I see from my script that Andrew Mylne will attend for the discussion on the journal of the Parliament. The issue is straightforward.
I hope that the matter will not detain the committee for too long. It concerns a much more purely clerkly—perhaps overly clerkly—point than the previous item did. I hope that the paper is reasonably self-explanatory. We hope to publish the first volume of the journal reasonably soon. We are looking to tidy up the relevant standing orders, so that the journal properly reflects what it was initially intended to reflect and covers what it needs to cover.
I read the paper carefully yesterday. The proposed changes to standing orders fit my attention span nicely. I can cope with half a page of proposed changes. They seemed reasonable. Does anyone have another point of view?
My only comment is that, on reading the document, I was convinced yet again of what an extraordinarily bad parliamentary clerk I would make.
I am just grateful to know that we should refer to "the Parliament" rather than "Parliament". I have often wondered about that. Now we have the answer.
Paragraph (d)(ii) in the annexe "Changes to Standing Orders" concerns rule 16.3.2 and proposes substituting the word "published" for the phrase "lodged with the Clerk". This is just my rampant paranoia, but I assume that "published" means that a document can be published outwith the Parliament. Does the change affect bills or reports?
The change would affect committee reports.
It is quite important to respect the fact that a document should not be published until it has been lodged. Am I being pedantic?
In the paper on the journal, we have tried to spell out a distinction. The rules refer to reports being lodged with the clerk. That will still apply. We explain in the paper why retaining that terminology is necessary. Even though it seems a little obscure in most contexts, it has a function in standing orders.
I agree.
That will be maintained, but any report has a subsequent stage of publication. Publication is probably more relevant as a way of notifying members of a document at the time. For the journal, which will provide a longer-term record of what the Parliament has done, a date of a report's publication is a more relevant date to record for posterity, because it ties into something that is made public—the date on which a document becomes available to the wider world.
But the date of publication will always be after the date of lodging with the clerk.
Yes.
That is fine.
Do we agree to the report and the recommended changes to standing orders?
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