Standards Committee,

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Official Report 216KB pdf

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Cross-party Group

Agenda item 2 is consideration of an application to establish a cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on tackling debt. Ms Baillie, who is one of the proposed co-conveners of the group, is here and I welcome her to the meeting. If you want to say anything to the committee about the application, we would be delighted to hear from you. You are welcome to make a statement if you want to do so.

Members have a paper before them. I note that it is proposed that a number of members of the Standards Committee would be members of the cross-party group.

I did not expect to be at the meeting and had given my apologies. Given that the application is straightforward, I should not take up the committee's time by saying a few words, but I thought that I would show the committee the courtesy of at least showing up.

It was kind of you to do so. Unfortunately, Jamie Stone, who is one of the proposed co-conveners of the group, has been delayed, so he cannot be here today. Do committee members have questions about the proposed cross-party group on tackling debt?

I have not so much a question as an observation. The proposal is excellent. It is proposed that many of our colleagues from Westminster will be members of the group, which is fantastic, particularly the proposal for a vice-convener. Is there a group at Westminster with which there will be formal contact, or even reciprocal membership? I hope that such relationships will be the first of many other future relationships. I would welcome any comments that Jackie Baillie has to make on that.

We have a relationship with a group at Westminster. We considered creating a cross-party, cross-parliamentary working group, but quite quickly decided that doing so would be overly complicated and that informal working arrangements are the way forward. As members can see, a number of MPs regularly attend meetings in Scotland, which is enormously helpful. Equally, some MSPs go down to Westminster and participate in the cross-party parliamentary group there. We would encourage such things because elements of debt are reserved to Westminster, but the implications very much come home to Scotland. Therefore such co-operation is useful in developing policy areas that cross the reserved-devolved divide.

As a member of the group, I think that it is excellent and worthy.

Top of the class.

Perhaps those members of the committee who are also members of the group ought to declare an interest and not participate in the discussion.

Do members agree to approve the cross-party group, which meets the criteria that have been set down by Parliament?

Members indicated agreement.