Official Report 217KB pdf
Scottish Parliament (Code of Conduct for Members) (PE827)
Welcome to the sixth meeting of the Public Petitions Committee in 2005. We have received apologies from Mike Watson and Sandra White.
I thank the committee for taking time in its busy schedule to accommodate my contribution.
You say that two thirds of MSPs' time should be spent carrying out their official functions. How many hours does that relate to?
I recognise the difficulty of quantifying the number of hours. My primary purpose is to identify a forum for MSPs to decide that question. MSPs are not paid an hourly rate or for a 48-hour working week. However, if the European working time directive applies across Scotland, it would be less than fair if our MSPs were exempted from having a 48-hour working week. As a starting point for debate among elected members, we should look at the 48-hour working week.
That would prevent me from doing my job in the way I want to do it. It is no secret that you work for an MSP; you must know how many hours he works. Any MSP working 48 hours in a week would probably find that a drastic cut in his or her hours. Are you telling us that you would consider two thirds of 48 hours to be an acceptable working week for an MSP?
No. I have deliberately not specified a number of hours because, as you rightly point out, due to the nature of my employment I am well aware of the hours that can be and often are worked by elected members. Through the vehicle of the petition, I seek to highlight a potential loophole that could be exploited should an individual choose to do so. I take on board the point about the number of hours that you and other elected members work, but, equally, the other side of that coin is that there is nothing to state what MSPs are obliged to do once elected, or for how many hours they are obliged to do it.
This is one of those questions like, "How long is a piece of string?"
I realise that.
If someone enters into an election campaign stating, for example, that they have a second job, and the electorate chooses to vote for that individual, is it not a matter for the electorate whether they are content with the number of hours that the MSP or MP works on their behalf?
I do not disagree with that in any way.
I do not have a second job and I have no intention of having one. My question follows on from the point that the convener just made. Could it not be a strength for constituents to have an MSP who has particular expertise? Surely that would keep the MSP's skills and knowledge in a particular area up to date. I am thinking in particular of the legal profession.
You are thinking of the legal profession. That would depend on what the MSP thought the substantial part of their constituency to be. Any outside expertise is surely valuable, but given that the majority of Scotland's population is in blue-collar and white-collar occupations, it might be more relevant if the elected member's experience was as a front-line staff member in an accident and emergency unit or in care work. I have no knowledge of the extent to which people in the legal profession—lawyers, solicitors and so on—learn about real working life.
Let us say that the member was a consultant. The work of the Parliament's Health Committee could be well informed if one of its members was a hospital consultant. However, as we know, there is a dire shortage of hospital consultants right across Scotland. Would it be a problem if a consultant were to be an MSP?
That might be true, but I wonder how much our health service would benefit if one of its consultants were to serve in the Scottish Parliament as opposed to in the operating theatre.
Some hospital consultants might have a view. We could ask Dr Turner for her views on the matter.
It is to represent the electorate.
You work for a member of the Scottish Parliament. Can you describe exactly what a parliamentarian's working week is like?
A full working week will range from committee work, such as the work in which you are currently engaged, to constituency work, case work, debates in the chamber and visits to organisations that may have information that is relevant to the member's work on a committee or to an interest that they have, perhaps for a member's bill. The parliamentarian's working week is diverse.
Yes. Would you like to say which member of the Scottish Parliament you work for?
Yes, if you wish me to do so. I work for Mr Donald Gorrie.
Can you tell me how many hours a week he works?
I have not calculated it exactly. It is hardly my duty to do so. However, in an average week, I estimate that he works in the order of 60 hours.
To me that would be part time. How many hours do other MSPs work each week? Have you undertaken a survey or research on the subject?
No, I have not.
So you have come forward with a proposition without having done the research.
I came up with the proposition by identifying what I perceived to be a loophole in the current code of conduct. As I said—I am reiterating my opening statement to some extent —my position is that there is a loophole in the code of conduct. The Scottish Parliament has been assiduous in avoiding a replication of many of the mistakes that happen at Westminster. This matter was overlooked because of all the other things that required to be done. Again, as I said at the outset, I am looking to engender debate on the issue among the elected members whose decision this must be.
