Procedures Committee, 12 Sep 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 12, 2000

Official Report 227KB pdf

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Manuscript Amendments

It will be appropriate if Andrew Mylne speaks to the paper on manuscript amendments before the committee discusses his recommendation.

I do not have much to say, convener, other than to refer members to the paper. It is intended to set out the background to the issue and to set it in the wider context of bill procedure—it is important to see the matter in a wider context and to recognise the place that the procedure has in the wider body of bill procedures. The paper ends with various options. I have tried to set out the advantages and disadvantages that are associated with each. If members have questions I will be happy to address them.

This item and the next have to be considered together. There is a fourth option—in addition to those that are listed on pages 4 and 5 of the paper—which is to change the timetable. I submitted a paper some months ago, suggesting that the timetable for amendments should be changed so that there were two deadlines. I proposed an earlier deadline than at present; six days prior to the debate for the Executive and five days for other members. Amendments would have to be lodged by that time. There would be a second deadline, which could be the present one of two days before the debate.

The purpose would be to deal with some of the points in the paper. The earlier deadline would give members time to clarify—with the relevant lawyers, protest groups or others who are involved—whether there were any snags in the wording of their amendment. Once Executive amendments had been lodged, there would be a day in which members could respond with other amendments. That would overcome the difficulties.

One of the difficulties that arose concerned an amendment, the general thrust of which seemed to have universal support but the wording of which, in the Executive's view, would cause serious snags. With a decent timetable, such problems could be ironed out and the need for last-minute amendments would not arise, because members could sort out the wording in advance. It is a weakness of our system that we do not allow enough time to discuss such things.

Could you address that point, Andrew? Do you envisage that the changes Donald Gorrie has suggested would completely remove the need for manuscript amendments, or would there still be circumstances in which, no matter what the deadline, manuscript amendments might still be necessary?

Mr Gorrie is absolutely right to say that the problem ties in with the whole issue of time scales. In some ways, one of the reasons for the difficulties that have arisen so far is that some members have not been familiar with or experienced in dealing with bills, and may not have been taking full advantage of the existing procedures. One way of taking advantage of those procedures is to lodge amendments early rather than right before the deadline, as many members tend to do for various reasons. By lodging an amendment early, a member can ensure that it is in print and can be considered by other members before being discussed.

Once an amendment is in print, one could approach the Executive to see whether it would be interested in supporting the amendment, or to get feedback on how the amendment might be changed. That could all be done before the deadline for finalisation of the marshalled list. If time scales between the stages of a bill were slightly longer, members would no doubt have time to do that. When we have put announcements in the business bulletin about lodging amendments, we have tried to encourage members to lodge amendments early, as that helps the situation.

It is not for me to say whether the suggestion that there could be an earlier deadline for Executive amendments is a good idea. The Executive will have its own views on that, but I take it that the same deadline would apply in practice to the member in charge of a member's bill. For such a bill, it would be the member in charge who was subject to the earlier deadline.

The practical difficulty with that might be that one would presumably want to ensure that the amendments that were lodged in the interim period were in a certain category—only those that responded directly to the amendments that had been lodged by the earlier deadline. It would be difficult to distinguish between an amendment that was lodged during the interim period in response to the first set of amendments and a fresh amendment that was submitted in that period as a way of getting round the earlier deadlines. We would have to explore carefully how that would work.

Whether we should have a different deadline is an issue for another day, and we should not get caught up in a debate about it now. Assuming, for the purposes of the argument, that we had a two-stage deadline and allowed the changes that Donald Gorrie has suggested, would that entirely obviate the requirement for manuscript amendments?

No system would ever entirely remove the need or pressure for manuscript amendments. Obviously, there must be a deadline a certain amount of time before the proceedings, so that everyone has proper notice of what is on the table, so to speak. However, the situation that one inevitably faces is that there will be members who realise, after the deadline, that they have missed or forgotten something. There is no way of entirely squaring that circle, but it is a feature of the process that a line must be drawn to ensure that proper notice is given.

