Procedures Committee, 08 Jun 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 8, 2004

Official Report 151KB pdf

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Question Time Review

We move on to agenda item 2, which is on the question time review. We had a preliminary discussion of the issue at our previous meeting, when we agreed that we would defer the further review while the information that we agreed that we need was being produced. We now have a series of papers—including some additional papers—that provide information on the question time review.

A note from the clerk—PR/S2/04/10/19—suggests options for completing the review. I would like the committee to consider the note and agree how to proceed. If there are any papers that we need to consider as a consequence of our agreeing how to proceed, we can do that before we move on.

The note from the clerk gives three options for the review: the first is to carry on as we agreed at our meeting on 11 May; the second is to endorse a provisional timetable for the review to which we agreed on 11 May; and the third is to extend the trial for a shorter period and complete the review by the October recess. Do members have comments on the options?

With my Parliamentary Bureau hat on, I will say more about the discussions in the bureau. Some members of the bureau were concerned that a further change—to move question time to Wednesday afternoon—would be tinkering with the parliamentary timetable, but others were quite positive about the idea. Some bureau members proposed that we should go back to the previous format of having question time followed by First Minister's question time. It is fair to say that a variety of views were expressed.

I should have announced at the start of the meeting that we have received apologies from Bruce Crawford. I apologise for not doing so.

The reply that we have received from the Presiding Officer suggests that the bureau would like more information about our reasoning. Do you think, Mark, that if we provide a more detailed explanation of why we wish to consider such a change the bureau might be minded to accept it, or do you think that the idea is a non-starter?

As I say, the bureau was divided on the suggestion; its members might be minded to try it. I certainly think that if the committee decides that the suggestion would be the most effective way of going forward we should put that proposal to the bureau. I do not think that the bureau will not agree to the proposal, but I do not think that they will necessarily agree to it.

Do members have views on whether we should pursue that option? Karen Gillon suggested it.

I drew together the suggestion from a number of suggestions that had been made on which there was some agreement. When question time is held will make little difference to what people think about it. If we need to go to the wall with the bureau on the matter, I would not bother—I would leave question time on Thursday and conduct our review on that basis. People's views are about the format, content and effectiveness of question time rather than about when it is held. I could be wrong, but that is the feedback that I have received from people whom I have spoken to in the past couple of weeks.

Are there any other views or does the committee generally endorse those comments?

I still think—as I said at the previous meeting—that there is some frustration about the current format and timing of question time. I wonder whether evidence that we were taking those concerns into account by trying a different question time would be helpful. In order to conduct a proper experiment there must be a control. It is necessary to try different things to establish from the experiment what is failing. Is it the time or the format that is failing? If we change the time and question time is still perceived not to be successful, we would know that the format was the problem rather than the time at which question time is held.

We have not had long enough to assess the format. The evidence and information that we gather might be all over the place and may give us no direction. As has been said, we have to give members and the general public time to see question time working. It would be a waste of time if we were to spend time arguing with the bureau about whether question time should be on Wednesday or Thursday. We should go with option 3.

To be honest, the issue for members to whom I have spoken is certainly whether the separation of First Minister's question time from question time has made both events better or worse. It does not matter whether question time is held on a Thursday afternoon or on a Wednesday afternoon; it should not be held together with First Minister's question time. We must recognise that that is one of the main concerns. It is important that we give question time a chance to stand on its own.

I find the figures remarkable. The number of members participating and in attendance and the number of people in the public gallery have increased. That is certainly not my perception but, from the sample that we have examined, that seems to be what has happened. Whether things had got so bad by 4 March and 26 February that people had opted out completely remains to be seen. I am very surprised by the figures.

Last week's question time showed that there is a problem with the number of questions that are lodged and then withdrawn. We cannot legislate for that—we cannot put a provision in standing orders—but a problem is emerging in that members are either lodging questions that they do not really want to ask, or they are not committed to coming to question time, so when their questions are selected, members withdraw them. That pulls the agenda apart.

