Plenary, 22 Sep 2005

Meeting date: Thursday, September 22, 2005

Official Report 733KB pdf

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Parliamentary Bureau Motions

The next item of business is consideration of three Parliamentary Bureau motions on committee membership. I ask Margaret Curran to move motions S2M-3310 to S2M-3312 inclusive.

Motions moved,

That the Parliament agrees that Euan Robson be appointed to replace Donald Gorrie on the Communities Committee.

That the Parliament agrees that Mr Andrew Arbuckle be appointed to replace Euan Robson on the Local Government and Transport Committee.

That the Parliament agrees that Donald Gorrie be appointed to replace Iain Smith on the Procedures Committee.—[Ms Margaret Curran.]

On the ground of natural justice, I oppose motions S2M-3310 and S2M-3311. It is unfair that Euan Robson, who was able to declare his interests and join the Local Government and Transport Committee only on Tuesday, has been wheeched out of that committee so quickly, given that the Lib Dems were unable to supply a single member for either of the previous two meetings at which the abolition of the council tax was discussed, which is very curious, given the hue and cry that the Lib Dems give us about their concern over the council tax.

I ask the Parliament to allow Euan Robson to save himself from further embarrassment by being allowed to stay on the committee to scrutinise the Council Tax Abolition and Service Tax Introduction (Scotland) Bill properly. However, perhaps the Lib Dems will instead show that they are much more concerned about their ministerial Mondeos than they are about the millions of pensioners who have been hit by the council tax.

It gives me pleasure to respond to the member. If he is so outraged, perhaps he will tell the Parliament whether he is similarly outraged that no Scottish Socialist Party member attended the very same committee in his place for three weeks in a row, when he was on paternity leave. On Tuesday 31 May, there was no SSP substitute; on Tuesday 7 June, there was no SSP substitute; and on Tuesday 21 June, there was no SSP substitute. That means that there was no SSP substitute present at the Local Government and Transport Committee to consider the tendering of ferry services in the Clyde and Hebrides or the Licensing (Scotland) Bill, or to hear evidence on local authority audits—issues that, I was led to understand, were of particular interest to Mr Sheridan and his party.

Does Mr Sheridan accept that, over the past few weeks, the Parliament and its committees have made real progress in considering a number of extremely important issues, and that four SSP members have missed all those vital debates because of their childish and irresponsible behaviour, which led to their exclusion from the Parliament?

Does Mr Sheridan accept that the only party represented in this chamber that needs to learn what a local income tax is really about is the SSP, whose plans for a national service tax would strip away local accountability, local democracy and local decision-making powers from democratically elected councils—plans which should be rejected?

The questions on the motions will be put at decision time.

The next item of business is consideration of two further Parliamentary Bureau motions, in the name of Margaret Curran, on committee substitutes.

Motions moved,

That the Parliament agrees that Mr Jim Wallace be appointed as the Liberal Democrat substitute on the Justice 1 Committee.

That the Parliament agrees that Mr Jamie McGrigor be appointed to replace Bill Aitken as the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party substitute on the Education Committee.—[Ms Margaret Curran.]

As usual, the question on those motions will be put at decision time, to which we now come.