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We have dealt with 60 amendments in less than an hour, which is a testament to the amount of work that was done in advance of stage 2.I do not think that we know when stage 3 will take place; it will not be in the first week after the recess. Meeting continued in private until 11:57.
As we heard from UK environment secretary Owen Paterson when he appeared before our RACCE committee before the summer recess, there is little chance of our getting the full £60 million that the UK Government will receive as a result of CAP convergence, because of Scotland’s figures in relation to the uplift in CAP funds.
When I asked in May, I was told that I would get an answer before the summer recess. When I asked a parliamentary question in September, I was told that there would be an announcement by the end of 2015.
On the whole area of collection, I want to place on the public record that I give credit to local authorities across Scotland, because I have been struck by the fact that year on year, even since the recession struck in 2008, their collection of water charges has increased.
At that meeting, I think that you and John McCormick agreed that, as long as the legislation was in place by the summer recess, there would be enough time to complete the work properly.
One interesting thing is that, as the UK’s major ports group, we had a look at the productivity of the whole port sector and found that it has improved its productivity by 19 per cent since the financial recession in 2008-09. I have one final question on that, because I am still struggling a wee bit with it.
As Philip Hogg said, we have built only about half of the Scottish Government target of 30,000 affordable homes, which was set prior to the recession. The industry collapsed to the extent that it was building only 10,000 or 11,000 homes.
That is the only age category whose employment rate has increased on its pre-recession high, and that is having an immediate knock-on impact on entry-level jobs for young people.