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Every contribution to the Official Report — chamber and committee — searchable in one place. Pulled from data.parliament.scot, indexed for full-text search, linked through to every MSP.

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Showing 60 of 2,096,228 contributions. Latest 30 days: 3,758. Coverage: 12 May 1999 — 11 Jun 2026.
Mr Bruce McFee (West of Scotland) (SNP): SNP Chamber
29 Mar 2007
Motion of Thanks
I was not here in the first session of Parliament.
Mr Bruce McFee (West of Scotland) (SNP): SNP Chamber
22 Mar 2007
Scotland in the United Kingdom
Will the member give way?
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
It would be helpful if your colleague, the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, could make that clear. It is important and relevant to what you have said today.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
So, Mr McCabe needs to update his advice to the committee and say that he accepts that, between 2008 and 2010—
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
That is precisely the point. The fact that that has been missed is fundamental. We were told that one means of encouraging local authorities to ensure that the money is properly spent on family support services in 2008-09 and 2009-10 will be the fact that it is ring fenced, bu...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
I have a question on a slightly different subject. I want to tie up a loose end—I do not like loose ends, particularly when they are financial. When I asked whether the plan is an embryonic engagement plan that is being built up, Rod Burns said that you had formed some basic v...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
I accept all that. It would be useful to have some figures to indicate what you think half a million pounds, split in the way you described, will buy on the ground. I presume that in making the calculations you had some idea of the costs involved.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
So local authorities will continue to have to choose between the vision of one service and that of another. I understand your desire to be optimistic and to look forward, but I want to understand what can realistically be provided for £500,000 a year.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
I would like you to confine your remarks to family support services. Would £500,000 across Scotland address the issue?
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
So it is not true to say that local authorities could provide contact facilities if they so desired. There would be a funding problem even if a local authority wished to provide such facilities.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
Do you believe that an extra £500,000 a year will address the issues that have been discussed today?
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
So funding will go up by £500,000 a year.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
Will you restate what additional moneys will be available in each of the next three years?
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
Indeed, indeed. I understand the point entirely. The problem is that much of this floats round in airy-fairy land: the local authority is responsible for delivery, but it may not deliver. I understand that the Executive has rejected the possibility of separate funding for cont...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
Yes, precisely—so what would it cost to roll the service out across Scotland?
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
My question is on that point. I seek clarification on the work that the Executive has done to provide some form of costing for the provision of contact centres across Scotland. In other words, if the facility were made available nationwide where it is required, what would it c...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
You do not want to micromanage the local services, but is it fair to say that the Executive's intention is to take a closer interest than it does in other services that are provided by local authorities in order to ensure effective delivery?
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
Indeed. I presume that you expect that ring fencing to encourage growth of services, as opposed to simply maintaining what is currently in place.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
I do not think that anybody here would disagree with that, although some of us may have issues about there being little or no provision of services in some areas. There is a difference between saying that it is up to local authorities to decide how to deliver services and sayi...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
I am interested in that answer in relation to what the Executive wrote to the local authorities in 2001, although I realise that writing is not everything. In its response to the reporter's report, Relate Scotland said that, on 2 February 2001, the minister had written to ask ...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
Family support services would not be the first services for which there had been ring-fenced funding and, when the ring-fenced funding ended, the service had diminished. There is a history of that happening in local authority funding as other pressures are felt. Do you foresee...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
We are in the post-embryonic stage, and I realise that a number of issues are still to be resolved or even discussed.How successful will the Executive be in encouraging local authorities to fund family support services, given the enormous pressures on existing local authority ...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
Would it be fair to say that your plans are embryonic, particularly in relation to local authorities and COSLA?
Mr Bruce McFee (West of Scotland) (SNP): SNP Committee
21 Feb 2007
Family Support Services
Page 3 of the Executive's response to the reporter's report states:"We agree that engagement with local authorities by both the Executive and the family support organisations will be important in ensuring that relationships are developed which create the basis for consistent, ...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
31 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
I think that the confusion has arisen from what we have in front of us as being the policy intent of the order. The policy intent is absolutely clear in terms of new employees—at least, it is clear in the Executive note, which states that disclosure will be a requirement. The ...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
31 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
I find the issue difficult. I accept the arguments for introducing the order, which are fair, but I am sitting here with your response, which states:"The draft Order enables Fire and Rescue Authorities and Joint Fire and Rescue Boards to ask for spent conviction information, s...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
31 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
So fire boards will have no discretion—
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
31 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
Is the policy intention to ensure that, from the day on which the draft order comes into force, anybody who wishes to join the fire and rescue service will require to go through that process?
Mr Bruce McFee (West of Scotland) (SNP): SNP Committee
31 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
Good morning, minister. Thank you for clarifying issues that were raised last week.Paragraph 4 of page 2 of your response to the committee states:"It is difficult to predict the decisions that will be taken by employers, and precisely what the effects will be."That is fair. Ho...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
