Procedures Committee, 07 Nov 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 7, 2000

Official Report 231KB pdf

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Committee Operations

We have nobody in particular to speak on item 6, but if we need advice there are plenty of people on whom we can usefully draw. Is the running list of 18 issues amended from last time?

No.

Then we will take it as read.

Were additional issues brought forward as a result of our trawl of committee conveners, and will they be included?

There was one further issue, on the introduction of bills.

We will take account of that when we look at that issue.

Four issues are to be discussed today. The first was raised by the Finance Committee. Does anyone have any comments or are you happy with the recommendation?

The problem is possibly related to the complexity of financial matters, but it is also related to the lack of clarity of a lot of statements made by various Governments. It is not a party political point; all Governments tend to make financial matters as obscure as possible. We are doing better here than at Westminster, but by the time the Local Government Committee, for example, was asked to discuss "Investing in You" it was so unclear what money local government would really get that there was not much point in discussing it. Really precise and relevant information needs to be got to committees in sufficient time for them to have a worthwhile discussion of it.

It seems also to be the case that the parliamentary cycle at Westminster is different from the cycle here, so changes are made there that mean that figures here are recalculated and programmes are readjusted. We are probably always going to be striving to deliver on commitments on information because of that. The thrust of the recommendation is to try to include as much clarity, transparency and exchange of views in the system as can be managed within such constraints.

Members indicated agreement.

The second issue is joint consideration by sub-committees. It is very technical. The suggestion is that we do not need to change very much but that we should issue clarification. There is a suggestion that we insert in rule 6.14 a reference to rule 12.5. I wonder whether we should explicitly place a reference to joint sub-committees in rule 12.5. That would mean that the paragraphs cross-refer.

That is sensible.

Subject to that addition, is the recommendation agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

We have considered the suspension of committee meetings. The recommendations are sensible: conveners are given all the powers of the Presiding Officer, with the exception of those described by rule 7.4.4. As I understand it, if the suspension of a meeting by the Presiding Officer means that business is lost, the bulletin will be reprinted. That would not be appropriate in a committee, but I suggest that we ought to recommend that some way be found for business lost at a committee because of a suspension to be notified, so that everyone is aware that that is the case and that it will be rescheduled. Someone trying to track what has happened over a series of meetings might find that useful; changes of that sort should be in the public record. I do not think that we want a convener to be able to provoke the printing of a fresh daily business list. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

That takes us to the final issue: the removal of conveners. It is slightly more interesting. The committee is invited to consider whether there should be a procedure to govern the removal of conveners and, if so, whether it approves the necessary changes in standing orders, which are listed.

This is not a subject to which I have given any great thought because I do not aspire to such heights, but are not committee conveners appointed by Parliament—or are they appointed by the committee?

Technically, they are chosen by the committees, but they are done so according to the rules laid down by the bureau about the allocation of convenerships to the parties on the d'Hondt principle, which means that, for example, on this committee, members had no choice but me.

If it is technically the committee that chooses them, my objection falls. If it were technically the Parliament that appointed them, it might have to unappoint them, but if the committee appoints them, it is fair enough for the committee to unappoint them.

Difficulties might arise if there were a single representative of a party on a committee. That would be more of an issue in streamlined committees where there might not be another person to put in the chair under the d'Hondt principle. It is not a straightforward exercise, but it will be for someone else to resolve, not us.

So we are lumbered with you, convener, even if we completely hate you?

If you ditched me, you would force me off the committee and would require my party to nominate an alternative representative.

That is an idea.

It is tempting.

Far be it from me to make such a suggestion. There are probably 18 people in room 1.08 of parliamentary headquarters who would offer you something pretty tasty not to do that.

I thought that you were going to say room 101.

No, I do not know who is in room 101. It is obviously not Dennis Canavan.

I wanted to raise something else from the report. Essentially, what is being recommended is that the convener of a committee must place the motion for his removal—to cast him into the outer darkness—on the agenda either of the next meeting, or within a certain period of time. He cannot stall for ever; members are entitled to have the motion put on the agenda. However, it does appear that, in other respects, members are pretty limited and cannot put matters on the agenda. Are we considering that? If Donald Gorrie wanted to put an issue on the agenda and I was not prepared to have it, should not Donald have the right to put it on the agenda and at least let the committee decide that it is not going to do what he wants it to do, rather than my saying that we are not having it?

We are not considering that specific matter.

Should we?

I thought that the matter had been raised before by somebody who was cross.

Do you mean when we discussed any other business?

There was a committee on which some people had a spat with the convener and the matter was raised.

Does item 2 of the table cover it?

Items 1 and 2 are intrinsically linked, but both of them will extend to cover some aspects of the matter that has just been raised.

It is important that members know that they can raise an issue. A member might get only five minutes at a committee before the convener says that the committee will not do the work that the member wants done, asks whether the committee agrees and the committee takes the decision, but I am not sure that the convener should be able to say, "No, we will never discuss that."

I agree with you.

I accept in principle what you say, convener—the principle is sound—but committees do work out their work plan in private and allocate time and resources. I tend to look at the negative, and it is clear that a system such as the one you suggest could be open to abuse by members who want to promote a particular issue outwith the generally agreed work programme.

I understand your point. As you know, I always support you in protecting the work load of the Transport and the Environment Committee, because committees do have to be disciplined. I am thinking not so much of attempts to change the whole balance of the work load—we know that members might try that and committees would have to be disciplined to resist such attempts—as of a member who wants to bring up an awkward subject that merits 10 minutes of the committee's time and the convener simply says no. There is a difficulty there. I want to be assured that the matter is under consideration under items 1 and 2 and that we will come back to it.

With the agreements that we have made, that concludes item 6.