Seòmar agus comataidhean

Our next agenda item is consideration of an instrument that has been laid under the negative procedure. That means that its provisions will come into force unless Parliament agrees to a motion to annul it. No such motion has been lodged.

No member has indicated that they wish to comment on the instrument.

I invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to the instrument. Do members agree to that?

Members indicated agreement.

That concludes the public part of our meeting. We will now move into private session.

Bob Doris has another supplementary.

Excuse me, but Bettina Sizeland is going to speak.

Before you come in, minister, given that this agenda item is the SSI, an undertaking to write to the committee would suffice.

Thanks. Jackie—

The committee will report on the outcome of the instrument in due course. In the convener’s absence, I invite the committee to delegate authority to me to finalise the report for publication.

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you for that clarification.

In that space, one of the governance gaps that you cite is on monitoring and reporting on the state of the environment. By comparison, part of the role of the Office for Environmental Protection is to assess the UK Government’s progress against the environmental targets and goals in its environmental improvement plan. Could or should Scotland consider such an approach as part of the overarching monitoring that ESS undertakes?

As a committee, we will look at Scottish Environment LINK’s response and consider from there. Do you have any other questions in this area, Mr Simpson?