I suspect that the options that we have set out in our paper are probably the most effective ways of striking a balance in a manner that is both workable and fair.

Can I probe you a bit on when that would come into play? Your report states that cross-party support is the criterion that would have to apply before you would allow manuscript amendments. In the case of the manuscript amendment that the Presiding Officer allowed, I think that there was unanimity in the chamber, but what would happen if there were only a bare majority in the chamber for a manuscript amendment? Would you still allow it?

I am not sure that I understand your question entirely.

In the circumstances in which the Presiding Officer agreed the manuscript amendment, it was clear from the debate that everybody thought that the change should be made. What would happen if, for whatever reason, there were no unanimity that a manuscript amendment should be allowed—if some members, but not others, desired that there should be such an amendment?

The paper sets out the procedure that applies at stage 2, when manuscript amendments are permitted under the rules. At that stage, any member can lodge a late amendment and ask for it to be taken as a manuscript amendment. The decision is for the convener. Were it to be decided that a similar procedure would be appropriate at stage 3, I cannot see any alternative to its being the Presiding Officer who would decide whether the manuscript amendment can be moved.

As a result, the question of testing the degree of support across the chamber does not really arise. The Presiding Officer would have to make a decision on whether certain criteria, as set out in the rules, were satisfied, as the convener does at stage 2. Individual members of the Parliament would have the opportunity, if the amendment were allowed, to decide on its merits. That is the appropriate distinction to draw.

So you do not envisage the members themselves deciding whether the manuscript change should be made?

If the Presiding Officer were to allow the amendment to be moved, it would be for the members to decide whether to make that amendment to the bill. If we allowed members of the Parliament to decide whether the amendment should be moved, the two questions would inevitably become muddled.

As I recall, the Presiding Officer asked members if they were agreeable to the manuscript change being made before we went on to decide the merits of the amendment. There are two stages: first, changing the amendment and then accepting the amendment.

It is not particularly helpful, if you do not mind me saying so, to use that incident as a basis for considering the general issue.

That is how this committee operates.

What happened on that occasion was a rather ad hoc procedure, because of the circumstances prevailing on that day. If the procedure were to be included formally in the standing orders, the mechanism would have to be different.

Would the decision to accept a manuscript change be a decision for the Presiding Officer, with the Parliament then deciding whether to accept the amendment?

That is what I envisage. It would be an extension of the procedure that already exists at stage 2.

That in itself is a departure from the ad hoc procedure, where the Presiding Officer sought the agreement of the chamber. I suppose one could say that that was an informal suspension of standing orders, although nothing was moved to that effect. We might ask the Presiding Officer what he wants the standing orders to say about his discretion in that area.

If members agree, we shall carry the report forward with the further report on the timetabling of stages in bills, so that we can examine broader issues and consider Donald Gorrie's points. We shall note the report now and subsume it within the overall exercise, which will be broader and more substantive.

If it helps matters to proceed, I support your view that unanimity of support for acceptance of the manuscript amendment is important. I do not agree with the arguments that have been advanced against your proposal.

I am probing at this stage, if I may use that expression. I want to see what things mean. We should not necessarily take strong positions on the issues at this stage. We have identified important issues that should be addressed, but they are part of a broader picture.

I will add a note of caution. The important point to bear in mind is that manuscript amendments are allowed at stage 2 because the opportunity exists at stage 3 to correct technical deficiencies that may result from those amendments. There is no such opportunity at stage 3. A manuscript amendment might contain a technical deficiency, but it could be agreed and, as a result, the bill would be deficient. There may be a case—as happened in the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill—for a manuscript amendment to be lodged to correct a technical deficiency in an existing amendment. That issue, rather than the general issue of whether manuscript amendments should be accepted, must be explored. The point is how to deal with technical deficiencies or correct errors within amendments at stage 3.

That is an important point. We will try to consider all those issues.