Meeting of the Parliament 26 January 2016
A point that has not been covered particularly in the debate is one that the committee convener made, which is that the committee wrote to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee on the issue of the absence of bespoke standing orders.
The minister made the useful point that the Scottish Government is not involved in the operation of regional parks and that it believes that that should be done at the local level. It comes back to the issue of whether there is any demand for the bill. That is the key point, which was echoed by Alex Fergusson. I take his point that there is a certain logic in the Pentland Hills Regional Park Boundary Bill as an entity, but we have to consider whether there is demand for it from the five local authorities concerned, land managers and, indeed, local communities.
If the bill were to go ahead, we would need a full feasibility study and we would have to consider the aspects of competence and finance. I have nothing further to say on the bill, except to repeat that Labour members will not support it at decision time at 5 o’clock.