Transport and the Environment Committee, 09 Nov 2001
Meeting date: Friday, November 9, 2001
Official Report
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Scottish Parliament Transport and the Environment Committee Friday 9 November 2001
[The Convener opened the meeting in private at 10:33]
Meeting continued in public.
I begin by welcoming the press and public to this meeting of the Transport and the Environment Committee. I also welcome some MSPs who are not usually with us—Mike Rumbles, Richard Lochhead, Brian Adam and Elaine Thomson—but who are particularly interested in our agenda this morning. I understand that Bruce Crawford will also join us at some point. Fiona McLeod, who is a member of the committee, may join us later this morning. We also have the lord provost in the gallery this morning, which is very pleasing.
This is our third attempt to get to Aberdeen and we are pleased to have made it this time. The weather interfered in our first venture. The second time that we scheduled the meeting it had to be cancelled because the general election got in the way. We are pleased to be here today, because we believe strongly in taking the Parliament round Scotland to hear views directly. We had some interesting discussions last night and this morning on issues related to our work as a committee. The committee's presence here is a measure of the Parliament's commitment to go round the country.
I crave your indulgence with regard to yesterday's events. Whatever we may say about the politics of it, Henry McLeish made an enormous contribution to the Scottish Parliament before it was set up, through his work at the Westminster Parliament and on the consultative steering group and other bodies. He helped to create the committee structure of the Scottish Parliament, which we hold so dear. We thank him for that and wish him well in what is clearly a troubled time. It is good for the committee to record that feeling towards Henry, who made the very courageous decision to make a personal statement in the chamber yesterday.
That said, we move on to the two main elements of today's meeting. We will take evidence this afternoon as part of our consideration of the Water Industry (Scotland) Bill. This morning, however, we are discussing an important local issue, about which we have some knowledge as the result of previous discussions in the Parliament and in the media: integrated transport issues in Aberdeen and the surrounding area.