Standards Committee, 10 Nov 1999

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 10, 1999

Official Report 158KB pdf

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Cross-party Groups

Our next item is the draft committee report on the regulation of cross-party groups. I do not want to spend too long on this item, but we need to progress the draft report, as there is mounting pressure for arrangements to establish cross-party groups. I understand that groups are already starting to meet throughout the Parliament, but they can have no established status until the Parliament has set up the regulatory system.

The rules on cross-party groups, annexed to the draft report that members have, were substantially agreed by us previously; we have gone through all the rules. The briefing note highlights and explains the amendments that the staff have added.

I think that Des wanted to go through a few of the minor changes, so I shall ask him to start. Anyone else who wants to discuss the amendments should then feel free to flag up their concerns.

I would like to go through the document paragraph by paragraph.

The fifth line of the fourth paragraph of annexe A states that the Standards Committee

"may refuse recognition if it considers that a group does not comply with the rules or it may".

At that point, I would like to insert the words, "defer consideration to seek clarification from the group about its application."

That would, in a sense, give us three options. We could approve, refuse or defer. My suggested wording would make that clear.

Is everyone happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

Point 3, at the bottom of page 2, states that

"the overall membership profile must remain clearly Parliamentary in character".

That is absolutely in keeping with what we discussed, but we probably need to define it in some way and it is difficult to know how to define it.

You are right that there was difficulty in defining "parliamentary", but in the event that a problem arises, it will be for the committee to make a judgment.

One possible clarification would be to say that as a minimum, the group would be expected to be in compliance with point 10 of the draft report, which states that at least two members of Parliament should be present at each meeting. We should make a reference to that point.

It may be that "parliamentary" will be defined in practice, but if I was reading the document as someone who had not taken part in the debate, I would not necessarily understand what was meant by point 3, so perhaps we could consider a note of clarification.

Are members agreed that we should clarify point 3?

Members indicated agreement.

I have raised a general point with the clerk to the committee. On pages 5 and 6, we have tried to be helpful to groups by saying that the signatory to the declaration need not be the person who is recommended by the group as responsible for maintaining the details of group compliance. That is an attempt to be helpful, but because of the way in which it is written, it comes across as a wee bit confusing. Initially, we should require that the person who registers is the person who is responsible for compliance, but we should allow the group to change that person as the group evolves, because people's interests might change. Our instructions should be clearer.

That is an important point. Are there any other observations on it? There is none, so are we agreed that we will ask the clerk to make a change to the instructions?

Members indicated agreement.

Keep going, Des.

On page 8 of our draft report, in the sections headed, "Financial or other benefits received by the Group" and "Staff employed by groups", I am concerned whether we have covered adequately people who are employed by outside organisations and are doing work with, or on behalf of, a cross-parliamentary group. In a sense, that is covered in the part of the document that refers to financial or other benefits that are received by the group, but we must discuss whether it is covered in the point about staff employed by groups.

It is relatively unlikely that staff will be employed by cross-party groups, but it is possible, if we look at practices elsewhere, that cross-party groups will have access to people who are employed by other organisations.

Perhaps we could change that part of the document so that it refers to "staff either employed by, or working for, groups".

Yes, something along those lines. I am just flagging up the issue. We need a satisfactory resolution.

Is everyone happy with that change?

Members indicated agreement.

We will change the text.

Apart from that, I thought that the document was fine.

Do members have any points that they wish to raise or changes that they would like to make? Unless there are any objections to what has been proposed, the draft report—even though we have just tweaked it again—will be submitted to the SPCB for approval of the recommendations on the use of parliamentary facilities, because they are that body's responsibility. Once the SPCB has considered it, we will need to agree our report for the final time, so that it can be presented to Parliament.

Do members agree that we should send the draft report to the SPCB?

Members indicated agreement.