Plenary, 12 Mar 2003

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 12, 2003

Official Report 799KB pdf

---

Business Motion

The motion before the Parliament today is the timetabling motion for the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Bill.

I would like to refute Mr Ewing's suggestion that the Executive amendments to the bill were delayed deliberately. That is not the case and I take exception to the suggestion.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees that, during the Stage 3 proceedings on the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Bill, debate on each part of those proceedings shall be brought to a conclusion by the time-limits indicated (each time-limit being calculated from when Stage 3 begins and excluding any periods when the meeting of the Parliament is suspended)—

Groups 1 to 9—no later than 1 hour 10 minutes
Groups 10 to 17—no later than 2 hours and 40 minutes
Groups 18 to 20—no later than 3 hours and 30 minutes
Groups 21 and 22—no later than 4 hours
Groups 23 to 28—no later than 5 hours
Motion to pass the Bill—no later than 5 hours and 30 minutes.

Motion agreed to.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer, further to the remarks made by the Deputy Minister for Parliament. The minister said that he takes exception to the statement that I made that the Executive amendments must have been deliberately withheld. Can he tell the chamber whether all of the 92 amendments were drafted on Friday? If that was not the case, they must have been deliberately withheld.

We are getting into the debate itself. That is not a point of order. Members might wish to continue that argument during the debate, which we should now begin.