Scots farmers might have become used to having two MEPs on the European Parliament’s Agricultural Committee, but that happy state of affairs is at an end.
The committee for the new Parliament has been announced and Scotland has no full members.
Lib Dem George Lyon, prominent in the last committee, was of course not elected as an MEP.
The SNP’s Alyn Smith is now a substitute member rather than a full member. He can attend all meetings but only vote if he is substituting for a member of his own political grouping. The SNP is part of the Green Alliance in the Parliament.
The UK is represented by five full members: Stewart Agnew of UKIP, Richard Ashworth (Conservative), Paul Brennan (Labour), Democratic Unionist Dianne Dodds and Ulster Unionist James Nicholson.
Chairing the the 70-strong Agriculture Committee will be Polish MEP Czeslaw Siekerski, a member since 2004 and a vice-chairman from 2012 until the end of the last Parliament
Mr Smith is just beginning his third term as an MEP.
He will also be a full member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
He said: “I promised that I would continue to work with and for Scotland’s farmers and growers, and I’m pleased that Scotland will continue to be represented in the Agriculture Committee.
“With the line-by-line detail of CAP reform now past us there is much less legislation in the committee’s pipeline, and as a substitute member I will be able to maintain my levels of activity and engagement whilst being better able to pursue specific issues of importance to Scotland, rather than responding to line-by-line dossiers about tobacco and wine production.
“Scotland’s food and drink sector is a good news story; and, while we might not be in a position to feed the world, we are certainly going to provide some of the science and technology to do so.
“We have a unique proximity of hands-on science and a social geography well used to cooperation, at a time when resource scarcity and climate change is driving many of the events we see in the world,” he added.