Scottish Parliament Finance Committee Tuesday 3 December 2002 (Morning)
[The Deputy Convener opened the meeting at 10:42]
Good morning and welcome to the 24th meeting of the Finance Committee. As usual, I ask everyone to ensure that their mobile phones and pagers are switched off.
We have received apologies from Jamie Stone. Professor Arthur Midwinter and Murray McVicar are with us today.
As we know, our former convener, Des McNulty, has gone on to higher things. On behalf of the committee, I record our thanks to Des, who has worked hard with the committee over the past year and has been an extremely effective convener. I am sure that we all wish him well with his new ministerial responsibilities.