 Mae'r next item of business is the consideration of the legislative consent memorandum for the genetic technology precision breeding bill. I welcome to the meeting Mary McCallan, the minister for environment, land reform and her supporting officials, Rosemary Anfield, the GMO policy officer. Caspian Richard, head of policy and pesticide survey unit, Science and Advice, and Emily Williams, Boilstone from the Scottish Government's legal Dictatorate. Can I ask the minister to make an opening statement? Thank you, convener. I'm happy to make a few opening words. Thank you for inviting us to give evidence today on the legislative consent memorandum on the UK Government's genetic technology precision breeding bill. As the committee will know, the UK Government's first bill would remove from genetically-modified organisms regulations in England plants and animals produced using modern biotechnologies and the food and the feed derived from them, if every feature of their genome could have occurred naturally or been produced by traditional methods. The legislative consent memorandum requires us to consider one discrete aspect of that bill. It's not a question today whether the committee and the Parliament support the policy purpose of the UK's bill. We have discussed that on a number of occasions and have no doubt that we will continue to. Nor are we looking to date the impacts on the bill that arise as a result of the UK Internal Market Act. I wrote to you on 10 January on highlighting the Government's concerns about those, but it explains that they are not under consideration today. The clause that I want to discuss is clause 42. That enables the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to make, and I quote, supplementary, incidental or consequential provision in connection with any provision of or made under this act. It therefore permits the amendment of legislation that is related to the main purpose of the bill. That includes devolved legislation, because, for example, the regulation of GMOs in Scotland and a number of other related policy areas such as agriculture and food are devolved and are engaged here. Because clause 42 permits the making of regulations that amend existing legislation in devolved policy areas, it is a provision within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament. However, as the clause is drafted, there is no requirement for Scottish ministers to consent to regulations nor for the Scottish Parliament to scrutinise them. It is the Government's position that allowing UK Ministers to legislate in devolved areas without consent represents an erosion of devolved competence, and it will therefore recommend withholding consent clause 42. I would like to say a very quick word on timing before wrapping up and taking any questions. I want to do that because we could have been in a different position with regards to the LCM if the UK Government had engaged with us on the drafting of their bill. My officials first saw the text of the bill on the afternoon prior to its introduction to the House of Commons. I understand if not simultaneously with the content being shared with the media. It took us some time to determine whether the terms of the bill engaged devolution guidance notes and whether an LCM was required. Having established that it was, my officials and I thought to engage with the UK Government on potential amendments to clause 42, which would have in general required consent and might have allowed us to recommend accepting or giving consent, but that has not been fruitful. I am still awaiting a response to my letter to Mark Spencer, the deaf minister of 8 November. All of that has been that it is not possible to lodge the LCM within the timescales that I know the committee would have preferred, and I do apologise for that. We are happy to take any questions. Thank you, minister. Yes, absolutely. We share your frustration at the lack of time to look at this, but I also agree that, here today, we are not looking at the general principles of genetic engineering or the wider impact that legislation might or might not have. My question is that the Scottish Government has brought forward the LCM and not the UK Government, because the UK Government did not feel that it was required, and we understand that the Scottish Government is concerned with the consequential powers in clause 42. Has the Scottish Government had any indication of how the power is intended to be used in relation to Scotland that would bring it to raise these concerns? I think—so two parts of that question. Firstly, one of the problems with this clause, one of the problems with the legislation generally, is that it is very unclear how exactly the UK Government intend to utilise it, intend to implement it and the implications that that will have for Scotland. What we have been required to do is to examine the powers granted to the secretary of state under clause 42 and to take that to its logical conclusion and to almost hypothesise about what ultimately could be done with it. Our view is very much that it is a broad power to make supplemental, incidental or consequential provisions in a bill that touches a range of devolved policy issues from food and feed to animal health and welfare to the regulation of GMOs generally. So there is a broad scope on a context of no clarity whatsoever. Have you had any indication that the UK Government would intend to use