Public Petitions Committee, 07 Nov 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 7, 2000

Official Report 166KB pdf

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Convener's Report

Members will remember that some committees, including the Transport and the Environment Committee, of which Helen Eadie is a member, complained to the Procedures Committee about the number of petitions referred to them. The matter was intended to be raised at the conveners liaison group but, because of other business, it was put off. The issue has been put off again and the group will now discuss the paper about public petitions and their role in the Parliament on 21 November. The clerk has written a paper that stresses the central role of the Public Petitions Committee and the need for the committee to protect the right of people to petition the Scottish Parliament and its committees. Copies of the paper will be e-mailed to members before 21 November, but the contents must remain confidential until the conveners liaison group discusses the matter. Do members wish to say anything about the relationship between this committee and other committees?

I will put on my hat as convener of the Health and Community Care Committee to answer that. Our committee's view and way of dealing with petitions has altered as the first year and a half of the Parliament has progressed. Our committee is one of the top three for receiving petitions; it, the Transport and the Environment Committee and the Justice and Home Affairs Committee are running away from the rest of the field.

Our committee thought that we might get swamped and have difficulty sticking to our agenda, so we changed how we dealt with petitions. We now operate a sifting system, whereby the petitions are considered as a batch, and committee members have a chance to discuss the petitions behind the scenes. By the time that the committee meets in public, we have already discussed some of our thoughts about the petitions. That allows us to sort the wheat from the chaff and decide on the issues that fall within the committee's remit and that we feel ought to be taken on board.

We have tied that system in with greater use of reporters, who now deal with many petitions before the full committee discusses them. There will always be times when the whole committee should discuss a petition. Only recently, we questioned the Minister for Health and Community Care on hepatitis C, about which we still have two petitions to consider.

We realise that the full committee may still have to deal with some petitions; after our reporters have studied them, we may still have to produce full reports and take public evidence. There are ways in which subject committees can negotiate the problems of public petitions. I strongly resist any attack on the public's right to petition the Parliament in such an open and obvious way.

We have done much good work in the past year and a half. Some of our best work has been done on the back of petitions that have come through this route. I am thinking particularly about Stracathro hospital and Stobhill hospital medium secure unit, and about some of the resulting recommendations that we made on consultation and accountability. It is not giving too much away to say that I will probably mention that again in the chamber on Thursday, when we have another debate on accountability in the health service. I would strongly resist any attacks on the Public Petitions Committee, but we have to consider our work carefully so that we and other committees are not swamped. Other committees may feel the same.

I would be concerned if people were attacking the system because they did not want to have a Public Petitions Committee or because they wanted a change requiring 20 or 100 signatures on a petition before the Parliament considered it, so that one person alone could not lodge a petition. I would resist that.

Important lessons can be learned from other committees. The Transport and the Environment Committee topped the petitions list—36 petitions were referred to it. On two occasions we have appointed a reporter to the Rural Affairs Committee but, other than that, we have not really adopted the reporter system. You may want to bear that in mind, convener, when you have discussions with the convener of the Transport and the Environment Committee. That committee has to manage its work load, and it is inundated with work on the Transport (Scotland) Bill and other issues. Sometimes petitions that are broadly similar arrive from a number of different sources, so I agree with Margaret Smith that we can learn from the idea of grouping things together. We can think about that in this committee, too.

We are never prescriptive about the way in which other committees should handle petitions that we refer to them. We act as a kind of buffer between other committees and the public; lots of petitions are dealt with by this committee and do not go beyond it. We take pressure off other committees.

Most of the petitions to the Transport and the Environment Committee were on one subject—the third-party right of appeal in planning applications. The figure of 36 exaggerates the work load—something like 16 of those petitions were on one subject and could be dealt with as one subject.

Upholding the principle that people have the right to petition the Parliament and to see that their petitions are handled properly and seriously is what this committee is all about. We will never give up on that—not as long as I am here.

I entirely agree. I would add that this committee can give the Executive pointers as to requirements for future legislation. That will be a huge value of this committee—possibly its strongest value—as the Parliament grows up and settles down.

This committee has been working for more than a year now and it would be really good if we could produce a leaflet or a glossy report—perhaps not glossy, as that might be too expensive—that would serve as a document to be sent to our colleagues on other committees and to the public to let them know of our successes. We have had many successes, which is very much to the credit of the clerks, of you, convener, and of other committee members. We need to blow our own trumpet a little.

We intend to issue revised guidance on petitions. At that stage, we will send out a covering letter that draws the attention of other committees to the work that we have done and the success that we have had.

I presume that that would be covered in the committee's annual report.

Convener, you are more experienced than I am and so I hope that you will guide me on this question. Would it be an idea to develop a list of the top eight or 10 petitions that the committee, having heard the petitioners, believes that the Executive should examine closely with a view to introducing legislation? That suggestion might or might not be appropriate.

The problem is that many petitions that are worthy of such consideration have passed through subject committees and, in a sense, have become their property. Although we must ensure that the petitioner receives all responses, the subject committee decides whether the issue is worthy of legislation.

Surely we could list the issues that have cropped up time and again and send a letter to—

We could send a letter once a year to the Executive.

I do not know to whom we could send the letter—Mr McCabe or somebody. However, the letter would outline the top 10 issues that the public have raised in petitions. The list will provide only a pointer to areas of concern; I am sure that there will be no great revelations. Indeed, it will not surprise anyone to hear that people are concerned about third-party right of appeal.

That is a fair point.

As issues such as GM food have cropped up time and again, it should be relatively easy to compile such a list.

Absolutely.

The number of petitions that we have received on a subject should not necessarily indicate the value of that subject. Even if we receive a petition with only one signature, we could still judge whether the petition raised an important issue.

Obviously, as the annual report must be written every year, it is perfectly open for the draft report to include references to what the committee regards as the most important petitions of the year and to draw attention to various issues in that way. It will be up to the committee to decide what those issues might be. Indeed, it is open to members at any time to point out to Steve Farrell that a petition is good and should be kept under consideration. It is a good idea for the Public Petitions Committee to highlight the main areas of concern in any one year.

Meeting closed at 15:06.