IOG: Parliament News, issue 22/november 2002

Scottish Affairs web site

Events

4 November: Jim Wallace, Deputy First Minister, signed an Action Plan in Barcelona with Artur Mas, Prime Minister of Catalonia. This agreement sets out the first phase of co-operation between the Executive and the Catalan Government for working together to identify ways of improving the delivery of government services to the public and the commitment to joint research into ways to support economic development.

5 November: Mike Watson, Minister for Tourism, opened a new 'one-stop-shop' for Scottish tourism in Livingston. The £11 million visitscotland.com offices and National Contact Centre offer information and booking facilities. The National Booking and Information Centre will make it easier for people to book trips and access information by providing a single national telephone number for Scotland - 0845 22 55 121.

6 November: Andy Kerr, Minister for Finance and Public Services, announced that all local authorities in Scotland will receive a share of a £5 million dividend this year as a result of their lower average council tax increases compared with England. The money comes from the Treasury under Devolution arrangements and will be passed on to Scottish councils in full.

7 November: the third Annual Report of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body was published, covering the period from May 2001 to May 2002. As in previous years the report includes details of the Parliament's accounts for the most recent financial year.

11 November: Ross Finnie, Minister for Environment and Rural Affairs, met with members of the North East of Scotland Fisheries Development Partnership in Aberdeen to hear views on the way forward for Scotland's fishing industry. The main discussions were about the need to preserve fish stocks while preserving communities reliant upon the fishing industry.

11 November: Andy Kerr, Minister for Finance and Public Services, stated that the Executive and trades unions have agreed a protocol to end the two-tier workforce in future Public Private Partnership (PPP) contracts, and is intended to ensure fair pay and conditions for people working under such contracts on the public service front line.

12 November: Mike Watson, Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, launched the second annual report of the National Cultural Strategy with the announcement that the Writers' Factory is ready for production. The Writers' Factory will promote and train writers in Scotland, concentrating at present on Scriptwriting.

15 November: Jack McConnell, First Minister, announced that he has been asked by the leaders of Europe's devolved parliaments to chair the representative group of regions from all across Europe for 2003-2004. The Group for European Regions with Legislative Power (REGLEG) forms a collective voice on the regional perspective in order to add their viewpoint to the future of Europe debate.

18 November: Jack McConnell, First Minister, announced that Scotland is to benefit from a special £6 million Route Development Fund to allow the country's airports to attract a bigger share of European air travel by offering landing charge discounts to airlines opening up new routes to and from Scotland.

18 November: Margaret Curran, Minister for Social Justice, launched the Executive's third Social Justice annual report, stating that £31 million was to be spent over the next three years on initiatives to help families find their way out of the poverty trap.

19 November: visit of the Nordic Council and Nordic Council of Ministers to Scotland. A special day-long seminar took place to discuss a number of issues of common interest between Scotland and the Nordic countries. The Nordic Council was formed in 1952 and is the forum for inter-parliamentary co-operation between the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden as well as the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands, Greenland and žland.

19 November: the Parliament's Corporate Body announced that the move to the new Parliament Building at Holyrood will no longer be possible over the 2003 summer recess. Work on site is not now expected to be fully completed until August 2003 at the earliest. The SPCB also announced that MSPs would meet in the nearby Hub during the Church of Scotland's 2003 General Assembly.

22 November: members of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) began an eight-day strike in pursuit of a pay claim.

26 November: Richard Simpson, Deputy Minister for Justice, resigned from his post following disparaging comments about firefighters attributed to him by some newspapers.

27 November: Ross Finnie, Minister for Environment and Rural Development, announced the European Commission's proposals to pursue significant reductions in fishing mortality in all the main fisheries with a cod component as an alternative to a total moratorium. These proposals include the following reduction in fishing effort: 80% for cod and haddock, 75% for whiting, 15% for saithe, 30% for sole, 10% in the industrial fishers, 5% in the Nephrops fisheries. These fishing mortality reductions would apply in the North Sea, West of Scotland, and the Irish Sea.

29 November: Jack McConnell, First Minister, gave details of a new organisation 'EventScotland' which has the aim of making Scotland one of the world's leading major events destinations by developing a portfolio of sporting and cultural events and improving the co-ordination of events.

Appointments

15 November: the Parliament announced the appointment of Alasdair MacCaluim as the new Gaelic Outreach Officer. This new post is aimed at building links between the Parliament and Gaelic speakers, through working closely with Scotland's Gaelic community and the Gaelic media.

26 November: Hugh Henry was moved from his post as Deputy Minister for Social Justice to Deputy Minister for Justice (post resigned by Richard Simpson)

27 November: Des McNulty, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, was appointed Deputy Minister for Social Justice (post previously held by Hugh Henry).

