Rural Development Committee, 11 Oct 2002
Meeting date: Friday, October 11, 2002
Official Report
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Scottish Parliament Rural Development Committee Friday 11 October 2002 (Afternoon)
[The Convener opened the meeting at 13:30]
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure for all members of the committee to be up here in Kingussie and to welcome all of you who have come to this afternoon's meeting. Never have members of the public been more comfortably seated at a parliamentary committee meeting.
We have received apologies from Irene Oldfather, Alasdair Morrison and Stewart Stevenson, all of whom are members of the committee. However, I am delighted to welcome visiting member Mary Scanlon.
I issue my now traditional warning—which is directed at me as well as at everyone else—to ensure that all mobile phones are switched off.
We look forward to an interesting and productive meeting. Today we are concerned solely with the proposed designation order for the Cairngorms national park. We have already held two meetings on the topic in Edinburgh, at which we heard evidence from the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development and from his officials. We are in Kingussie today to hear at first hand from local people who have an interest in the matter and to listen to their concerns about the current proposals.
We will take evidence from a number of witnesses. Later, members of the audience will have an opportunity to express their views and concerns. We will use a format that the committee has pioneered. Although it may not seem perfect—many of you may want to say something, but we are subject to time constraints—it represents a great advance on the position of a year ago. I hope that all those who have something to say will take the opportunity to do so. I will explain the procedure in greater detail later.
If you would like to speak in the informal session, I ask you to complete the form on your seat and to pass it to one of the attendants, who will give it to the clerks. We will then know how many people we are dealing with and who they are. We will endeavour to hear from as many people as possible. This afternoon, time is of the essence, but we will be as flexible as possible and try hard to enable everyone who wants to make a contribution to do so.
Following the informal session, I will ask members of the committee and visiting members to summarise their view of what they have heard this afternoon. We will then ask members of the public to leave while the committee meets in private to determine the exact contents of its letter to the minister, which will be based on what we have said around the table. We must also deal with one or two boring housekeeping matters.
During the private session, we will set out our conclusions in a letter that the minister has asked us to send to him as soon as possible. We will do that because we are determined that the views that are expressed at this meeting should be put to the minister so that he can consider them when he is putting together the finalised designation order. Do members agree to take item 4 on the agenda in private?
Members indicated agreement.