What is the deadline for members lodging a motion to annul the instrument?
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
Yes, on a completely different subject. The other instrument also relates to the police—that is about the only thing that the two instruments have in common.For the committee or the Parliament to recommend the regulations would be, frankly, a dereliction of duty. Unintended an...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
I agree whole-heartedly with what Stewart Stevenson has just said. The regulations have been sloppily drafted—the Subordinate Legislation Committee flagged up the matter at its meeting on 16 January. The Executive has acknowledged the mistakes and has said that it intends to r...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
Yes, but there is a bit before that changes the meaning of "may".
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
The Executive note says:"The policy intention is that individuals applying to join the service would have to disclose any conviction, including spent ones, as part of the assessment of their suitability. It was also agreed that this requirement should be extended to existing s...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
I am sorry to interrupt, convener, but is the Executive note entirely wrong? Page 3, paragraph 11, line 5 says:"It was also agreed that this requirement should be extended to existing staff."
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
No. I am sorry, but that is not the logic of my position; I simply gave two grounds for argument. The problem is that we cannot check. That is the difficulty.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
You could argue that if, first, no such provision existed in any other country where there was a foreign competitor, and secondly, you had the ability to check.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
I understand the idea behind the order. My concern is about that potential disadvantage. Wonderful excuses can be used for not awarding contracts in certain situations.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
Absolutely. How do we avoid potentially disadvantaging companies based in this country, where we can carry out checks? How do we apply the checking process to a foreign company or to a foreign national who happens to be a director of a company in this country?
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
How can we apply it to them? A company might be based in France, for example. That is not uncommon in EU procurement.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
That is very wide. How does the order apply to foreign companies or foreign nationals who are directors of companies?
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
So it could apply to any person on the board of directors or the management board.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
Given that in any EU procurement exercise, or any other exercise that requires us to go to tender, it is often a limited company that tenders, at what level will the order apply—director, senior manager or shop-floor worker?
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
It has everything to do with the order. The order would open up that possibility for existing staff. I understand the policy objective, which has been explained in straight terms, but there would be other implications if the requirement is to apply retrospectively.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
Precisely. As a consequence of the order, an employee currently in post in the fire and rescue services could be sacked.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
I agree that the instrument would not allow that to happen, but the paragraph on policy objectives describes not just the failure to disclose a spent conviction, but having a spent conviction as a ground for dismissal. Is the Executive note wrong? It states that"their inclusio...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
Paragraph 2 of the Executive note, which sets out the policy objectives of the order, is crystal clear. It states:"The amendments also add to the categories of excepted professions, offices, employments and occupations in the 2003 Order; their inclusion in the Order means that...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
I understand that.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
Precisely.Rosemary Whaley also said that the order is a tool. Tools are normally meant to be used. If all the relevant information has now to be disclosed and if an employee has to disclose something that they have not previously been required to disclose, could an employer us...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
I am sorry, but we are in danger of confusing a couple of issues. On the point about a staff member being dishonest because they did not disclose a spent conviction when they did not need to—
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
Yes. Could they be sacked?
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
I am sorry about that, Mr Burgess. I will try to wear my glasses next time.The purpose of this order is to deal with people who are engaged in employment and fail to disclose any convictions that might previously have been considered spent by allowing their employer to remove ...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
I have listened to what—I am sorry; I do not have my glasses on, so I cannot see the witness's name.
Mr Bruce McFee (West of Scotland) (SNP): SNP Committee
24 Jan 2007
Subordinate Legislation
Good morning, minister. My question is on the degree of retrospection in the instrument. What was the objective of that retrospection, particularly in relation to fire and rescue service staff? What assumptions did the Executive make of the effect of those changes?
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
13 Dec 2006
Family Support Services Inquiry
We should put on the record that the committee not only adopts the report but continues to give Mary Mulligan its full support if she wants to pursue issues.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
13 Dec 2006
Family Support Services Inquiry
A minimum of one members' business debate is required at the end of a meeting of Parliament, which means that we have two such debates a week. We should bear it in mind that nothing stops us having three members' business debates in a week.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
13 Dec 2006
Family Support Services Inquiry
The Procedures Committee is conducting a review of parliamentary time, although the changes that might be made to the standing orders would not come into effect until the next parliamentary session. It is clear that although a minimum of 12 half sitting days is set aside for c...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
13 Dec 2006
Family Support Services Inquiry
The Conveners Group would have to refer the bid to the bureau first.
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
13 Dec 2006
Family Support Services Inquiry
First, I apologise for not having read the full report, although I should point out that this is my fourth committee meeting this week.Coming from a local authority background, I recognise many of the points that Mary Mulligan made about funding, particularly with regard to vo...
Mr McFee: SNP Committee
13 Dec 2006
Rights of Relatives to Damages (Mesothelioma) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Do you agree that some of the concerns that the insurance industry expressed earlier about costs should be more than offset by modern working practices, which mean that we will not have huge numbers of mesothelioma cases in future? Many cases arose from practices in the shipbu...
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Chamber

