Rural Affairs Committee, 15 Feb 2000
Meeting date: Tuesday, February 15, 2000
Official Report
202KB pdf
National Parks
Members should have received the draft national parks bill that was published on 21 January. You should also have received the relevant SPICe paper.
The bill forms primary legislation to allow designation of national parks throughout Scotland. It sets down general principles for the creation and management of national parks in Scotland. The bill does not designate any particular national park, as that will be carried out through secondary legislation. However, it is expected that the first Scottish national park is likely to be Loch Lomond and the Trossachs and the second is likely to be the Cairngorms.
SPICe would be happy to discuss the content of the note in private if the committee felt that that would be helpful. I have placed this item on the agenda to allow members to express some initial reactions.
There is a suggestion that we should have a private briefing on this issue with members of the Transport and the Environment Committee. It might be appropriate to consider the SPICe note and related issues.
We intended to invite Rebecca Badger to go over the paper with us informally.
Is that what will happen next week?
The Transport and the Environment Committee is being briefed on the paper tomorrow. The idea behind meeting that committee next week was to examine how the two committees might work together.
The question of how we deal with the bill will be dealt with under the next item on the agenda.
It would be helpful if we could be briefed on the paper.
Are we agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
If there are no further comments, we will move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of future business.
While I do not suggest that the next item take place in private, it has been suggested that it might be appropriate to discontinue the Official Report of the meeting at this stage, as we will be discussing dates and times and it might be difficult to follow. A member of the clerking team will continue to take minutes so that we have a record of any decisions that we make.
Does that meet with the agreement of the committee?
Members indicated agreement.
Meeting continued in public until 16:11.