Environment and Rural Development Committee, 05 Oct 2005
Meeting date: Wednesday, October 5, 2005
Official Report
236KB pdf
Proposed Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill
Agenda item 3 is the proposed Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill. I ask people at the back of the room to keep the noise down. We are running a bit behind schedule.
Colleagues have received a paper from the clerks on the proposed bill, which sets out issues in relation to stage 1. The paper suggests that we hold six oral evidence sessions, beginning on 23 November and ending on 11 January. We expect that the bill will be before us shortly, and the clerks do not want to waste the opportunity of using the two weeks of the recess to enable people to write to us. We will receive a more detailed paper on 26 October, which will allow colleagues to consider which witnesses we might want to invite to the committee, in the light of the details of the proposed bill. However, I am giving notice of it now to enable the public and interest groups to gear up for the bill and to ensure that we have a decent amount of time for public consultation.
There are a couple of other things. First, I presume that members will want an informal private briefing from Executive officials before we begin to discuss the meat of the bill with witnesses. Secondly, petition PE604, on animal welfare, was closed on the basis that we would pick up the issues when we came to deal with the proposed bill. I hope that colleagues are happy that we will formally draw those issues back into our evidence. I also ask colleagues to note that we will do brief press work on the key questions that are set out in the clerks' paper once we have the bill in front of us.
If there is any drastic delay in the Executive introducing the bill, we will update committee members on 26 October; however, our information from the Executive is that the bill is pretty much imminent. Are colleagues happy to return to the detail of witnesses and scheduling in a couple of weeks' time?
Members indicated agreement.
We move into private session to discuss a draft report on the committee's inquiry into rural development. I invite the official reporters and broadcasting staff to leave.
Meeting continued in private until 12:24.