Visiting delegations

I know we posted a few weeks ago that members of the Petitions Committee of the German Bundestag were coming over for a meeting with the PPC members. Alas, the volcanic cloud/airline situation postponed that meeting last week but we do hope to meet with the committee later this year. There are some features of the German petitions process we are particularly interested in. A big disappointment for us but an understandable reason as to why the members couldn't make the trip.
However, we are meeting with members of the Petitions Committee of the Bavarian State Parliament on Thursday (13th) next week which I know will be of interest and benefit to us all. The delegation is in Scotland all next week for a series of meetings.
Before then I look forward to meeting with Judy Spence MP who is the Leader of the House in the Queensland Parliament. She is visiting the Parliament today in her capacity as Chair of the Committee System Review Committee and we will be having a blether this afternoon about public petitioning and, specifically, the role of the PPC. On behalf of the PPC I submitted a contribution to their inquiry which I hope will be of interest. You will know that we have good relationships with legislatures in Australia for example, we have held a couple of videoconferences with the Petitions Committee in the House of Representatives and met with a number of elected representatives from other state parliaments such as Tasmania and Western Australia. Of course Queensland, like us, were the early pioneers of e-petitioning and this is something we will no doubt discuss later today. Bet the weather is warmer there than it is here!
Frank McAveety MSP, Convener PPC