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Good morning, and welcome to the first meeting of the Social Justice, Housing and Local Government Committee in the seventh session of the Scottish Parliament. I take this opportunity to welcome all our members. I look forward to working with you, the clerking team and the witnesses who appear before us during this session of Parliament.
Agenda item 1 in this first meeting is a declaration of interests. This is an opportunity for members to declare any interests that are relevant to the work of the committee in accordance with section 3 of the code of conduct. Background information in relation to that is available in the committee papers, which are on the website and have been circulated to members. In alphabetical order, I will invite members to declare any interests or to state whether they have any relevant interests to declare.
I will go first, by stating that I have no relevant interests to declare.
I have no relevant interests.
I have a number of interests. I am a sitting councillor on Falkirk Council. For five years, I was resources portfolio holder, which is on finance. For the past four years, I have been housing portfolio holder. Also, I have just completed my employment with a company as a CSRT—certified surveyor in remedial treatments—and a certified surveyor in structural waterproofing. I am very knowledgeable on Awaab’s law and various other things relating to houses. I have worked in the property industry for more than 30 years.
You are obviously on the right committee.
No—I am on the wrong one.
I resigned as a councillor on 4 June. Until then, I was in local government for nine years. In my nine years as a councillor, I sat on a number of arm’s-length organisations of the council. I had a meeting with the standards clerks, and was advised to put all of those on the register of interests under the voluntary category, because none of the posts was remunerated and all of them were in my role as a councillor. The standards clerks have come back to say that I can remove all of them, but I am going to leave them on for transparency.
However, there is a question mark around a limited liability partnership, Edinburgh Living, which is a development company with the council that delivers market and mid-market homes. I do not know whether I need to declare that yet, as I am waiting for full guidance from the standards clerks. I will declare it for now, but it might come off my declaration in future.
I have no relevant interests to declare.
I am a councillor with Highland Council.
I am still a sitting councillor in Glasgow City Council. For full transparency, I also sit on the licensing board of that council.
Thank you very much.
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Deputy Convener