 Good morning, and welcome to the seventh meeting of the Health and Sport Committee in 2019. We have apologies this morning from Miles Briggs and Sandra White. Can I ask everyone in the room to please ensure that mobile phones are off or on silent and not to use mobile devices for recording or photography? Items 1, 2 and 3 of our agenda this morning are consideration of an instrument related to the European Union withdrawal act 2018, namely the fishery products official controls charges EU exit Scotland amendment regulations 2019. The purpose of these regulations is to make minor technical amendments to the fishery products regulations 2007 to ensure that they continue to function as required after the UK exits European Union. Item 1 is to consider the categorisation of the instrument. Under the protocol agreed between the Scottish Government and Parliament on the processes for considering SSIs laid under the European Union withdrawal act 2018, this particular SSI has been categorised as low. This assists committees in prioritisation and also gives the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee a role in highlighting any concerns it may have about categorisation. This instrument must be laid under the affirmative procedure on the basis that certain amendments to the 2009 Scottish regulations relate to a fee in respect of a function exercisable by a public authority in the UK. The DPLRC considered the instrument at its meeting on the 19th of February 2019. The committee agreed that the instrument had been given the appropriate categorisation. It also determined that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to this instrument on any grounds within its remit. Can I ask any members if they have comments on the categorisation of this instrument? Are we all agreed that it is appropriately categorised as low? That is agreed. Thank you very much. We therefore move on to agenda item 2, which is an evidence session with the minister and his officials on the instrument, following which we will have the formal debate thereon. I welcome to the committee Joe Fitzpatrick, Minister for Public Health, Sport and Well-being, Neil Mojid, a solicitor from the legal director of the Scottish Government, and Steve Hardy from the head of the regulatory policy branch at Food Standards Scotland. Welcome to you all, and the minister can invite you to make an opening statement. I am pleased to join you this morning to consider the Fishery products official control charges, EU exit Scotland amendments and regulations 2019. This instrument is one of a number of Scottish statutory instruments being progressed by Food Standards Scotland to ensure that our domestic food and feed regulatory regime continues to function effectively after the EU exits the European Union. Although it remains the clear position of the Scottish Government that the interests of Scotland would best be served by remaining in the European Union as a responsible Government, we have a duty to make all necessary preparations to ensure that Scotland's statute book is ready to help to mitigate the damage in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Following the outcome of the referendum in June 2016 and the UK Government's decision to leave the EU, the Scottish Government has been reviewing the operability of all Scottish legislation as part of the necessary contingency planning to identify the legislative amendments needed to ensure that our statute book continues to function should the UK leave the EU without a deal. Food Standards Scotland has been leading on the elements of the review dealing with our domestic food and feed law, including our domestic food and feed official controls legislation for which it has policy responsibility. Using powers in the EU withdrawal act 2018 to correct deficiencies in retained EU law, the regulations will make minor technical corrections to the Fishery's products official control charges Scotland regulations 2007, so that they can continue to operate effectively after exit day in a no-deal scenario. The 2007 regulations provide a mechanism for changes to be levied in Scotland on food businesses for the costs incurred by enforcement authorities in carrying out hygiene controls on fish landed at Scottish ports and sold at fish markets. Those charges are part of the EU official control charging regime for fishery and aquaculture products and are a mandatory requirement of the directly applicable EU framework law in this area. The retained version of the framework official controls regulation itself is being corrected under a no-deal scenario by one of the UK statutory instruments being taken forward by the Food Standards Agency. The relevant UK instrument was notified to the Scottish Parliament on 30 October 2018 and members agreed to the Scottish ministers' given consent to the UK Government extending the statutory instrument to Scotland in respect of devolved matters. The regulations that members are considering today propose amendments to the 2007 Scottish enforcement and execution regulations so that they continue to function after we leave the EU and provide appropriate alignment with the retained framework legislation, specifically with regard to the required new definition of a third country and the euro-stroke sterling conversion rate that applies to charge calculations. I stress that those amendments are, as you said, technical in nature and do not amend any change in policy. They are necessary to ensure legislative continuity for business and enforcement authorities in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Impacts on business and local authorities are expected to be minimal and any which occur will be marginally preferential to industry. Food Standards Scotland carried out a four-week stakeholders consultation in December 2018 on their proposed approach to fixing deficiencies in Scottish food and feed law and advised that FSS has spoken directly with the individual local authority, most affected by the proposed changes contained within those regulations. That is Aberdeenshire, who have expressed no concerns about the required changes. I hope that members agree that, as part of the Scottish Government's overall programme of legislative contingency planning for Brexit, those regulations provide for the necessary changes to the fishery products, official controls, charges Scotland regulations 2007, to ensure that they continue to function effectively, helping to minimise any regulatory disruption to Scottish business and enforcement authorities in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Of course, we are happy to answer questions. Thank you very much, minister. I am clearly referred at the end of your remarks to having regulations in place in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Are you simply in relation to a negotiated outcome of the Brexit process, whether those regulations will continue to apply in the same way that they are intended to do? As with other aspects of legislation that we have taken through the Parliament, we would expect in the event of a deal of some sort being agreed by the Westminster Parliament and the European Union that those items would be repealed, those instruments would be repealed. That is good to understand. Further to the possibility that there is a no-deal