Committee News
Issue 41, 11th September 2001
Within last week’s short meeting Committee members welcomed the Executive’s positive response to their suggestion that the Scottish Ambulance Association should consider the principle of a priority based despatch – i.e. that a weight is given for the severity of an injury when despatching ambulances.
Education, Culture & Sport Committee
This week, the Committee is holding a series of private meetings in New Lanark. Over the next few days, members will discuss their future work programme with invited witnesses.
Last week, Cathy Peattie (LAB) gave an interim report on the Committee response to the current CoSLA consultation on school closures. CoSLA has issued a weighty document which is about what to do at the crisis point of school closures, but to the disappointment of the Committee, does not offer clear national guidelines for parents and stakeholders on what happens when education departments are first considering school closures in specific areas. The Committee agreed that CoSLA need to go further back in the process.
The Committee returned to the petition from the Technology Teachers Association asking for technical/technology education to be a national priority in secondary schools and agreed to forward their evidence to the minister for comments and invite him to a future meeting to discuss the issues in detail.
Finally, the Committee considered a report from Alasdair Morrison for their Gaelic Broadcasting Inquiry in advance of him giving evidence next week.
Enterprise & Lifelong Learning Committee
Last week’s Committee was almost completely held in private. The only item in public included a re-assurance that a Statutory Instrument giving people a right to time off to study includes people wishing to study at all levels – and not just SVQs as it appears on first reading of the Statutory Instrument.
This week’s Committee considers a number of negative statutory instruments relating to the repayment of student loans. Committee members will then go on to discuss their weighty inquiry into Lifelong Learning.
Last week, the Committee finalised arrangements for the Race Relations event on 14th September to examine the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and inform the work of the Committee.
This week’s agenda includes:
This week is the first week back for the Committee and members will consider correspondence from Professor Midwinter and Finance Minister, Angus MacKay, relating to the budget process. Following a report from Prof. Midwinter, Angus MacKay has agreed with a number of suggestions which will allow better influence from the Parliament’s Committees on the annual budget process – much to the delight of Prof. Midwinter.
Health & Community Care Committee
This week’s meeting is the first since the end of the last session and members are inundated with Statutory Instruments to prohibit the catching (and therefore eating) of shellfish with Amenesic Shellfish Poisoning and Paralytic Diarrhetic Poisoning. These are basically serious toxins which have been absorbed by shellfish and therefore have a public health implication. The Executive is investing £1 million in research into these toxins and is taking it quite seriously. The Orders going in front of the Committee renew emergency arrangements which have been in place for some time.
With an already heavy workload of ongoing petitions, the Committee has been asked to consider three new health petitions on Chronic Pain Management, the Scottish Ambulance Service and Organ Retention. The Committee will then consider (probably in private) its report on Haemophilia and Hepatitis C.
This week the Committee takes evidence from the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Clive Fairweather, on his annual report.
The Committee will also consider its draft report on legal aid in private. Kate MacLean (LAB) has written on behalf of the Equal Opps Committee regarding representation at employment tribunals, particularly in the context of race; and the Scottish Legal Aid Board have followed up their oral evidence with a submission arguing that the status quo is working well and disputing a number of assertions made by other witnesses.
Last week was dominated by initial discussion of the Sexual Offences (Procedures & Evidence) Bill, which amongst other things will limit the right of the accused to defend himself in sex offence trials. In addition to a long discussion of the procedure and consequences of an accused refusing legal representation, the evidence from Executive officials raised the issue of whether judges intervene to prevent inappropriate questioning using existing powers, and thus whether they would in future.
It was noted that the Executive has not included in the Bill provisions regarding disclosure of the past convictions of an accused.
This week Deputy Justice Minister, Iain Gray, will be questioned on women’s offending, the subject of much reporting in Committee News and in the news again last week in the context of Cornton Vale.
Last week, the Committee took evidence on stage 1 of the Police and Fire Services (Finance) Bill, which is a largely technical bill enabling the services to carry forward a balance from one year to the next. The evidence did, however, raise a number of issues, including the fire services’ claim that there would be no overspend for several years as the balance would be used to fund their pensions deficit. This week the Committee considers its draft report on stage 1 of the Bill.
Also, the Committee will consider a petition calling for the Scottish Parliament to establish the mechanism and appropriate forum for the resolution of disputes between local authorities and owners of former local authority homes.
Public Petitions meets this week to consider new petitions and responses to current petitions. These include PE369 on opencast mining and PE377 on toxic dumping, cattle incineration and other polluting activities.
Also, the Scottish Ambulance Service is responding to PE381 on closure of ambulance operations rooms in Scotland.
This week’s agenda includes a suggestion, in the light of a petition regarding a National Trust visitor centre in Glencoe, that the Committee might hold an inquiry into the role of the National Trust as a Highland landowner. There is also an item concerning an amendment to the stage 1 motion on the Wild Mammals Bill.
Last week, the Committee met in private to discuss its workplan for the forthcoming year and consider its response to members' recent meeting with Communities Against Poverty. No meeting this week as the Committee is back to meeting fortnightly.
The Committee meets this week to consider responses to its consultation paper on establishing a statutory registration scheme for commercial lobbyists. Issues raised in the responses include the difficulty of defining lobbying and commercial lobbyists, the maintenance of commercial confidentiality and compatibility with ECHR. Also, commercial lobbyists are concerned that many businesses will utilise in-house teams to avoid the registration scheme. This, they say, would undermine transparency and they want in-house lobbyists and trade associations to be included in the registration scheme.
The Committee will also discuss an issues paper on the replacement of the Member’s Interest Order and agree how to proceed with replacement legislation. Also, the Convenor will report back on the Convenors Liaison Group’s consideration of a paper on confidentiality which considers the difficulties involved in identifying the sources of 'leaks’ and suggests that it might be beneficial for Committees themselves to carry out the initial investigation.
Finally, the Committee considers a paper on its forthcoming workplan which includes the issues above as well as a review of cross party groups and a draft Standards Commissioner Committee Bill (expected at Committee soon).
Last week’s consideration of delegated powers in the Sexual Offences (Procedures & Evidence) Bill threw up one issue, the transitional arrangements surrounding cases in progress when the new regime is implemented. The Executive will respond this week.
Transport & the Environment Committee
There is no information in the public domain about last week’s meeting, but this week concentrates on the new planning rule on telecommunications masts with the Committee taking evidence from Planning Minister, Lewis Macdonald. The Executive has published a review of Strategic Planning (i.e. the Structure Plan system) and the Committee will question Lewis Macdonald on the thinking behind the review.
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