Procedures Committee, 10 Feb 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Official Report 220KB pdf

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Legislation Inquiry

The next item on the agenda is consideration of a proposed remit for the inquiry that the committee has agreed to carry out into timescales for and stages in the scrutiny of bills.

It is important that we have a clear and focused inquiry that deals with timetabling issues, because a number of ancillary issues such as whether policy and financial memoranda are adequate could be flagged up as part of it. At the moment, we want to try and focus on timetabling issues. Those other questions will be examined at a future date when we consider the wider issue of the legislative process.

With those preliminary comments, I suggest that we go through the paper page by page. Anyone who has questions or suggestions should make them known.

Do members have any comments about the first and second page of the paper, which take us up to paragraph 10?

Members indicated disagreement.

Do members have any comments about page 3, which concentrates on the timescales for stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3?

On stage 2, the paper says nothing specific about the timescale for lodging amendments for consideration.

The second-last paragraph states:

"Should the minimum notice period for Stage 2 amendments … be extended"?

So it does say something about it. I surrender.

Do members have any comments about the scope of the inquiry, which is set out on page 4 of the paper?

Members indicated disagreement.

On the section of the paper headed "Audit Committee inquiry", I should advise members that I am still trying to arrange a meeting with the convener of the Audit Committee to clarify the committee's exact intentions behind its inquiry and how it would or would not tie into our work. I hope that that will happen tomorrow.

Are members happy with the remit of the inquiry?

Members indicated agreement.

Paragraphs 16 and 17 are about the witnesses and timescale for the inquiry. The list of witnesses is obviously open to comment and any other suggestions that members might have. For example, members might know of external organisations such as the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, the Scottish Trades Union Congress or the Federation of Small Businesses that might be interested in giving evidence. I am happy to take suggestions about other bodies from which we might seek evidence.

I want to sound a note of caution. I think that the inquiry could run away from us, because everyone and their auntie will want to submit evidence about how they did not get what they wanted with the amendment that they lodged.

As a result, the committee has to be clear about what it is doing. We should have a list of people from whom we want to take evidence, and anyone else can submit written evidence. If we are not clear and hard about that, we will spend the next six months taking evidence from organisations that for whatever reason did not get their amendments through. It is important that we do not allow ourselves to become that type of body. We need to be clear about that.

There are pretty obvious organisations and we should get a list—if that is possible for the clerks—of those that we think should give oral evidence. We can thrash that about and anybody else can put in suggestions, but we have to be quite robust about that as a committee.

I totally agree with what Karen Gillon has said. Since the beginning of this session of the Parliament, we have heard increasingly from back benchers of every party that committees always seem to be taking evidence from the usual suspects. We have to find a way of getting beyond that, and I think that we should bear that in mind when taking evidence. There are people out there who are making a real business of coming along to the committees, and we must remember that it is the people of Scotland whom we are here to represent and not the umbrella bodies and lobby groups. We should bear that in mind.

I agree with much of what Karen Gillon says. However, if outside organisations are experiencing difficulties because they simply do not have enough time, that is a different matter. We should take evidence from those people.

I do not think that Karen Gillon is suggesting that we should not allow any written evidence.

The letter that we have from the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, for example, points out that it does not have the resources.

I was going to suggest that we ought to take written evidence and, once we have received it, we can check whether there are any organisations that are making specific points in that evidence that we think might be useful for the committee, rather than making an open-ended commitment at this stage to take oral evidence from all sorts of bodies just because they happen to have written to us.

As a committee convener, I have found in the past that written evidence is just as valuable to a committee as oral evidence is. Being invited to give oral evidence does not mean that somebody's views are any more important or less important than the views of those who are invited to give written evidence. We have to get the message across that being asked to come to a committee does not make somebody any more important than somebody who is asked to write. If we begin to re-establish that, we might be able to get the balance back again.

I quite agree. There is no restriction on anybody submitting written evidence, but we need to consider from which of the organisations that do so, if any, we wish to take additional evidence.

I am happy with what I am hearing; a sensible suggestion has been made.