The convener mentioned the European working time directive a few minutes ago. Let us assume that an MSP starts their working week on a Monday and works straight through to the Friday of the same week. If they worked 13 or 14 hours a day, their total working week would be around 70 hours, which is well above the time limit that is laid down in the directive. What should the member do about the hours that are required on the Saturday and Sunday to fulfil any number of constituency engagements—whether they be garden fetes, tours around the Parliament or surgeries—and to do the additional reading that must be done in preparation for up to three committee meetings in the following week?
They would make a decision based on the extent to which they viewed those as being their responsibilities as an elected member.
What about the enforceability and the policing of the European working time directive?
If I remember rightly, the convener referred to the matter in terms of what constitutes a piece of string. The directive is difficult to enforce and there are exemptions, which I believe are about to be done away with. As I know about the nature of the job to some extent, I was careful not to specify a number of working hours because that would be difficult to quantify. My main consideration in submitting the petition is to try to address what I perceive as a loophole in the way in which the code of conduct currently operates.
You say on the one hand that you want us to follow the European working time directive, but on the other hand you say that it is as long as a piece of string. In effect, you are saying that the European working time directive does not apply to MSPs.
No. I cited the directive as an example; that was all. It would perhaps be a starting point.
Either one lays lay down a code of conduct, which there is an expectation that MSPs will follow, or one does not.
Yes. As with the rest of the code of conduct, what the expectation is would be a matter for MSPs to decide.
In effect, you are saying that you want the Parliament to set down rules but at the same time you are saying that you want MSPs to make their own decisions.
Within the framework set down by the code of conduct—as they do with everything else.
Do you accept that there are very few occupations in respect of which the general public get to pass judgment on the performance of the person in the job, but that an MSP is one of those? If an MSP is not performing well and the general public get a chance to pass judgment on his or her ability, that judgment would include whether they think that the individual commits sufficient time to the job of being an MSP.
I accept that there are a number of jobs in respect of which the general public have the right to pass judgment on performance. In the case of MSPs, there is an opportunity every four years for constituents to make some sort of assessment but, as you are probably aware, for the most part, the voting system in Scotland and in the United Kingdom is such that, by and large, people will vote for a political party.
Not necessarily.
There are rare occasions in some constituencies where there is an independent, non-aligned member, but broadly speaking—I accept that it is a generalisation—
You would accept that the general public have the ultimate sanction. They can remove a person from the job of being an MSP.
Yes, ultimately they can remove an elected member from their job as an MSP, but the caveat that I would add, as I was about to say, is that, for the most part, elected members—at least when they initially become a member of this Parliament or any other—are affiliated to a political party, and the political party is what most people vote for. In general, that is the ticket on which an elected member stands. The electorate's view about whether they want to remove a particular individual as opposed to a particular party might subsequently be influenced and they might choose to remove a member.
Most people would call that democracy. If there is a problem with the electoral system, perhaps that is what you should seek to change.
I do not feel that it is appropriate to individualise a petition on this matter. I am primarily motivated by the potential that the current code of conduct has for us in Scotland—having done so well in so many ways to do things differently from Westminster—to end up with no means of dealing with a replication of some of the more extreme examples in the House of Commons.
Do you have concerns about any MSPs in particular?
I do not believe that it would be appropriate to pick out individuals.
What proportion of the 129 MSPs do you think is covered?
Again, it is difficult for me to quantify that without making it possible for you to extrapolate and individualise the figures. I am not comfortable with doing that and I will not do it.
I think that you would agree that it is important that we have this Parliament and that some of its hallmarks are openness and transparency. I am absolutely delighted that we have established that you do not just follow the Parliament but work in it. Equally, you would want to avoid the suggestion that you submitted the petition only because you happen to be a candidate in the Westminster elections. It would be helpful to get that on the record because I would not want the Parliament's Public Petitions Committee to be abused in that fashion.
I cannot remember the last time that I worked so short a week.
Indeed.
On your opening remark, the issue of the Westminster election has no bearing, because the petition process was started long before I was approached or selected in relation to the forthcoming events on 5 May. The petition was not submitted for that purpose.
My goodness; I always thought that Liberals did things early but I have been proved wrong.
Not necessarily in central Scotland.
Ah. I shall learn from that remark.
