Public Petitions Committee, 31 Aug 1999
Meeting date: Tuesday, August 31, 1999
Official Report
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Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee Tuesday 31 August 1999 (Morning)
[The Convener opened the meeting at 10:04]
We can now make a start. Margaret Smith has said that she will be late for this morning's meeting. We have not heard from Helen Eadie, but we hope that she will arrive quite soon.
I officially welcome everyone to the second meeting of the Public Petitions Committee. I know that all the members and staff have had a very busy recess; I hope that some of you managed to take the fabled holidays that we were all supposed to be having. However, we can now get back to the business of the Public Petitions Committee. I know that most conveners would claim that their committees deal with the people's priorities, but we are unique in that regard. The priorities of this committee are not generated by the committee, but come from the people of Scotland.
We have a fair selection of petitions before us, but before we turn to them I should say that it has been pointed out by legal officers that, according to the standing orders, petitions must be submitted on a sitting day of the Parliament. Technically, therefore, four of these petitions—the two petitions submitted by Mr Frank, the petition from Mr Guild and the petition from the Scottish Homing Union—are inadmissible, as they were submitted during the recess. Our legal advisers say that, in the long term, we might have to change the standing orders to stop that happening. In the absence to date of any public guidance on the submission of petitions, I think that we should agree to take today as the formal date for the submission of the petitions in question. That will allow us to consider them formally. Some of the people who submitted those petitions are here today, so it would be wrong not to deal with their petitions. Is that agreed? It is agreed.
At our previous meeting, I thought that it was made clear that if petitions were sent in, they would be submitted at the next formal meeting. I did not realise that there was a rule that they had to arrive on the day of a formal meeting. I raised that issue at our first meeting and was given assurances that such petitions could be brought forward. Unfortunately, we may now have to change the standing orders.
It was the lawyers, I am afraid. There were no lawyers present at the previous meeting of the Public Petitions Committee. Lawyers can find technical reasons for anything. I do not think that the Parliament will have any problem changing the standing orders in future, but for technical reasons we had to agree on today as the submission date for these petitions so that we could deal with them at this meeting. We can now go ahead with that.
I go along with what the convener has said and agree with his conclusions. However, technically, is not tomorrow, rather than today, a sitting day of Parliament?
I do not know the answer to that question—[Interruption.] The committee clerk informs me that a sitting day is any day on which the office of the clerk is open, which includes today. Today is a sitting day of the Parliament even though the full Parliament does not meet until tomorrow.
That is great.