Procedures Committee, 13 Sep 2005

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Official Report 88KB pdf

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Interests

Good morning, colleagues, and welcome to the 10th meeting of the Procedures Committee in 2005 and the first meeting after the recess. I hope that you all got a break during the recess and have come back refreshed. Personally, I am emotionally drained after following the Ashes series. I do not know how I will cope with the next few weeks; I may have withdrawal symptoms.

I welcome Chris Ballance and Alex Johnstone to their first meeting of the committee. I also wish to put on record our appreciation of Jamie McGrigor's contribution to the committee over the past two years. We wanted to put our thanks on record, as at the last meeting he said that he would be leaving the committee. I ask Chris and Alex whether they have any relevant interests to declare.

I am not sure whether it is relevant, but the register of interests shows that I am a playwright, not earning this year, and a partner in a second-hand bookshop, earning a grand total of £1 this year.

That may be of interest if you are selling second-hand copies of our reports. Alex?

Thank you very much, convener. Having studied my entry in the register of members' interests, I consider that nothing that appears in it is relevant to my membership of the committee. Should that change, I will make you aware of that and make the relevant announcement at the time.

Convener, may I put on record the committee's thanks to you? I believe that you are moving on to pastures new. I do not understand how you could possibly want to do that, but you have made the decision. It has been a pleasure working with you and I wish you the very best as convener of the Education Committee, a position that I previously held.

Thank you very much for that, Karen. I was going to advise the committee before we went into private session that this will probably be my last meeting of the Procedures Committee. I expect to be replaced as the Liberal Democrat member on the committee shortly.

I wish to place on record my appreciation to all committee members for their support and for the sometimes interesting debates that we have had over the past two years. In particular, I give my thanks to members of the clerking team for the excellent job that they have done in keeping us right. Without their support, no one could do the job of convening the Procedures Committee.