Procedures Committee, 06 Mar 2007

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Official Report 137KB pdf

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Parliamentary Time

The next item is our review of parliamentary time. Members have a paper that contains the correspondence on the subject between the committee and the Parliamentary Bureau. The head of the chamber office wrote to us to say that the bureau was not minded to allow time for a debate on our report on the use of parliamentary time. He said that Chris Ballance had strongly argued our case but that the other members of the bureau did not support him.

On behalf of the committee, I wrote to the Presiding Officer and asked whether Karen Gillon and I could meet the bureau to clarify the points that arose from its decision. George Reid replied and said that Karen and I could attend the bureau's meeting on 27 February. After the meeting, which I will talk about in a moment, Murray Tosh wrote formally to us and stated that the bureau had agreed not to schedule time to debate our report.

I have to be careful what I say about the Parliamentary Bureau meeting—it was a private meeting, so I am not allowed to say that X said this and Y said that, but I can explain the position in general.

Unfortunately, Karen Gillon was unable to come to the meeting, because she had to deal with a constituency matter. However, I spoke to her on the phone and mentioned my two main lines of approach, which were first, to ask members of the bureau why they objected to our proposal, and secondly, to argue that the bureau's proposal that we should pass the matter on to our successor committee in the next session of Parliament is not an intelligent idea. We cannot expect our successor committee to take up a somewhat controversial issue that has been bequeathed to it. Karen Gillon agreed that it was fair for me to make those points on behalf of the committee, which I duly did.

I was told, in general terms, that certain members of the bureau do not like the interpellation proposal and are worried about the idea that motions and amendments for ordinary debates in Parliament should be lodged earlier. Members of the bureau thought that most MSPs have not addressed the issue at all, but we know that we went to exceptional lengths to consult members. We had two rounds of consultation, debates and meetings, but the bureau thought that the whole thing might come as a surprise to most MSPs and that they needed more time to consider it.

The bureau argued that it was more logical for the next Parliament, which will enjoy the benefits or otherwise of the changes, to make the decisions. That is a debating point, although it does not seem to be a very good one.

Following consultation, I suggested that if the bureau had said what upset them about our proposals, we could have divided our motion, or had one motion but two or three different votes on different aspects of it so that members did not need to vote down or accept the whole proposal—they could vote for what they liked and against what they disliked. The bureau members claimed that that would be "unprecedented"—the worst thing one can say about anything—and that it would cause confusion, which does not suggest a high estimate of members' IQs and is not a very good argument.

However, there was some support for at least having a debate, but not necessarily a vote. Chris Ballance—oh, I am not allowed to say that.

Feel free. I have no desire for privacy.

Chris Ballance spoke up and some others in the bureau expressed some support for us, but it was clear to me and to Andrew Mylne, who came to the meeting as an observer, that we had to accept the fact that the majority was against us.

So what, if anything, do we do about it? I feel—I think other colleagues do, too—that it is an unsatisfactory decision by the bureau that demeans the committee structure. The committee worked for 18 months on an issue and went abroad at public expense to examine what other Parliaments do. We brought back what we thought was the best idea from those Parliaments and put it up for a trial, but the bureau is turning the whole thing down. It seems to me that the bureau is trying to stop the proper working of Parliament. What do colleagues feel and what, if anything, should we do about it?

To a certain extent, I am fairly ambivalent about whether the report goes ahead or not, because I have not been involved in the tortuous process of compiling it, as other committee members have. However, if the bureau is talking about precedents, it is unprecedented that a committee report should be picked to bits by the bureau and not given time for a debate because the bureau does not agree with large parts of it. I am not happy about that situation and I am not aware that it has ever happened before.

As to what the committee can do about it, there are three or four weeks left of this parliamentary session, and although we are not happy about the situation, I suggest that nothing can be done about it. If the bureau has decided that the report is not going to be given parliamentary time, then it is not going to be given time.

We are going to discuss the legacy paper later. I would be reluctant to ask a future committee to take this report to Parliament, because it would have to go through the whole process again. I agree that it is an absolute waste of the time of everyone who has sat on the committee and of the very few MSPs who got involved and responded to the consultation. Some of the committee's activities have, as a result, involved a huge waste of money. I hope that, if the committee agrees, it will express that feeling to the bureau. However, I do not think that anything can be done. We should not waste any more of the committee's time on it, to be honest.

Chris Ballance has two angles, as it were, on the issue.

Again, without breaching any of the confidences of a bureau meeting, a particular business manager argued on the one hand that MSPs hate parts of the report and, on the other hand, that MSPs know nothing about it. I find that to be a quite extraordinary combination of arguments.

Apart from the committee, I do not know how many members have read the inquiry report. The level of knowledge of it is probably quite low and I am deeply disappointed that the bureau could not even agree to the compromise that the report should be debated and noted. That would have been no skin off anybody's nose; it would have got the report out into the parliamentary domain, raised awareness of it and made it easier for a future committee to get involved with the debate and advance what is suggested in the report.

