Standing Orders
Item 8 relates to the setting of committee agendas, which is an area of potential difficulty. Did everyone receive a copy of the letter dated 28 February from Dennis Canavan? It should have been on your desks either yesterday or this morning. I received mine yesterday, but some of you may have received it only this morning.
We sent them out yesterday morning.
They should have arrived yesterday then. The thrust of Dennis's letter is that the setting of committee agendas should be a matter for the committee as a whole. There are two issues here. One is the committee's work load, which, clearly, the committee must resolve. The other is the setting of the agenda for each meeting. Presumably the convener should have some degree of discretion over what is included.
It strikes me that the last paragraph in particular of Sir David Steel's letter to Dennis Canavan on 15 February is sound advice. Essentially, it advises committee conveners that they should agree to incorporate specific points from members in agendas, while also making the substantive point that the convener and the committee must manage the work load together. It also advises that members should not think that they have the right suddenly to put a lot of work on to a committee agenda. People must manage the work load together. A balance must be struck.
I am not sure that this is a procedural issue, or certainly not one that could be dealt with through standing orders. Having said that, I have indicated that we are considering other matters of committee operation later in the year. How the agenda is managed might usefully be part of that wider study. I am at your disposal, ladies and gentlemen. How do you want to handle this?
Your advice, convener, and that of the Presiding Officer is wise. Committee members and the convener should be able to co-operate on the setting of business. I would not expect an agenda to go out that the convener had not seen—that is basic competence in running a meeting.
Equally, there must be recourse for members who have difficulty getting items on the agenda, and who are subjected to unreasonable chairmanship. I have read the Official Report and took the opportunity of watching the European Committee on the monitor last week. While I think that Dennis Canavan was a little excited from time to time, the meeting was reminiscent of Renfrewshire Council at its worst. There was an attempt to stop discussion, which is to be deeply regretted.
Conveners have a responsibility to co-operate with committee members in a reasonable manner. That does not seem to have worked in this case. We should consider the whole matter as part of our consideration of committee activities. However, we should remind conveners, in particular, that they will get the best out of their committee if they are able to find constructive ways in which to work with committee members. For a convener to refuse to allow an adjournment strikes me as ridiculous. If the members of the committee genuinely want to adjourn for a minute or two, either to consider a matter, to take further advice or even to go to the loo, it is ridiculous that the convener should sit there like a schoolmaster, saying, "No, we are going ahead no matter what."
Conveners should think much more carefully about what they do. Fortunately, we are blessed with an excellent convener and deputy convener, but those who are not quite so lucky will have to assert themselves. We should consider the matter further.
As a former schoolmaster, I call Janis Hughes.
I do not disagree with Mike Russell. We should consider the matter when we examine committee activities. We must be careful, however. We have received a letter from Dennis Canavan, who is unhappy with the conduct of the meetings of one committee. As far as I know, there have not been complaints from any other members of that committee.
There have.
Well, they are not in the papers that we are here to discuss and we must keep an eye on what we are here to discuss. We should do what has been proposed and discuss the matter as part of our wider consideration of committee activities, but we cannot examine any other aspect of Dennis's letter.
I take the view that the committee drives the agenda and that it is up to the convener to set the agenda in conjunction with that. Someone has to set the agenda, and the convener is the person who should do so. However, it would be worth while considering the matter further. Perhaps the committee has a convener who is slightly heavy handed, but the members of the committee have the remedy in their hands.
The phrasing that you used at the start of this agenda item was useful, convener. It is important to distinguish between the business of the committee and the agenda of a particular meeting. The business is the work programme of items that the committee wishes to consider. It must be left to the convener, in conjunction with the clerk, to determine what business is ready to be dealt with at any particular meeting. I do not envy you the task of putting together the agendas for the Procedures Committee. The fact that, generally, we get through the business quicker than it takes to read through the papers is a testament both to your chairmanship and to the sense with which you introduce the business.
My concern about this item is that it appears that the member involved did not accept the explanation from the clerk and the convener that the document in which he was interested was not on the agenda simply because it was not available. There must be a degree of trust between the convener and members of the committee. In this case, that trust appears to have broken down. The members and the convener of that committee should get together, perhaps informally, to sort out the trust issues that are involved.
However, the advice that you gave earlier, and Sir David Steel's advice, on the business of the committee is correct. The committee as a whole must consider its work programme, but it must be left to the good sense of the convener, in conjunction with the clerk, to determine the agenda for any individual meeting of the committee.
There is no mystery in why items appear on the agenda. They do so when they are ready and in response to issues that have arisen. This committee discussed its work load and agreed a programme of work, which we manage as best we can. Along the way, all sorts of other issues crop up. If they are on a small scale, we deal with them as and when they arise. If they impact on our work load, we have three options: we do not deal with them; we add them to the programme of work; or we incorporate them within a wider piece of work that is being carried out over a long period of time. I would have thought that that is a model for all committees.
A committee can deal with an issue that crops up that is not in the work programme. It hardly matters whether it is dealt with at that meeting, at the next meeting or at a meeting in a couple of weeks' time. However, if members seek to put a lot of additional work, which goes against the committee's work programme, on to a committee, the convener is entitled to control that. Other than that, the convener should be as flexible as he can be in allowing members to raise items within the committee's competence that are of concern to members. However, that is a general principle.
I agree with much of what has been said. Rule 12.3 of standing orders on committee meetings shows that there is a difference between the committee deciding its business and the convener and the clerk deciding the agenda for each meeting. However, it could become a grey area. Unless certain issues are discussed fairly quickly, it is not worth discussing them at all and that could lead to conflict.
