Rural Affairs Committee, 05 Sep 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 5, 2000

Official Report 139KB pdf

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Petitions

Item 3 on the agenda is related to item 2, in that it covers a substantial number of petitions concerning the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Bill. They have been grouped together so that we can consider them at the same time as the bill itself.

A summary sheet is available, which should have been circulated to members. The originals of the petitions have not been made available. There are copies of the petitions here. Does everyone have the paper referring to item 3 on the agenda?

I do not have the petitions.

No, the petitions have not been circulated. The summary paper indicates that the subject matter of the majority of the petitions is similar. At this stage, I would like guidance from the committee as to how we should proceed with the petitions. One option is to note them and to consider them no further. The alternative is to consider the petitions together with the written submissions. We could ask the information centre to consider the scope for further research on the subject.

I was contacted last night by one of the petitioners, who was extremely concerned that they had just been informed that the committee would address their petition today. That individual wanted to be here to hear our deliberations, but could not attend. There is something wrong with the system. It is a courtesy to the petitioners to notify them—that should be taken on board by whoever is responsible. It is not a satisfactory situation.

I was made aware this morning that many of the petitioners were notified too late that their petitions were to be placed on the agenda. That is why it is not appropriate at this stage for us to deal with them in detail. However, I would like the committee's guidance on whether it is appropriate for us to include them with the written submissions.

I would support that course of action. It seems sensible to consider the petitions at the same time as the evidence on the bill.

It appears that the petitions are asking for further research to be carried out, in addition to that which the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute was asked to do. Given our decision that we will not decide how to proceed with the bill for another fortnight, I do not see how we can take a decision on this matter for another fortnight either. Whether we take the petitions any further will depend on how thorough we decide the evidence should be.

I agree, but do you feel that the petitions should be included with the written submissions so that they can be considered together in the next fortnight?

Yes.

As there are no further comments, copies of the petitions will be bundled together and circulated to members for consideration in conjunction with the written evidence.

Item 4 on the agenda relates to petitions PE186 and PE240. We have received a number of petitions about rural post offices, the most recent examples of which are PE186, which is from the National Federation of Sub Postmasters, and PE240, which is in the names of George Lyon MSP and Ray Michie MP. The paper to which the petitions are attached and which has been circulated to members is inaccurate, as it refers to Ray Michie as an MSP. This issue has been raised in the committee on occasion, but, as a result of these petitions, it has come back on to our agenda again.

PE186 asks us

"to influence, in whatever way possible, the Westminster Government"

and to consider the issue in the context of our inquiry into the impact of change on employment patterns in rural Scotland.

Do members have comments on this issue? I know that certain members of the committee had views on it in the past.

I remain committed to exploring this issue and to obtaining a resolution to it.

There may be a slight confusion within the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, as the extract from the Official Report notes that previous petitions on rural post offices have been sent to the Rural Affairs Committee

"because it is conducting an inquiry into the matter."—[Official Report, Public Petitions Committee, 4 July 2000; c 567.]

While we agreed that rural post offices would form part of our inquiry into changing employment patterns, the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee may believe that we are conducting an inquiry into the future of rural post offices. Perhaps we should point that out to that committee.

It is appropriate that we consider this matter, as it impacts more on post offices in rural areas than on those in other geographical areas. Given that we are about to consider the final draft of our inquiry report, would it be appropriate to do so bearing in mind whether we have addressed the issue adequately enough to satisfy the petitioners? If we have not done so, we could decide at that stage that we might need to take further action. In the first instance, we should consider how well we have covered the issue in our draft report on employment patterns.

I will slightly contradict one of Irene McGugan's points, although I agree that the majority of post offices under immediate threat are probably in rural areas. However, that is not exclusively the case. In fact, the petition from the National Federation of Sub Postmasters refers to Edinburgh specifically, and there are not many rural post offices in Edinburgh. We know that many small post offices in suburban areas and in some of the larger housing schemes are also under threat, particularly because so much of their business is to do with welfare benefits and therefore they are particularly vulnerable to this kind of pressure. Although we do not want to keep passing the buck, we should point out to the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee that this issue is not exclusively rural.

