Official Report 292KB pdf
Agenda item 5 concerns the St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Bill, which has been introduced by Dennis Canavan. As members will know, the committee has been allocated responsibility for the bill. Our purpose today is not to deliberate on the bill itself but to agree an outline timetable for dealing with the bill. The proposed timetable has been discussed with the office of the Minister for Parliamentary Business and with Dennis Canavan, so I suggest that it is reasonable.
I am curious about why the word "Scotland" needs to be in brackets.
We do that in all bills. We'll no need it after independence.
I confess that I sat and read all the papers for the first time only last week. The bill is an incredibly modest proposal. It does not create a public holiday; all it does is to provide the opportunity for banks, if they want to have a holiday on that day, to carry their business on to the next day. Therefore, it is hard to see that it will create any controversy.
Some organisations—the Confederation of British Industry for example—are opposed to it.
I wonder whether they have read the bill and understand its scope, because its scope is incredibly limited.
I do not expect the bill to take up much committee time.
I have discussed what I am about to say with the convener, so it will come as no surprise. I have great sympathy for having an additional public holiday in Scotland to celebrate Scotland, but I have real difficulty with having it on 30 November. I would like to test opinion on that during evidence.
That is fair.
With respect, the bill does not do that.
If you read that bill, you will see that it does, because it suggests that we have a public holiday for St Andrew's day. What it does not say is, "Thou must have St Andrew's day off." Nevertheless, there is a debate to be had there.
That debate is for another day. We are only agreeing to a timescale today. Is everybody happy with the proposed timescale for the St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Bill?
I remind members that we meet again next week and the following week so that we can clear as much as possible before the recess. At the meeting on 28 June, we will have an opportunity to take stock of where we are with the business growth inquiry, so that we can be clear before the recess about what we plan to do after the recess by way of completion of the inquiry. By then we should know the outcome of our application to the authorities in the Parliament for the three foreign trips that have been proposed.
Meeting closed at 16:27.
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