Rural Affairs Committee, 31 Oct 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 31, 2000

Official Report 233KB pdf

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Petitions

Petition PE194 comes from the Scottish Campaign for Public Angling. At a previous meeting, we decided to write to John Home Robertson, who was the minister responsible for fisheries, for a further explanation of points that the petition raises. We received from him a letter that addressed those points. That has been circulated to members, who should have a copy of the document now. We decided to continue to consider the petition until we had received that information. Are there any comments on it?

I felt that Mr Home Robertson's response indicated that SCAPA had not gone through the procedures that it could have gone through. It complained in the press, but it has not made a formal complaint to the Tay liaison committee. We should point out to SCAPA that it has not used the available mechanism.

The response from the minister is helpful. This correspondence raises several important issues in relation to the management of freshwater fisheries. Given that the committee will examine that matter at some point, I suggest that we revisit those issues then. Is it worth copying our response to the petitioner? Is that done automatically?

I am not sympathetic to an organisation that has not exhausted the proper procedures. It says in the response from Mr Home Robertson that the Tay liaison committee has never received a formal complaint. His response states:

"The complaints made to the press and in the petition are non-specific in terms of location . . . TLC have invited SCAPA to attend their regular meetings, which are open to the public, but SCAPA have never taken up the offer."

I am all in favour of the Scottish Parliament being open and accessible, but when organisations present petitions to us they should go through the proper procedure first. We should respond on that basis.

That is the point that I was making. We are not a grandstanding opportunity; we should provide recourse for people who have not received justice through the appropriate channels. I agree with Mike Rumbles that we should recommend that SCAPA raise its concerns through the proper mechanism.

Having heard what members of the committee have said, my feeling is that we are largely content with the response that we received from John Home Robertson and will let the petition drop in view of that response.

A response from the convener, on the basis that we have identified, might be helpful.

Does that meet with the agreement of members?

Members indicated agreement.

Will the minister's response be copied to the petitioner?

Yes. It already has been.

A second petition has been included in this item, because it relates directly to the statutory instrument that we will deal with in item 5. Is the committee content to consider the petition after we have dealt with the statutory instrument?

Members indicated agreement.