Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, 20 Jun 2007
Meeting date: Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Official Report
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Convener
Item 2 is choice of convener. Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish Liberal Democrats are eligible to be convener of this committee. That being the case, I seek nominations for the post of convener.
I nominate Tavish Scott.
I second that.
Tavish Scott was chosen as convener.
It is a great honour to be a committee convener. Yesterday, Iain Gray and I were talking about the fact that some of us have not sat on committees for a long time or, indeed, ever. In the past four years, I have sat in front of them quite a lot. We might reflect on when that was a good experience and when it was a bad experience, but not in public. However, I am looking forward tremendously to convening this committee. I think that this is a useful time in which to examine the issues in the committee's remit.
I will make an observation before we proceed. I have an old friend—a member of the Labour Party—who used to sit on Shetland Islands Council with me. Once, after a council meeting in which we had had a right go at each other over an issue that seemed hugely important at the time but which—in hindsight—was not important, we went to the pub for a pint, as was our wont in those days, and he said to me, "You know, the important thing about politics is that, even if you've had a disagreement and had a right go at each other over some issue, you should be able to go away and confer and have a decent discussion about the future of the place that you're representing or the areas that you're in. That makes politics a better way of doing business." I thought that that was a good comment and I hold to it to this day. I hope to conduct the proceedings of the committee in a positive manner on that basis.