System Three poll (for The Herald)

(977 people in 41 constituencies surveyed between Nov 20-24, 2002)

The System Three poll, carried out at the end of November, noted voting intentions for both the Scottish Parliament (two votes) and the House of Commons.

	Holyrood 1st vote	Holyrood 2nd vote	Westminster
Lab	35%	30%	43%
SNP	32%	28%	25%
LibDem	16%	18%	15%
Con	11%	10%	12%
SSP	4%	6%	4%
Green	2%	5%	} 1%
Others	1%	3%	} 1%

Bills

13 November: the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3 was passed by Parliament. The main objective of the Bill is to create a national statutory debt arrangement scheme and establish a humane and workable alternative to the poinding and warrant sales.

19 November: the scope of the Local Governance Bill was announced. The Bill covers many issues relating to councillors, how they are elected, how they are rewarded and removing barriers to a more diverse range of councillors. The Bill will be published before the end of the current Parliamentary session and will be available for decision by the new Executive following the election next May. The Bill will include the Single Transferable Vote as the alternative choice to the First Past the Post system for local authority elections.

20 November: the general principles of the Protection of Children (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1 were agreed in Parliament. The objective of the Bill is to provide for the creation and maintenance of a list of persons unsuitable to work with children. It will be an office for any person on the list to work with children and for any organisation employing any person on the list.

21 November: the general principles of the Title Conditions (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1 were agreed by Parliament. The two main objectives of the Bill are to achieve greater clarity in the law and to reduce the number of outdated conditions on land by making it easier to discharge or vary them.

Committees

7 November: the European Committee met with the European Committees of the Flemish and Catalan Parliaments to discuss plans to form a new trans-European Network of Regional Parliamentary European Committees. The proposed network should facilitate the exchange of views and ideas between 'European Committees' from regional parliaments, helping to increase the ability of parliamentary committees to hold their Executives to account.

18 November: the Justice 1 Committee endorsed the general principles of the Title Conditions (Scotland) Bill. The Bill proposes to make further provision as respects real burdens, servitudes and certain other obligations affecting land and to amend the law relating to the ranking of standard securities.

21 November: the European Committee published a report calling for a distinct Scottish Parliament presence in Brussels. The Scottish Parliament's representation would be responsible for networking and gathering information for MSPs on proposals from the European Union.

27 November: the Transport and the Environment Committee endorsed the general principles of the Building (Scotland) Bill. The Committee made several recommendations as well as stating that they were not convinced that Ministers should allow 'verifiers' of building standards to be appointed from the private sector.

28 November: the Education, Culture and Sport Committee issued a call for evidence seeking views on the general principles of the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill. The purpose of the Bill is to bring about an equality between the use of Gaelic and English and for public bodies to prepare, publish and implement a Gaelic Language Plan.

29 November: the Local Government Committee issued a call for views from interested parties on the Prostitution Tolerance Zones (Scotland) Bill. The three principle aims of the Bill are: to enable the police, health boards and local authorities to ensure that prostitution is practised in as orderly, secure and tolerable manners as is possible; to minimise the opportunities for associated criminal behaviour; to maximise the practice of safer sex and to promote public health policies.

Research opportunities

The Scottish Parliament has a budget for commissioning research for Parliamentary committees and holds a database of researchers interested in tendering for committee research. Anyone wishing to be included in the database should complete the on-line form on the Parliament website at:

www.scottish.parliament.uk/whats_happening/research/ext-res-form.html

Publications

Scottish Executive publications can be accessed on the Scottish Executive website at www.scotland.gov.uk/publications/recent.asp

Some of those published in the last month include:

Scotland's National Cultural Strategy: Annual Report 2002: second annual report of Scotland's National Cultural Strategy. 12.11.02

Scotland's People: Volume 5: 2001 Annual Report from the Scottish Household Survey. 13.11.02

Closing the Opportunity Gap: Scottish Budget for 2003-2006: publication. 18.11.02

Further Education in Scotland 2001: Annual Report 2002. 21.11.02

Interim response to the final report of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee's Inquiry into Lifelong Learning: the Executive's views on the Committee's recommendations. 26.11.02

Public Attitudes to the Environment in Scotland: research findings from a survey of pubic attitudes to the environment carried out in 2002. 29.11.02

Scotland's Major Events Strategy 2003-2015: "Competing on an international stage": major events strategy. 29.11.02

Working Together for Race Equality - The Scottish Executive's Race Equality Scheme. 29.11.02

Links to other issues of Parliament News

Contact

Should you have any comments or enquiries please do not hesitate to contact Margaret MacPherson at the Institute of Governance.

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