Parliament’s Evolving Scrutiny Function

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 8 December 2020.

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Photo of Gillian Martin Gillian Martin Scottish National Party

The Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee has played a substantial role in the parliamentary scrutiny of EU-exit matters to date. We were the secondary committee scrutinising the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Bill, reporting on part 1. We have undertaken a considerable degree of work on common frameworks and have scrutinised a significant number of Brexit-related statutory instruments. We considered the environmental implications of the UK Agriculture Bill and the UK Fisheries Bill, and we also considered the legislative consent memorandum for the UK Environment Bill.

That scrutiny will not end at the end of the transition period—far from it. During the committee’s evidence taking on the withdrawal bill, concerns were expressed about the opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny when the Scottish Government decides to exercise its powers and align its policies to EU law. The setting of EU environmental standards is now a policy and law-making process that does not include any involvement of UK and Scottish interests. On the whole, members believe that that process has improved environmental standards in Scotland over the years of EU membership, and that those standards are an important benchmark for the future, particularly as the UK makes its own trade deals outwith the EU.

We do not believe that it is practical or realistic for a parliamentary committee to have a role in continually monitoring the EU policy-making process within its remit. For one thing, the committee does not have sufficient capacity to forensically monitor the EU policy-making landscape. However, we recommended that the withdrawal bill be amended to require the Scottish Government to report to the Parliament regularly on developments in EU environmental law. We also recommended that the Government include information about whether it intends to use the keeping pace power to align with each development, and that, when it decides not to align, the Government should provide reasons for that decision.

It is essential for committees to have a complete understanding of how the EU-exit process impacts on the governance and constitutional landscape within their policy areas. For that to happen, we believe that the capacity within the Scottish Parliament information centre, the clerking teams and legal services should be enhanced accordingly.

The committee expressed serious concern about the impact of the Brexit process on the operation of the devolution settlement in its report on the legislative consent memorandum for the UK Environment Bill. We have subsequently outlined our serious concerns about the consequences of the proposals in the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill for the operation of the devolution settlement.

As Bruce Crawford mentioned, we have serious concerns about the emissions trading scheme framework. We had anticipated scrutinising the related framework before the end of 2020, but recent suggestions that the framework might no longer be progressed and might, in fact, be replaced by a carbon emissions tax by the UK Government are deeply worrying. That issue is a microcosm of our general serious concerns about the process of developing and agreeing UK-wide frameworks, including the fundamental issue of the views of devolved Governments and Parliaments, in effect, being ignored. Those concerns highlight the point that UK policy decisions could have a detrimental impact on devolved ambitions, particularly those relating to tackling climate change.

Other UK common frameworks seem to be nowhere near the state of completion that we would have expected by this 11th hour. We highlighted significant concerns about being asked to consider legislative elements of frameworks without having sight of the related frameworks. To date, we have very little information about the timetabling of frameworks, which makes it difficult for us to protect space in our work programme for parliamentary scrutiny.

The frameworks will have to be monitored by the Scottish Parliament well beyond the end of the transition period, and we note that any such scrutiny is likely to be very technical and complex. The committee agrees that, when aspects of a UK trade agreement relate to devolved competence, the Scottish Parliament should be able to scrutinise the Scottish Government’s position.

The committee also has a role in scrutinising the new body, environmental standards Scotland. Indeed, we met the board nominees this morning. As ESS issues improvement notices, the Parliament will need the tools to scrutinise those decisions, too.

As everyone in the chamber is aware, it takes collaboration with clerks, researchers and legal services for such issues to be adequately scrutinised by members. I put on record my thanks to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee clerks and our researchers, who have put in a power of work to assist us through those processes and beyond.

Effective scrutiny takes a substantial amount of time. The impact of the UK’s exit from the EU represents a significant challenge to the Scottish Parliament’s scrutiny function. To meet that challenge, we must be sufficiently resourced in terms of time and expertise.