It might be possible to consider in our future work programme some wording that might prevent minority members of a committee being pushed aside. It would be worth considering that, to clarify the difference between the business of a committee and its agenda.
I wish to ask for clarification on a point that has arisen. From Hugh Henry's letter, it appears that the convener could rule out of order a motion of no confidence in his or her position as convener. Therefore, would a challenge to that ruling be out of order procedurally? Could one challenge a ruling from the convener and require that to be voted on?
Elizabeth?
I thought that I should bring Elizabeth into the discussion as she was just sitting there quietly.
The standing orders on motions in committees afford the convener a high degree of power and control. It is certainly the case that decisions about which motions that are lodged are to be taken and about whether motions can be taken without notice lie with the convener. In effect, a convener could decline to take a motion of no confidence.
We should address that issue. It is quite intolerable that a convener could rule out such a motion if it arose in a committee. We should also examine the procedure whereby a ruling by a convener from the chair can be challenged at the meeting. It is equally intolerable that that could continue throughout an entire meeting. In considering the power of conveners, we should examine those two issues.
Did the convener refuse to accept a motion about his convenership?
Events in the Official Report excerpt get precious close to that. In that excerpt, the convener constantly rules matters not competent. However, his letter to members of the committee, which poured petrol on the fire, gives an immensely hardline definition of motions. That worries me, because it seems—Elizabeth Watson has confirmed it—that if one moved a motion of no confidence, the convener could rule it out of order. The next move would be to challenge that ruling, but the convener could then rule that out of order. A meeting could continue in that way.
To be fair to members, we should consider in our review the question of votes of no confidence in conveners of committee, because they must be in a special category. Of course, that would raise the possibility of votes of no confidence being raised every 10 minutes, but in practice that would not happen.
One would probably have to move a motion in Parliament to remove somebody from a committee. As motions on the membership of committees have to come from the Parliamentary Bureau, one might be in terminal difficulty.
I agree that we should consider this question as part of our long-term review.
I thought that committees would have the power to do something about matters. It seems strange to have God in the chair but to have no way of praying.
It is not the setting of the agenda that is important, but the ability of members to get items on the agenda. Other business on the agenda may mean that those items have to be discussed later, but it is not on to rule out things out of hand. No other committee would tolerate that.
We will consider the question of motions of no confidence as part of our continuing work programme. It is always open to members to raise specific difficulties that have arisen in the Parliament or in a committee. However, it appears that there is no clear procedural answer to this difficulty so we will need to get a response in due course. In the interim, it might serve some purpose if the thoughts that have been expressed at this meeting were conveyed to the appropriate members.
We should encourage conveners to be democratic and responsive, just as we always encourage members to be constructive, positive and polite.
Before you close the meeting, convener, I wish to raise a small item. I was not at the previous meeting because I was at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in New Delhi. Although I will not report fully on the conference, a number of interesting and unexpected issues arose in relation to comparative standing orders, which is an area in which John Patterson has taken some interest. We are perhaps missing a trick if we do not explore practice in other parliaments.
I will give two brief examples. First, there is a practice that is allowed under the standing orders of parliaments, particularly in the West Indies, of taking Speakers from outside Parliament. The Speaker of the St Lucia Parliament was at the conference and I discovered that he is not an elected parliamentarian. He was a newspaper editor and had been invited to become the Speaker. It is a small Parliament, but that practice works particularly well because it provides an independent chairman who, because of his previous activity, has no association with any political party.
I am not suggesting that system for the Scottish Parliament, but the possibility of problems with our system has been raised and we are due to consider that matter. Perhaps we could learn from practice elsewhere.
Secondly, the Indian Parliament begins its budget process today. That process is long established and not dissimilar to the process that we have grasped our way towards, in terms of the committees' role in scrutinising certain aspects of the budget. In India, the process is enshrined and has been well worked out in both Houses over many years.
Our committees meet in public, but the practice in many Commonwealth Parliaments is for standing committees to meet in private. We could make others aware of the benefits of public meetings. People were astonished when I told them that we have to give a reason for going into private session.
We could gain from looking at standing orders from other Parliaments and discovering how problems have been solved. We will find, from time to time, that the solutions are interesting and do not necessarily flow from the fount of Westminster.
I suggest that during the next few months, we—the clerks and members—might select a particular issue and subject it to some comparative analysis to find what the solution has been in other places. That would be very instructive. I also know that there are parliamentarians from all over the Commonwealth who would like to know what we are doing. When they visit from time to time, they may wish to attend this committee and I am sure that we would invite them to do so.
John, do you want to respond?
Simply to say that if members have matters that they want to explore in that way, they should let us know and we will do our best to work that up. Is Mr Russell suggesting that he would lead on a particular issue, or would another member—
As issues come up, we might ask the clerks for some comparative analysis or we might ask members to get involved. For example, we plan to look at privilege, to which there is a different approach, albeit a legalistic approach that relies on the law of the land, in almost every jurisdiction. It would be interesting to see whether that could inform our work.
We have the luxury of being able, at this comparatively young stage, to introduce ideas and apply them to our practice. It will not always be so. We should encourage everyone to bring in ideas.
If I may say so, that is a very good idea and would ventilate the issues when they are new. Occasional agenda items along those lines would be helpful.
That was a good example of how an issue might be raised at a committee for discussion and for the edification of members without having a decision attached to it, so that no one's privileges have been infringed by its not being on the agenda.
Thank you for your attendance.
Meeting closed at 10:47.