I take on board the point that activity does not necessarily mean productivity, as we know from our experience. The question is a difficult one and I make no bones about it. I keep coming back to where I started. There has been a variety of negative media coverage about the elected members of this Parliament. Everyone here knows that journalists start out with a white page and nothing to write and if they can find something to write, they will write it. I am concerned that we should close the loopholes in the code of conduct because the press and the public might perceive that there is an opportunity for—I use the word advisedly—backsliding. For example—and again I hesitate to personalise—had there not been individuals who had senior partnerships in organisations in which they were still active while being elected members, making comments about conflicts of interest would have been less attractive. The ministerial code requires that ministers remove themselves from all that, but the current code of conduct does not protect MSPs sufficiently as far as that is concerned.
The more you carry on, the less sympathy I feel. I think that you are trying to resolve a problem that, by your own admission, does not exist. Instead of talking about parliamentary duties, you are now straying into issues of conflict of interest to which we are all subject because we have all lived long lives. It is hard to define the basis for the petition; it is trying to resolve a problem that does not exist.
By and large, I agree that the problem, per se, does not exist. I do not have a difficulty with that. However, it has the opportunity to exist and prevention is often better than cure. I refer you back to my observation about the lack of coverage of those matters in the code of conduct and the potential for that to be abused in the longer term. Given the success that we have had in addressing so many of Westminster's failings, I think that the matter should be examined.
Returning to an earlier point, I declare an interest as a farmer and chairman of the Scottish Association of Farmers Markets. I feel that it is vital that the Parliament continues to have as broad a range of skills as possible and that all members bring what extra skills they can to the job. Are you not prepared to accept that argument?
At no stage have I said that I do not accept that, regardless of age, social background or economic activity, we all bring a range of skills to the Parliament. Indeed, it is no less vital for elected members to do so.
But you are saying that people should not maintain those skills.
I am saying that we need to have a debate on the extent to which such activity should take precedence over members' parliamentary and constituency duties.
By your own admission, the problem does not exist, so why should it need to be debated?
But it has the potential to exist. As I said to Ms Baillie, the approach should be prevention rather than cure.
I now seek members' recommendations on what we should do with the petition. I have to say that I am a bit concerned about it. The committee has already made proposals to the Procedures Committee about changing who can or cannot submit petitions. I do not want to bring this petition into that category, but I wonder whether, like me, committee members feel uncomfortable that such a petition has been submitted during the election period. It might have been more conducive to taking the issue forward if we had held the debate outside such a delicate time.
If we take into account the way in which the Parliament was established, its various codes of conduct, the introduction of the standards commissioner and Campbell Martin's point about accountability to the electorate, I think that they all take care of Mr O'Donnell's point. Given that such checks and balances exist, I am not minded to take the matter any further forward.
Mr O'Donnell, you said that there was no other way in which you could raise the matter. I suspect that that might not be the case. For example, if you are concerned about a specific issue, you can use the code of conduct and take the matter to the standards commissioner. Fourteen complaints about the accessibility of MSPs have already been made, and the commissioner has dismissed all of them.
I just do not think that there is anything more that we can do with your petition, Mr O'Donnell. I appreciate your bringing the matter to the committee for discussion, but I think that we should close the petition at this point. Are members agreed?
If the code of conduct is currently under review, would there be any merit in forwarding the petition to the Standards and Public Appointments Committee?
I suggest that Mr O'Donnell could make direct representations on these matters to the Standards and Public Appointments Committee. Are members agreed?
Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 (PE833)
Petition PE833, which was lodged by David Jack, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to maintain the current local government boundaries as set out in the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994. I welcome David Jack, who will make a brief statement in support of his petition. Members will then ask questions. Your opening statement must last no more than three minutes and must be restricted to PE833. Later, we will discuss the other petition that you lodged.
Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee. As a proud Scot, I am privileged to be able to give evidence for the first time to members of my country's Parliament.
You referred to your party, which raises an issue that came up during our consideration of the previous petition. In the interests of balance and fairness, will you tell us whether you are involved in the general election campaign and declare any interests?
Yes. I am the Conservative candidate for East Dunbartonshire.
Thank you. It is useful to have that on the record. Do members want to ask questions?
