Public Petitions Committee, 27 Jan 2009
Meeting date: Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Official Report
340KB pdf
New Petitions (Notification)
Under item 4, I must formally notify members of the new petitions that have been lodged since our last meeting. They will be timetabled to come before us in our subsequent meetings. Do members agree to note the petitions?
Members indicated agreement.
Before I close the meeting, I want to record our appreciation of everything that people have done today. The Public Petitions Committee works because other people help it to work, and the staff behind the scenes at John Wheatley College have ensured that this afternoon has run fairly seamlessly. In case anyone rakes my past up, I should declare an interest in that I was formerly a tenant of the college. I particularly thank John Kennedy for providing the venue and the small selection of refreshments that was made available for members of the public and the committee.
I formally thank all the Parliament staff who have enjoyed themselves in Scotland's best city this afternoon—if I had had my way years ago, Parliament would have been here in the first place. They do a lot of work behind the scenes before meetings such as this, and now they have to pack all the stuff up and take it all back to Edinburgh. That said, this was the easy shift—the big challenge will be setting up our meeting in Ullapool.
Most of all, I thank those sturdy members of the public who have stayed until the very end of the meeting. I hope that you have found the meeting beneficial and that you recognise that this is your Parliament. We are privileged to be elected members in it, as it has provided us with a tremendous life experience. All of us—regardless of political party—like to think that we try to reflect the views of the people of Scotland as best we can and are trying to make the country a better place to live in. Given that this is the year of homecoming, we recognise that we have a contribution to make. If you have a chance to submit further views on the issues that we have raised today, we would be happy to receive them.
I would like to say thanks to all of you. It is nice to sit down with a lot of politicians without seeing a lot of backstabbing. I might not be using the right words, son, but that is the Easterhouse way.
Thanks very much—I have been given an "acceptable behaviour" card today.
Meeting closed at 16:31.