Justice and Home Affairs Committee, 14 Dec 1999
Meeting date: Tuesday, December 14, 1999
Official Report
174KB pdf
Scottish Parliament Justice and Home Affairs Committee Tuesday 14 December 1999 (Afternoon)
[The Convener opened the meeting at 15:32]
Good afternoon. I have received an apology from Kate MacLean, who is unable to attend this meeting. There is a good deal of media interest in today's proceedings, so I ask members and witnesses to be aware that there are tripod-mounted cameras in the room to capture our meeting for posterity.
When we have finished the evidence session, I will ask the committee to consider on the record how we are to take forward our work on the prisons issue. We have had a draft report, which we deferred because of the cuts and job losses in the Scottish Prison Service, so we must decide how we are now to proceed.
Item 2 on the agenda is a short discussion on the practicalities of the committee's work load after the recess. That part of the meeting should be held in private. It will just involve reporting to the committee the timetabling issues for stage 2 of the bills, requests from the Parliamentary Bureau and other such matters. Does the committee agree to item 2 being held in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Does the committee agree to hold a similar discussion at the end of the first meeting after the recess, on 11 January? That meeting will not involve stage 2 consideration of the bills, but we will need to have a brief discussion then about how we will handle those bills in subsequent meetings.
Members indicated agreement.
I have been invited back to the bureau yet again on 11 January to discuss what will happen at stage 2. Those issues will therefore remain live.