Procedures Committee, 02 Nov 1999

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 2, 1999

Official Report 176KB pdf

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Work Programme

There is an annexe to the forward work programme showing the various issues that have already been raised over the past few months, but which referred to the medium term rather than the short term. Obviously, they will come back to us.

My one question about this list of issues is on paragraph 9, which refers to the financial issue, rule 9.12. Presumably, that is the issue which Mr McCabe raised. We have agreed that it should be a priority issue.

Item 12 is a matter raised by Paul Grice, about which I should advise the committee. There is a feeling that there are matters concerning interparliamentary liaison which have nowhere to go. It might be appropriate for the Procedures Committee to examine the issue. The example that Paul gave was the question of what we thought about House of Lords reform. This Parliament has not had the opportunity to have an input into the matter.

As such matters arise, it might be relevant for the committee to consider them. We felt that it might be useful to invite Paul to put those thoughts down in a more coherent form and to produce a proposal, which we could consider as part of the on-going remit of the committee.

That is very wise. The issue of House of Lords reform almost fell between stools in this Parliament because of the time scale according to which the Parliament was operating and the time scale according to which the Wakeham committee was taking evidence. I made a point about the House of Commons Procedure Committee report. Although that committee made recommendations about the relationships between the members of legislatures, we as a Parliament have not yet made recommendations about members of the Westminster Parliament or of the European Parliament. We should discuss that report reasonably urgently, perhaps before Christmas.

I gather that the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body is dealing with the housekeeping arrangements between the Parliaments.

The House of Commons Procedure Committee report considered some of the issues concerning interparliamentary liaison. It is a procedural issue, about how the Parliament operates. There would have to be an amendment to standing orders to allow it to happen. There is no reason why we should not make suggestions to the corporate body.

There are two other issues, which I have raised already. First, I would like the rules on sub judice and privilege to be addressed.

Secondly, at a very early stage, I raised the matter of a comparative exercise with other bodies' standing orders. I have recently requested, from John Patterson, information from other bodies. I have examined other documentation, including standing orders in Holland. This Parliament could learn from other people's experience. At some stage, we should have a discursive meeting on particular issues, informed by experience of other bodies' standing orders.

The clerks have a general desire to have a thorough look at chapter 10 of the standing orders, which deals with Scottish statutory instruments. We should include that in the work list.

I do not know whether this is the right vehicle for these issues. One is the relationship of civil servants to the Parliament—in particular to the parliamentary committees. They will work less efficiently than they should if they do not have good support from the civil servants. I am not sure whether that is a Procedures Committee issue.

If one had a suggestion on improving liaison between ministers and MSPs, to streamline and reduce the overall work load, and to reduce the number of unnecessary questions and so on, such as introducing a surgery system—would that be for the Procedures Committee, the Parliamentary Bureau, God or whoever?

The power of prayer could be used.

I would not like to answer for the Almighty, but as far as the Procedures Committee is concerned, we will examine suggestions and advise on how they might be tackled.

I cannot give you an off-the-cuff answer. I do not know, and I do not think that the clerks are sure either.

If they are faintly relevant, I might put a few brief thoughts on paper for a future meeting.

The conveners committee is considering the first issue that you raise, with regard to support, and will discuss it again today. The matter has been taken care of. I suggest that it is not appropriate for the Procedures Committee to address it, because it is a resource issue for committee conveners.

To be fair, there is a great deal of support in the bureau and elsewhere for ensuring that the maximum support is provided to committees. In his article in The Herald, John McAllion made some important points about the areas on which we should focus and about how we should find the resources to support committees through the information centre and elsewhere.

We could still ask Donald to put his thoughts down on paper, so that we can ascertain whether some of the points that concern him fall to the other bodies that are dealing with the issue, which might be of relevance to us.

Will we prioritise those issues at some stage? Can we get a prioritised list and timetable for between now and next March?

From January 2000?

Yes.

From January through to March.

What is our present time scale for laying the standing orders?

We are still hoping to do that before the turn of the year. We will soon start to hit the problem of time slots, but we have indicated that we do not anticipate that we will need a particularly long slot. Because there is general agreement on the changes, there should not be great controversy on the floor of the chamber. I do not see the need for me to make a long speech, and I do not think that the minister sees the need to give a long reply. If we are willing to agree that we should submit our report fairly quickly, there could be more flexibility. However, if our intention is to take an hour and a half, which would allow everyone to have their say, it will be difficult to shoehorn that in.

We should ask for one of the Thursday slots after First Minister's questions, which are the shortest slots available—about an hour and a half—by the end of November, so that we can get this programmed in and under way.

Do we really need an hour and a half?

That was my point. Do we want to spend an hour and a half on this? Several four-minute speeches could be fitted in, and I do not think that the issue merits that much time.

There are no shorter slots, although there is the possibility of sharing the slot with, perhaps, a ministerial statement, which would take half or three quarters of an hour. That would be the obvious way in which to proceed. However, we should still ask for the slot by the end of November, so that we can get the measure through. Once the standing orders are enacted, we will have to change to the new system of questions immediately, I presume. It would not be a bad thing to have the first new question time in December. We could then work out any problems, so that by the new year we were happy with the system.

I agree. We should look to complete the process by the end-of-year recess, so that we can return with the new standing orders. We must also bear in mind that, once we have agreed the final version of the standing orders, we will have to give the parties some time to discuss it, before we bring it before Parliament. I will take advice from the clerks, but I think that we should still be looking to lay the standing orders before the recess.

It would be nice not only to have laid the standing orders before the recess, but to have had at least one new question time before we rose.

The intention is that the standing orders should be ready to be laid by the end of November. That depends on how quickly the work can be completed, which is bound up with taking and receiving legal advice and sorting out the nuts and bolts. It also depends on timetabling. However, the indication from the committee is that we will do our best to get the business dealt with as early as possible.

Of the issues on the list we have already dealt with, by and large, emergency questions. We have managed to dispense today with the method of electing committee conveners. We have also dealt with the declaration of interests, unless there is a wider issue than the one that we addressed with regard to Alex Neil. We are, therefore, reducing the size of the list.

There are some fairly heavy things on the list—such as members' bills—that will take a lot of time. At subsequent meetings, members will still be free to bring up further points and priorities, and they will, no doubt, continue to be referred from the chamber.