 act. SEPA will also continue to refer significant, persistent and deliberate offending to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service for consideration of whether to prosecute. SEPA is well aware of the significance of the additional powers and responsibilities that we propose to give it, and it is committed to ensuring that the measures are used responsibly. There are safeguards in the order, such as the right of individuals to make written representations and to appeal against enforcement decisions. In particular, SEPA is also required to publish guidance about the use of the powers conferred on it by the order. We do not expect that enforcement measures will be frequently used, but they are intended to support prevention and proportionate risk management. I would ask the committee to support this instrument. I am very supportive of the legislation and the regulation, but I want to probe a little bit in terms of both the reservoirs affected and the costs. The Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment says that the 680 controlled reservoirs of the size being regulated—that is 25,000 or more cubic metres—of those 250 are owned by a variety of private estates, individuals, trusts and community groups. Those are the ones that I think I have most concern about, particularly individual ownership, where there is a potential for very considerable necessary expenditure, particularly as it is an open secret that the 1975 act was more honoured and breached than the observance in the sense that there were some of reservoirs. We know that because of incidents that took place in 2008 and 2009, if I am right, those reservoirs were not well maintained. Is there an estimate of how many of those reservoirs require work to be done? Is there an estimate of what that will cost, and is there an estimate of what SEPA will have to do to make that happen? I find it difficult to believe that there will not be a significant cost, and some of that cost will fall upon bodies that probably do not have the assets to undertake those repairs. I think that that is more complex than it appears. It will have to be done, but I feel that the Government in the end might have to step in. I do not have the details. The Bria was about the sorder. All the reservoirs are under the 75 act. There is not that many changes. A high-risk one still has to have a supervising engineer in place at all times, and it has to have its 10-yearly inspection report. That was the same under the 90s to 75 act. I am not aware that there are outstanding issues regarding that. I am happy to have a conversation about that, but I seem to recall that an incident in near Johnston, somewhere in Renfrewshire, resulted in the discovery that there was no supervising engineer who could be contacted. A recognition that there were perhaps in the lower category of reservoirs at 10,000 to 25,000 cubic metres, there were likely to be quite a number of those reservoirs where a supervising engineer might exist, but had that actually not been involved for a very long period of time. My worry about that is not the legislation or the regulation. The worry is that there is a likelihood of a discovery of significant numbers of reservoirs where the resources are not great enough in order to do the work that is required. I think that I am simply raising the issue, because I think that it will require attention from the Government at some stage. By definition, you do not know these things until something happens. The second point is to make the point that I think that there are likely to be some burdens in terms of reservoirs that are parts of properties for sale. I know of one case in my constituency where the sale has been considerably delayed because of the worry about the legislation and what it might mean. I think that the legislation is the right thing to do, but I think that we should also consider that there are issues where some reservoirs may continue to deteriorate because they cannot be sold because there are burdens that are now being applied that cannot be met. Again, it would require, because as a matter of public safety, it would require intervention from the Scottish Government, because local authorities will be very reluctant to do so. Does the legislation sidline local authorities, but it takes them away from the centre of the attention? We are certainly happy to bear that in mind. Mr Russell makes a number of very good points for us to consider further. I am not aware, as Clare said, of any significant problems. We are happy to have that discussion with Mr Russell. It would probably be helpful to involve SEPA in any such discussion, given its operational engagement. What we are talking about here is the cost of maintaining and running reservoirs, which should be done in respect of the legislation in place. What we are talking about today is the regulations that help us to deliver and enforce that and avoid those problems emerging. However, we are conscious that, and it is not just specific to reservoirs, there are a number of areas where SEPA gets involved in, where there can be on-going liability issues associated with abandoned sites. That is something that we are actively working on as part of our better environmental regulation work, in particular to try to avoid happening in the first place. There is no point in finding people who cannot afford to do the basic maintenance work. I mean, that just makes the situation worse, but I would be grateful for the conversation with SEPA and the Scottish Government to ensure that there is a recognition that some of those problems exist. Graham Day. Thank you. Just a point of information. If we accept Mike Russell's point about the resources that may be available at the smaller reservoirs, it strikes me that the greater risk might be why they are there. Can I ask why that is being done in a staged way with the reservoirs of between 10,000 and 25,000 cubic metres coming into this regime at some point in the future? Can we ask for an indication of when that would be? Slightly under the old regime, all the reservoirs of the capacity of 25,000 cubic metres are more of what have been regulated in a similar way. Under the new regime, SEPA will assess the risk that each reservoir poses in that. Those that pose a greater risk will be inspected more frequently, more closely regulated. Obviously, we have said that, from 1 April this year, SEPA will assume the full responsibility for the regulation of reservoirs with the capacity of greater than 25,000 cubic metres. It is at some point in the future, and Neil Ritchie might clarify, but the regime might be extended to also regulate for the first time reservoirs with a capacity of between 10,000 and 25,000 cubic metres. Thank you minister. When we introduced the act through the Parliament 2011, we were very clear that we were focusing on the existing regulated regime of 25,000 cubic metres, which we thought was the greater opportunity and potential risk. Once we have that regime in place, we will be looking towards extending it. I cannot give a precise timing at this point in time, because that is a discussion that we will need to be having with wider stakeholders, including individual operators of the smaller reservoirs. However, there is the intention to expand that, and one of the issues that we need to take into account will be the resourcing that is required to do that, because it has been quite an extended process to do all the required mapping to understand the risks of identifying which category the 25,000 cubic metres reservoirs fit within. Do we know roughly how many of the