Health and Community Care Committee, 29 Jun 1999

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 29, 1999

Official Report 135KB pdf

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Convener

We now move to the most important part of today's business, which is the election of the convener. As people might be aware, in the interests of fairness, it has been decided that the convenerships of the committees will be allocated to different political parties. The Parliamentary Bureau has decided that the party that is eligible to hold the membership of the Health and Community Care Committee is the Liberal Democrat party. Margaret Smith is the person nominated. Does she accept the nomination?

I accept the nomination.

Do the members confirm that—or affirm it, or acclaim it, or whatever the word is?

Mrs Margaret Smith was elected convener by acclamation.

I wish Margaret much success.

I thank members for affirming me as convener. I am in a strange situation as I am the only Liberal Democrat on the committee and therefore I am the convener whether members like me or not. I hope that members will find that I act in the best interests of the committee at all times and I am a fair and reasonable convener. That is my intention.

I thank Dorothy for conducting the first part of the meeting. I have discovered another reason why women should lie about their age: to get out of doing things like that.

I echo Dorothy's point about the number of members of the public and interested groups that are in attendance and I am sure that all members of the committee agree. It is an excellent sign that people will be interested in the work of the committee. During the next few years, we will probably talk to all the members of the public who are present to get their input into the difficult and serious work of the committee. I see some well-kent faces, but also some which are not known to me and are probably not known to other members of the committee. I hope we can rectify that in the next few years and that, working together, we will be able to improve health and community care in Scotland.