Finance Committee, 04 Nov 2003
Meeting date: Tuesday, November 4, 2003
Official Report
222KB pdf
Work Programme
I welcome the press and public to the 11th meeting of the Finance Committee in session 2. As always, I remind members to switch off their pagers and mobile phones.
The first item on today's agenda is consideration of the committee's work programme. Members have a note from the clerk and a copy of the committee's work programme for November and December. The programme also lists areas of work that are likely to come our way after Christmas.
I anticipate that we will want to take significant evidence on the financial memoranda to the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill and the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Bill, as those are both large bills with significant financial issues attached to them. We also have the budget to deal with—obviously, that will be a major item of business during the next couple of months. Are there any comments on the work programme?
We are considering the work programme as agenda item 1 and Scottish Water as agenda item 4. From my reading of the paper on Scottish Water, it seems that one of our options—as suggested by the clerks, at any rate—is to have an evidence-taking session. There does not appear to be any reference to that in the paper on the work programme.
As you know, convener, I have argued from the outset of the current session of Parliament that there should be an inquiry into Scottish Water. I hope that we would all reach that conclusion, particularly in view of the huge range of questions that is thrown up by the submissions.
The timing of the evidence-taking session might be important. I will give just one reason for that. The scheme that provides assistance to those at the lower end of the income scale comes to an end in April. I understand from the water customer consultation panel representative for the north of Scotland that the Executive has no plan to replace that scheme. If there is to be any possibility of the committee influencing that situation and, perhaps, providing help to those on low incomes, we will need to get our skates on and have an evidence-taking session before the end of the year.
I see that there are a couple of windows of opportunity, but it is perhaps unfortunate that we are considering the work programme as agenda item 1 and Scottish Water as agenda item 4, because that seems to preclude the possibility of having an evidence-taking session.
Can I just say—
I think that you will accept, convener, that I have been arguing for such an evidence-taking session since the current session began.
Whatever the committee decides to do in relation to agenda item 4 can be factored into our work programme. The object of giving people a copy of the work programme was to provide a backdrop for several discussions that we might have and to highlight the issues that will come before us under our present programme. I do not think that the programme pre-empts our options on agenda item 4, although it should perhaps condition them.
So we can still have an evidence-taking session on Scottish Water before the end of the year.
We can do so if that is what the committee decides to do.
Good.
It is up to the committee to make a decision when we come to that item on the agenda.