Public Petitions Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Official Report 560KB pdf

Interests

Good morning and welcome to today’s meeting of the Public Petitions Committee. As always, I ask everyone to turn off any electronic equipment, as it interferes with our sound systems.

Apologies have been received from Jackson Carlaw.

I welcome Kenny MacAskill to the committee. I am really pleased that he is now a member of the committee, given his great experience of government, which will be a big help to our committee in its future deliberations.

I thank our former deputy convener, Chic Brodie, for all the work that he carried out, particularly during my absence from the committee last year. I thank him for his commitment to the committee.

Before moving to agenda item 1, I take the opportunity to place on record a correction to a comment that I made at the meeting on 11 November. During the discussion on PE1533, on local authority non-residential social care charges, I said that Falkirk Council is one of the higher-charging authorities. I am happy to correct that and confirm that Falkirk is not one of the higher-charging authorities.

Agenda item 1 is a declaration of interests by Kenny MacAskill. In accordance with the code of conduct, I invite Mr MacAskill to declare any interests that are relevant to the work of the committee. The declaration should be brief but sufficiently detailed to make clear to the listener the nature of the interest.

I have no interests to declare.