We have now effectively torn up the report and said that the committee has wasted its time, parliamentary money and resources for the past 18 months. The bureau's decision demonstrates a lack of openness to new ideas, which strikes me as being against the founding principles of the Parliament, to which we should adhere. It is about being open not only to people but to change and considering change. I am deeply depressed and annoyed by the stance that has been taken by the bureau but, like Kate Maclean, I am not sure what we can do about it, apart from trying to get more publicity for our anger about the decision.

I am perhaps more sanguine about the situation. The committee has been here before. The previous committee, of which I was not a member, held a massive inquiry and produced a document on the founding principles, which we looked at when we began our inquiry. The findings of the previous inquiry were not decided on at the end of the previous session. Our committee has looked into issues that came out of that and come up with recommendations and actions for the Parliament.

Following the bureau's decision, I suppose that that is all we can hope for now for our own report into parliamentary time. The bureau was not in favour of debating certain parts of it. We as committee members compromised on some issues because we supported other aspects of the report. For example, I am still not sold on interpellations. I did not have the benefit of going on any trips to see how the procedure worked and therefore I am not sold on the process—perhaps it is because I have seen it only on paper.

There is a wider issue. One thing that the bureau was right about was that the vast majority of members probably did not know about the report and therefore did not engage with it. That is not the committee's fault. We did everything possible to try to involve our colleagues in the debate.

It is the same with any committee.

Yes, that is right. Although colleagues did not grasp our report, it would have been worse had we gone to the floor of the chamber with it and found out that they were sceptical about it and that there was a lack of awareness about it, with the result that they voted it down. I am more sanguine about where we are now on that basis, but that is not to say that I am not disappointed that there has been no proper engagement with the report.

We do not generally have engagement when we launch consultations on such documents. An issue for our legacy paper is, how the hell do we get members with busy lives, who are members of other committees and are overwhelmed by other matters, to engage with a fundamental issue about how this Parliament works? We need to advise the next committee to examine how we can get members to engage with such issues in future.

It is essential that the next committee looks into question time procedure. Inevitably, interpellations will come up as part of that. It is important that we include in our legacy paper the fact that we had difficulties in getting members to engage with such an important issue, and that when looking again at any of the matters in our inquiry it should examine further ways of getting members to comment, although we have not been shy in trying to do that.

I am disappointed with regard to receiving earlier notice of motions. As members know, I championed that proposal during the inquiry. It would have been useful to consider it further. I will be disappointed if it is not discussed by the next committee.

Richard Baker is right that the previous Procedures Committee dealt with the subject before. Reports by other committees have also not been debated—it happens. Kate Maclean is right that the bureau's unpicking of the report, rather than simply choosing not to debate it, is probably unprecedented. There have been numerous cases in which committee reports have not made it to the floor of the chamber to be debated.

I am not concerned that a future committee will not pick up the issues that we raised. They need to be picked up and taken forward, particularly the issues about stages 2 and 3 and the notice period for motions and amendments. It is ridiculous that we are in a position today where we are lodging amendments to motions that will be debated tomorrow. The motions are not emergency ones; they relate to policy announcements that political parties made months ago, so they could have been lodged last week. That would have enabled members to engage in a decent dialogue with their constituents and with stakeholders. That is particularly true of the debate on alcohol misuse by young people, which is a serious issue. I know that the convener has strong views on that. If we want the process to be meaningful and not stage-managed by political parties—whichever they are—we need to get the notice period for motions and amendments right.

What can we do? Other members are right—we cannot do anything. The bureau has the power, and it has spoken. We need to take it on the chin and put the matter in our legacy paper. Those of us who are lucky enough to be here in the next session of Parliament can champion the matter with the next Procedures Committee. I hope to be back, but not on the Procedures Committee. [Laughter.]

I have a further point on something that the bureau said. If one of the criteria for getting items debated in the chamber was that members had read the relevant report or knew anything at all about what other committees were discussing, we would have a paucity of business in the chamber. If MSPs are members of one, two or three committees, they do not have time to study in detail the work of other committees. I am sure that I am not the only MSP who goes into the chamber, listens to debates and votes on subjects in which I have had no involvement.

Everybody knows what is happening here today and what happened in the bureau. We should not kid ourselves that there is any reason for the decision other than the fact that people do not agree with parts of the report. The argument that members have not read the report or do not know what the Procedures Committee has been up to is spurious.

I should add that there is substantial opposition from more than one business manager to the concept of giving more notice of motions. That is deeply depressing because, as Karen Gillon and Richard Baker said, civic society cannot engage with the Parliament if members themselves do not know what motions and amendments have been lodged for debate until 6 o'clock on the evening before the debate. Society does not know what will be debated at 9.15 on a Thursday morning until the Business Bulletin is published at 8.30. The system is as opaque as it could be. It is ridiculous. I find it extraordinary, but our position does not have general support.

It is helpful to get colleagues' views. We come from slightly different angles, but we all agree that we are disappointed.

