Current Petitions

Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the 18th meeting in 2010 of the Public Petitions Committee. As you will see from the agenda, we have an extremely busy afternoon ahead of us. There are 62 current petitions to be considered, although some of them will be taken together.The committee is committed to facilitating petitions’ journey through the process as efficiently and effectively as possible, and we hope that considering only current petitions today will prove beneficial to petitioners in moving their petitions forward. I assure those who are following our proceedings that, despite the number of petitions that are before us this afternoon, members have carefully considered the written submissions. We have had all the papers in our possession for nearly two weeks, which has given us time to go through everything carefully. We also have some late submissions that relate to the petitions that we are considering today.I want to make a point about our discussions this afternoon. We may spend only a few seconds on some petitions because that will be all that is required for us to reach a decision. That should not be seen as the committee taking its role lightly. We have planned for this meeting, and we need to make efficient use of our time. As I have said, we have had the papers for some time, and we have had ample opportunity to consider what action to take for each petition.I suggest that we take a short, 10-minute comfort break after consideration of PE1315. That will be about halfway through the agenda. I believe that extra-strong coffee has been ordered for then, although I am not sure whether that is the right drink.Apologies have been received from Bill Butler. I ask everybody to ensure that all mobile phones and other electronic devices are switched off.