SUPPLY CHAIN SECURITY (6935/06)
Letter from Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP,
Secretary of State for Transport, Department for Transport to
the Chairman
In line with the undertaking in my letter of
26 May 2006,[46]
I am writing to update your Committee on the progress of this
dossier, which proposes the establishment in all Member States
of a voluntary system to provide a quality label of "secure
operators" to enhance the security of the supply chain. In
short, since you received my letter, work on the dossier has been
put on hold by the Commission, and this letter summarises how
we have reached that position.
Since the EM an EU Working Party on Land Transport,
comprising representatives of all Member States, has met twice
to discuss the principles rather than the details of the proposals.
As you know, the UK had some fundamental questions
about the proposals which were set out in the EM. Most crucially
we wanted to understand what terrorism threat and risk these proposals
were designed to mitigate and what added security value they would
provide, given the existing security regulation of key elements
of the supply chain. These considerations were particularly important
when considering the proposed application of the proposed regulation
to domestic-only traffic and whether the current "known shipper"
regimes in aviation, maritime, and Channel Tunnel freight security
should be recognised as fulfilling the requirements.
Furthermore, we were fully aware of the concerns
of industry, particulary of small and medium-sized enterprises,
over the costs and benefits of the scheme which we and other Member
States highlighted at meetings of the Working Party on Land Transport.
The comments made by other Member States at
those meetings showed that many shared our reservations and indeed
the stance of some, fuelled by industry concerns as to the need,
cost and practicalities of such a regulation, became far more
negative as discussions went on.
In recognition of these fundamental concerns
the Presidency proposed that Member States wait until after the
publication of the report of this dossier of Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert,
the Rapporteur of the European Parliament Transport Committee,
before considering the detail of the proposals. Member States
agreed unanimously. The UK briefed Ms Hennis-Plasschaert and UK
MEPs in advance of the Transport Committee's consideration of
the dossier which was scheduled for 21-23 January 2007. However,
having considered the dossier, the Rapporteur wrote to Commissioner
Barrot asking for the proposal to be withdrawn and reconsidered
by the Commission. Commissioner Barrot agreed with the Rapporteur
to put the dossier "on hold" pending further internal
consideration of the proposal by the Commission.
As a result I understand that there will be
no further Council or Parliament discussions on the proposal for
the foreseeable future. You will wish to note that since the proposal
has not been withdrawn the Commission has retained the option
of reactivating the dossier, presumably recast, in the future.
In light of this, we have not yet concluded
a Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA). We still plan to do a full
RIA if the Commission decides how to proceed with the dossier.
Separately, I am aware that some Committee members
may have seen reference to a consultant's report on this dossier
in the Sunday Times of 19 November. I can reassure you
that this report is not new information. To inform their drafting
of the proposals, the European Commission commissioned an external
impact assessment from consultants Det Norske Veritas (DNV),
and it is this report that is referred to in the article. The
report was published on 26 October 2005 and is available at
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/energytransport/security/intermodal/doc.2005_finalreport_impact_assessment_transport_security.pdf#pagemode=bookmarks.
This impact assessment informed the European Commission's
own analysis and was published in the Commission's Staff Working
Document SEC(2006)251 which was included in EM 6935/06.
I will continue to keep you informed of the
progress of this proposal.
11 April 2007
Letter from the Chairman to Rt Hon Douglas
Alexander MP
Thank you for your letter of 11 April 2007.
Sub-Committee B considered your letter at its meeting on 23 April.
We were grateful to you for your update on the
draft Regulation and for your explanation of why the proposal
has been put "on hold". Provided that, should it re-emerge
either recast or through any other means, the Government would
resubmit the proposal for scrutiny, we would be content to lift
scrutiny at this point. As it stood, we shared your numerous concerns
over the draft Regulation.
24 April 2007
46 Correspondence with Ministers, 40th Report of Session
2006-07, HL Paper 187, p 136. Back
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