A number of people across Scotland and in other parts of the country share the view that people who live in areas that surround a metropolis such as Glasgow, Edinburgh or Dundee, and who benefit from the major institutions and facilities that such cities provide, should pay for those facilities. Will Mr Jack comment on why he thinks people should not contribute in that way?
The first question that we must answer is whether East Dunbartonshire and the other communities that you cited are communities in their own right and whether it is in the best interests of those communities that they be represented by individual authorities that are elected by those communities.
Will you answer the question that I asked you? I accept that communities need to be identified as communities, but who should share the cost of paying for major city centre amenities that we all enjoy?
With all due respect, there is implicit in your question a suggestion that the current boundaries need to be changed. Are you in favour of changing boundaries along the lines that you mentioned?
My question was to you. Who should pay for the amenities? It is not for you to ask me the questions this morning; it is for you to answer.
If the motivation for redrawing boundaries is based purely on making money, I cannot understand why a city such as Glasgow is not doing more to improve its collection rate.
Let us just clarify that we are not talking about making money; we are talking about who pays for essential services and facilities. Will you answer the question?
I agree with what you are saying, but if you let me finish answering the question, I will say that Glasgow City Council has the lowest collection rate of council tax in Scotland. It has the highest council tax in Scotland—
We are not talking about the collection of tax; we are talking about who pays for services.
I am arguing that Glasgow City Council has to provide more efficient services at a better level.
We are not talking about efficiencies; we are talking about who pays for services. Those services are enjoyed by a broad range of people outwith the city centre, whether they travel from Stenhousemuir—where I was born—into Glasgow, or whether they live in Glasgow city centre. The fact is that the amenities are there. Who should pay for them?
As I said, I feel that implicit in your question is a feeling that the current boundaries are inappropriate and should therefore be changed.
You are still not answering my question—
With all due respect, I am answering the question, but perhaps not in the way that you want me to.
No—you are answering the question that you want to be asked; I am asking you the question that I want to be answered. That is the difference. You are not answering the question—
Helen, will you ask a specific question that Mr Jack can attempt to answer? We will then see whether that addresses your concerns.
I think that we can accept that Mr Jack will not answer the particular question, so I will move on to the next one. With regard to the non-collection of council tax that you mentioned, do you accept that there can be circumstances in any local authority area where non-collection can happen for a variety of reasons, such as people dying, absentee landlords living in America, Canada or other parts of the world and a range of other reasons?
I accept that there are different issues from council to council that influence the collection but, ultimately, as a voter and taxpayer myself, I feel that it is only reasonable that people should expect their councils to collect the most money possible. Glasgow has the lowest collection rate in Scotland. If it were to improve its collection rate to the level that we enjoy in East Dunbartonshire—94.1 per cent—that would generate almost £20 million more.
We have local authorities in Scotland in the same way that we have health boards. There are 13 health board areas in England for 45 million-plus people and 15 in Scotland for a population of 5 million. We have 32 local authorities in Scotland and the smallest is Clackmannanshire, which has a small number of elected members. Do you accept that there needs to be some thinking about how we can develop a more sustainable way forward, whether it is in the next three, four or 10 years?
As well as floating ideas about redrawing boundaries, Mr McCabe talked in the media interviews on 10 February and subsequently about councils pooling their resources. Neither I nor my party would oppose in principle the achievement of greater efficiency for Scotland's council tax payers.
If it was okay for the Conservative party to have a major local government boundary reorganisation in 1995 following research that studied opinion, why is it unreasonable to have another local government reorganisation in the future?
I detect that your question implies that you or other people are unhappy with the boundaries. Would the member like the boundaries to be redrawn?
As Helen Eadie said, you are here not to ask but to answer questions.
I apologise.
Helen Eadie asked you a direct question. If you prefer not to answer it, just say so. However, you cannot answer by asking her a question.
It is important for council tax payers to get to the bottom of whether the agenda is to redraw boundaries. As we say, Mr McCabe has floated the idea clearly in the media. I have a cutting from The Sun of 10 February, which says, "McCabe to redraw local authority map".
I say with respect that Mr Jack is simply reiterating speculation. He has not answered the question that I asked.
