Enterprise and Culture Committee, 05 Dec 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Official Report 338KB pdf

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Petition

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National Bird (PE783)

I ask the committee to reassemble for item 3, which is consideration of new material in relation to PE783 by James Reynolds, on behalf of The Scotsman, calling on the Parliament to support the establishment of the golden eagle as Scotland's national bird.

As members will recall, we have discussed this matter before. Two papers, I think, have been circulated on the subject. I know that everyone will have read them both, but I draw your attention to the shorter paper, paragraph 6 of which sets out three options for the committee's consideration. I take it that everyone has read the written evidence—and I should point out that we are not taking any additional oral evidence on the matter.

Under "Option 1", the paper says:

"in order to determine whether there is a majority cross-party parliamentary support, the Convener could lodge a motion on behalf of the Committee asking the Parliament to support the establishment of the golden eagle as the national bird of Scotland. If that motion gains a majority cross-party support then the Committee would recommend that the Parliamentary Bureau considers debating the motion in the chamber. In addition, in order to determine whether there is widespread public support, the Committee could request that an online question be placed on the Parliament's website, asking ‘Do you support the establishment of the golden eagle as the national bird of Scotland? Yes/No.'"

Of course, we are all in favour of referenda.

You mean "referendums"—it is a gerund.

Under "Option 2", the paper suggests that the committee

"dispense with further consultation within and external to the Parliament and write to the Parliamentary Bureau recommending it schedule time in the Chamber to debate a motion supporting the establishment of the golden eagle as the national bird of Scotland."

Finally, under "Option 3", the paper suggests that we

"take no further action in relation to the petition and write to the petitioner and PPC accordingly."

Do members prefer any of those three options?

I have no particular preference for any of three options. I have to say that, although I am not usually the biggest advocate of the Lord Lyon King of Arms, his important evidence raises questions about how we determine what constitutes a national symbol. As none of us—the committee, the Executive or anyone else—has gone through that process, we should perhaps have a fourth option, which is to send the petition to the Executive and ask it whether it will consider establishing for use in a future parliamentary session criteria for determining national symbols.

I, too, was quite taken with the Lord Lyon's correspondence, particularly his point about the size of sample used in the poll. It is probably unwise for us to rush ahead with this matter without gathering further evidence of public support. As a result, if I had to choose an option, I would probably favour some version of option 1, because we need to establish exactly how widespread public support for this measure is before we take the matter further—for example, to a parliamentary debate.

I was interested in the Lord Lyon's comment that the state of Colorado has a range of different symbols including a state insect, which is the Colorado hairstreak butterfly. Perhaps Scotland's national insect could be the midge. I also see that Colorado has a state fossil; perhaps, convener, you could apply for the job of Scotland's national fossil. [Laughter.]

That is the last time that I let you in today, Murdo.

I tend to agree with Karen Gillon. I am not wildly keen about any of the suggested options. Any motion that asks Parliament to agree that the golden eagle is a great bird is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. I simply do not know whether the national symbol should be the golden eagle, another eagle or even another bird entirely. Many options have not been discussed, and it would be a mistake to support option 1 without having carried out more broad-based research on people's views. Moreover, as Karen has pointed out, what are the criteria for establishing a national symbol? As for Murdo Fraser's suggestion, I do not support any move to make the midge the national insect.

I certainly hope that you do not support the proposal to make me the national fossil.

What a pity—I was just about to mention the national fossil.

I had very clear views on this matter when it first came up. I respect the Lord Lyon's views and, indeed, the other views that we have received. However, despite the publicity that surrounded the committee's discussion of the matter, no one has expressed to me a view one way or the other on whether Scotland should have a national bird. It appears on no one's radar as one of the key issues on which we should be spending committee time, officials' time or parliamentary time.

Without that national view, we are in danger of taking something that—as I have said before—started off as no more than a stunt by a particular newspaper to increase its circulation and elevating to national policy a matter that is way outside any relevance to our constitutents. We might as well suggest that we identify a tartan for the bird, put a kilt on it and place it on the top of the Scotsman building. Perhaps The Scotsman should seek to generate support by adopting the eagle as its masthead.

My preferred option is option 3, which is to take the petition no further. We have noted the petitioner's comments and the responses that we have received. If a groundswell of opinion develops in the population at large that Scotland could do with a national bird, we can always return to the matter.

