Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, 27 Jan 2010

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Official Report 354KB pdf

---

Scottish Trades Union Congress (Seminar)

The final item is our proposed joint seminar with the Scottish Trades Union Congress. The seminar has become an annual event. No specific theme has yet been proposed for the seminar in 2010. When I spoke to Stephen Boyd after he gave evidence this morning, he suggested that, although the digital Britain theme will be dealt with separately, there is a possibility of rolling the support for manufacturing theme into our joint seminar. The other theme that I think might be useful given our future work programme is Scotland and the global economy, but I am open to suggestions.

I have three brief points. First, we should probably choose a date after 6 May, for one reason or another.

Are you sure that 6 May is the right day?

I am not Lord Ainsworth, so I could not possibly comment.

Secondly, I know that the committee has a busy schedule, but it would be useful if the seminar could be held in place of a committee meeting, because that would give it the status and profile that our meetings tend to have.

Thirdly, on the subject area, it would be interesting and useful to examine the Scottish economy's response to the recession and any consequences of that for employment or social policy as seen from a trade union perspective.

On the basis of that discussion, we will go back to the STUC and start looking at possible dates. We will need to work out how much oral evidence we need to take for our other inquiries so that we can work out whether we can free up a committee meeting slot.

I forgot to mention during our discussion of the work programme that the census order will come to us at some point. We do not know when that will be.

That concludes today's meeting. Thank you.

Meeting closed at 13:00.