Standards Committee, 01 Sep 1999

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 1, 1999

Official Report 185KB pdf

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“Register of Members' Interests”

Everybody has received a briefing note on the publication of the register of interests of the members of the Scottish Parliament. The committee is invited to agree that the publication of the register should take place as soon as possible, probably in October or November this year, and on the same date in subsequent years. Does everybody agree?

Members indicated agreement.

Turning to the second part of this item, have you all noted the proposed format for publication? Is everybody happy with it?

I am happy enough with the format of the register, but I am concerned that there will be a cost for members of the public who want to buy it from the Stationery Office. Can we not make the register readily available in the same way as briefings are available in the visitor centre? Do we need to ask members of the public to spend an as yet unspecified amount to find out the interests of their MSP? The information is freely available on the internet; if it is freely available to the tiny percentage of the people of Scotland with access to the internet, I believe that it should be freely available to people who come to the visitor centre or to some other point of contact—one of the partner libraries, for example. We should not be asking the public to spend money purchasing it.

Are there any further comments on that point?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that there will be at least one partner library in each constituency.

I think that that is true.

Costs are an issue, and we must look to the Stationery Office to see whether we can reduce the cost of the register. However, if people had paid 32p for the Daily Record, or 43p—or whatever it is—for The Herald, they would have read over the summer the full register of every member's interests. My local paper also printed the register, and I have had numerous inquiries about it.

We are trying to move away from producing a lot of paper copies of documents—we want to be slightly more environmentally friendly—so we need to consider other methods of making the register and other parliamentary publications publicly available. If it is not possible to reduce the cost substantially, perhaps we could extend the scheme to two libraries per constituency.

I assume that the register will be made available on the internet.

Yes.

When I read the information as cited, I was not 100 per cent clear about the position of the MSPs who are also members of the Westminster Parliament, in terms of their total remuneration from the two Parliaments. Malcolm Chisholm's statement was clear, but that was not the case elsewhere. Might there be a mechanism by which we could identify members' total remuneration from public sources? We cannot see clearly from the list how much members are earning and that information should be available.

The present format shows the first statements. I am not clear how the format would change, or how updates would be recorded, as members change their entries.

I will take advice from the clerk—[Interruption].

The clerk's advice is that it is up to the Parliament to decide annually the frequency of updates. I do not see the point of the clerk speaking to me and my repeating that advice to the other members of the committee. Do members want to hear the clerk's advice directly?

Yes.

Frequency of publication is a matter for the Parliament as a whole to decide, but the most practical arrangement would be to publish the full document annually. The internet version of the register is updated instantly, as is the loose-leaf version, which is kept in the office of the clerk for public inspection. The annual publication represents a snapshot taken at the time of publication—that is also the Westminster system.

Mr McNulty mentioned the manner in which remuneration is recorded, which is regulated by the Scotland Act 1998 (Transitory and Transitional Provisions) (Members' Interests) Order 1999—the legislation that covers members' interests and sets out the requirements. It might be difficult to change the legislation with immediate effect, but members could consider replacement legislation for the interim members' interests order after they consider the code of conduct.

I raised the strange position of those who are members of both the Scottish Parliament and the Westminster Parliament. It would be helpful if there were guidelines, as, even if we cannot change the pattern of registration, we should advise members how to disclose relevant information.

Perhaps we should discuss that with item 3—the report on the initial registration of members' interests—because the details of how people are registering interests are relevant to that.

In relation to the snapshot version, I am sure that the position of a number of people will have changed between 1 June and 1 August. Do we simply record the position at the publication date, or do we record changes retrospectively? I do not mind, but I want to be clear how we are going to do it.

The idea is to publish the information as it is, is it not?

Yes, and that includes any changes. There is a requirement on members to inform us of any positive changes within 30 days; the printed version will contain changes entered in the register before the date of publication.

Some of the points that Tricia raised need to be considered in more detail. I am quite happy with the current arrangements, but I share people's concern about keeping the costs down as far as possible so that the register is available to members of the public.

In addition, it might be useful for a loose-leaf version to be available for people to access in the visitor centre. Members of the public would probably find it useful if we pointed out that when they buy the Stationery Office version, it will only be as accurate as it can be at the publication date. If they require the updates and changes, they will have to access the register via the other available formats. We must be clear about the limitations of the published document.

That is a sensible suggestion and I think that we should act on it. Are we agreed? Good.

Now we must agree the terms of the draft foreword. Has everyone had a chance to read the draft? The draft is a matter for Sir David, but it has been put before us out of courtesy. Are the terms agreed? They are agreed.

Finally, do we agree that I should lodge a motion at the earliest opportunity to seek the Parliament's agreement to annual publication of the register? That is agreed.

When is the suggested publication date?

As soon as we can arrange it.

We will move on to item 3, which will be discussed in private session.