I would like to make a couple of points about witnesses and timescales. I am looking at the issue from my own experience of considering the Transport (Scotland) Bill, the Water Industry (Scotland) Bill and the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Bill, which introduced the water framework directive from European Union law into Scots law.

As an Opposition spokesperson trying to be involved in the process of submitting amendments, I found it extremely onerous—as I am sure back-bench members did—to get support and to get the amendments worked up. Much of the time, we can do it with the help of the clerks but, at the end of the day, we have to make up a lot of the amendments ourselves. A specific issue affects back benchers and Opposition members who do not have the weight of the Executive behind them and who rely on the clerks. We need to take evidence from Opposition spokespersons and back-bench witnesses to explain why the issues that we are investigating are particularly important at stage 2, so that we can tease out some of the problems.

Karen Gillon made a point about organisations and said that not everyone can expect to be here. There are a few organisations—particularly voluntary organisations—that we would have liked here, but which do not have the resources to attend, and their written evidence will be important. The nature of their work means that they might not meet many times a year; their controlling bodies might meet perhaps once a month. It gives me some concern that we are now only a month and seven days from the closing date for written evidence. I am not sure that all the organisations out there will be in a position to respond to us robustly in that timescale, given the nature of their businesses. Another couple of weeks to give them the time would be helpful in ensuring that we get the written evidence that we require.

That is a valid point.

I was wondering whether, as this is a big issue, it might be one on which we want to take evidence in another part of Scotland. It might be worth going to the north of Scotland or to the Borders. Although we are not a committee that usually has such meetings, it might be useful to have an accessible meeting somewhere else, as the issue in question is fundamental to the Parliament's workings. We would need to put in a bid through the Conveners Group. Andrew Mylne might be able to work up a proposal on that for the next meeting.

That is a great suggestion, because we are talking about the nuts and bolts—the fundamentals of how the Parliament works—and that level of activity would be appropriate.

In that respect, it might be worth considering whether there has been a bill in the consideration of which the problems of geography have been an issue.

The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill.

That is the one that I was thinking of, too. Problems of geography might have made it more difficult for some people to give evidence or to participate in the process.

Are we accepting my second point, about the need to extend the deadline?

Yes, I am happy with that. In addition, we have a little bit longer on the NEBU stuff, which might be useful.

Following on from that, given the importance of the written evidence, I think that it is important that we do not just get written evidence from the usual suspects. I would be interested in ensuring that we have a wider strategy than one that just involves writing to the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations.

I am always willing to hear members' suggestions; we can talk to those in the Parliament's participation services to find out whether they have any suggestions on how to ensure that our call for evidence goes beyond the usual suspects. It should be borne in mind that the usual suspects are often involved because they have a particular interest in what the Parliament is doing, so they should not be excluded from the process.

I will make a suggestion, which you might laugh at. It might be worth your writing a letter to tell people what we are doing and sending it to all the local papers to find out whether they will carry it in their letters pages. I know that many people read the letters pages.

I am more than happy for that to be done. Through the Parliament's authorities, we will make arrangements for that to happen. I draw members' attention to the call for evidence in the annex. Subject to the amendment on the timescale, are members happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you very much.

At a previous meeting, we agreed to take agenda item 4, on the suspension of standing orders, in private. Before we move into private session, I draw members' attention to the revised schedule of meetings. Although the meeting on 24 February is described as unchanged, I suggest that we do not need to meet on that date; we will meet on 2 March instead. We will move to having meetings in alternate weeks after that rather than meeting in the previously notified fortnightly cycle.

I understand why we are doing that, but it causes me some difficulties, because I have arranged my diary on the basis of our meeting in alternate weeks on the dates that we were given a while ago. The change causes some problems.

Part of the problem was that I had made the mistake of arranging my diary on the basis that the recess would not count in the fortnightly cycle. We will meet on 2 March and every fortnight thereafter.

I also remind members that the debate on oral questions, First Minister's question time and emergency bills will be on Thursday morning; I hope that members will be there to participate. The Executive's written response to the oral questions report has been circulated at this meeting for members' information.

Meeting continued in private until 12:22.