Scotland Bill Committee
Meeting date: Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Official Report
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Convener
The Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish Labour Party are eligible for nomination as convener of the committee, and I understand that Wendy Alexander is the Scottish Labour Party’s nominee for the role. I therefore ask the committee to agree that Wendy Alexander be chosen as convener of the Scotland Bill Committee.
Ms Alexander was chosen as convener.
I thank everybody for their agreement. My brief moment of glory has come to an end; I congratulate Wendy on her appointment, and now hand over the chair to her for the rest of the proceedings.
Thank you, Robert. A particular thank you is due to Robert because I know that he froze for two hours at Queen Street station this morning without getting a train, whereas I turned up and simply walked on to one. I thank Robert for making it here.
My notes suggest that I should say a few words on my important role. In light of the weather and the amount of work that we have to get through, I will make only one observation.
It was almost 14 years ago that Donald Dewar embarked on stewarding the first Scotland Bill through Westminster. I think that he would be absolutely delighted at the way in which Holyrood and Westminster have jointly approached the process of reviewing the settlement after 10 years, and that he would feel that such work, which has spanned different Governments at Holyrood and Westminster, has been a credit to the constitutional process.
Work undertaken by this committee will be operationalised over a period of many years, so it, too, will span different Administrations at Holyrood and Westminster. I intend to approach the work of this committee with the interests of Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole in mind. I hope that we will pursue matters with as much consensus as we can.