Scottish Parliament

Business friendly activities

Scottish Parliament Business Exchange

Scottish Parliament Business Exchange

Business in the Parliament

Scottish Parliament held a ‘Business in the Parliament’ conference. Over 100 business delegate trooped in and sat in the elected members seats. Amongst the delegates were all the key peak business associations representing big business including the CBI, the Chemical Industries Association, the Scottish Food and Drink Federation and the Scottish BCSD. The press release from the parliament announced that the delegates were ‘the people driving Scotland's economy.’ (‘SCOTLAND'S BUSINESS PEOPLE TAKE THEIR SEATS IN PARLIAMENT’ Parliamentary News Release, 026/2004, 22 April 2004. [1])

The trick here is to convince yourself that it is the business class not the workers who create the value in production. Otherwise you might come to the conclusion that the Parliament spin doctors are in the business of issuing corporate ideology dressed up as neutral official information. The final insult to the Parliament’s founding principles of openness was that the discussion sessions in the conference were held in private. Pro-business assumptions amongst policy makers and lobbying by corporations result in reflex secrecy.

Futures Forum

Futures Forum

Science Information Scheme - Corporate Links

In September 2003 the Scottish Parliament launched a science projject to afford MSPs access to 'reliable and factual information':

A one-year pilot Science Information Scheme for MSPs is being launched today at the Scottish Parliament. The Scheme is a collaborative project between the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe), the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in association with the Institute of Physics in Scotland and the University of Edinburgh.

The main purpose of this service will be:

• to ensure that all MSPs have access to rapid, reliable and factual information on science, engineering and technology-related issues in order to help inform Parliamentary debates on scientific issues.

The scheme will be operated through a group of 52 Topic Co-ordinators who will act as "sign posts" directing MSP queries to the appropriate expert. Queries will be directed to these topic co-ordinators through the RSC Parliamentary Liaison Officer or SPICe.^[2]

The contacts named at the end of the press release include the Parliamment, the RSE and the Royal Society of Chemistry. However, the contact for the latter is named as Willie Rennie of PR company McEwan Purvis. this indicates that Rennie was passing himself off as working for a learned society while in relatity he was emploed by and a shareholder in the PR firm.

References

SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT SCIENCE INFORMATION SCHEME LAUNCHED Parliamentary News Release 055/2003, Thursday 18 September 2003