Hansard

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD) LD Committee

08 Feb 2011

Long Leases (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Let us develop some of that background. You have given an expostulation of the advantages of the commercial lease arrangement. I find it difficult to see that there can be much certainty in a transaction that has lasted 175 years—which goes back almost to before the railway ag...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

22 Jun 2000

Bail, Judicial Appointments etc (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I begin by declaring an interest in the bill, not because, in common with Fergus Ewing, I have little chance of being elevated to the bench, or because I will require bail in future—at least, I hope not—but because of my association with Ross Harper and Murphy and my membershi...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

12 Sep 2002

Acute Services Review (Glasgow)

I am the first Glasgow member of the Executive parties to speak in the debate. I thank Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP for allowing its time to be used for this debate.The future of hospital services in greater Glasgow has been the most difficult issue that I have had to face sinc...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

05 Feb 2009

Early Years Framework

I think that that was perhaps a little harsh.The early years framework, which is potentially one of the most important documents to come out of the Government, continues and builds on the previous Government's work, in which Hugh Henry played a significant part, on improving e...

Robert Brown LD Committee

01 Feb 2011

Long Leases (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Let me interrupt you. We are trying to identify not only long leases. There are two ways of looking at the matter. There is common good ground with long leases. Are you saying that there are only two long leases?

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Committee

02 Dec 2008

Damages (Asbestos-related Conditions) (Scotland) Bill: <br />Stage 2

As they say in the courts, I adopt the reasoning of my good friend, Mr Butler. I will add one or two further comments. The point about clarifying, rather than changing, the law is extremely important, and it is supported by the wording that the Government has used both in the ...

Robert Brown: LD Committee

09 May 2001

Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

I am conscious that I am speaking in what I might describe as the graveyard slot just before lunch.Amendment 370 tries to make a serious point about one of the effects not just of the right to buy—that is subsidiary to some degree—but of the long-term maintenance of properties...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

16 Sep 1999

Homelessness

I accept that concept, but it is a broader matter. Similar issues apply to how we deal with evictions from tenancy cases, and a series of reforms concerning the need for permanent accommodation, the reversal of earlier judgments, the new social tenancies and so on is long over...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

14 Mar 2001

Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I do not think that Duncan Hamilton has been listening to what I have been saying. This is a stage 1 debate and we are talking about the principles. The framework is in place and the details have to be examined further. That is the point of the Social Justice Committee's consi...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

13 Jun 2001

Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

No, I want to carry on. We are offering a mechanism to secure the long-term maintenance and organisation of housing stock through community ownership. Community ownership has considerable potential because it is based on control of housing by the people who live in local areas...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

20 Jun 2001

Mortgage Rights (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I want to remind members of the underlying purpose of the bill, as it is important to look to the objectives that we are trying to achieve. We are trying to put into law something that does not exist at the moment: a right for those who are threatened with eviction as a result...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

28 Jun 2001

New Opportunities Fund

This has been an interesting debate. Unfortunately, the consensus throughout the chamber on the issue is not reflected in the motion and the various amendments. There is a greater degree of consensus than it would appear.It is right, as some members have said, to celebrate the...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

07 Mar 2002

Homelessness Task Force

Few things are more central to our ability as a society to nurture opportunity, build communities and ensure basic human rights than having a home of our own. Conversely, few things are more destructive of the life chances of our citizens, the physical and mental well-being of...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

13 Feb 2003

Water Supplies (Lead Pipes)

For a moment, I thought from the number of people in the gallery that a large number of people were interested in the debate, but that has turned out not to be the case.Nevertheless, lead in water supplies is a serious problem, particularly for babies and children. It is recog...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

13 Nov 2003

Public Libraries

In what has been an excellent debate, we have heard from several speakers about the widening and changing context in which libraries in Scotland operate today. It is entirely right that we celebrate the enormous contribution that public libraries in Scotland have made to all a...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

07 Dec 2006

Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

Thank you. I was slightly caught on the hop there, I am afraid.I am bound to say that I object to the tone of Fiona Hyslop's comments. It is important to put the matter in context. The preparations for the bill, the arrangements for it to include provisions and powers on foste...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

