Procedures Committee, 11 Jun 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 11, 2002

Official Report 166KB pdf

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Protocols

Item 2 on the agenda is a paper for noting. There have been no further protocols in the past year. I have a question—just to prove that I can talk about the matter for a minute—about the three existing protocols. The paper explains that the protocol with the Scottish Parliament information centre was produced in consultation with SPICe. It does not say that about the protocol between the committee clerks and the Scottish Executive. Is our clerk aware whether it was produced in consultation with the clerks? If that is the case, might something be said for the third protocol, on contact with members of the Parliament, being worked on again in consultation with MSPs?

I think that the protocol between committee clerks and the Scottish Executive was constructed in light of comments from clerks. That is a factual thing. It is up to the committee to take a view on the guidance on contacts.

I also wonder what status the protocols have. Is it strictly and agreeably in our remit that we are the committee that should monitor protocols? If we are, and we are happy with the protocols, should we not put them to Parliament for approval? Should Parliament endorse protocols? Is that a sensible thing for Parliament to do? That would give us the possibility of declining to endorse the protocols, if we were unhappy with them, until we had negotiated their content.

I say all that without having read a single word of any of the protocols. I am merely thinking about what we are responsible for in terms of the protocols, whether anyone is responsible for them and whether somebody should work on the matter at some time, probably as a low-priority item. The previous discussion referred to contacting civil servants through the directory. However, I thought that this matter is about the relationship between civil servants—or Executive officials, if they are different from civil servants—and MSPs. Perhaps we should consider the whole issue at some stage.

Perhaps we can work something out.

There you go. The challenge to keep that item going for a minute before Andrew Mylne arrived was easily met. We are not ready yet, but I invite Andrew Mylne to sit at the table.

The clerk circulated his sensible views to members about how Parliament taking a vote that is contrary to the wishes of the Executive should be dealt with. It seemed to me that the clerk was suggesting a protocol or understanding about how that could be dealt with in the future. I presume that that matter will be on a future agenda as another possible protocol.

Because of how protocols currently operate, that matter will probably not be on a future agenda. My impression is that protocols are documents that the Executive issues to tell people how they should perform in relation to the Executive. However, I see no reason in principle why Parliament should not, at some stage, propose or negotiate protocols with the Executive on matters that are of concern to Parliament. I think that you might be able to stretch the case in point, but I have no way of knowing whether the Executive would agree to a protocol on that rather than just a sort of understanding.

I am not a connoisseur of protocols, but I would have thought that they would be agreements between equals. I do not go for the one-way street of the Executive telling us what we can or cannot do. You can stuff that, as far as I am concerned.

I am not sure that that particular terminology is parliamentary. What I am saying is that the protocols that exist tend to have been generated by the Executive for its purposes. I cannot imagine any reason why Parliament should not also pursue protocols for its purposes. However, I do not think that anyone has suggested that there should be a protocol for the specific example that you raised. I have no way of knowing what the reaction of the other party to that proposed protocol would be, but it is clearly an approach that could be made.

Therefore, at some stage we can think about what protocols are for, who originates them, what procedures should be followed to validate them and what degree of approval they should have. That sounds to me like a paper for Andrew Mylne, but perhaps not before the recess. We can note the clerk's paper and that there might be further discussion on it at a later date.