Implicit in your question is the fact that you are unhappy with the boundaries, but I will not ask you a third time whether you want the boundaries to change.
My views are not at issue. I asked you why, if the Conservative Government deemed it acceptable to change boundaries in 1995, it is unthinkable to consider a change in the next 10 years.
I am merely here on behalf of the people of East Dunbartonshire, who are rightly concerned—
You have not been elected to represent the people of East Dunbartonshire.
I say with all due respect that all local politicians—whether elected or otherwise—fulfil constituency duties.
Is it fair to say that you are here to represent the people who signed the petition?
Indeed. I represent the more than 1,400 people who signed the petition. They are people from all political parties. People from the SNP told us that they signed the petition because it is on a point of principle and they do not want their communities to be broken up and taken into neighbouring authorities.
That still does not answer my question.
I do not think that you will have an answer.
I welcome Mr Jack to the committee. I reiterate that it is welcome that you have said in the interests of openness and transparency that the petition has nothing to do with your standing as a Tory candidate in the Westminster election. It helps to have that on the record.
That is terribly kind.
I confess that it is a potted history, because as my colleague Helen Eadie said, redrawing boundaries is a Tory habit. In 1994, your party redrew boundaries. I am most interested if you are telling us that the Tories have no plans ever to contemplate redrawing any local government boundaries, because I am not sure whether David McLetchie has made that policy commitment.
To answer the first part of your very long question, I am not here on behalf of the Conservative party to answer for or justify previous boundary changes, or even to speculate on what might happen in the future; as the convener rightly pointed out, I am here on behalf of the more than 1,400 people who signed the petition, who are rightly worried about the comments of Tom McCabe, the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform.
I want to pursue that. My understanding is that both the First Minister and the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, whom Mr Jack quotes selectively, have ruled out plans for redrawing the boundaries. I have some quotations to share. In a recent article in The Scotsman, Tom McCabe said:
I will repeat the answer that I gave you earlier. To use a colloquialism, it was not us who started this—it was Mr McCabe. He gave interviews to the media in Scotland on 10 February. I have with me a copy of an article from The Sun that has the headline, "McCabe to redraw local authority map", which says:
Actually, Mr Jack, they are better directed at you. I was a resident of East Dunbartonshire for more than a decade—I know that I do not look old enough to have been there for that long—and I remember the Tory party commenting on the spectre of boundaries being redrawn at every election. That goes back to before Mr McCabe was the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform. Although that has been your campaigning theme, the boundaries have not been redrawn.
Again I say that, as The Sun article shows, it was Mr McCabe who raised the issue. We are merely reflecting and reacting to the genuine fears and concerns that have been expressed by people who live in East Dunbartonshire, including me. As a resident of East Dunbartonshire, I would like to know about the future of my council tax. I intend to be in East Dunbartonshire after 5 May, so I would like to know what the future has in store.
I have a comment for Mr Jack, rather than a question. I am a bit concerned about the way in which today's meeting has developed. It feels like a cross between a party political broadcast and a hustings, which is clashing with an advert for The Sun newspaper. I am very uncomfortable with what is happening, because the atmosphere that has been provoked in the present debate is particularly hostile. Usually, meetings of the Public Petitions Committee have a different feeling. They should be welcoming: members of the public should be able to come to us to speak about their petitions.
I echo what Rosie Kane said. Mr Jack has used the Public Petitions Committee to further his political campaign and it is regrettable that he has done so. We have had statements from ministers, including the First Minister, to say that there are no plans to change the boundaries of East Dunbartonshire. PE833 is about not the boundaries of East Dunbartonshire, but the method of local government funding and taxation. Mr Jack's campaign is motivated principally by the fact that one political party does not want to pay tax to fund local government services.
Do you wish to make a response, Mr Jack?
Indeed. If that is thought to be the real issue, why did the Public Petitions Committee feel that it was necessary to ask me to come to committee today and give evidence? If we are scaremongering, why would the Public Petitions Committee want to listen to what I have to say on behalf of 1,400 residents in East Dunbartonshire?
I suggest—
May I finish my answer, Mr Martin? It is rude to interrupt someone when he is speaking.
We took your petition at face value, but what you said today has undermined it.
