Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Are members content with the report? Are you all ready to agree the report? OK? Are you content with the executive summary? Agreed?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Are you content with the key conclusions and recommendations?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Are you content with the introduction — paragraphs 45 to 56? Why is the introduction at the end, Sheila? That is not the introduction; it must be the conclusion.

The Committee Clerk: No, no. It is the introduction.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Why is the introduction at the end?

The Committee Clerk: It is just the name of that part of the report. It introduces why are carrying it out and so forth and the background to it, before the actual evidence comes in.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): OK. Are members happy with that?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Are members content with the consideration of the evidence? That is paragraphs 60 to 245.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Are members content with the contents of appendix 1, the minutes of proceedings?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Are members content with the contents of appendix 2, the minutes of evidence?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Content with appendix 3, written submissions?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Content with appendix 4?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Content with appendix 5, the departmental papers?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Content with appendix 6, the research papers?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Appendix 7, other papers submitted to the Committee? Content?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Appendix 8 is the list of witnesses. Are members content?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Members, are you content for the report to contain the relevant extract from the minutes of today's meeting? Members will be agreeing to their inclusion in the report without prior sight of the documents.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): OK. The report will now be ordered to be printed and submitted to the Business Office as the Committee's report on this inquiry into wind energy. The report will be embargoed until the commencement of the debate. How many copies are we printing?

The Committee Clerk: Initially we are just printing two. We have to lay two in the Business Office within 24 hours, so any Member who wishes can go in and read it in the Business Office. The formal copies that are printed out by the PPO within the Assembly are usually the executive summary and the sort of main body of the report, and all the appendices are on a CD at the back. That would not normally be printed out. I think you can request a full copy, but I am not sure how many pages it is — about 3,000, I think.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): OK. At the last meeting of the Chairpersons' Liaison Group, we looked at thousands of pounds on printing. It is such a waste. Do we send the whole report to the stakeholders?

The Committee Clerk: No, normally what we do is write a letter to anyone who has given us a submission or given evidence, and we just give them a link to the Assembly website, so then they can pick it up there.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): That is the best.

The Committee Clerk: Rather than giving them a hard copy or anything else, I think that is just convenient.

Mr Boylan: For clarification, when are we saying it is embargoed to? Have you any date?

The Committee Clerk: The commencement of the debate in plenary.

Mr Boylan: So what are we looking at? A couple of weeks?

The Committee Clerk: Probably a couple of weeks, yes. I have to put it to the Business Committee and see when it is convenient to schedule it.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Are members content with that?

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): And then we will do a press statement. Are members content with that?

The Committee Clerk: There is a motion as well.

Mr Boylan: Chair, I just thank the staff for the work they have done. I think we have done a good body of work in relation to it. We have stuck to our own remit as best we can. Obviously there were other factors outside of that, but we could not deal with them. I think it has been a pretty good exercise, and I think we gave everybody a fair hearing. I just want to put on record my thanks to the staff for all the work they have done in bringing this report forward for us.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Absolutely.

Mr A Maginness: I concur.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): A very balanced report, I thought. Well done to all, and well done to members, too. You all worked very hard on that as well.

Members, there is a draft motion for a plenary debate on the inquiry at page 26. It is pretty straightforward. Are members content to proceed to lay the motion for a plenary debate on the inquiry, possibly in about two weeks' time?