Part of First Minister's Question Time — Scottish executive – in the Scottish Parliament at 2:30 pm on 5 October 2000.
Has the First Minister's Cabinet discussed the continuing potential threat to the public ownership of the water and sewerage industry that is presented by the proposal to open up that industry to competition from English and French private companies? Many of those companies have opened up offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh in anticipation of that competition.
Will the First Minister say whether the Cabinet has considered asking for a block exemption from the Competition Act 1998? The water and sewerage industry is a strategic industry in Scotland and I believe it to be the will of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people that, like publicly owned railways in France and Spain, it should remain under public ownership and public control.