Chamber and committees

I call Sharon Dowey. Please keep the questions and answers fairly concise, as time is tight.

Agenda item 2 is choice of chair of the SCPA. I seek nominations for the position.

Congratulations, Sharon.

Good morning everyone, and welcome to the first meeting in session 6 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. I am Colin Beattie, member of the Scottish Parliament for Midlothian North and Musselburgh. As the oldest member of the committee, I have the pleasure of convening the meeting for the first two items of business. I take the opportunity to welcome everybody, and I look forward to working with you all on the committee.

Before we move to the first item, I remind everyone to switch their mobile phones to silent. I note that no apologies have been received.

The first item of business requires each of us to declare any interests that we have that are relevant to the work of the committee. Background information is provided in paper 1, on declaration of interests. I will declare my interests first. As the committee covers tourism, I declare that I am a trustee director of the National Mining Museum Scotland.

I will now go round the other members of the committee in alphabetical order and give you the opportunity to declare your interests as necessary.

In item 2 it is the committee’s task to choose a convener. The procedure is explained in paper 2, on the choice of convener. Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish Labour Party are eligible for nomination as convener of the committee. Can we have a nomination from Scottish Labour?

I congratulate Claire Baker on her appointment. I will swiftly vacate the chair and hand over to her.

I would like to look more closely at three areas in the legacy document. The first area is the committee’s audit remit, which is an issue that has repeatedly come up. The remit is narrower than that of the equivalent Westminster committee. The approach that we can take is more passive; we are limited to what the Auditor General puts in front of us. I think that the committee should take a more proactive approach.

We should be able to initiate our own investigations, if necessary. That would not happen often but, where necessary, we should be able to do that. The Auditor General should be willing to put resources towards that, if such an investigation was required. It is not as though we would be launching an investigation every five minutes. However, there have been occasions when we have looked at stuff and might have got better results if we had taken a more proactive approach, with more drive and more push.

The second area is post-legislative scrutiny, for which we are no longer responsible. I think that that is the correct way forward and gives us a tight focus on what we need to look at. However, there was one piece of post-legislative scrutiny that we did—on the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010—that I would like to find some way to bring into the committee’s work this session. There are ways in which to do that.

The evidence that we took showed that, each year, about 7,000 people are admitted to accident and emergency and require surgical intervention due to dog attacks. On some occasions, dangerous dogs have killed children. I have made the point before that, if drink driving had such an impact, we would have a polisman on every corner. However, because we are talking about dogs, we seem to sweep the matter under the carpet. We need to address the matter. We need to protect good, sensible dog owners and deal with those who are not controlling their dogs or are not fit to be dog owners.

The third area relates to the previous committee’s investigation into Bòrd na Gàidhlig. I know that the Auditor General is to bring a report on the issue back to this committee, but a huge amount still needs to be investigated. There are serious, continuing issues. I urge the committee to follow up on that, ensure that we get to the bottom of everything and put in place proper steps to rectify the issues. Public money is being spent, but it is not clear that it is being spent well.

Item 2 is for each of us to declare any interests that we have that are relevant to the work of the committee. Background information is provided in the declaration of interests paper, which is paper 1.

I will start by declaring my interests then ask members in alphabetical order to do the same. I declare an interest as a director and trustee of the National Mining Museum Scotland, in view of the fact that the committee has a remit in tourism. I have no other interests to declare.

We move to item 3, which is the most important item. The committee’s next task is to choose a convener. The procedure is explained in paper 2. The Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish Labour Party are eligible for nomination as convener of the committee. I understand that Richard Leonard is that party’s nominee. Is that correct? No seconder is required.

Richard Leonard was chosen as convener.

I congratulate Richard Leonard on his appointment. I now vacate the chair and hand over to him.