Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, June 20, 2013

Official Report 371KB pdf

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Cross-party Groups

Item 3 is consideration of responses received from cross-party group conveners. At the meeting on 23 May, members will recall that we agreed to write to the cross-party groups on beer and the brewing industry, co-operatives, park homes and sexual health because it had been identified that they had not met for more than a year.

The conveners’ responses are annexed in paper SPPA/S4/13/10/3, which members should have before them. Do members have any general comments, or would you prefer to deal with the cases individually?

The update on cross-party groups has proven to be a worthwhile exercise. The paper is helpful. I am particularly pleased to note that one of the groups has offered to lapse its membership. That demonstrates how things sometimes move on and issues change.

The co-operatives group met recently. The park homes group also met recently; it has established a programme of activities. That is good to see. I note that there is a question mark over the beer and the brewing industry group.

I agree that that is encouraging. We should perhaps simply note the fact the co-operatives and park homes groups have held their annual general meetings and that they are back on track, and that the sexual health group is to lapse.

The convener of the beer and the brewing industry group has asked for guidance on whether the group should lapse or sit in abeyance. I do not think that there is a process to allow groups to sit in abeyance. I therefore recommend that we suggest to the group that it should lapse. If there were a future need for it to be reformed, it could come back and make a case for its re-establishment.

I agree. I do not think that there is a case for groups to sit in abeyance, so the group should lapse. Under the new procedures, it will have to come back and present a case if it wants to be re-established.

Do members agree with that?

Members indicated agreement.

10:19 Meeting continued in private until 11:15.