Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 21 JUNE 2000
DR J REID,
MR B WILSON
AND DR
L CLARK, QC
Mr Tynan
60. Obviously we have a tremendous advantage
at the present time as Scottish MPs because of the Scottish Parliament,
if it is working in conjunction with the Scotland Office and working
well together. I am heartened by the fact that you are saying
very clearly that you feel the last year has been a success story
and something we have to develop.
(Dr Reid) Yes; indeed.
61. If everyone were working in order to ensure
we moved forward on behalf of the Scottish people on that basis,
then we could achieve much more than we have. How does the Secretary
of State set about his task of promoting Scottish interests within
the UK Government bodies? How do you do that?
(Dr Reid) Mr Wilson and I sit on committees and Dr
Clark does as well and I cannot remember the exact number but
it certainly seems in the thousands; I doubt that it is that but
perhaps 17 to 20 major government committees. The Cabinet Committee
system is such that before the final decision is taken, all relevant
Ministers are represented on committees looking at the key issues
of any particular piece of legislation or any particular decision.
For instance, recently the whole issue of rural post offices is
obviously an important matter for Scotland. Therefore the committee
system is one way. Bilateral discussions and contacts are a second
way. On the question that Mr Sarwar asked you would not be surprised
to know that I have had an exchange of information with colleagues
on the whole situation regarding future orders from the Ministry
of Defence. That is the second sort of way in which it is done.
Thirdly in Cabinet, through Cabinet discussions. Fourthly there
are sometimes specific issues where we would find ourselves on
a common platform with our counterparts in the Scottish Executive,
Scottish Ministers and so on, where we would make a joint representation
where I am convinced that the case the Scottish Minister is putting
up is important. Fifthly and finally the joint ministerial committees.
One of the signs of how well devolution is progressing is the
joint ministerial committees: on poverty, combatting poverty,
on modernising the Scottish economy, on the knowledge economy
and now on health, chaired by the Prime Minister in the last case.
These are the issues which people in Scotland really want to see
delivered. In all of those ways Mr Wilson and I and Dr Clark on
certain occasions, though she has a distinct identity as a law
officer, influence or hopefully shape for the better decisions
taken in government to make sure they reflect the Scottish interests
and Scottish circumstances.
62. In your view, when they are formulating
policy how aware are government departments of the Scottish dimension?
(Dr Reid) Increasingly aware because we now have Scottish
Ministers as well as Scottish officials. One of the great benefits
of devolution was that prior to this, as you know, not only did
Scottish MPs have to do the whole of the legislative programme
and participate in it here at Westminster, but we also had to
do detailed scrutiny of separate Scottish legislation. The argument
was that we could do that better if we had a separate body dealing
with the separate Scottish legislation. I just take as sour grapes
those who claim that MPs at Westminster are now not working as
hard as they were. The reason we established devolution was that
it was impossible to do as well as we wanted to do, both the scrutiny
of separate legislation and the participation in the general United
Kingdom legislative process. I think that we have benefited from
devolution and one of the ways we have benefited is now that we
have more Scottish Ministers in charge of the civil servants they
are more likely to be demanding early warning. They want more
information and all of these are enshrined in the concordats which
we have signed up so that we supply that to them. Hopefully we
shall get more legislation on Scotland and it will be better legislation.
Mr Swayne
63. In my view the role of the Secretary of
State is more about liaison and promoting partnerships than anything
else. In that respect, in your letter to the Convener of the European
Committee of 16 May you actually promote partnerships in a way.
First of all you tell him quite properly why you cannot attend
his committee because you have already given a commitment to us
to attend ours. But you tell him two other important things. First
of all that the answers to his questions can be had from Mr McConnell.
In the event the committee were disappointed in that because I
also have his letter to them telling them why he could not answer
their questions. Vitally important, in answer to that you draw
to their attention that the proceedings of this Committee, this
morning, will be available to them and will be published. So you
know that they can get the information they require on the back
of this Committee and you whet their appetites to an extent by
drawing that to their attention. When I asked you at the outset
of this meeting to comment on remarks given by Mr McConnell in
his evidence to the Scottish European Committee, you said that
you did not know the context in which those remarks were made.
