Standards and Public Appointments Committee, 12 Sep 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Official Report 122KB pdf

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Cross-party Group

Item 2 is consideration of an application to establish a cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on Scotland's financial future. It has been submitted by Jim Mather MSP, whom I welcome to the meeting. I invite him, if he wishes, to make some opening remarks in support of his application.

Thank you for the opportunity, convener. This cross-party group fills a gap by providing a platform for discussing and debating the financial options that Scotland faces and, in particular, for drawing in a lot of latent academic work that has been carried out on the periphery. The proposal has been driven by the fact that the cross-party group on the economy could not reach a consensus with regard to featuring a debate on a material and well researched paper by Professor Ronald MacDonald, who holds the Adam Smith chair of economics at Glasgow University. If the press had found out that we could not find a venue in the Parliament to hold a debate on such a paper—in the end, we had to run the event at Jury's Inn—it might well have brought the Parliament into disrepute.

Establishing this cross-party group gives us the chance to get the debate going in the Parliament. I think that that is only appropriate after seven years of devolution.

I thank Mr Mather for his interesting introductory remarks. Do members have any questions?

I have two questions. First, an MSP who signed up to this group informed me that they did so under the impression that it would be more of a one-off exercise to conduct what promises to be an extremely interesting debate on Scotland's financial future. How was the proposal for the group put to the members whose names appear on the application?

Secondly, given that there are only six months to go before the dissolution of Parliament, when all cross-party groups cease to exist, what do you realistically hope to achieve in that time?

I hope at least to make a start on a debate that will run on into the next Parliament. As for your first question, I am simply seeking to engage all spectrums of opinion to get the debate going.

I do not think that that will happen as a result of a one-off debate—the process must be on-going, which, given the MSPs who support the proposed group, it will be. All spectrums of opinion on Scotland's financial options will be represented by those MSPs. My approach is always to love my sceptics rather than ignore them or narrow down the debate. If I tried to narrow down the debate or put forward a purely partisan argument, the group would be discredited in the Parliament and the press and would quickly close down. That would be in no one's interests.

I am really asking whether you are happy to reassure us that all the MSPs who appear on the list of those who support the proposed group have, to their knowledge, signed up in support of a cross-party group?

Yes, because the proposition that I have put to the committee is exactly the same as the proposition that I put to them, and they have signed up to it. Each member is able in their own right and could shape the nature of the group from the inside over the long term. The group's work may peter out in February and it may not do too much in the run-up to the election, but it will fill a major gap and the able and opinionated people who are members of it will see that it is balanced.

Assured as I am by Mr Mather that I will bask in his undying love, I want to ask him a sceptical question. In your justification for establishing the group, you cited your frustration and disappointment at not being able to get a specific report debated by another cross-party group. Why is another cross-party group needed to consider issues that are already being considered by the cross-party group on the Scottish economy and others? We should remember the pressures on members' time in dealing with a range of interests. Is another cross-party group appropriate in this instance?

The cross-party group on the Scottish economy has not debated what I would like the new group to debate. I remember you and I doing an event with the Hansard Society that trotted into the area and opened it up. The cross-party group on the Scottish economy does a valuable job and allows people to showcase propositions, say what is happening and point out constraints that they see, but it does not do the work that I would like to see the new group doing to anything like the same extent. In working to set up the group, we e-mailed around 120 academic economists in Scotland and received an enormous response from people from all parts of the spectrum who wanted to be involved and to debate Scotland's financial future.

If no other member has questions or comments, it seems to me that the application meets all the rules that have been set. On that basis, do members agree to accept Mr Mather's application to establish a cross-party group on Scotland's financial future?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank Mr Mather very much for coming to the meeting to discuss the proposed group, which members have now agreed to. Congratulations, Mr Mather.

The convener has arrived and will be in the chair for agenda item 3. I hope for a return to the days in which the railways were under common ownership; the convener would not be late for parliamentary meetings.