I have not undermined the petition: 1,400 people in East Dunbartonshire from all party political backgrounds expressed their real concerns following comments that were made by a Scottish Executive minister.
I will not allow the situation to deteriorate further. John Scott has a comment.
I welcome the commitment that Mr McCabe made about 2007. I understand that Mr Jack is at committee to express the views of 1,400 petitioners and their fears about what might happen in the future. Do you welcome the interim commitment that Mr McCabe has made? Will you say something more about the philosophical point that lies behind PE833? I am thinking about the point that smaller communities do not want to be subsumed into larger ones. I ask you to be brief.
I welcome Mr McCabe's commitment in so far as it shed a little light on what many people feel is an agenda to redraw the boundaries. As I said, it appears that the boundaries are safe until 2007, but that is not a long time in politics; 2007 is the date of the next Scottish Parliament elections.
Operating in the spirit of consensus, my colleague John Scott sought to do something by way of the suggestion that he made. That opportunity was not seized, however. On that basis and, as a former resident of East Dunbartonshire and someone who is opposed to the redrawing of boundaries, I suggest that we close PE833. I note the comments that the First Minister and the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform made. I also note the feelings of other committee members about the way in which the Public Petitions Committee has been used this morning.
Are members happy to close PE833?
I have a couple of comments to make on the discussions that we have had this morning. Politicians have come before the committee in the past. As Campbell Martin said, if politicians want to raise a subject in a legitimate petition, we take the petition at face value. I do not judge petitioners on the basis of who they are but on the subject that they bring for discussion.
Mobile Telephone Masts (Health Issues) (PE834)<br />National Planning Policy Guideline 19 (Health Issues) (PE830)
Petition PE834, which was also lodged by Mr Jack, is on the siting of phone masts. We did not ask for oral evidence to be given on the petition because we have already addressed the issue.
Petition PE830, by Elizabeth Deirdre Murray, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to review, with a view to amending, national planning policy guideline 19 in order to ensure that planning authorities treat health issues—and particularly emissions of radio-frequency radiation—as a material consideration in the planning process. Telecommunications and wireless telegraphy are reserved issues, but town and country planning is a fully devolved matter.
On a point of clarification, did the Communities Committee take evidence on the health implications? If so, was that evidence taken in private or is the knowledge that was gleaned on the record?
My information is that the Communities Committee has not taken evidence yet, but it will do so in the near future. Perhaps we could seek out that information.
The issue arises time after time and I am sure that I speak for everybody when I say that we need a definitive answer to the health question. At the very least, that would reduce the committee's workload.
I ask Jim Johnston, the clerk, to answer that question.
I understand from the clerk to the Communities Committee that that committee has agreed to investigate community involvement in the planning process and the relationship between health and planning issues during its scrutiny of the Executive's forthcoming proposals for the development of the planning system. The Public Petitions Committee can refer these petitions to that committee with a view to addressing the issues as part of its work on those proposals. As the convener said, the Communities Committee has closed consideration of three previous petitions on similar issues but has agreed to take forward the issues as part of that investigation.
I have considerable sympathy with the idea that NPPG 19 should be reviewed. East Dunbartonshire Council does not appear to do what other local authorities do—that is, sit down with some of the phone companies and look for non-sensitive sites where masts can be placed. In this case, it appears that masts are being placed on sensitive sites without any dialogue taking place with the local authority. That said, I think that the way forward is to pass both petitions to the Communities Committee and to close our consideration of them.
The Communities Committee will take the information that we have from these petitions and consider it when it addresses the issue. We will not have to take any direct action.
I agree to that. There is a huge problem because local authorities are giving planning permission for such masts although many of them are not prepared to have them on their own ground. There is a conflict because the planning committees are behaving in that way.
Jackie Baillie makes a critically important point. There is a major responsibility on the telephone operating companies. I do not know whether the Scottish Advisory Committee on Telecommunications still exists or whether it has merged into a UK advisory committee, but I met that committee on the issue. Following that, we also met some of the major telephone operators. We said to the minister at that time that it was imperative that the telephone operating companies met the local communities to do exactly what Jackie Baillie has suggested. We recommended that they agree a roll-out programme across a local authority area's non-controversial sites and get those non-controversial sites agreed by the local communities.
The bottom line must be that we agree to refer the petitions on.