smaller reservoirs exist in Scotland? No, not a firm figure. We did not have a firm figure for the 25,000 cubic metres until last year, when the registration process had been undertaken. If I recall correctly, when we went through the reservoirs bill, our initial estimate was around 500 to 600 reservoirs, but 600 at that point, we thought, was at the upper end of the spectrum. I would like to ask you, minister, whether there has been any assessment or likely to be any assessment of the relationship between more extreme weather events. These reservoirs are mainly because constituents have raised issues with me about reservoirs in South Scotland, but I understand from SIPA that that was in relation to misinformation that was rumours rather than fact, and that has been clarified for my constituents. However, I do think that there is an issue there, and I suspect that it does not fit specifically within the regulation and enforcement, but the risk issue fits somewhere. I will answer your question in two parts. When the 2011 act requires SIPA to establish and maintain a public-controlled reservoirs register, which includes flood maps, those flood maps show the area of land that is likely to be flooded in the event of an uncontrolled release of water from a reservoir. That relates to the very low likelihood situation of a structure or structures that are completely failing. The main purpose of the maps was to assist SIPA in assigning a risk designation to each reservoir, as required by the 2011 act. Over the risk of water escaping from a reservoir is extremely low, and there have been no major dam failures in the UK since the advent of the first reservoir safety legislation in 1930. We know that reservoirs can be used for flood storage purposes. An example of that is St Mary's Loch in the Scottish Borders, which is part of the Selkirk flood protection scheme. That can be used to store water during a flood event. The works at St Mary's Loch helped Selkirk to avoid the worst flooding damage that was caused by Storm Desmond last December. However, taking water out of a reservoir can be a complex matter, and reservoirs, certainly in general, are not managed as a flood defence. If not, that is fine. We can now move on to agenda item 5. The agenda item is to consider the motion S4M15450. It asks the committee to recommend approval of reservoirs, enforcements etc. Scotland Order 2016 draft. The motion is that the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee recommends that the reservoirs, enforcements etc. Scotland Order 2016 draft be approved. I invite the minister to speak to and move the motion. I put the question on the motion. The motion is that S4M15450, in the name of Aileen McLeod, be approved. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. I will record that. Thank you. We will confirm the outcome of the debate. Thank you minister and your officials. We will now move on to agenda item 5. The sixth item on the agenda is for the committee to consider seven negative instruments as listed on the agenda. The Nature Conservation Scotland Act 2004 authorised operations order 2016, SSI 2016-38. The pollution prevention and control Scotland amendment regulations 2016, SSI 2016-39. The waste management licensing Scotland amendment regulations 2016, SSI 2016-40. The reservoirs Scotland regulation 2016, SSI 2016-43. The carbon accounting scheme Scotland amendment regulations 2016, SSI 2016-46. The Orkney Islands landing of crabs and lobsters order 2016, SSI 2016-50. The Croft House grant Scotland regulations 2016, SSI 2016-63. I refer members to the paper and I am going to go through each one in turn and ask if there is any comment to be made. Any comments on the nature conservation Scotland act 2004? No comments. The pollution prevention and control Scotland amendment regulations. The waste management licensing Scotland amendment regulations, no comment. The reservoirs Scotland regulations 2016, no comments. The carbon accounting scheme Scotland amendment regulations 2016, no comments. The Orkney Islands landing of crabs and lobsters order 2016, Dave Thompson. Thank you, convener. It was just really a quick point on the velvet crabs, the egg-bearing female velvet crabs. It states in relation to this order that it only applies to British fishing boats and I know we have discussed similar things in the past. It appears here that the prescribed minimum landing sizes in the prohibition set out in article 6 apply only to landings from British fishing boats, and those relate to egg-bearing female velvet crabs. It does say that the reason for that is that while foreign fishing boats are there for exempted records show, they do not make landings of velvet crab, green crab or lobsters into the Orkney Islands. However, the point is that do they fish there and are they actually catching egg-bearing female velvet crabs? I just wondered if that was something that we could pursue with Government to establish whether that is the case and why those exemptions exist. Certainly following that up and looking at the map, the question ought to be added to is whether they fish within the areas that are shown on the map, which is the areas that this order reflects. If we can write to the minister about that, we can try to find out any other points in that one. If not, we move on to the Croft House Grant Scotland regulations. Mike Russell. Mike Russell might make a point. I am pleased with those, and I think that they will assist crofters and would-be crofters within my constituency. I presume that there will be an assurance that the administration of the scheme will continue to be undertaken from Tyvee, because it is important that it is done within the highland areas, and it is very welcome to see a diversification of work in Scottish Ireland, particularly one within my constituency. I would like to make sure that that continues to be the case. Equally, I very much welcome the proposals. It is a huge step forward. It was long overdue, but I am really pleased that the Government has moved down this road. The guidance is obviously going to be quite crucial. The information here does say that we will get that guidance before the regulations come into force. They come into force on 1 April, and it would be quite useful if we could see that guidance sooner rather than later, because it is really important to see exactly who is going to be eligible, for instance, for the higher level of grant, those on the mainland parts of the crofting counties in particular. I echo the remarks of my colleagues as a MSP with crofting areas. As you know, during the land reform bill, we talked about potentially eco-friendly designs for houses. It would seem to me that, with the kind of regulations that are coming forward, we would expect in parallel that the Crofting Commission would be working on such things in order to help modular approaches that would allow people to build houses that were cheaper and much more fuel-efficient. I hope that, now that it is on the record, we will keep that particular line going as well, but, as you say, it is very welcome. Any other comments on those? If not, then I ask the committee, are we agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to these instruments? We are agreed, thank you very much. At the next meeting of the committee, we will host two round table sessions with stakeholders ahead of the consideration of the committee's legacy report, as well as considering subordinate legislation and petitions. I will now close the public part of the meeting, and the committee will move into private session, as agreed earlier in the meeting.