Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, 20 Oct 1999
Meeting date: Wednesday, October 20, 1999
Official Report
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Scottish Parliament Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee (Inverness) Wednesday 20 October 1999
[The Convener opened the meeting at 09:06]
Good morning. I bring this meeting of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee to order and I welcome members. I have received apologies from Margo MacDonald and Duncan McNeil, both of whom are unable to join us owing to illness.
The meeting has been joined by one of the members of the Rural Affairs Committee, Rhoda Grant, and I believe that John Farquhar Munro may also be joining us. We are also joined by David Davidson and Mary Scanlon, members of other committees who take an interest in our proceedings.
I extend a warm welcome to the members of the public who have come along today. Thank you for the interest that you have shown in the work of the Scottish Parliament and its committees.
I thank the parliamentary departments—the clerking team, the official report, the security staff, the broadcasting staff and the media relations personnel—for the tremendous amount of work that has gone into ensuring that this committee could undertake its proceedings in Inverness. I particularly want to thank those who are responsible for providing the simultaneous interpretation facilities for the Gaelic language, which will be used later today. For convenience, the necessary equipment for listening to the interpretation is on each desk, and all that people need to do is to put on the headphones and switch to channel 1; I am assured that it will work perfectly.
On behalf of the committee and the Parliament, I record our thanks to Highland Council for making the Town House available to us and for giving committee members a very warm welcome last night.
This is an historic meeting. It is the first meeting of a Scottish Parliament committee outwith the precincts of Edinburgh and members of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee are delighted to be the trail-blazers for that process.
We meet in historic surroundings. In 1921, the British Cabinet met in this hall to discuss Irish independence. I am told that the Cabinet met here because Lloyd George was on holiday in Gairloch, which is a fantastic advert for the Scottish Tourist Board and holidaying in Scotland. We are pleased to be making history for the Scottish Parliament in this historic situation.
Our meeting today has two purposes. First, we shall conduct part of our hearings on the committee's first inquiry into the delivery of economic development, vocational training and business support services at a local level in Scotland. We are particularly interested to find out the Highlands and Islands perspective on that process.
Our second purpose is to hold more briefing discussions on the wider responsibilities of the committee in relation to enterprise policy in the Highlands and Islands and the Gaelic language.
In our work, we have spoken to many organisations to gather information about the committee's areas of interest. We decided that it would be a touch impertinent to invite all the Highlands and Islands organisations to Edinburgh to give us the benefit of their opinions and that, instead, it would be most appropriate for the committee to visit the Highlands and Islands to listen carefully to organisations and individuals here. I look forward to that opportunity.