Health Committee, 10 Jun 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Official Report 82KB pdf

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Legacy Paper

I hope that members have read the legacy paper. From my experience as convener of the Justice 1 Committee, I know that members will have to get used to receiving an awful lot of papers. I hope that, even though there is a great bulk of papers, we will receive them in sufficient time. The clerks have a hard job, but I hope that members will have the opportunity to read papers thoroughly before committee meetings. Have members had a look at the legacy paper?

Yes.

Given that there is a great deal of detail in the paper, perhaps the informal away day in September would be the best time for members to discuss it and to come up with other ideas about the way forward. I know that members are longing to get together and discuss matters. Given that most members are not new to the job, we should be able to come up with ideas about the way forward and about how to balance the usual tension between legislation and any inquiries that members might want to undertake. Does the committee agree that it would be better to go into the detail of the paper at another meeting? I am content for members to raise issues now, if they wish.

I am content to leave the discussion of the bulk of the paper until the away day. However, I draw members' attention to the on-going issue of financial assistance for sufferers of hepatitis C, which the Health and Community Care Committee pursued vigorously in the previous session of Parliament. Before the recess, we should as a minimum seek a written update from the Minister for Health and Community Care on the negotiations with Westminster.

Can members remind me what the minister said previously on the issue?

I think that the minister agreed that the people involved should be given compensation, but said that we would have to wait for a decision from London on the clawback of benefits. I imagine that the minister wanted to give the people involved a lump sum—I will not go into the details of the two types of lump sum. The minister is in favour of giving compensation, but he must wait for an okay from London that there will be no clawback of benefit.

There has been discussion with the minister about levels of payments that may be made to sufferers. A number of issues arose with regard to the report of the expert group on financial and other assistance for national health service injury, but the main issue, which Jean Turner mentioned, was whether payments might have an implication for benefits. We await the outcome of the discussions with Westminster on that matter.

We should send a pushing letter to the minister to ask whether he has had a reply on the issue and, if he has not had one, why not and when we will get one.

I welcome Helen Eadie to the meeting.

My apologies for being late, convener.

That is perfectly all right. When you get your breath back, perhaps you would declare any interests that you have.

I am a member of the GMB, the Fabian Society and the Co-operative Party.

I have a question, rather than a comment. Will we meet between now and the recess?

Yes.

Do we have an indication of the matters that we will deal with? I believe that there are a number of pieces of subordinate legislation to be dealt with.

I will deal with subordinate legislation in a moment. From an e-mail that I received from the clerk, I note that we are to consider a Scottish statutory instrument at our meeting next week.

In that case, I will leave the matter to you, convener.

My second point relates to whether it would be possible to hold the away day in the last week of August. That would allow us to hit the deck running in September when we return from the recess. I believe that we might also have to scrutinise legislation before we go into the recess.

Members will take holidays at different times over the recess, which is why I suggested September. However, we could hold the away day as early as possible in September. I would like all committee members to be there—indeed, I am sure that we would all want that. The issue is finding a common date.

I suggest that we discuss the matter at our meeting next week, when members have their diaries and a better idea of what they are doing. I take David Davidson's point, but people will have made arrangements for the recess.

My last point is highlighted in the legacy paper. The Health and Community Care Committee was one of a number of committees that complained to the Scottish Executive about the way in which information flows from the Executive and about the late delivery of papers for consultation and discussion. Perhaps, before we go into the recess, a Health Department official could come before the committee to respond to the paper and give a brief outline of the Executive's procedures.

We hope to have the Minister for Health and Community Care and a civil servant from the Health Department at the away day. It would be better for us to speak informally to the minister and his officials about our requirements rather than to call them before the committee as witnesses.

That will not be on the record, however.

We can put it on the record shortly thereafter. I am sure that you will have no difficulty in doing that.

The legacy paper refers to correspondence, some of which we might want to follow up. The committee also considered several petitions—petitions can be a valuable means of bringing issues before this and other committees. Without going into the details of each petition today, I suggest that we check on progress, including whether responses have been received from ministers with whom the committee corresponded.

We need to see a progress report from the Public Petitions Committee on health-related petitions. That will allow us to incorporate petitions timeously in our agendas over the months to come.

How do you propose to plan the away day, convener? Would it be helpful if members, having had a look at the legacy paper, made suggestions about what they would like to see in our work plan? That would give us a draft document to work from, so that we do not have to start work in September based solely on the legacy paper. It would also address some of David Davidson's concerns about starting our work as soon as possible.

The clerks could e-mail members, asking them which topics from the legacy paper they would like to take up. That would allow us to formulate a work plan.

We should do that.

Absolutely.

I wanted to talk about SSIs, but I will have to ask the clerk to help me out—I think that she mentioned the matter in her e-mail to me. Members will find reference to SSIs in the legacy paper.

The Food Supplements (Scotland) Regulations 2003 are shortly to come before the committee. The instrument was the subject of a petition that the Public Petitions Committee referred to the European Committee. We are fortunate to have Helen Eadie on the committee, as she was the European Committee's reporter on those controversial regulations. Her report is now on the European and External Relations Committee's pages of the Parliament website.

Shona Robison has lodged a motion to annul the instrument. The Subordinate Legislation Committee is to consider the regulations on 17 June and possibly also on 24 June. Our deadline for completion of consideration of the regulations is 10 September 2003. It is suggested that, at our meeting next week, we should agree which witnesses to call to give evidence at our meeting on 25 June and that we should seek and gather written evidence over the summer recess. It is also suggested that we either take further evidence or debate the regulations in the first week of September. The second week of September is the latest time that we can have a committee debate on the subject. Are members content with that proposed timetable?

Members indicated agreement.

As members have no further comments to make on the legacy paper, I will close the meeting. I cannot guarantee that we will always have such a sharp finish. I anticipate that meetings will last about two and a half hours. At least our first meeting was brief.

Meeting closed at 09:35.