Rural Affairs and Environment Committee, 25 Feb 2009

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Official Report 85KB pdf

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Interests

I welcome committee members and members of the public to the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee's sixth meeting of the year. I suggest that mobile phones should be switched off or put on flight mode—whichever seems more appropriate—so let me switch mine off now. Liam McArthur has sent his apologies, so we welcome Jim Hume as his substitute. Karen Gillon is on long-term leave, so we welcome Rhoda Grant, who is substituting for her again today.

Agenda item 1 is declarations of interests. I welcome Maureen Watt, who has replaced Roseanna Cunningham as a Scottish National Party member of the committee. I also welcome Jim Hume, who is making his first appearance as a substitute member. I invite them both to declare any interests that are relevant to the committee.

As a farmer's daughter, I obviously have an interest in the workings of the committee and am delighted to be a member of it. I have no pecuniary interest whatsoever in the farm that my brother and father run.

I have a pecuniary interest in farming, although I do not get my hands dirty nowadays, obviously. I am a past director of the National Farmers Union Scotland, a past member of the Forestry Commission south of Scotland regional forestry forum and a past trustee of the Borders Forest Trust. I think that those might be appropriate to mention.

Thank you both. I assume that those declarations are in accordance with section 3 of the "Code of Conduct for MSPs".