If we have a dialogue with members, it has to be a serious one about what is and what is not working, and what changes they want to be made. If questionnaires are to be given to people in the public gallery, one of the things that I would be interested to find out—particularly from people who come to First Minister's question time—is whether they would have attended it if it had been held in the afternoon. One of the big selling points of the current slot is that people who would not be able to come in the afternoon are able to come in the morning. I want to know whether that is borne out by the evidence.

Those are helpful comments. My personal view is that question time should be on Wednesday, because that would separate it entirely from First Minister's question time and would perhaps engender more interest in question time among the media. In particular, question time could feature on "Holyrood Live", which it does not currently. There are advantages to its being on a Wednesday afternoon that are not there on a Thursday afternoon; those advantages might make members more interested in it. However, if the consensus of the committee is that we carry on with Thursday afternoon for the moment, I am happy to accept that.

I would support a shift to Wednesday afternoon.

The issue is whether we write to the bureau again to explain further why we wish to go for Wednesday afternoon. Ultimately, the decision on parliamentary timetabling is for the bureau. I argue that there is a case for a complete—rather than the present lunch-time—separation of question time and First Minister's questions, because that would provide an additional focus on question time and would allow us to determine whether it can stand on its own feet, which is an issue that Bruce Crawford, in particular, has raised in the past. If question time were held on an occasion on which it would get separate coverage, that might engender slightly more media interest and, as a result, slightly more member interest.

Would we be suggesting that the parliamentary timetable should be changed? If the parliamentary timetable were not changed, moving question time to Wednesday would leave only an hour and a half of unallocated parliamentary time, which would preclude the holding of a great deal of business on a Wednesday afternoon. For example, it would preclude the holding of stage 3 consideration, because it is not possible to complete that in an hour and a half; Opposition business could not be held on a Wednesday afternoon, either. Although the proposal would allow us to have nice, worthy debates, we would not be able to get any serious business done on a Wednesday afternoon unless the meeting opened earlier, at 2 o'clock.

I agree. My proposal is that, if question time were to be moved to a Wednesday afternoon, the bureau would be asked to start the Wednesday afternoon meeting at 2 o'clock and to move the start of the Thursday afternoon meeting back to 2.30 pm.

We are in the second week of June. At this stage of the parliamentary year, there will be a number of stage 3 debates—

I am sorry, but we are not proposing that we move anything until after the summer recess.

Over the next few weeks, there will be a number of stage 3 debates. The convener's proposal would mean entering a dialogue with the bureau. As Karen Gillon has said, members are not entirely happy with the way in which question time is running at the moment. I suggest that they would be less happy if we were to change the timetable again, even though that would not happen until after the summer recess.

The whole idea of extending the present experiment was to enable us to get a feel for things over a period of time. I do not think that we have allowed the experiment to run for long enough and, as I have already said, we do not have time to get into an argument with the bureau. We should go with the suggestion in the second bullet point in paragraph 3 of the clerk's note.

At the moment, the Parliament has afternoon sessions of two hours and of two and a half hours. If oral questions started at 2 o'clock on a Wednesday, that would simply mean that the two-and-a-half-hour session would be on a Thursday rather than a Wednesday and that the two-hour session would be on a Wednesday rather than a Thursday. We would still have afternoon slots of two hours and of two and a half hours, so I do not think that there would a great deal of difference as regards stage 3 scheduling.

There is a fundamental difference between having a 2 o'clock start on a Wednesday and having a 2 o'clock start on a Thursday, because committees meet on a Wednesday morning. Last Wednesday, the Justice 1 Committee did not finish until about 1.45 pm. If we were to move the start of Wednesday afternoon meetings of the Parliament to 2 o'clock, the effect of that would be to prevent members of the Justice 1 Committee from having a gap in which to have their lunch and from being able to ask a question at question time.

