Keith Raffan: Will Mr Swinney give way?
Keith Raffan: I support the First Minister's motion on junior ministers. It is with particular pleasure that I support the two nominees whom I know well as friends and colleagues: Nicol Stephen and Iain Smith. I respect their ability, experience and integrity. I also wish the other nominees for junior minister well. I take this opportunity to wish the First Minister well. I did not vote for him last week,...
Keith Raffan: I will not give way yet. [MEMBERS: "Ah."] I will do so shortly. I want to finish my point about the SNP. It has been in coalition before at a local authority level. I hear that the two SNP councillors approached their Tory counterparts in Stirling offering a coalition. That clearly comes as a revelation to many members.
Keith Raffan: To be fair to the Conservatives-I am always fair to them-they turned the offer down. It is interesting that the SNP actually approached the Conservatives, perhaps foreshadowing the strange alliance between the two parties that we see in this Parliament today. I am now happy to give way to Mr Harper.
Keith Raffan: Is this eating into my four minutes?
Keith Raffan: On a point of order, Deputy Presiding Officer. This is a speech.
Keith Raffan: I have got the point. I am worried about my four minutes-Mr Harper seems to have taken half of them. I am against the commercial planting of GM foods, although that is not relevant to the points that I am trying to make at the moment. Furthermore, I do not believe that my party has abandoned its commitment. There are a lot of good things in the agreement, including the £29 million to...
Keith Raffan: The real reason for the Conservatives' bitter hostility to the agreement is their envy of the coalition being achieved between two mature parties. After all, they cannot even reach consensus among themselves with the Michael Howard faction versus the William Hague faction.
Keith Raffan: Indeed, hardly a week goes by without Lady Thatcher going ballistic because of the way in which she believes her policies have been sold out by William Hague. I will have more to say later.
Keith Raffan: On a point of order. Was Mr Harper's intervention taken out of my time or did I have four minutes?
Keith Raffan: Will Phil Gallie give way?
Keith Raffan: I share Mr Wilson's concern about questions and the fact that we will probably not be able to get even written answers until the early autumn. If the Parliament rises on 2 July, that will certainly be the case and it will slow up proceedings a great deal. I would be grateful for guidance on when we will be able to lodge both written and oral questions. I would also like some further...
Keith Raffan: If powers are not transferring to the new ministers until 1 July, presumably if we have casework or questions that we wish to raise we raise them with the existing Scottish Office ministers?
Keith Raffan: I support these statutory instruments and wish to speak about financial assistance for political parties. I did not intend to speak, but I am encouraged to do so-one might say provoked to do so-by Mr McLetchie's contribution, if that is not too kind a description, and I will use temperate language. I think that all of us agree that Short money is a good thing. The concept is named after Ted...
Keith Raffan: I am coming to the end of my remarks. When the Conservatives start to tell us the names of the millionaires from Greece and Hong Kong who finance them and cleared their multi-million pound debt, I may perhaps start to listen to them.
Keith Raffan: I welcome this motion, and I very much agree with what Mr Russell said. Committees are at the heart of this Parliament's work. They will not be the same as committees at Westminster, where they are a kind of addendum that was added 20 years ago. We are developing the Westminster committee structure. In effect, our committees are a hybrid between the select committees and standing committees...
Keith Raffan: I believe in parity and equality. Members may say that I would say that because I am a regional member. I would like to think that I would say it even I was a constituency member. I agreed with much of what Mr Davidson said. He and Mr McLetchie-with whom I have sparred-have as much right to be here as me or any constituency member. Mr Russell made a valid point when he said that the issue was...
Keith Raffan: I do not have time to give way, but I will give way the next time if I can. A member's job is as elastic as he or she chooses to make it, and that is true for both regional and constituency members. In my view, we need the same resources-and parity and equality of treatment-so that we can serve our voters equally. That was Mr Russell's crucial point, and I agree with him.
Keith Raffan: I support everything that Dr Jackson has said. I am sorry that I was not able to ask her for permission in advance to speak in this, the first debate on members' business. I hope that she will not object to my speaking. It is important to have debates on constituency issues such as this, and I am glad that the first debate is on this issue. I have not attended any consultation meetings on...
Keith Raffan: I have two points to put to the First Minister, one general and one specific. As a general point, how much time does he anticipate allowing for pre-legislative scrutiny of these bills? He might give members an idea of the timetable, although I presume that he expects the bills to become acts by next July. We are working to a tight timetable, but perhaps in future the legislative programme can...
