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In my view, the companies will make decisions on those specific areas very quickly, so I think that by the February recess it would be appropriate to ask whether they have made a decision.
Of course, we presume that the group that we are talking about will be even less favourably viewed by many employers in the recession. That said, our approach is to look ahead into the next five years, across the economic cycle, and try to identify the supply and demand changes that will be needed to move us forward in that time period.
As the First Minister announced to Parliament after the summer recess, the Government will introduce next year the Scottish public services reform bill, which will develop some of the Government's agenda on scrutiny reform and scrutiny improvement.
The issue is not a huge priority for us now but, other business permitting, I would be happy to have an inquiry later in the year, perhaps after the summer recess—either that or, if Kenny Gibson and David McLetchie have a particular interest in the issue, they might like to act as reporters and come back to the committee with some more information before we...
I talked to colleagues before the meeting started and I can say that I would be more than happy to have a relatively informal briefing after the recess to bring people up to speed with where we got to and the key issues, before we have the final proposals.
The next question is, that motion S3M-3318, in the name of Bruce Crawford, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, on parliamentary recess dates, be agreed to. Motion agreed to.
I made it clear in a number of media interviews during the recess that I thought that the description of the plant as “distressed” was entirely inappropriate.