Brexit on those regulations, you mentioned Aberdeenshire as the area particularly affected. Will ports there or elsewhere require to have border checks or other procedures put in place in order to apply those regulations in that context? I do not think that those regulations in the south would require much change to the work that is probably no change to the work that is carried out in those areas. The overall overwhelming majority of fish landed is from Scottish or UK vessels. There is a small amount from other locations. Currently, there is some fish landed from the pharaohs, which would already be considered a third country and a small amount from Norway and Iceland, who would be becoming a third country. I think that we are talking not significant volumes compared to the Scottish stroke UK volumes. Thank you very much. I invite any other questions from members and remind members that the opportunity to ask questions is confined to this part of the proceedings, and once we move to the debate, there will not be such an opportunity. I know that, in our briefing papers, it says that the regulations are minor and technical, that the amendments are being made, or just to make sure that we have the ability to transfer legislation in case of an ordeal. However, you mentioned the conversion of pounds to euro, and the rate that is specified within that is Great British Pounds 1 equals euro of 1.1413. It is all very technical and complicated, but I am assuming that making the exchange rate fixed enables stability when the market or the pound is falling or, one minute, everything is fluctuating. How does that support mitigating against a no-deal potential? If we do not do that, the charges will be fixed at the previous euro sterling exchange rate, which would be slightly detrimental to the industry. It is a slightly detrimental charge. I guess that we are all still hoping that we do not get to the point where the regulations my preference is still that we end up being subjected to euro law because that is the gold standard. However, if that is not the case, we would need to introduce primary legislation at some future time in order to give a power to vary the exchange rate in the future if that was necessary. However, that is very much about dealing with what happens at day one or immediately after a no-deal Brexit. Are there other questions from members? Good question, Emma Harper-Rays. I understand the reasons for the exchange rate specificity that you have laid down. Will that rate last forever? Is that what you are saying? That rate is aligned with the rest of the framework. If we were not to follow that rate, there would be an anomaly that would not be helpful to business, but we were using different exchange rates. However, if we want to be able to change that rate in the future, we will need primary legislation, but that is not something that is of the kind of priority that this is. That is about getting this in place in order that we have our legislation that works on day one after a no-deal Brexit. I understand why you are doing that. I suppose that my only issue is that rates go up and that rates go down. Having fixed rates, as Winston Churchill knows when you linked it with the gold standard is not always a good thing, but if you find that the rate then was uncompetitive, you would need to go back and have primary legislation, which might take some time. In terms of the primary legislation, I still hope that we do not ever get there, but if we do get there and this appeared to be a long-term position that we were in in terms of not being within the European Union, the primary legislation would be to create a power or so that regulations could be used to vary any rates, as you would with other challenges, but that is very much about the here and now. There are no other questions. We will move on to agenda item number three, which is the formal debate on the affirmative SSI, in which we have just taken evidence. I remind members that it is now simply a matter of formal debate. There are no further questions or comments from officials, and I invite the minister to move motion S5M-15927. Thank you very much. Do members wish to make any comments in relation to this item? If not, minister, are you content with that? We shall then put the question. The question is that the motion S5M-15927 be approved. Are we all agreed? We agreed. Thank you very much. I will pause a moment to let the minister leave. To agenda item four, subordinate legislation, this is consideration of two negative instruments. The first negative instrument is the materials and articles in contact with Food Scotland amendment regulations 2019. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered the instrument on 26 February 2019 and agreed to draw the instrument to the attention of the Parliament on the general reporting ground and recommended that the Scottish Government corrects the error in the drafting at the next legislative opportunity. It is, however, worth noting that this is a minor drafting error. Can I invite comments from members on this instrument? If there are no comments, can I ask, is the committee agreed to make no recommendations? That is agreed. Thank you very much. The second negative instrument is the food standards and hygiene miscellaneous amendment Scotland regulations 2019. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered this instrument at its meeting on 19 February 2019 and determined that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to this instrument on any grounds within its remit. Can I ask if there are any comments from members on this instrument? If there are not, is the committee agreed to make no recommendations? That is agreed. Thank you very much. We will move on to agenda item 5. European Union withdrawal act 2018. This is the consideration of three instruments under that act. The instruments are as follows. The Food and Feed Safety and Hygiene EU Exit Scotland amendment regulations 2019. The Food Composition, Labelling and Standards EU Exit Scotland amendment regulations 2019 and the Nutrition EU Exit Scotland amendment regulations 2019. The protocol, as we have previously discussed, has been agreed between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament on the process for considering SSIs laid under the European Union withdrawal act. This sets out an approach that categorises these instruments to assist committees in scrutiny and to give the Delegated Persian Law Reform Committee a specific role in highlighting to a lead committee where it has a disagreement with the Scottish Government's categorisation of the SSIs in question. All these three SSIs have been categorised as low, and Scottish ministers have also determined to apply the negative procedure to the scrutiny of each of these three SSIs in the Parliament. The Delegated Persian Law Reform Committee considered all three instruments at its meeting on 26 February 2019 and agreed that the instruments had been given the appropriate categorisation. It is simply the matter of categorisation that we need to consider today. We will return to matters of substance at a later date. The categorisation of all three instruments is low. Are we all agreed with that? Those categorisations. That is agreed. Thank you very much. We will now move into a private session.