David Maddox: Houston, we have a problem

It is not often that a meeting of the Scottish Parliament's Audit Committee attracts much interest, but today its members are grilling Guy Houston (pictured), the former Financial Director of Transport Scotland.
He is trying to explain why having shares in the First Group did not give him a conflict of interest when the Transport Scotland extended the First Rail Group's (a subsidiary of First Group) rail franchise in Scotland.
As you will no doubt read in tomorrow's Scotsman Mr Houston has an answer for almost everything and his defence is essentially that he was not in any decision making meetings on the franchise, although he did attend meetings that discussed the issue, and that he has not sold his shares, although he did exercise his options on First shares which have subsequently increased in value.
In the words of Home Secretary Jackie Smith over her expenses claims for her sister's house or fellow UK minister Tony McNulty for claims for his parents' house, Mr Houston says he "followed the rules." But, unlike them, he did resign because he was afraid of embarrassing Scottish ministers.
This is definitely a time for forensic grilling, perhaps from a leading lawyer, and the committee members including the creator of Transport Scotland, former Lib Dem leader Nicol Stephen, are taking on the proverbial task of nailing a blomange to a wall. However, they will have the final word in their report.
But one thing they could have done without was the drilling outside the parliament on work for new security measures, which, embarrassingly, was so loud that it brought the meeting to a temporary halt, until the workers outside could be asked to stop.