Procedures Committee, 14 Dec 1999

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 14, 1999

Official Report 142KB pdf

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Liaison

The agenda begins this morning with a discussion with Paul Grice, whom I welcome to the committee. A paper was submitted previously about a potential expansion of the remit of the committee to cope with liaison matters. We will begin by asking Paul to talk about the paper. The committee will then ask questions and discuss the way forward.

I also welcome Carol McCracken.

I thank the committee for inviting Carol McCracken and me along this morning. I propose to say relatively little by way of introduction as I think that the papers are self-explanatory. We would rather engage in a debate with the committee than read out long statements.

I will make two points. First, as the Parliament has operated over the past few months, it has become clear to me that there is a gap between the Parliamentary Bureau, which looks after the Parliament's business, and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, which looks after staff, facilities and resources. There is a gap for a body which could consider more fundamental issues on behalf of the Parliament. That is what lies behind consideration of a committee with a liaison role.

We could discuss later what specific examples it might cover—House of Lords reform is one that I can think of immediately. Some aspects of that might well have impinged on the Parliament as an institution. The question in my mind was; how might the Parliament consider whether it should have a view on that and, if so, what that view should be? The British-Irish Council is on the agenda. In as much as there is a parliamentary, as opposed to an Executive, participation in that, assuming that it is the Presiding Officer or one of the deputies who goes, there might need to be a mechanism to consider what line the Presiding Officer might take on certain issues.

Without wanting to fall foul of sub judice rules, a court case is going on in which the judges have been examining how section 40 of the Scotland Act 1998 operates. There are general issues about the effect of the operation of the Scotland Act 1998—not the act itself, which we all accept for the most part. It is all a reserved matter, although some of it can be amended under schedule 4.

There are issues related to the operation of the Scotland Act 1998, on which the Parliament as an institution might want to take a view. There should be some mechanism to consider whether the Parliament should have a view on an issue and, if so, to distil it.

On major issues, the Parliament can only form a view by resolution. Again, there are questions that must be asked. How would the Parliament be informed? How would the debate be informed? How would members understand what the issues are so that they could come to a considered view on any motion? At present, there is not a piece of machinery that can properly cope with that.

The other point that I will make is about the relationship between anything that this committee considers and recommends and the role of the Presiding Officer under rule 3.1 of the standing orders. Under that, he has a role to represent the Parliament. I hope that anything that this committee would consider and recommend would be complementary to that duty.

His representational role works well; it is flexible, quick and unbureaucratic. None the less, for some of the more difficult issues there might need to be a mechanism that enables the Presiding Officer to take views. I hope and expect that anything that we produce by way of liaison machinery does not cut across that representation and allows the Presiding Officer to operate effectively, as he does at present.

I will leave it there. Carol and I will be happy to take questions and discuss any issues that the committee wishes to raise with us.

Could Mr Grice remind me and other ignorant members, if there are any, what the issue is around section 40 of the Scotland Act 1998?

If someone wants to bring an action against the Parliament, section 40 describes the machinery for doing so. In a nutshell, it says that they must bring the action against the SPCB. That is right, and it would be the body to take action against. However, the question then arises, if it is an issue of general interest to the Parliament, how does the SPCB form a view as to what the Parliament's opinion is? The SPCB may not be the right body to consider such issues. Section 40 is more complex than that, but that is essentially what it is about.

Mr Grice has raised a number of important issues. On formulating a view on the House of Lords, I gave evidence, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, to Lord Wakeham. Other colleagues may have had the same opportunity. One of the issues that he was considering was whether the new House of Lords should have Scottish, Welsh and Irish representatives and, if so, whether they should be taken from the Scottish Parliament. From my brief experience of wearing two hats, I said that that would be an impossibility and he should not do it. However, the Parliament might not share my view. That is the sort of issue on which the Parliament should form a view, if it is asked. This committee would be a suitable one to formulate a view, although the full Parliament must take the decision.

We should be involved in the council of the isles and other similar bodies. There is the slightly less formal Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the question of whether we get into the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The paper on liaison also mentions that the Finnish Parliament would like to talk to us. All those links would be useful. This committee might be the mechanism for that.

The working draft paper raised the issue of the relationship between the Parliament and the Executive in relation to concordats and so on. That issue must also be explored. Who fights the Parliament's corner if there are issues on which fighting must be done?

We should pursue those important issues in whatever way is best to move forward.

That raises an issue that I would like to examine, which is how the committee might be satisfied that what we say about an issue such as the House of Lords would represent the views of the Parliament. Would you anticipate that we would identify the salient issues and put views forward for the Parliament to decide by resolution, or would you suggest that we might make the response directly? How do you think that that would work? The Executive might have a view on that as well.

I think very much the former. On an issue like that, I would see the role of the liaison committee as examining and distilling the facts and report, perhaps giving a number of options, so that when the Parliament debates it and takes a view by resolution it will do so on an informed basis. Mr Gorrie mentioned a few examples of less momentous issues, on which the committee would not need to invoke the whole parliamentary machinery.

I think that we should be cautious about this. Many of these issues might be detailed, complex and take up a lot of our time. The priority must be the core tasks of this committee. I am comfortable with the view that we should integrate with other structures and organisations that would allow us to be part of the body politic globally. The convener's question touched on the issue that worries me, which is how this committee would formulate views on politically complex issues about relations with other organisations and bodies. I am wary of this committee biting off more than it can chew.

Is it necessary for us to go down this road, or could another body consider those issues? We should consider how much of a diversion from our core task the liaison role could be.

Iain Smith, have you had the opportunity to discuss this issue with colleagues to get an Executive perspective on it? We would not necessarily be reluctant to tread on your toes, but there are matters on which we might look at things differently.

