I welcome members to this meeting of the Education Committee, remind them that we are in public session and ask them to switch off mobile telephones and pagers. Item 1 is to consider whether to take in private item 4, which is our draft stage 1 report on the School Education (Ministerial Powers and Independent Schools) (Scotland) Bill. Do members have views on that?
Generally, I prefer not to discuss reports in private.
In this case it would be beneficial to discuss our report in private first, so that we can agree a unanimous report, rather than focusing on disagreement.
Drafting should be done in private, but discussion of major policy issues should be taken in public.
I will wear you all down until you submit at some point.
We are considering the whole issue of taking items in private. I have some difficulty with discussing our draft report in private, because we discussed our report on the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill in public and it looked all right. However, to some extent it is desirable to retain the practice of discussing reports in private. I sense that members agree that we should discuss our report in private. Is that agreed?
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