Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 28 Sep 1999
Meeting date: Tuesday, September 28, 1999
Official Report
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Children's Promise
The second item on the agenda is the children's promise. Fiona wants to say a few words.
It is important that every member of this committee signs up to say that their last hour's pay in the millennium will go towards supporting children in Scotland. The list of the charities to which the money will go includes some very reputable Scottish charities to which, I am sure, all of us will be happy to contribute.
The committee should ask every MSP to do it. We should set an example, but we should expect everyone to follow our lead. This is a public way in which we can be more than the Education, Culture and Sport Committee, but can be the committee that is here for children.
The New Millennium Experience Company will be helped if we sign up soon, if we do so together and if we give the matter a lot of publicity. One of this committee's roles is to bring items to public's attention.
I am happy to say that Alex Salmond has signed up for the millennium final hour appeal.
That rules me out.
One party leader is signed up; we have to get all 129 MSPs.
The millennium final hour appeal is part of the children's promise project. I do not have a lot of information on it; I would have liked David Watt to come and talk to us about it. We might want to have a written briefing on the children's promise project. I know that there was talk of setting up a working group that would include an MSP from each party and staff from the Parliament.
We are a brand new Parliament with everybody looking at us all the time. We have wonderful opportunities to do positive things and, as the committee that deals with children, it behoves us to lead the way on an issue that affects children.
Many people ask how the improvement in Scottish education bill will improve Scottish children's lives. The millennium final hour appeal is one small thing that we can do that will improve Scottish children's lives. I implore everybody to sign up. Let us, as a committee, put the appeal to the Scottish Parliament.
I am sure that all members of the committee will want to sign up. My apologies to David Watt for the fact that he was not included on the agenda—which was as a result of a misunderstanding. If he has additional information, it would be useful for him to write to us with it.
It is a good idea to invite MSPs to join the appeal but we should not forget the Parliament's staff.
How would we involve them?
We would ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body to make it a wider initiative.
Gillian will write a letter and that will go forward.
I suggest that we extend the appeal to all members of staff. A good way to get publicity for the event would be to extend the invitation to the members of the press who have become our daily companions.
At 8 o'clock next Monday morning, I am going to the Grosvenor hotel for a meeting on this matter. Should I tell the press then?
The Grosvenor hotel is in London.
I mean the Glasgow one.
The convener should issue a press release to publicise the appeal and encourage members of the public to get behind us.
Could we have five minutes at the beginning of a meeting soon to allow the NMEC to bring us a big form to sign? We could invite the press and all sign one big form. That would mean that it would be in the next day's paper.
We will arrange something.
How much will it be?
I was asked that but nobody knows yet.