We have had some preliminary thoughts about the paper on liaison put before the committee. Andy Kerr has raised some of the concerns that the Executive would have. If the Procedures Committee's remit is too broad, it may be difficult for it to discharge its key function, which is looking after the operation and procedures of the Parliament.

There is some merit in expansion of the remit of the Procedures Committee, to consider issues such as how other organisations impact on the operation of the Scottish Parliament. Care must be taken to ensure that it does not stray into the remits of other committees in terms of relationships with particular public bodies. The Executive does not oppose the principle that there should be some expansion of the remit of the Procedures Committee. We would be happy for the Executive officials to work with the clerks to see if they could come up with the wording for an amendment to its remit.

The principle that liaison is needed is right. Perhaps this committee should provide the facility rather than be the facility? Otherwise, we might drift away from our core business. That might be a good idea because of the dry subjects that we consider. It might be more exciting if we are involved in other issues, especially for the press.

Some difficulties might arise in relation to the way that this committee works because of some of the weighty issues that might come before it. Perhaps we should consider having a committee called the liaison committee to consider those issues rather than bring them to this committee. We might spend more time considering liaison than we do procedures, although that might not be a bad idea.

Paul, presumably the idea of having a separate liaison committee occurred to officials when they were considering this paper. Why was that option thought inappropriate?

We would not rule out the possibility of there being a liaison committee and we would expect the committee to form a view on it. Part of the reason for not including it in the paper was simple logistics. As members know, we have few members compared to the number of committees. The forming of another committee would increase the already high work load. Another reason is that there is a blurring of boundaries between procedures and liaison. A lot of the machinery by which Parliament operates ends up in the form of standing orders, which is the core business of this committee. Some liaison issues flow from standing orders naturally.

Andy Kerr and Gil Paterson made a fair point: how on earth would the committee decide where to focus? We wanted to establish machinery, in this committee or a new committee, by which we could decide what the priority issues were. We would not want to bite off more than we could chew. As Andy said, House of Lords reform is a massive issue. Part of the value of the machinery would be to decide whether the Parliament could or should have a view on something.

Presumably the matter has been discussed with the Presiding Officer. How does he feel about it? I know that no one is suggesting that he should clear his statements with a committee, but he might feel that his hands are being tied, just as we might feel that we are tied by views that he expresses that are his own.

I think that I was trying to say something slightly different from the words that you put in my mouth.

I cannot speak formally on behalf of the Presiding Officer. He might want to let you have his views formally in writing. However, I believe that he would argue, and I would agree with him, that the current system works well. I am sure that he would not want to routinely clear statements with this committee and I do not think that he would expect the committee to pass matters to him.

I can envisage a situation when the Presiding Officer decides that he might want to refer a tricky issue to this committee, just as he refers tricky matters of procedure to you when he thinks that advice would be valuable. I think that it could work in the other direction as well. In my opening remarks, I was trying to say that I hope that the committee does not come up with something that cuts across his role. Under standing orders, the Presiding Officer formally represents the Parliament, and I think that he should continue in that role.

The gap that Paul identified in his opening remarks is important. There are times when the Presiding Officer will refer to the SPCB or to the Parliamentary Bureau for advice before he represents Parliament on day-to-day issues. There are also issues that come in that are weighty and on which it would be helpful if the Presiding Officer were able to represent the Parliament, having heard the Parliament's view.

Members asked earlier what might happen when the committee reported on such issues and whether it would be for the committee to liaise with the relevant body. We envisage that, when it comes to the bigger issues, the committee report would be brought before the Parliament and would lead to a resolution of the Parliament, which the Presiding Officer would communicate to the relevant body. That fits with the representative role of the Presiding Officer under standing orders.

This might be a simplistic question, but do we need to fill the gap? Does the Presiding Officer have to have a view?

I do not think that he has to have a view. However, sometimes it is not clear whether Parliament should have a view on something and the Presiding Officer is well placed to make judgments on that. As you said, Andy, sometimes deciding whether one should even have a view is quite a process and it is therefore quite useful to have machinery in place to do that.

In a sense, we are being asked to take on the role of being a sounding board for the Presiding Officer on a range of issues, to allow him to cast his net a bit more widely than he is able to at the moment. That does not threaten us with a huge work load.

There are constitutional and liaison matters on which I would not want to have the responsibility for deciding on the Parliament's response, but it seems reasonable that we should analyse issues, identify areas where a response is appropriate and put options in a report before Parliament and that the Presiding Officer should relay the decision of Parliament to the relevant body.

I am happy to proceed on that basis. Does the committee agree to doing so?

I take the point that members have made that this new function should not stop us doing our main work and that we should concentrate on our priority issues. Somebody has to do it and, as long as we made it clear that this task came quite low on our list of priorities, we could manage to do it. I support the proposal.

I say that we should proceed with caution.

I think that it is a watching brief. We should see how the situation develops. Weighty issues are bound to arise on which it is right that the Parliament should make its views known. I am sure that that will happen soon.

If the work load becomes intolerable, the option of having a separate liaison committee is open to us. However, the proposal before us today seems to be an acceptable way to begin to address the task.

Are members agreed that we should accept the paper?

Members indicated agreement.

We will ask the clerks to work with the Executive to come up with the wording of a revised remit of this committee. We will report on that in due course to the Parliament.

How will we do that, John? Will we report on issues as they arise or gather them together?

That would be up to the committee. We will work out a form of words and bring that to the committee's meeting on 18 January.

As part of that, could we have some further indication of issues that might be included in this category under the general title of liaison? That would let us know what we are biting off.

That would be useful for the committee to know and we might decide not to bite off too much.

I am happy with that and will work with John Patterson to arrange it. There will be an ad hoc nature to the issues that arise for discussion, but we could give the committee examples of areas that it might be asked to consider.