23 Apr 2009

Transport Infrastructure <br />(West of Scotland)

I disagree. That point is for a previous debate. My point is that the Dalmarnock station project involves modest money and is deliverable. I hope that the SNP Government will recognise the opportunity and provide its part of the funding, which is modest in Government terms.The...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

09 Dec 2009

Scottish Parliament (Further Powers)

We are getting into the technical long grass as opposed to the general long grass.The Conservatives are live to the threat of a Labour Government kicking Calman into the long grass. David McLetchie warned that we need a new Government at UK level if we are to take forward the ...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD) LD Chamber

27 Oct 2010

Scottish Parliament

The emergency bill process has been fairly long, but this has nevertheless been an important event and the Parliament has risen to the occasion.The dispute is about a major issue of civil liberties, rights and detention periods. Normally, I take a cautious approach on such mat...

Robert Brown LD Committee

25 Jan 2011

Long Leases (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

That is helpful, although I am not sure that it takes us all the way. You suggest that there is a case for the reform of common good law, or at least a review. Would it not perhaps be better to deal with this odd intersection with long leases arrangements under the heading of ...

Robert Brown LD Committee

01 Feb 2011

Long Leases (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

We are considering the long leases aspect of common good land. Can any of the witnesses give us additional guidance on the extent to which ultra-long leases of common good land and property exist or might exist in Scotland? We have heard about the dispute over Waverley market,...

Robert Brown LD Committee

08 Feb 2011

Long Leases (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I asked for that information because the minister made great play of the fact that the proposed exemption would cause all sorts of confusion and cost if there were challenges to councils’ dispositions of land. However, the land involved could only be, first, land held on an ul...

The Convener: LD Committee

26 Nov 2003

Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill: Witnesses

Yes. You can give Martin Verity your thoughts on the matter.We will take evidence on the numbers and on ESBD issues. We will also take evidence from a learning support co-ordinator—perhaps a depute head or someone of that sort—who can feed in their views on assessment and on t...

The Convener: LD Committee

03 Mar 2004

Education (Additional Support<br />for Learning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

I propose to break now in view of the time, as the judges say. However, I seek the committee's guidance on one point. We still have quite a lot to finish, although many of the amendments still to come are consequential to others, so things might not be as bad as they look. We ...

The Convener: LD Committee

12 Jan 2005

Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Okay. We can reflect those comments.If members have no other points on the financial memorandum, let us move on to the report's conclusions. To be honest, I did not like the tone of paragraph 90. As it stands, the report ends up a bit negative, whereas most people took a posit...

Robert Brown: LD Committee

20 Sep 2006

Scottish Commissioner for Human Rights Bill: Stage 2

It would be useful to consider the Scottish public services ombudsman separately from the debate about the architecture of the commission.Nevertheless, I will set the initial debate in the context of the background to the proposal on the human rights commission and the stage 1...

Robert Brown: LD Committee

21 Feb 2007

Family Support Services

I do not want to try to square circles indefinitely. In relation to this announcement, the position that I have given to you is correct. The Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform and the Executive, in general, have a view against ring fencing, which I share. We accept...

Robert Brown: LD Committee

30 Sep 2008

Budget Process 2009-10

In the second graph in your submission, which refers to short and long-term prisoners, it appears that the increase in numbers is substantially an increase in the number of short-term prisoners. If I am reading the graph correctly, the number of long-term prisoners has gone do...

Robert Brown: LD Committee

18 Nov 2008

Subordinate Legislation

I have no difficulty with the general move from the district court to the justice of the peace court structure—that is not an issue. I also have no difficulty with what is happening in other parts of Glasgow, although that has thrown up other issues such as the future of the G...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Committee

29 Sep 1999

Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations

I want to come back on two points. First, I confess that I am unenthusiastic about the charities law review. Is there clear evidence that the relatively unregulated system in Scotland causes problems other than those that exist in England, with its panoply of charity commissio...

