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We have received a very helpful paper, for which I thank Martin Verity. It is comforting that people are noticing that we are beginning to get ourselves organised around social inclusion. Several people have written to me on a number of issues that I shall raise in due course. It is good to recognise such interest in our work.
I am not sure that I have received the list that has been circulated of invitations concerning the drugs inquiry.
Have you not?
We will ensure that you receive a copy.
Convener, can I make one further point without incurring your wrath? I think that we should avoid meeting twice a week whenever possible. Those of us who are on other committees find it difficult to keep up. Fortunately, the other committee of which I am a member does not meet more than once a week, although it meets virtually every week. The result is that I miss meetings of this committee, which I do not want to miss. The consultative steering group anticipated that committees would meet only once a fortnight, which is ridiculous. However, at the other extreme, meeting twice a week is too much.
I take your point, Keith, and I understand the problem. Can I have the committee's views on that?
I concur with that viewpoint. Those of us who have other committee commitments—I know that we all have manifest commitments in other directions—find it virtually impossible to fit in three or four meetings a week.
I agree to a certain extent. However, this committee will be required to give detailed consideration to the housing bill, and it will take a long time to give that consideration if we meet only once a week, and if the housing bill forms only part of the agenda at each meeting. At Westminster, hours and hours are devoted to the detailed consideration of bills. If we meet only once a week, we will not make progress on the housing bill.
We are on the horns of a dilemma.
I accept John McAllion's point. I am asking to be removed from this committee after the drugs inquiry because I cannot attend both committees—it is getting to be too much. I entirely accept what John McAllion says about the way in which committees at Westminster get bogged down in the consideration of controversial bills.
John McAllion is talking about the housing bill. In the House of Commons, committees have two three-hour meetings two days a week—12 hours a week devoted to the consideration of a bill. When the bill is introduced, we will have to sweep the board to deal with it. This committee will have to concentrate on the bill and on nothing else at that time; otherwise, we will not be able to give it proper scrutiny. The timetabling of the bill is not up to us, and we will be given only a certain amount of time in which to deal with it.
People have high expectations of this committee, which we all want to meet.
I hope that the committee does not decide to meet twice a week. It takes all our time to prepare for the once-a-week meeting that we have just now. I do not know how many bills the Justice and Home Affairs Committee dealt with earlier this year but, as they say, "You cut the cloth to suit". That committee had to rearrange its timetable to suit the progress of the bills that it had to deal with. When the housing bill is introduced, perhaps we will have to sweep the board to deal with it. However, the committee should agree to keep to its Wednesday slot and only on occasions, as necessary, meet more than once a week. The work load is increasing for every committee, and I do not think that we can do the job justice if we try to rush into things.
I do not know whether this will be helpful to you, Keith, but when we met Laurence Gruer the other day—I know that you could not attend because you were ill—we took the view that it was better for us to prolong the work, and to do it properly, than to try to force it into three or four weeks. It is likely that we will not report on the drugs inquiry until after the summer recess, as we must ensure that members can do a thorough job on it. I would sooner have a thorough job done over a longer period. Will that help you with your work load, Keith?
It will. I was not able to come to the meeting, but I had a 10-minute conversation with Laurence Gruer and gave him my input into the discussions. I took the same view—that we should not rush the inquiry. I think that we should delay the taking of evidence from Scottish Executive officials until 26 April.
That is a good principle if we want to make best use of time, provided that people report back on the outcome of any visits that they make so that others are party to the information.
We are beginning to consider different methods of reporting and of taking evidence, particularly given the nature of the drugs inquiry, which is not the sort of inquiry where we will have 11 people going off to visit somebody. We will report back on that. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is going to make a contribution.
I think that that situation will apply across the board. We were thinking along those lines for social inclusion as well.
Absolutely. I refer the matter back to the clerks, so that they can come up with some proposals.
In general, the recommendations are in order. The only thing that I want to add is the fact that we discussed trying to secure some committee time in the chamber for housing stock transfer. June might be appropriate for that, following the publication of the report.
The Parliamentary Bureau would welcome that. At this stage in the Parliament's development there is a dearth of committee business that is of interest and of import. That will change in about six months, but it would be useful to take that into account.
One of the problems is that we all want June, but I will fight our corner. We have a good case for getting some time, if not in June, then in May.
I want to come back to the timing of the housing bill. I am not suggesting that we sweep the boards now, but when the bill comes to us, there will be so much to go through. The bill will possibly be the most major bill of the four-year parliamentary term. We will have to be prepared to give it a lot of time. We should try to clear the drugs inquiry before then. That is perhaps not in our control, but I am particularly concerned about the period after the summer on the housing bill.
Martin Verity is in constant touch with sources in the Executive to find out about timetables. That is very much at the forefront of his mind when we are planning our work.
It might be useful for the convener to raise the issue of committees meeting at the same time as Parliament at the conveners liaison group. The fact that they cannot effectively prevents committees from doing their work properly. We are giving up a day and a half every week, when committees could be doing something, to sit in the chamber where we are not even allowed to speak because we are not high enough on the list. It is a waste of MSPs' time to sit surrounding someone who is speaking for the sake of the television cameras. We could be getting on with the work of the committee. In many ways, the committees are more important than the full assembly of Parliament.
I will certainly raise that point at the conveners group.
I endorse entirely what John McAllion said. Nobody dares say it, but we are gradually moving towards the Westminster model, at question time and in everything else. The more we move towards it, the better things are, in many respects, as Westminster does a lot of things well. One of those is allowing committees to sit while the chamber sits. It is ridiculous that we do not do that here, because it cuts out a day and a half a week.
I will raise the issue at the conveners group and report back. It is an on-going issue. Let us not pursue the point about modelling ourselves on Westminster.
I agree. I raised that issue. It is important that we bracket 7.2 and 7.3 when we write to Scottish Women's Aid, to make it clear that we will come back to them on the wider housing issues.
I want to raise a specific point about social inclusion. We had agreed that we would include One Plus and one or two other organisations in our briefing session, probably on the same day as the briefing with the Scottish Parliament information centre. We also agreed that we would include in our work programme a couple of visits, perhaps by a small group of members, to Wester Hailes or places like that.
We will programme that in. We had agreed to have in One Plus, Communities Against Poverty, which has indicated that it wants to have a dialogue with the committee, and one other organisation that I have forgotten. That is a terrible mistake to make.
I cannot remember.
No offence intended. We agreed your proposal last week. Martin Verity will draft that and produce another paper.
Point 7.6 mentions taking evidence from the Executive on drug misuse. Is that the meeting that was originally scheduled for 22 March?
Yes. It makes sense to conclude the work on housing before the recess and to start the drugs work after the recess, particularly if the committee is willing to expand the work to ensure that we do a good job.
Is the meeting with officials only, without the minister?
Yes. I am advised that that is the standard procedure.
Is that correct? The paper says that we will take evidence from the Minister for Communities on 26 April.
That is not for the drugs inquiry.
We are having Wendy Alexander in on housing and Frank McAveety in for the Scottish statutory instruments. At some point, we will want to have Angus MacKay in to talk about drugs. However, apparently we have to start with the Executive and finish with the minister.
When we get into the drugs inquiry, it will be important to include the cross-cutting ministerial group. I am not sure how we will do that, so we should give some thought to it. The cross-cutting ministerial group consists not only of Angus MacKay, but of Iain Gray, Jackie Baillie and Sam Galbraith. I understand that there are differences of view within the committee. It is important that we find out what they are.
Yes. We need to probe that. It is useful to keep that on the agenda.