Now I would suggest to you that that is contributory negligence
on your part. You knew that the interests of that committee were
riding on the proceedings of this Committee today. I am not sitting
on a department costing the taxpayer £6 million a year, yet
I have managed to brief myself with the proceedings of that committee.
Are you taking a rather cavalier attitude to your role in promoting
partnerships and in liaison?
(Dr Reid) I would never take a cavalier attitude to
you or to this Committee. When I said I do not have the context,
what I mean is I do not have the letter in front of me. I quite
accept that perhaps with the grand total of 66 civil servants
I should have every piece of correspondence or every piece of
Hansard from the Scottish Parliament in front of me. I do not
have it in front of me. What I did say, and you will be generous
enough to accept that, was that if you want me to I can write
immediately after this meeting, having looked at these comments
in the context of a document in front of me; of course. However,
you would not expect me to be so irresponsible as just to take
a quote out of context from a document I do not have in front
of me and give a detailed reply to it.
Sir Robert Smith
64. You mentioned the liaison you do in connection
with the situation facing post offices. In my constituency I have
just analysed the results of a survey which alarmingly show that
if nothing is done in the event of benefits being paid through
banks and pensions which are paid through banks, half of the post
offices in my constituency feel they face closure. Obviously I
have sent these to the department here but the Secretary of State
is involved too. Does he have any information from his involvement
as to when concrete proposals are going to come forward to honour
the Government's commitment to maintaining the post office network?
(Dr Reid) I hope soon. I cannot go any further than
that. This is ultimately an announcement for the Department of
Trade and Industry.
65. Obviously the uncertainty hanging over those
people needs to be ended.
(Dr Reid) That is precisely one of the reasons we
have been looking at how we can both ensure the modernisation
of the post office for the future and reassure those not just
in rural areas but in other areas about their access to modern
services and to the traditional methods of payment. That is why
we have spent so much time in doing it.
Chairman: Secretary of State, in answer to Mr
Tynan, you referred to Mr Sarwar's question, so it would perhaps
be appropriate if I were to allow him to ask his question of you
at this stage in our proceedings.
Mr Sarwar
66. May I thank the Secretary of State for his
personal involvement and support to save jobs in my constituency
in Govan shipyard? I think it is a perfect example of working
together, the Scotland Office and Scottish Executive, to save
jobs and industry in Scotland. May I ask, now that the Ministry
of Defence have asked for final bids for the roll-on roll-off
ferries order, whether you can update us on this and what the
chances are of success to save jobs in the Govan shipyard.
(Dr Reid) What I can say is that everything we have
done has been done in a proper fashion. It has been done within
the European regulations and rules and it has been done to seek
best value for the British taxpayer. To that end the Ministry
of Defence felt that because of particular circumstances those
objectives would be best served by going to best and final offer.
That was to be a matter concluding in weeks and then they will
assess those offers. I am pleased that they have done that. I
am sure that the fullest consideration will be given to any bid
which is put in by Govan, by the SeaLine consortium or any other
combination of ways in which the bids can be put in. Naturally
I am somewhat circumscribed by the fact that this is a collective
decision which will have to be taken ultimately by the Ministry
of Defence, but I am convinced that the fullest and fairest consideration
will be given to Govan, as indeed to all the bids.
Mr Tynan
67. This is a supplementary question because
I am conscious that this is being recorded and obviously if it
appears on the internet then it could be of additional concern.
In response to the question on post offices, I am a bit concerned
about the uncertainty which exists because misinformation is being
given that after the year 2003 pensioners will not be able to
receive their benefit from a post office. That is clearly not
true. It is also true that TSB have made it clear that where the
post offices are rural, they will assist them in every way possible
by ensuring that their services are provided in those post offices
in order to make sure rural communities do not suffer. What I
am heartened by is what the Government have done as regards post
offices. I do not want to leave a misinformation situation where
it is possible to frighten people into believing that their post
office is under attack when it certainly is not, when the opposite
is true. If we are able to provide and encourage people to develop
the services they are able to give then it will protect and reduce
the number of closures we have had for the last ten years.