Robert Brown: LD Committee

19 Sep 2001

Subordinate Legislation

I have two points, the first of which concerns the value of public money. Does the scheme encourage people to take up regular maintenance checks? Some older people forget how to operate their heating system, although in my experience that problem is not limited to older people...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

23 Jun 1999

Devolved Legislation

On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I welcome the minister's statement and the style in which she made it. The bill is a most important one, which has been long awaited and long in gestation. It is unfortunate that Alasdair Morgan contributed a carping diatribe about whether t...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

25 Nov 1999

Carers Strategy

On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I join in the plaudits to the deputy minister, who has produced a good paper and brought it before the chamber in an understated but effective fashion. The extent and impact of caring in Scotland is one of our best-kept secrets. The dependen...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

23 Feb 2000

Clydeside (Regeneration)

I want to echo Gordon Jackson's approach and come at this issue from the Glasgow end of the Clyde. As a Glasgow MSP, I feel that it is important to recognise Glasgow's position as the hub of the region and to recognise that, in many ways, it is the road to the isles. Many peop...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

02 Mar 2000

European Convention on Human Rights

First, I must declare an interest in respect of my membership of the Law Society of Scotland, and my legal consultancy with Ross, Harper and Murphy—not least because my colleague Cameron Fyfe is running what is likely to be the test case on children's hearings.This has been on...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

03 May 2000

Govan Shipyard

Gordon Jackson is to be applauded for securing this debate, in which some good points have been made. Many members have visited the Govan yard—I went round it most recently with Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman. I was struck by the massive size of the y...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

14 Jun 2000

Disabled People (Housing Needs)

I start by thanking the considerable number of members who have signed the motion and the various groups with which we have had contact and which have briefed us on the background to this issue.The language of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Executive is full of aspir...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

02 Nov 2000

Drugs Courts

I must first apologise for arriving late—I was stuck in traffic. However, that had an advantage: I heard Hugh Henry going on about the rights and wrongs, and the good and bad things in the Parliament; but all the naughty bits took place before I got here. I therefore think tha...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

30 Nov 2000

District Courts

It is one of the Parliament's strengths that debates which have a spurious basis—such as this one, as Mr Gallie's motion demonstrates—manage to achieve some balance by the end. Some speeches, such as Bill Aitken's account of his experience of the courts, were fairly knowledgea...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

15 Mar 2001

Credit Unions

Absolutely. My comment was made with tongue in cheek. I entirely accept Mary Scanlon's point that the Parliament has the opportunity to do something in this area in its leadership role.The central point is that credit unions are major instruments of empowerment in Scotland. I ...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

22 Mar 2001

Drug Misuse and Deprived Communities

I am grateful to Lyndsay McIntosh for that input. I detected a greater recognition of that point from the Conservatives today.In what I think was one of the most brilliant speeches of the debate—it was peppered with insights—my colleague Keith Raffan called the patchy and inad...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

25 Apr 2001

Scotland's Skills for Tomorrow

This is an important debate, but the party political posturing sometimes obscures the level of agreement that exists across the chamber about some of the priorities in the area of skills.Liberal Democrats have been pressing the themes of the debate for a long time. There is an...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

26 Sep 2001

Voluntary Sector

Indeed, I accept that entirely. However, the issue is the use of that consultation in terms of the debate—it is as if the Opposition is putting some sort of alternative on show. The fact is that the issue should be viewed more positively because we are at a milestone for the v...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

12 Dec 2001

National Health Service

No, thank you. I have a number of things to say.Resources have, in fact, gone up by a whopping £700 million over two years, and will rise to £1,800 million by 2003-04. Liberal Democrats want yet more investment in health, but we have always stressed as our first priority the n...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

16 Jan 2002

Railways

A funny thing about the Scottish Parliament is that, while we can start off with a rather irrelevant motion, followed by a fairly unconstructive speech to start the debate and some partisan speeches along the way, a number of themes nevertheless begin to come through as the de...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