these powers? Well, I think that including them in primary legislation is an indication that you would intend to use them at some point. In terms of any indication that we have had about specifically how they might be used, I know that potentially the regulation of seeds has been an area that there has been some indication might be an early piece of work that would be done. Perhaps my officials want to say a little bit more than that, but essentially the placing on the market of certain seeds is currently organised on a GB nation's basis. I think that changes to that to account for this bill might be one of the early movers of secondary legislation. Certainly there have been discussions in the common framework for plant varieties and seeds, where there has been an indication that regulations around seeds and the national list might be in an early area where DEFRA would look to use these powers. I'm going to fall on from what you've just said, minister, if that's okay. The convener has asked, is there anywhere where you see the powers being used, but I'm looking at the letter that they sent to you. We have been clear that we do not presently intend to amend GM regulatory regime in Scotland to remove categories of products that are currently regulated as GMOs. The views of stakeholders in Scotland will be central to decision making in this devolved area of responsibility. That concerns me greatly that the UK Government intend to go beyond the Scottish Government to speak to stakeholders first before the Scottish Government. Presently, what they are saying is that we may at some point decide to go beyond the Scottish Government's devolved powers, so that we can make decisions in Westminster. Is that your interpretation of the letter? I'm not sure what letter it is. Sorry, Jim. It doesn't make it clear that the letter is from the Scottish Government. I think that this is my letter to the UK Government. It doesn't, unfortunately, make it clear that the way that the high lighting in the papers you've got doesn't make it clear that the letter is actually from the Scottish Government. My apologies. My apologies. The papers were not going on. Can I ask you then, is there been any intergovernmental discussion on the regulation of new genetic techniques going forward, including to what extent the common frameworks process has already been used? Yes, there has been a lot of discussion, particularly between officials of the Scottish Government and, in deffra, not least as we went back and forward on our views on whether an LCM was required. As I mentioned, our attempts to change or make amends to clause 42 would require Scottish ministers' consent. There is a lot of back and forth. I, at ministerial level, have had less luck in having conversations. As I said, I wrote to Mark Spencer, deffra minister on 8 November about seeking a conversation with him, and I have yet to receive a reply. As regards common frameworks, the process of bringing what are widespread complex issues about the application of this across the UK should have been brought to common frameworks long before the introduction of the legislation. That did not happen. Information is now coming, but it is exceptionally complex, and officials in each of the engaged common frameworks are now working through that. I will leave it at that. I am interested to know, minister, that we had 11 responses for a call for submissions for the committee on that, and some of the responses do specifically mention clause 42. I think that the Association for Welfare in Scotland said that we should not agree with the motion, because it impacts Scotland. What other communication has the Scottish Government had from other stakeholders in Scotland with regard to the LCM? I will hand over to officials to see if they have spoken directly with any of the stakeholders that you mentioned. No, I have not had direct contact with any of those who submitted some responses to the call for evidence that the committee put out. There are 11 responses. It is a variety, so it is interesting. I suppose that it is something that might need to be followed up as we move forward. You touched on that a little bit in your opening statement, but Minister McCallan wrote to the UK Government saying that the Scottish Government did not want to create further regulatory divergence on the regulations of GMO when the European Commission is in the process of conducting its own consultation on the issues. The Scottish Government clearly takes a more cautious position on gene editing, one that aligns more closely with the EU. I would like to find out more about the implications of further regulatory divergence on GMO for the UK internal market and for the effectiveness of Scottish regulations. It is a great question. On the point about the EU, the question of decoupling gene editing from the definition of GMO is not something that is uniquely considered by the UK Government. It is responsible of us and the Scottish Government to consider those developments and to listen to scientists, but equally to listen to civic society and communities on their views on that. However, we are watching closely what is happening at the UK Government level, and particularly the EU, not just because there has been a beacon of environmental protectionism and progress, but also because of the very real trade implications for any divergence. That is what I think you are alluding to most