(Dr Reid) Absolutely. It is not just the question
of closures, there is also the question of what services are provided
through a post office. It certainly is the intention of the Government
to give the widest possible choice to people and the widest possible
access and to ensure that the post offices are modernised in order
to meet the needs of the consumer. This is what this is about,
not meeting the needs of politicians or anyone else, but meeting
the needs of the consumer. We have spent some considerable time
looking at how that can be done and I am hopeful that in the not
too distant future there will perhaps be a statement to the House
on this by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
Chairman
68. We now move on to the role of the Minister
of State. Mr Wilson would you like to make any brief remarks to
us before we ask you a few questions?
(Mr Wilson) Very briefly. I do not want to go over
the same ground. When I came into the Scotland Office, Dr Reid
and I agreed that we would not have very well defined demarcation
lines as there were only two of us. The sensible way was to deal
with things as they came in the most appropriate way. In general
terms I tend to specialise in employment issues, particularly
the New Deal, and trade and industry, particularly exporting,
Highland and Islands issues, broadcasting, the Lottery and the
post office. That does not mean I deal with all of these issues
or that the Secretary of State deals with none of them or indeed
that I go outside that territory. I liaise on a daily basis with
Scottish Executive Ministers and officials and also with Ministers
and officials of other Whitehall departments. I see my role in
a very pragmatic way as adding value wherever possible.
Chairman: Perhaps I should not have allowed
you to make your statement. You have answered most of the questions
we wanted to put to you.
Miss Begg
69. You have just said what your principal duties
are as Minister of State. How would you answer the cynics—of
course I am not one of them—who say that hardly constitutes
a full-time occupation?
(Mr Wilson) I would just say it is wrong. It is an
easy jibe but if you are going through a dozen case studies of
things we are involved in—
70. Can you give us some of the case studies
then?
(Mr Wilson) Post office is a very important one and
I just want to endorse what Bill Tynan said. If Sir Robert had
been a little less pejorative in what he said he would also have
told us how many post offices in his constituency had closed in
the past 20 years. That is the real test. One quarter of post
offices in Scotland have closed in the past 20 years. What we
are trying to do is give a future rather than allow that rate
of haemorrhaging and that is very much the point that Mr Tynan
made. It is extremely important that there should be a Scottish
input into the plans which come forward to make the post office
network viable. I therefore believe that is a good example of
where the Scotland Office has a role. It may be in time that many
of these things are done through liaison committees with the Scottish
Executive but certainly for the foreseeable future Scotland would
be very ill-served by not having that distinctive input, whether
it is I or anyone else who is doing it. Another one which was
mentioned earlier is an obvious one just now, cashmere. There
is not the slightest doubt there is a particular Scottish dimension
to that dispute. If there were not a Scotland Office and Scotland
Office Ministers then the Scottish dimension to that dispute would
not be obtaining the profile it is and also we would not have
had a voice arguing for the issue to be raised at the very highest
levels of government both nationally and internationally. If you
want more examples, I am very happy to give them but these are
a couple for starters.
71. You said you liaise on a daily basis with
people in the Scottish Executive and you have just given two examples.
The post office on in particular is clearly a reserved matter.
The cashmere one possibly is not but it affects jobs and employment
is sometimes reserved and in some cases is not. How do you deal
with those grey areas where it is not quite so clear that perhaps
the big strategic things are reserved matters but the implementation
is a devolved issue?
(Mr Wilson) It has to be pragmatically and there has
to be common sense and goodwill. There is no issue on the face
of the universe where you could not find a reserved element and
a devolved element if you went looking for it hard enough. Equally,
you recognise when you see it whether it is a primarily reserved
or primarily devolved issue. On cashmere, for instance, of course
there are jobs implications and of course there is a very proper
Scottish interest in this. Equally clearly the problem stems from
a trade policy matter which is not even a UK issue, it is an EU
issue because the dispute is between the United States and the
European Union. I would encourage and have encouraged the interest
of my colleagues in the Scottish Executive, both Ministers and
officials, but equally they recognise that in this case it is
maybe more appropriate that we have the lead in the input we make.
