The next item on the agenda is consideration of committee amendments. It has been suggested that it would be possible to identify certain amendments to bills as committee amendments without changing the standing orders. Mike Watson, the convener of the Finance Committee, is the originator of the correspondence. Because this is an Andrew Mylne issue, he joins us for this discussion. Andrew, do you have any comments to make as a preface to our discussion?
Very few, convener. As the paper explains, it is quite a straightforward and essentially administrative proposal that requires no changes to standing orders. I have spoken to Mike Watson, who originated the correspondence, and he has said that he is content with our proposal and that it meets his initial suggestion.
Is the committee broadly content with what has been suggested?
I have a question that probably reflects my ignorance of the law. Might a committee be acting wrongly if it lodged an amendment during stage 2 discussions? In other words, if a committee is acting in a judicial capacity by going through a bill and agreeing or disagreeing to amendments, and then lodges its own amendment, is that a problem legally, morally or in any other way?
The paper does not envisage that a stage 2 committee—that is, the committee to which the bill has been referred for stage 2 consideration—will lodge committee amendments. The mechanism would be that other committees should lodge amendments at stage 2. It seems unnecessary for the stage 2 committee to agree to lodge an amendment in its name, because the same committee will dispose of the amendment. If the committee agreed that an amendment was desirable, it could simply agree to it and enter it into the bill.
I presume that the same applies to committee amendments, other than amendments from the lead committee that are lodged at stage 3.
Indeed. At stage 3, it might be appropriate for the committee that conducted the stage 2 debate to lodge an amendment in the committee's name. The decision whether an amendment is agreed to and should therefore become part of the bill is for the whole Parliament to make.
Thanks for that clarification.
Although I can understand the motivation behind enhancing the weight that is given to committee views in the Parliament, I have some concerns about the idea that committee members are bound by committee decisions. An amendment might well have been agreed to without any particular challenge, because the matter had not been scrutinised as much as it might have been. One of the dangers of our unicameral system is that there are no arrangements for revision, which is probably why it is important to deal with matters as best as we can at stage 2. However, I can well imagine a situation in which fresh information comes to light after the committee report is published. Although I am in favour of the notion that committees should be regarded as an important part of the Parliament, I am not too convinced by the idea that we should bind committee members to committees' views. That might undermine the position of a convener or vice-convener who lodged an amendment on behalf of a committee.
I do not think that the proposal is intended to be binding. Paragraphs 12, 13 and 14 of the paper make it clear that committee members cannot be bound in that way.
If the members are not bound, the underlying premise that the committee can lodge an amendment is—
The point was—well, I do not even remember the initial issue that gave rise to the proposal. Based on the information that it had, the Finance Committee firmly held the collective view that an amendment should be passed. The committee felt that it would give its viewpoint greater weighting in other people's deliberations if it were possible to express the amendment as a committee amendment. Clearly, if a committee amendment unravels and in the light of subsequent discussion, information, party pressure, full attendance or anything else—who knows what might change—committee members do not entirely support the amendment, that would delete the significance of the collective view. However, if a committee felt that, despite what fate could throw at it, it still held to its view and wished to express it, it is not unreasonable for such a committee to find a way to express its point of view.
Okay.
Sorry about that—it was a bit of a sledgehammer. Are we agreed?
I think that we have to write to everyone concerned.