Justice 1 Committee, 05 Oct 2005

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 5, 2005

Official Report 149KB pdf

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Interests

Good morning and welcome to the 30th meeting in 2005 of the Justice 1 Committee. I apologise for the late start—the committee had a previous meeting in private about the Family Law (Scotland) Bill.

I have two apologies—Margaret Mitchell and Stewart Stevenson are unable to join us today. Mike Pringle has also sent apologies. Members might know that he is otherwise engaged with his member's bill. I welcome Jim Wallace as his substitute. As usual, I ask members to switch off mobile phones or other gadgets, because they interfere with the sound.

I ask Jim Wallace to declare any relevant interests.

I am a non-practising member of the Faculty of Advocates. I do not know whether this is a relevant interest, but when I was Minister for Justice, I was responsible for one of the consultation documents that ultimately led to the legislation that we are considering today; I was also a minister when the bill was presented to Parliament.

How could we forget? It is nice to have you here for stage 2. I believe that we will probably have you for most of stage 2 because Mike Pringle will be dealing with his bill at stage 1.