You can go through each case like that and anyone who wanted to
make difficulty could say that is reserved or that is devolved
and you keep out. On a day-to-day basis it does not really happen
like that and it works quite well.
72. On issues which are wholly reserved, where
the Scottish Parliament seeks a bigger interest—I suppose
Mike Tyson has been one recently—there is one which is close
to my heart which is broadcasting. Broadcasting is definitely
a reserved matter but there is a committee of the Scottish Parliament
which has media in its title and broadcasting is clearly a reserved
matter. Does that create tensions where you find the Scottish
Parliament are looking to discuss issues over which they have
no power and in fact a committee of the Scottish Parliament calling
evidence on something which they cannot change, cannot legislate
for?
(Mr Wilson) I am not sure it creates tensions. It
creates puzzlement sometimes at why some members of the Scottish
Parliament seem to want to spend so much time discussing things
which they have no remit over. That is probably a political ploy
rather than an attempt to do anything very constructive. It would
be thought very odd if this Parliament or this Committee spent
its time debating things which we did not have responsibility
over because we have devolved them to the Scottish Parliament.
It is a matter of common sense and I should have thought it likely
that eventually they will run out of reserved things to discuss
and they will probably spend more time discussing devolved things.
However, that is a matter for the Scottish Parliament, not for
me.
73. You do not see it as part of your role,
when it is an issue such as broadcasting, to be jumping up and
down saying it should really be discussed by the Scottish Members
of the UK Parliament rather than just in the Scottish Parliament
or to remind the press or remind the media who are very often
the ones who are getting it wrong that if it is something to do
with BBC Scotland they go to an MSP for comment and forget that
there is a legitimate Scottish interest in the Scottish MPs. Do
you see that as your role, that you should be reminding the media
in these circumstances who perhaps have gone to the wrong source
of information?
(Mr Wilson) You can only remind them through deeds
and by proactivity in these fields. We cannot send round notes
saying speak to us on this and not to them. That is not a way
I should recommend. Maybe the Scottish media is on a learning
curve as well and they have 129 new politicians, virtually that
number, a significant minority of whom will comment on anything
given the chance, including the state of the weather in China.
If you have a new group of politicians who do not respect these
parameters, then some people are going to go for comment. If you
want informed comment or influential comment, then you go to the
representatives who sit in the chamber in the institution which
has responsibility in this field. Nobody should come to me and
ask questions about Scottish schools or the detailed operation
of the Health Service in Scotland and by the same token it is
not really logical to go to MSPs to ask them about broadcasting
issues or trade policy issues or all the matters which are reserved
to Westminster.
74. You have 13 staff in your Private Office.
What are their functions? What do they do?
(Mr Wilson) Not in my personal Private Office. If
I do, then they have been hiding somewhere.
75. The Ministerial Private Office then.
(Mr Wilson) I shall order an instant search. I have
a small Private Office, probably between the two Private Offices
there are 13. We are in the position of having offices in both
Scotland and in Whitehall and we have staff who do not commute
all the time between the two. It is a real dead-end to try to
portray the Scotland Office as some kind of profligate organisation
awash with staff and money because it just is not like that. It
is a pretty tight operation which adds a lot of value and costs
the taxpayer very little.
Mr Clarke
76. You made a statement at the Scottish Grand
Committee on the textile industries which I welcomed. Obviously
I have a vested interest because Laidlaw & Fairgreaves is
closing and Ballantynes has gone and others. I should like to
know what progress you made with the industry. When I met the
Vice-Chairman of Dawson International in Kinross he was not very
enthusiastic about what you said. He said it was all spiel. I
challenged him to meet you, but he did not want to meet you at
all. I think he wants to wallow in his ignorance. What I should
like to ask is what progress we have made with other people or
the textile industry as a whole. This was a very important statement.
(Mr Wilson) May I just confirm what Mr Clarke says,
that I certainly had no approach from that company to meet them?