17 Jan 2002

Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I am not sure whether the matter has been clarified. Lord James Douglas-Hamilton and David McLetchie criticised the principle behind the bill and do not seem to recognise the distinction between what an Executive of any description chooses to place in the public domain and wha...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

28 May 2002

Alternatives to Custody

Paul Martin is right to describe the effect of crime on individuals and local communities. The real issue that underlies today's debate is why such things happen and what we can do about them. Criminal actions are the product not of the justice system, but of deeper social pro...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

04 Sep 2002

Scottish Water Supplies <br />and Public Health

This has been a rather better debate than I thought it would be when I heard the depressingly overblown speeches of Bruce Crawford and John Scott.Water holds a special place in the consciousness of people in Scotland, which is odd, because as Dorothy-Grace Elder said, we have ...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

09 Oct 2003

Schools (Enterprise Culture)

Jamie Stone was right when he said that all the amendments show an underlying support for the thrust of the Executive's motion. Fiona Hyslop recognised that when she complained about people going off on tangents. I was surprised when she then went off on a tangent of her own—i...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

08 Jan 2004

Housing

Those measures are in place, but the problem lies in the routine situation where decay sets in over time. I have long argued that long-term maintenance funds built up by monthly payments along with the mortgage, for example—with the owner's share saleable as an asset to new pu...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

25 Mar 2004

Summary Justice

I begin by declaring my membership of the Law Society of Scotland and my role of consultant with Ross Harper solicitors in Glasgow.I welcome the McInnes report. It is a very thorough piece of work, which examines and raises many issues. Sheriff McInnes said that some of them w...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

23 Mar 2005

Clydeside Shipyards

I congratulate Trish Godman on securing tonight's worthwhile debate on the Clyde shipyards. If I may say so, this is one of those debates that comes camouflaged a little but packs a punch as the speeches develop.I also have some shipbuilding forebears. In my case, my grandfath...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

24 Mar 2005

Co-operative Education

That is absolutely right and that is the connection that I was trying to make. I was also making the point that the fate of the old CWS shows how a co-operative body with an inadequate feel for enterprise can be swept aside and might not keep up to date.The second caveat is on...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

28 Apr 2005

Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I am delighted to close the debate for the Liberal Democrats and to speak on the bill's provisions, including the central ban on smoking in enclosed public places, which is probably the most important public health measure in a generation.It is also important to highlight the ...

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): LD Chamber

12 May 2005

Schools-Colleges Review

I give a warm welcome to the publication of the documents on school-college partnerships. The Executive has implemented yet another key Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment in the field of education. We Liberal Democrats practise what we preach: we give opportunities to young...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

22 Dec 2005

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE · Childhood Obesity

A number of issues are involved in that. I agree with Carolyn Leckie that obesity is a growing—in several senses of the word—issue in all developed countries although it is greater among boys and there is a suggestion that it is declining slightly among girls.It will take some...

The Deputy Minister for Education and Young People (Robert Brown): LD Chamber

03 May 2006

Scottish Commissioner for Human Rights Bill: Stage 1

It gives me great pleasure to open the stage 1 debate on the general principles of the Scottish Commissioner for Human Rights Bill. It is a long way from the day, back in 1999, when those organisations and individuals with an interest set up the cross-party group on human righ...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

07 Sep 2006

Education

We have introduced structures—for example, with regard to additional learning needs—to address the matter across the board and have placed corporate duties on local authorities to deal adequately with such situations. After all, such problems require more than the rather limit...

Robert Brown: LD Chamber

07 Dec 2006

Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

Amendments 4A and 4B were lodged by Adam Ingram. The purpose of amendment 4A is to include counselling and assistance to birth parents who are considering giving up their child for adoption as a distinct service under section 1. That service would be provided automatically, wi...

The Deputy Minister for Education and Young People (Robert Brown): LD Chamber

17 Jan 2007

Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I am obliged, Presiding Officer, although I am slightly confused by the timescale. I thought that the debate went on until 4 o'clock.I begin by thanking the Education Committee for its careful and anxious consideration of the bill and its generous comments about the way in whi...