I totally disagree. VisitScotland's evidence was overwhelming and probably answers Christine May's point. There has been no groundswell of opinion because it is already understood that the golden eagle is one of our iconic birds.

VisitScotland is already using the bird as a symbol and part of its marketing strategy. There is recognition of the importance of wildlife tourism, and we would miss a trick if we did not take on board the petition and identify the golden eagle as the symbol bird for Scotland.

In the interests of democracy, I would have to go for option 1, but we should just go for option 2 and go straight to the Executive, ask it to decide that the golden eagle is our national bird, and let the people of Scotland and the tourist board take it from there.

Shiona Baird answered the point when she said that the golden eagle is "one of" Scotland's iconic birds. That is part of the problem. Because a newspaper has started a petition that says that it should be this bird is not a reason for us to say, "This is the bird." There has not been a proper debate.

My other fear is that we could head down the same road as Colorado and have a national symbol for everything: fish, bird, animal, flower, folk dance, fossil, insect and so on. I am not sure that I want to go down that road.

In the previous parliamentary session there was a petition on what colour the saltire should be, and in this session we have had a petition on what our national bird should be. We should take up the Lord Lyon's suggestion because there is no clear way to establish such things. If the Parliament believes that they are important, we need a clear way of establishing that. A petition in a national newspaper is not the right way to establish a national bird.

I have no strong views on whether it should be the golden eagle, but there should be a clear process by which Scotland could identify and adopt a national symbol. I do not think that the process should be a petition to the Scottish Parliament that is based on a newspaper survey; it should be better than that. If we are not going to do anything about such a process, I suggest that we go for option 3.

I was not present at the meeting at which this was discussed initially, which is why I have been unusually quiet. I suspect that it will come as no surprise to colleagues that, based on everything that I have heard and read, I am firmly of the view that we should take no further action.

What I said earlier was a slip of the tongue—even Tony Blair is allowed a slip of the tongue. VisitScotland said that the eagle was the bird symbol and that the stag was the animal symbol. That is what I was thinking of.

It is key to this discussion that VisitScotland has already identified the eagle and is using it in promotional material. The precedent has been set. I urge members to consider again going for either option 1 or 2 and taking the petition forward.

I am going to choose my words carefully because after the last meeting when this was discussed, one newspaper had said that I had persuaded the committee to take the issue much further, and another, based on exactly the same meeting, said that I had put the kybosh on it. Interpretation can be very wide.

It is not realistic to take this issue through additional parliamentary processes at this stage in the parliamentary session. Frankly, there is no parliamentary time for it. We have many other priorities, not least the bills that are being discussed at stage 3. Even if we wished to, there is no way we could establish a parliamentary debate on the issue between now and the end of March. The sensible options are for us either to take up Karen Gillon's original suggestion that we refer the matter to the Executive for further study, so that it can provide us with a view—presumably after the election—on what is and is not possible, or not to take the petition any further at this stage. I am totally in the hands of the committee; I would not go to the barricades on the matter.

I have made my position perfectly clear.

My suggestion did not relate solely to this petition. It was that the Parliament should be clear about how something like what is proposed could come about in the future and what we would expect from people.

I suggest a way forward, although I know that it will not meet with unanimous agreement. Shall we write to the Executive along the lines that Karen Gillon has suggested, to try to establish the proper process and to ask the Executive to take the lead on these matters? In the meantime, we would take no further action in the committee. Our successor committee could decide whether to take further action once the Executive had responded to our request, which would, I suspect, be after the election. Is that a reasonable approach?

I am happy to accept that. I support strongly the point that Karen Gillon made about our needing to find out how these things are done. It is profoundly important that, whatever the issue, the individual or the organisation concerned, people should not think that the parliamentary process is always the right vehicle to take matters forward. The Parliament's time is precious, and it is important that we prioritise. We would be performing a wider service if we clarified this and other issues, so that the Executive was involved at an earlier stage in the process and the best mechanisms for agreeing proposals were identified. Full-blown parliamentary procedure is not always necessary.

Do we agree, first, to write to the Executive to ask it to clarify the procedures for such decisions or to recommend to the Parliament what those should be in the future, and secondly, to close the petition and to take no further action on it?

Members indicated agreement.

I do not agree. It is a majority decision, but it is not unanimous.