of all. The UK Government's own impact assessment on its bill did highlight that any difference in position between the UK and the EU could create impediments to trade with additional barriers and costs. That is a very real consideration alongside the internal market act implications and what that means for Scotland and the wider point about how stakeholders in Scotland feel about that. I was going to ask a question in regards to the EU. I think that you have answered that quite comprehensively there. Where else do you see the powers of a clause 42 being used and what other areas? I think that that goes back to discussion earlier. I cannot remember who asked the question, but one of the problems just now is that it is a broad clause and we do not have a great deal of information about how the UK might intend to use it. That is one of the main problems. What we were seeking to do was to make sure that there was a pretty standard consent mechanism so that whatever it was in the future, it would be brought to the attention of Scottish ministers. The Scottish Parliament would have the opportunity for scrutiny and we would consider it on its merits or demerits at the time. As it stands, we do not have that opportunity. However, as I say, there are so many aspects of devolved law that are touched by the bill, albeit that it is applicable only to England just now—food farming, animal welfare, GMOs generally. It would be wrong to stray too much into hypotheticals, but right now we have no information about how the clause might be used. It could be used in relation to any of those issues. Is this the first time that you have had concerns over a clause similar, or the same, as the clause 42? Are there other examples of legislation at a UK or Westminster side with a clause 42 that you have had to consider? I think that not in my portfolio I am not currently considering any others just now. Taking powers like this is not unusual in a bill, but you would expect to have that consent mechanism and I think that that is the crux of our difficulty with it. I do not have my legal colleagues have got any—you presumably working on other bills that I am not. I think that just to add, we need to assess each bill on its own merits, and certainly the standing orders of the Scottish Parliament do not exclude consequential provision necessarily. That is what we took clause 42 within the context of the bill and taking into account the potential areas that could be affected by consequential amendments made. Other pieces of legislation will, as a norm, have a clause similar to clause 42. We see that at UK level legislation and also at Scottish level, but it is only in this instance that the Scottish Government has decided that an LCM is required whereas the UK Government has made the decision that it is not required. Is that right? I cannot comment for the generality of bills and it is significant that the bill relates to an area of policy that is itself devolved but has massive impacts on other devolved policy areas, albeit that the substantive provisions of the bill only apply in England. I think that it is probably very difficult to find other examples that neatly match that particular pattern and that is why we assessed it on its own merits. Okay, thank you, that's helpful. Emma. It's just to pick up on what we're saying about the broader impacts of this bill. It's not just section 42. Are we worried about other issues? I know that in the National Farmer Union their submission didn't really talk about clause 42, but it considers gene editing techniques to have potential benefits for food, agriculture, nutrition, biodiversity and climate change. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the broader impacts of this bill in Scotland. Can I interject there? I think that we're trying to avoid getting into the bigger discussion about the pros and cons of the genetic engineering precision bill at the moment. I think that at some point in the future it would be helpful if we could perhaps get yourself and your colleagues back in to set out the Scottish Government's position and also take the opportunity to hear views from other stakeholders. Today, with the information in front of us, I think that it's not a position that I want to put you in or the committee members where we're specifically looking at the implications of the LCM in clause 42. Apologies, convener. Any further questions? Thank you very much minister and your officials for joining us today. We will now briefly suspend before we move on to the next item. Our next item is to consider the consideration of two SSIs under the negative parliamentary procedure. Does any member have any comment on the agriculture retained EU law and data Scotland Act 2020, consequential modifications and agricultural products, aquatic animal health and genetically modified organisms, EU exit amendment regulation 2022? No, and our second SSI to consider is, does any member have any comments on the conservation of salmon, Scotland amendment regulation 2022? No, I'd just like to suggest that at some point we look at the paper that's being prepared for the conservation plan. Often, the SSI throws up some difficulties regarding river classification and we did have 221 responses on the back of the SSI. I'm going to ask the clerks to write for further information. That concludes our session in public and the meeting will now move into private session.