Is everyone happy with that?
Wind Farm Developments<br />(Property Values) (PE816)
Our next new petition is PE816, from Mrs Judith Hodgson, calling on the Scottish Parliament to consider and debate the issue of financial compensation for individuals whose property values and businesses are affected by the construction of a wind farm development.
The petition makes a lot of assumptions, but there is nothing in the committee's papers that indicates to me that there is a problem. One of the papers that have been submitted makes an assumption about the drop in the value of properties that are in close proximity to the wind farms. That is an assumption; it has not been established beyond any reasonable doubt. The petition asks for compensation for residents who find their amenity disturbed by the proliferation of wind farms. That is a consideration for local authority planning departments, and I am sure that they take due consideration of such issues when they approve or reject such applications.
Your knowledge of the area is far greater than mine. In appendix 1, the petitioner makes a case that businesses, including hotels, will lose revenue. Do you agree that that is a valid case, that such businesses are fragile—as are all businesses in the area—and that to site a wind farm outside them might be critical to their survival?
Tourism is one of the main economic plants of much of rural Scotland, particularly in the area in which the petitioner resides, but there is no concrete evidence that wind farms restrict the number of tourists visiting an area or cause a drop in business. The same applies to the claim that they cause a drop in property values and cause business failures—it is all conjecture and assumption; there is no hard fact or evidence to support that view. As a consequence, I do not put much emphasis on the petition.
John Farquhar Munro raises an important point. It strikes me that, as the committee's covering note says,
Well—
I will let Rosie Kane come in before John Farquhar Munro speaks again.
I am sorry, John; I will go first.
Ladies first, then.
I am not a lady; I am a socialist.
I believe that politics is being played with the petition.
To recap, the wind farm proposed for this location has received the full scrutiny of the local authority planning department, which considers all the interests and the problems that might be created for the community when it gives approval. Helen Eadie suggested that this matter be forwarded to the appropriate committee. However, the petitioner stated in her submission:
I agree entirely, but that is only a recommendation. We get petitions from a host of people who make recommendations on what they would like the committee to do with their petitions. By endorsing a decision to take the petition forward, we do not necessarily agree with everything that the petitioner calls for. Moreover, we are not sitting in judgment on the individual decision on this wind farm, as we have no remit in that regard. We are looking at the wider issue that is addressed by the petition, which concerns consideration of planning issues and whether compensation could be part of that consideration.
There is a 12-turbine wind farm in the hills above Ardrossan, where I am from. The turbines can be seen for miles around, including from the Isle of Arran across the Firth of Clyde, but the consensus is that they look quite nice and do not cause problems. One of the measures taken by the company that developed the wind farm is to give an annual contribution to local community groups in Ardrossan and West Kilbride, which are the communities nearest to the turbines. The contribution is not for individuals but for worthy causes in the towns. Perhaps that could provide a model for the wind farm industry.
Perhaps unusually, I largely agree with Helen Eadie. There is a real issue in this regard. Many people have huge concerns about the turbines at Ardrossan to which Campbell Martin referred. We are right to question all the different groups that are involved. At the same time, the Executive should come forward with policy guidelines, as I have maintained for some time.
Every individual wind farm will be subject to the decision of a planning committee. It is not for us to judge whether the location of any individual wind farm is right or wrong in terms of that determination. However, the question for the committee is whether the Executive is considering compensation as part of the planning process should a decision adversely affect a local community. We should write to the Executive in that regard.
As Helen Eadie said, we would open a huge can of worms if we went down that road.
That may well be the answer that we get back from the Executive. However, we should agree to write to the Executive to respond to the points made in the general terms of the petition.
We will find that most of the developers involved have agreed with the local communities through the planning process that there should be a local benefit. Negotiations are continuing between the different communities and developers as to what level the financial support for community funds should be set at. However, there is a difficulty in defining or determining where a community boundary lies, as some residents on the periphery of a community might say that they should be included. For example, I know of people who can see a wind farm from 10 miles across a loch but, despite the distance, claim to be part of the affected community. A number of anomalies exist.
Helen Eadie suggests that we write to ask some questions. If everyone agrees, we can do that and progress the petition in that way.
Next
Current Petitions