I did meet them in my previous incarnations in Trade and previously
when in the Scottish Office and it is well recognised in the textile
industry that there are particular problems in Dawson International
which do not necessarily apply to other companies in that industry.
Maybe if they had spent more time meeting us and taking advantage
of the support which is available, then some of the things which
have happened to that particular company would not have been quite
so extreme. There are many companies in that industry who work
extremely closely, not only with myself but also with the DTI
and export services which they can produce and of course with
the Scottish Executive. There are various forums and trade associations
which have excellent relations with government to mutual benefit.
I cannot really expand on what I said at the Scottish Grand Committee.
Everyone understands that there is a process of change in the
textile and garment industry where we are not going to be able
to compete in the mass production market where wages are the main
determinant. Maybe we should not even be trying to do that. I
would equally say that there are many excellent companies in Scotland
who are doing extremely well and it may be coincidental but I
think they are ones who work closely with us and take full advantage
of the support government is able to offer. I also think that
what was announced by the DTI last week, complemented by the Scottish
Executive statement of an action plan for the textile industry,
has been very widely welcomed and will add further benefit to
the industry in Scotland.
Sir Robert Smith
77. Obviously you are working on the trade dispute
at the moment which is of serious concern to sectors of the textile
industry. Do you have any update as to whether there have been
any concrete announcements yet from the USA?
(Mr Wilson) There has not been an announcement, certainly
not at the time of coming into this meeting. The latest estimate
we had of when an announcement was likely was Friday, but that
is not definitive. It could be sooner and hopefully it will be
never. All I can assure the Committee is that representations
have been made at the very highest levels and every level of government
with two messages. The first is that the United Kingdom in Brussels
is part of the solution to this dispute and that therefore it
is illogical for the United States to target UK products and industries.
The second message which has been equally forcefully delivered
to the European Union is that this has to be sorted out and that
there have been 15 months since WTO final ruling on the banana
importing dispute and that should have been enough time to get
a solution. While I obviously do not like the American tactics,
I do understand their frustration that after 15 months this has
still not been sorted out and it is not going to go away unless
there is a WTO compliant banana importing regime in the European
Union.
78. Does the European Union have any duty to
pick up the consequences of its failure to work with the WTO for
individual producers which are affected?
(Mr Wilson) It is not a very promising line but in
theory I suppose companies could raise actions. Certainly the
advice I have received is that it would not be a very fruitful
avenue to pursue. I just make the point that of course companies
have been suffering from this all the way through for the past
15 months, including some companies in Scotland, including a company
called Arden Aromatics in my own constituency which has lost £1
million of hard-won exports to the United States because of this.
I think I could be pretty sure that if there are any prospects
of legal redress then they would have been pursued by these industries
and companies.
79. You touched on broadcasting and you have
shown your commitment to the regional broadcasting and obviously
in Scotland we have seen with companies like Grampian TV the benefits
of regional broadcasting. The digital rollout is going on now
and you have expressed in the House that digital will be available
to everyone and eventually the government wants to switch off
the analogue transmission. At the moment ITV is not available
as a digital transmission. In your broadcasting role, do you see
a solution to that problem that there will still be regional broadcasting
when the analogue transmitters get switched off?
(Mr Wilson) As I am sure you know, there is a major
consultation going on just now by the ITC on the future of regional
broadcasting which is very much off the back of the comments they
have made about Grampian and it is very important that everybody
participates in that and stresses the importance of reinforcing
the regional identity in broadcasting. On the technical aspect,
I repeat what I have said in the House and in response to Miss
Begg, that there will be no analogue switch-off until at least
the same threshold is reached of coverage as exists at present.
We are talking about 98 per cent, a very high level. Indeed interestingly
because of my remarks about the use of satellite to enhance the
digital coverage, I have had a very interesting letter in the
past few days from a company which wants to work with us to get
even further into the pockets which would not have coverage. One
particular thing which I am working on is the Gaelic broadcasting
task force with a view to creating a dedicated channel in Gaelic
which would be carried on digital. I agree with all of what you
say. We must protect the regional identity and we must have the
technology in place to reinforce it.
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