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Plenary, 13 Jan 2000

Meeting date: Thursday, January 13, 2000

Official Report 854KB pdf

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Scottish Parliament Thursday 13 January 2000

[THE PRESIDING OFFICER opened the meeting at 09:31]

Good morning. The business today is an important debate on housing, which is why the whole day has been allotted to it. An exceptionally large number of members wish to speak in the debate. We have done some calculations and it ought to be possible to call everybody, provided that the opening speakers are brief and that everyone sticks to the four-minute limit.

I hope that members will accept my apologies for not being in the chair later this morning—I wish to attend the funeral of Nigel Tranter, who was with us only a month ago in the distinguished visitors gallery. Through his novels, he brought the history of Scotland to life for many thousands of people. He was an expert on Scottish towers and castles and, more important, he was a great campaigner for the Scottish Parliament long before any of us in the chamber were. It is right that I should pay our respects to his memory.

I am ready to start the debate, but we do not yet have a minister. A helpful point of order from Mr Sheridan?

It is perhaps not a deliberately helpful point of order, Presiding Officer. [Laughter.] It is worth noting that the minister has managed to arrive.

Points of order should be about proceedings and I seek your guidance. Why has the amendment that I timeously submitted, which made two significant and specific points in response to each of the other amendments that were selected for today, not been accepted for today's debate?

That is a genuine point of order. It is not the practice of the chair to give reasons for the selection or non-selection of amendments. I do not always select the amendments submitted by the major parties either. Perhaps it would be helpful to the chamber to know that, as a general rule, I do not accept more than two amendments in any one debate, simply because it makes the debate so unwieldy. However, I recognise the points that Mr Sheridan was seeking to make in his amendment and I note that it is intended that he should be called early in the debate so that he can make them. Additionally, there will be a full bill, so he will have the chance to press those points during the passage of that legislation.