Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee, 29 Nov 2000

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 29, 2000

Official Report 227KB pdf

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Scottish Parliament Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee Wednesday 29 November 2000 (Morning)

[The Deputy Convener opened the meeting at 10:01]

I open this morning's meeting of the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee. It has been suggested that we should shorten the committee's name, which may be of assistance.

Apologies have been received from Keith Raffan. I require committee members' agreement that we take items 5 and 6 in private. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

I do not disagree with that proposal. However, I cannot stay for the whole meeting, which will be my final meeting on the committee because of the proposed committee changes. I have enjoyed my time on the committee during the past 18 months and I hope that I have made a worthwhile contribution. I thank colleagues for the useful reports that the committee has produced and the good work that we have done. I wish colleagues who will remain on the committee all the best for the future.

Thank you for your comments, Mike. Obviously you have information that the rest of us do not have.

I should perhaps make comments similar to Mike Watson's. I have just been informed that I am also being taken off the committee. I have enjoyed my stay on the committee. At times it has been exciting, but it has always been enjoyable and I shall remain closely connected with the issues that the committee will address. I hope that committee members will not mind it if I turn up at meetings from time to time, to take part in housing debates as an ordinary MSP.

Oh, we will mind.

Before there are any more valedictory speeches, I should say that we do not know what will happen about the committee's structure. I thank for their hard work those members who have been told that they will not continue as members of this committee. John McAllion makes the valuable point that all MSPs can attend committees—I am sure that members from outwith this committee will want to attend discussions on the housing bill and I suspect that we have not seen the last of certain members. I thank the members for their comments.

I should also have thanked the clerks. Their work and that of the advisers was essential to our reports on the housing stock transfer and on drug misuse. I very much enjoyed being involved in that work.

I am sure that the clerks appreciate Mike Watson's comments. It is important to put on record our thanks for the work that the clerks do. We are an especially challenging committee for them.

We move now into private session.

Meeting continued in private.

Meeting resumed in public.