Plenary, 29 Mar 2007

29 Mar 2007 · S2 · Plenary
Item of business
Motion of Thanks
McFee, Mr Bruce SNP West of Scotland Watch on SPTV
I was not here in the first session of Parliament.

In the same item of business

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Trish Godman): Lab
The next item of business is consideration of motion S2M-5789, in the name of Jack McConnell, which is a motion of thanks to the Presiding Officer.
The First Minister (Mr Jack McConnell): Lab
Before I address the motion of thanks to the Presiding Officer, I propose a vote of thanks to some of our other distinguished Scottish parliamentarians and c...
Mr Bruce McFee (West of Scotland) (SNP): SNP
I was not here in the first session of Parliament.
The First Minister: Lab
We still enjoyed what he was saying in Paisley at the time. Bruce McFee has been a valuable member of the Parliament over the past four years, and we genuine...
Nicola Sturgeon (Glasgow) (SNP): SNP
Like the First Minister, I pay tribute to those members of all parties who will not be standing for re-election. Each and every one of them has made their ow...
Miss Annabel Goldie (West of Scotland) (Con): Con
I, too, pay tribute to MSPs who will leave the Parliament today and I share in the sentiments already expressed. From our benches, we will lose Lord James Do...
The Deputy First Minister and Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Nicol Stephen): LD
Presiding Officer, you have played a key role in moving Scotland forward. Four years ago, the public attitude to the Parliament and this building was too oft...
Robin Harper (Lothians) (Green): Green
On behalf of the Scottish Green Party, I pay tribute to all the politicians who are about to retire and, in particular, to Dennis Canavan, who is a great fri...
Rosie Kane (Glasgow) (SSP): SSP
Are you nervous, George? Laughter.The Scottish Socialist Party echoes much of what has been said about the MSPs who are retiring—I am not one of them—and abo...
Ms Rosemary Byrne (South of Scotland) (Sol): Sol
As colleagues have done, I pay tribute to the hard work of members who are retiring. I ask members to forgive me for making special mention of Lord James Dou...
Margo MacDonald (Lothians) (Ind): Ind
Presiding Officer, it was not just yesterday that you and I and some other political anoraks sat discussing Scotland's possible futures well into the wee sma...