Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Members, we will continue our informal deliberation of the clauses of the Environmental Better Regulation Bill. You may remember that a number of responses were still to come back from the Department. There is a memo from the Clerk at page 49 and a response from the Department at page 55 to the outstanding issues from last week's meeting. The updated clause-by-clause table is on page 64 and is also tabled in hard copy for members. The Bill, written submissions and other documents that have been received are in the Bill folder on your tablets. Departmental officials are in attendance for this agenda item. The Bill Clerk Stephanie Mallon is also in attendance. I welcome Simon Webb, the new Bill lead from the regulatory and natural resources policy division, Dave Foster and Robert Gray from the Department of the Environment. The session is being covered by Hansard.

One of the number of outstanding issues is that, as part of its consideration of schedule 1, the Committee asked the Department to consider an amendment to remove the phrase, "Further defining environmental activities" in paragraph 1(1). That is on page 14 of the Bill. The Department agreed to remove the wording. However, it intended to retain sub-paragraphs (2) and (3), which would allow the Department to modify the definition and specify other activities. The Committee raised this at last week's meeting and officials agreed to seek legal advice on the matter. They have now responded to the Committee to advise that it is their intention to remove all those sub-paragraphs; the whole of paragraph 1 of schedule 1. The other matter relates to a new amendment, the background of which was only presented to the Committee at last week's meeting. It relates to national security and would provide an enabling power for the Secretary of State to give directions to regulators in certain circumstances. The final wording has now been provided by the Department and is on page 57 of members' packs as amendment No 6. We will consider each of those issues in turn.

Members, schedule 1 relates to matters for or in connection with which regulations may be made under section 2. Following queries raised by the Committee, the Department has confirmed its intention to remove all of paragraph 1 in schedule 1 that related to defining environmental activities. Are members content with schedule 1 as amended, or do you wish to ask the Department to further amend that schedule? Are members content?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): The whole paragraph will be removed. Do you think that that will have any implications for the Department?

Mr Robert Gray (Department of the Environment): The legal advice that we got was that the definition of environmental activities in the Bill is, as pointed out by the Committee, very wide. Given that we could not come up with examples, we are happy, on the basis of the legal advice, to remove that.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): The new amendment is the national security one. The wording of the new amendment has been provided to the Committee and is at page 57 of members' packs. The background briefing paper that we considered last week is at page 58.

The Committee has not undertaken any scrutiny of the amendment as it has been presented very late in the process. We may wish to consider whether we have sufficient time to scrutinise the proposed amendment and come to a view, or we may simply want to note the amendment and make reference to that in our report. We may also want to express our disappointment that this amendment has come so late in the day for us to have time to scrutinise it. Members, what are you views?

Mrs Cameron: From our point of view, we are happy enough with it. Yes, it has come late in the day, but we understand the sense of the amendment. It will not be an issue for us.

Mr Milne: Chair, from my point of view, the amendment is new to me, and I think that it is something that we would have to discuss with our party first, to get a position on it. I would ask, therefore, that it be noted for today.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): OK. Obviously, we can look at that during Consideration Stage.

Members, are you content that we say that "we note" the amendment put to us?

Lord Morrow: Chair, I think so. We let it go on, and those who have reservations about this will have an opportunity at another stage to say or do what they feel they have to do.

Mr Milne: That is right.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Yes, that is it.

Mr Dave Foster (Department of the Environment): Chair, I apologise that the amendment came late in the day. It came out of our policy development work related to the first set of regulations. We recognise that it was late. Obviously, if we could have avoided that, we would have done. Our apologies to the Committee for that.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): OK. We can say that we note it, members, and that we did not have time to scrutinise it. Is that OK?

Lord Morrow: Chair, in fairness to the officials, what they say is perfectly understandable and acceptable — and true, needless to say.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): We will reflect what Lord Morrow said in our report, but the fact is that we did not have time to scrutinise it.

Are members content that we move on to the formal clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill?