European and External Relations Committee, 19 Jun 2007

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Official Report 99KB pdf

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Interests

Good morning and welcome to the first meeting of the European and External Relations Committee in the third session of the Scottish Parliament. I confess that I am indeed, despite appearances, the oldest member of the committee and, as such, I will convene the early part of the meeting. I discovered only yesterday that I am the oldest committee member; that was due to the diligence of my former parliamentary aide, Dominic Heslop, who is now seeking gainful employment elsewhere for having drawn that fact to the clerks' attention.

I have received apologies from Alex Neil—I had thought that his age easily exceeded my own, but apparently not—who has a prior engagement at a conference on autism in Belfast.

The first agenda item is members' declarations of interests. Section 3 of the "Code of Conduct for Members of the Scottish Parliament" requires members to declare any interests that are relevant to the committee's remit. Members can see that the clerk's paper sets out the background.

I will start by declaring my interests, and then ask members in turn to declare theirs. In the register of members' interests, which will be made public on 6 July, is recorded my visit to Taiwan for the purposes of observing and studying its economy. I was a guest of the Government of the People's Republic of China and costings are given for that particular trip. I also list heritable property in my home town of St Andrews. I own shares in SMG plc, a media company, and I am on the boards of various other organisations, but those positions are unremunerated—all are listed in my entry in the register.

Starting with Jackie Baillie, we will go round the table and ask each member to declare any interests.

I have no interests to declare that are relevant to the operation of the committee, other than those that are in my entry in the register of members' interests.

I have no formal registrable interests, but I want to record that I am a member of the Transport and General Workers Union. From time to time, the committee might take evidence from the trades unions and the Scottish Trades Union Congress.

I have no relevant interests to declare.

Other than interests that are in the register of members' interests, I can think of nothing that I should declare.

I have no registrable interests to declare. However, I place it on the record that, during the previous parliamentary sessions, I undertook some work for the British Council and the John Smith Memorial Trust in relation to eastern Europe. Those interests were listed in the previous register but are no longer listed.

I have no interests to declare, other than those I have already registered, although I am a member of Amicus.