It is not possible to tell for how long a committee meeting will run. A committee that meets on a Wednesday morning could have a huge item of business that would mean that the meeting would run until 2 o'clock. Members of that committee would then not be able to participate in question time—or rather, they would not be able to do so in such an effective way. If we start saying to members that we are going to change the format of Parliament meetings so that they start at 2 o'clock on a Wednesday, without discussing with the committees that meet on a Wednesday morning the implications of that for their business, we will get ourselves into bother with the Parliament.

My view is that there is no consensus to put the case to the bureau for moving question time to a Wednesday. If the committee cannot reach a consensus on that proposal, there is no point in our trying to persuade another body to adopt it. I suggest that we stick with the present timetable. We must decide whether to carry on with the experiment until October and conduct the review between October and December or whether to carry on with the experiment until the summer recess and conduct the review before the October recess. Do members have comments on that?

I feel that, by the end of June, we will have had enough time to be able to conduct a proper investigation, so I argue that we ought to do that as soon as possible and go ahead with the questionnaires.

Are there any other comments?

Where have we got to, convener? We seem to be going round in circles.

The question is whether we carry on with the experiment until the summer recess and conduct the review before the October recess or whether we continue with the experiment until the October recess and conduct the review between the end of the October recess and the Christmas recess.

That is what we agreed at a previous meeting—we said that we would continue with the experiment until the October recess.

That was on the basis that we were asking the bureau to move question time to a Wednesday. I am just trying to clarify whether the committee wants to stick to the timetable that we agreed last month or to conduct the review earlier, given that question time is not going to be moved to a Wednesday afternoon.

There were good reasons for last month's decision to continue with the experiment. After the recess, we will be in the new building. Our intention was to see how things would go in the new building. The fact that we will be in the new building might encourage people to attend question time in greater numbers. I propose that we agree to the second bullet point in paragraph 3 of the note by the clerk. If you would like, I can move a motion to that effect.

At this point, I do not think that it is necessary for motions to be moved; I just want to find out whether there is a consensus. I am not pushing for agreement to a particular option. There are two options. We can conduct the review between the summer recess and the October recess or we can do it between the October recess and the Christmas recess. Cathie Craigie is suggesting that we choose the latter option. I invite Karen Gillon and Richard Baker to give their views.

I agree with Cathie Craigie. I think that we should continue with the review until Christmas, as we decided at a previous meeting. For me, the moving of question time to Wednesday was not essential to keeping the review going. As Karen Gillon said, we must acknowledge that some concerns are developing about the present arrangements, but I am persuaded by Cathie Craigie's argument that we should give the changes a proper chance to bed down before we make final decisions about reviewing them. I accept Cathie Craigie's point.

If we were not moving to a new building, I would go with the third option but, given that we are moving down the road, where there will be a completely new dynamic, I will go with the second option.

Mark, are you happy to accept that we carry on with the experiment until the October recess and review it thereafter?

As I have said, many concerns have been expressed to me. People feel that the present arrangements are not working. The proposed option would mean continuing until Christmas with a set-up that a lot of feedback tells me is not working. I am concerned about that but, if that is the majority view of the committee—

I do not think that we want to understate Mark Ballard's concerns about some members' feelings on the current set-up. However, to come to a proper, considered decision about the way in which question time is running, the current arrangement needs to have been running for a substantial length of time. We can debate what a substantial length of time is, but I am still persuaded that we should continue with the experiment until Christmas.

I think that the committee's majority view is that we should carry on with the experiment until the October recess and conduct the review thereafter. I suggest that we proceed on that basis and issue the questionnaires at some time between the summer recess and the October recess. Are members content with that?

What will happen after the October recess?

The committee will review all the evidence and make a final recommendation to the Parliament on what to do.

Question time will remain in its current slot.

That will have to remain the case until we have completed the review and made our recommendations.

If members have specific comments on any of the information in the papers, I would be happy to receive them. Although we are not going to conduct the review for some time, it might be better if members submitted their views—on the questionnaires, in particular—to the clerks between now and the next meeting. I do not think that there is any need for detailed discussion of the questionnaires at this stage. I ask members to provide the clerks with their comments as soon as possible, so that we can finalise the questionnaires at the next meeting.