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We have a draft letter to the Minister for Justice in response to the Scottish Executive's consultation paper "An Open Scotland". Because we received it fairly late, I did not get a chance to look at it until last night. I would like to propose some substantial changes to the structure of the paper, rather than the words. I expect that we will have a difficult time with this, because the structure of the letter results in a different emphasis from that which I would have preferred. I will have to go through the paper to enable members to understand what I am saying, as it is quite complicated. Do members want to make any specific points at this stage? I appreciate that members received the paper quite late and may not have had an opportunity to examine the draft in detail, but our current work load creates difficulties for the clerks.
Like you, I think that the emphasis is the wrong way round. It should be on the review that the committee has done—I would have placed that at the beginning. My bugbear is the last paragraph, which relates to my concern about the distinction between devolved and reserved matters and the difficulties that might arise there. Generally, I feel that the committee's response does not come over in this letter.
Do members have any other specific comments before I launch in?
I did not get the paper.
It was e-mailed and sent in an envelope separate from the main papers.
When would that have arrived?
The paper is dated 13 March.
My point relates to the evidence Professor Alan Miller gave about the appointment of a commissioner who would be responsible for implementing a freedom of information act. The need for that person to be properly independent in exercising their responsibilities was mentioned. Something needs to be included in the paper to reflect that.
I do not want to labour this, but will people hang in with me while I explain why I am not happy about the structure of the draft letter. Will members begin by numbering the paragraphs throughout the paper? That includes the one-line paragraph on the first page, which will be paragraph 3. That will help me, because this is more about moving paragraphs around than about changing the words—if that makes sense.
Is the paragraph beginning "We learned" number 4?
That is number 5. There is a one-line paragraph before that, which starts, "The main points". Paragraph 6 begins, "According to Professor Miller", paragraph 7 begins, "On a related point", paragraph 8 begins, "Your officials", paragraph 9 begins, "One issue", paragraph 10 begins, "For Professor Miller", paragraph 11 begins, "The Committee", paragraph 12 begins, "We welcome the Executive's commitment", paragraph 13 begins, "We believe that some mechanism", paragraph 14 begins, "Although we realise", and paragraph 15 begins, "Finally, we have some concerns".
It will be broadly along the lines that the committee believes that the minister should produce proposals to appoint a commissioner who will be responsible for implementing the act and to ensure his independence in discharging his duties.
We should ask the Executive for clarification of what it intends with respect to the appointment of the freedom of information commissioner, as we are considering that appointment at such an early stage. We will then insert that information after paragraph 10, in the new paragraph 4.
You might want to re-jig it so that the evidence always follows the view of the committee, so that there is a clear structure to the points.
Paragraph 9 begins with the view of the committee as well.
What about condensing paragraph 8 and tagging it into the paragraph about cultural openness and secrecy of public bodies? Giving guidance is part of changing the culture.
I am not sure that takes it much further.
I think it supplements it in that you are not blaming public authorities—it is a new ball game for them.
We might look at incorporating bits of the current paragraph 8 in the part about the culture of openness.
I would still give Fiona seven out of 10 for effort.
It is not about that. I was sitting last night working on this letter. I was not in any better a position than the clerks. We are all being pushed really hard.
How late will it go on? Any time?
Yes. Any time.
So there will be amendments?
I think that we can guarantee that. Committee members need to be aware of the timing. You will have to clear your diaries.
To clarify, at stage 3, amendments will be voted on one at a time, just as we do here?
Yes. It is a committee of the whole Parliament, like we had for the Ruddle bill—the Mental Health (Public Safety and Appeals) (Scotland) Bill.
Or the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Bill.
So we will take the amendments, like we do here, and then we will have a debate on the general principles?
Does that mean that there is no decision time?
There will be decision time.
But we will vote on amendments as we go along?
No. Think of it as two sections. There will be a section when we go through stage 3 amendments, which will be done in exactly the same way as we do things here. The procedure will be exactly the same. When that is finished, there will be a debate on the general bill, which will not be allocated a huge amount of time—it will not last three hours or anything; it will probably be allocated an hour or something like that. There will be a vote at the end of that debate on the bill as a whole. We do not know what the position will be at that point. I just wanted to flag up early doors the fact that we will need to provide the core of the workhorse.
To an empty chamber.
It will not be empty, because there will be the amendment stage. All parties will have to have their members here and hereabouts because we will not know when there will be votes. There could be votes on amendments all afternoon.
The amendment stage will be the contentious part. Once it gets to the stage 3 debate, there will not be much contention.
No, unless somebody is so unhappy that an amendment has not been passed that they contest it.
But that would be only a tiny majority.
Yes.
Meeting closed at 12:39.
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