The only opportunity to mention the matter in the chamber, other than in a point of order, is to challenge the business motion. Technically, one is supposed to go through the motions of opposing the business motion in order to speak to it, although people have done that in the past and then withdrawn their opposition. By opposing the business motion, one gets three minutes to state one's case and the Minister for Parliamentary Business has to respond. That would put the matter on the record. What we are saying now is on the record, but the matter will be more visibly on the record if it is raised in the chamber.

I welcome colleagues' views on whether it would be worth while having a brief debate on the issue.

Are you suggesting that we have that debate and not push the matter to a vote?

Whatever colleagues think. I have challenged the business motion several times in the past. Occasionally, the vote in favour of my challenge has got into double figures, but one is on a hiding to nothing, really.

That would be 10 votes, then.

It is, nevertheless, an opportunity for setting out a case on which members of the committee have strong feelings. I presume that the Minister for Parliamentary Business would have to represent what she thought were the bureau's and the Executive's views.

There is an additional point to be made. Through the good offices of Andrew Mylne, in working through the official system, we are going to get a written response from the Executive—as opposed to the bureau—on its views on our report. That might be interesting reading.

That is quite a good idea. The advantage of challenging the business motion is that the convener would get three minutes in which to tell the entire chamber what we think are the key points of our report and why we think they should be debated. There would be 120 members there, so they would at least know that there is a Procedures Committee report. The report is not going to be debated, but it is hoped that some of the issues in it will be raised in the next session, and some of the members present will be future members of the Procedures Committee.

I would be cautious about that approach, convener. It might look as though we had had a fight, lost it and were taking our ball away in a big huff. Some other committee reports have not been debated because of decisions of the Conveners Group, or whatever. We should be cautious and think about what we would get out of that. Would it benefit us or would it not? We would have to be sure that it would bring benefit to a future committee in looking at the issues, which is what we want.

Have certain committee reports not been debated because the bureau did not like their content? I cannot think of any precedent for that.

They were never scheduled for debate by the Conveners Group, so we do not know whether it was because the bureau did not like their content. Committee business gets only 12 half-days in the chamber per year, and we have had those 12 half-days already. We are looking for extra time over and above that. It might be worth trying to get it, but I do not know.

You are right to say that it would not be something to do lightly or inadvisedly. Nevertheless, if there was a brief debate and the subject was aired, that would at least reduce one of the arguments against the whole exercise—the argument that most MSPs have not engaged with the subject. It would at least open up the subject to some of our colleagues who had not given the matter any thought. That might help the future committee in dealing with the issue.

It would be good to put on the record the fact that we have looked into the issues in some depth and that they should not just go away. However, I am torn as to whether what has been suggested is the right mechanism for the committee to use. It is common for individual members to challenge the business motion on individual issues, but perhaps the committee should do something more formal, such as write a letter to the bureau. Like Karen Gillon, I have reservations about taking the proposed course of action. I agree with the convener that there needs to be a mechanism for the committee to place on the record our strong feeling that our successor committee needs to take up these issues. Perhaps that needs to go beyond the legacy paper.

If we wrote to the bureau, is there any means by which the letter could become a public paper and the figures would be on the record?

Could we not write to the bureau and copy the letter to all members?

Why do we not do that? That would be sensible.

We could include a copy of the Official Report of today's meeting.

It would not be on the public record in the same way.

It is on the public record as a result of this meeting.

To be honest, if the matter is discussed in the chamber at decision time—when there are never any members of the press there—it will not be any more on the public record than it is now. Nobody pays much attention to what happens then, either.

My recollection of the round-table discussions that we had with people from outside Parliament was that they said that it was a matter for us and that we should get on and do whatever we thought was right. I do not get the impression that there is a huge clamouring from the public to find out exactly what we decided to do. Members have to decide how to proceed. Writing a letter to the bureau and copying it to all members with a copy of the Official Report might be a better approach. Let us be honest: at two minutes past 5 on a Thursday night, how many members are actually listening to what is being said? Would we be able to get over the points that we want to make? Directly sending each member a personally addressed letter might have more of an impact.

When somebody stands up to make a point of order or to challenge the business motion, members tend to listen, although they might not listen to some of the other things that are said.

We have to make a decision.

I agree with Kate Maclean's suggestion.

We will compose a letter, which will go from us to the bureau.

Will it go to the Presiding Officer?

Yes.

And it will be copied to all members.

Yes. A copy will be sent to all members. It will be a proper letter, not just an e-mail—although it could be sent both ways. It will also be sent to all the press to see whether we can interest some of them in the issue.

Will it be copied to the press at the same time? I would send it to the Presiding Officer first.

Right. We can report it to the press subsequently. We are trying to draw attention to the issue. It is not a burning issue for the press, but some of them might be interested in it.

I agree.

The question is the mechanism of producing a letter that people can sign up to.

Could the clerks draft something based on the discussion that we have had and e-mail it to us?

Right.

That would be the easiest thing to do.

Thank you. We are all disappointed, but at least we discussed the issue in a reasonable fashion.

How is the convener's blood pressure?

He was quite calm.

I am quite calm. I am just biting my lip.