If there are no further comments, and given that there is a request for us to do what we can to bring this issue to the attention of the Westminster Government, would it be appropriate for the concerns expressed by the committee both today and previously to be put in a letter and sent to the relevant Westminster minister?

How much information does this committee have about the Post Office's proposals? Have we had all the relevant information about the latest sets of proposals that have come from the relevant minister's office during the past three or four weeks? I say that in the precise context of Alasdair Morgan's comments and in the context of Irene McGugan's suggestion.

My constituency is in no sense a rural area, but I have had a fairly extensive correspondence with the Post Office. Would it be helpful to obtain as much information as possible about the proposals and the direction in which they might go in order to consider them more systematically, rather than simply making representations, which are less likely to carry weight? If we were to consider the issue more carefully, what we have to say might be more salient.

Yes, we could do that. Are there other views?

The petition from George Lyon and Ray Michie is slightly different, as it does not ask us to make representations to Westminster. I am sure that MPs will be making representations as they see fit. PE240 asks us to do whatever is in our power to secure

"a viable future for Argyll and Bute's rural sub-post offices".

That would also be true for Dumfries and Galloway and other rural parts of Scotland.

There may be other encouraging steps that the Scottish Parliament could take. For example, when the Horizon project comes on line, are there ways in which we could support post offices by encouraging local councils and the Scottish Parliament itself to use them to disseminate information in rural areas? There may be other steps within our remit that the Scottish Parliament could take and that could help to support rural post offices.

The decline in service provision from banks goes with the decline of post offices and is important in my constituency and, I suspect, in other constituencies. The decline of post offices, to the extent that they can be used for banking purposes, may have implications for people with limited financial means and limited access to different forms of credit, if that decline comes on the back of the loss of banking facilities located within a reasonable distance. That is another issue, which has to do with the loss of service provision in rural areas.

The Westminster Government's proposals have implications, and we should consider those implications in detail, rather than simply making representations purely on the basis of the interests of the postmasters. We should treat this matter more broadly.

I quite agree with Des McNulty. The detail of how the Government's proposed universal bank would operate is by no means clear to me and in July I heard that some of the banks were not exactly happy with the proposal either. Therefore, it would be helpful if we could try to find out the latest information and how concrete some of the proposals are.

Would it be appropriate to make contact with one or two agencies to ensure that we have the latest information? Richard Davies has just hurriedly scribbled a suggestion that we could ask Ross Finnie if the Executive's ministerial committee on rural development has considered this issue. Which other organisations or individuals should we approach for further information?

I am sure that the committee will have considered the wider implications. Should you ask the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee to consider the implications of the withdrawal of post offices from rural communities?

That is a fairer expression of something that I have written down as a note. Given the broad nature of the issue and the fact that, in some respects, it is not a rural issue, but a cross-cutting issue, should we seek advice on the appropriate place for post office issues within the parliamentary committee structure?

It would be useful for every committee member to get information from the Government and the Post Office about the broad range of proposals that might affect the future of post offices in Scotland. We could perhaps consider such matters as the future of the Horizon project and the universal bank proposal.

Scotland has a different balance of urban and rural areas compared with south of the border. The issues arising from the current proposals, and how rural areas in Scotland will be affected, would be a valid piece of work for us to consider. It would be equally valid for us to highlight to other committees of the Parliament that there are also issues for them to consider—relating to social inclusion or economic development, for example.

We should not simply pass the buck; we should get the appropriate information and start to consider the interests and issues that are in our remit, signalling to the other committees that we are doing that and that we would welcome their considering the issues that affect their areas of interest.

In the meantime, would it be appropriate for us to seek the information and consider the matter again at a future meeting?

Members indicated agreement.

We are preparing our report on the matter and Richard Davies has indicated that the second draft is available for circulation today. We should, as Irene McGugan suggested, consider the issue in relation to the draft report.

One of the things that the petition from the Post Office people asks us to do is to bring the matter to the attention of the Westminster Government. Do members think that we should act on that in any respect, or will we consider that later?

The Westminster Government has had the matter well and truly brought to its attention.

That was in the text of the petition, which is why we needed to consider it. Shall we do that once we have considered the information?

Members indicated agreement.