Finance Committee, 19 Nov 2001
Meeting date: Monday, November 19, 2001
Official Report
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Scottish Parliament Finance Committee Monday 19 November 2001
[The Convener opened the meeting at 10:00]
As the clock strikes 10, I call this meeting of the Finance Committee to order. I issue my usual warning to everyone in the hall that mobile phones should be switched off and pagers should be switched to buzz.
It is a particular pleasure for the committee to meet in Kirkcudbright. I thank all the staff of Kirkcudbright town hall and Dumfries and Galloway Council for facilitating the meeting. It is nice to have two local members—David Mundell and Alex Fergusson—with us.
The Finance Committee and I believe that it is important that the Scottish Parliament reaches out to some of the further-flung parts of Scotland. It is Scotland's Parliament. It meets predominantly in Edinburgh, but as often as is reasonably possible—much more often than is publicised—committees go out to various parts of Scotland.
We are pleased to be in the south-west. We would have been here earlier in the year, for our June session on stage 1 of the budget process, but for reasons associated with the serious foot-and-mouth outbreak, we felt that it was inappropriate to visit at that time, so we delayed our meeting by five months. As I said, we are very pleased to be here.