Waverley Railway (Scotland) Bill Committee, 23 Nov 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Official Report 92KB pdf

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Late Objections (Consideration)

Good afternoon. I remind members to switch off their mobile phones and pagers. We have received no apologies.

Under agenda item 1, the committee is required to consider six late objections that have been lodged against the bill and to decide whether each objector has shown good reason for not lodging the objection within the specified objection period. If we decide that the objectors have shown good reason, the objections will be allowed to proceed to preliminary consideration. The paper refers to seven objections, but because of information that has come to light, the committee is not in a position to consider the objection from Nigel Miller. I suggest that we hold that objection until our next meeting. Is the committee agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

In that case, I invite committee members to comment on each of the six objections with which we are left.

From what I have been able to see of the reasons for late objection, all the objections seem to fall broadly in the same category as the previous late objections, and we should accept them for the reason that we accepted the previous ones. They seem to fulfil the same criteria, and the objectors' reasons for not responding earlier seem to be fairly justifiable. Unless any committee members have any other thoughts, I recommend that we accept the late objections.

I agree with Ted Brocklebank, except for on the objection to the whole bill.

We will deal with that under agenda item 2. At this stage, we are considering only whether the late objectors have shown good reason for not lodging their objections in time.

I am content that we take the objections further, because they fit the same criteria as the late objections with which we have dealt before. We should continue to consider them and take them forward for scrutiny.

The committee is agreed that all six objections can go forward to preliminary consideration.