Item 3 on the agenda concerns our inquiry into timescales and stages of bills. Members should have received a note from the clerk—after temporarily mislaying my copy, I have now found it. The note lists suggested witnesses and some possible case studies. It was thought that, rather than jumping between different bills that had different problems, we might find it useful to consider how a couple of bills progressed through the system. It is suggested that we consider one bill from the end of the previous session and one bill from the current session.
I would like to build on one of the categories. The paper refers to
It would be helpful if members could identify an organisation from which they would like to hear. We could write to the Scottish Civic Forum to request details of the notes that it took of the meeting, as we have no such detailed notes.
It need only be someone who represents civic Scotland.
Presumably some people in that position were witnesses at stage 1.
We are not suggesting that we consider the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, as that might be too large and complicated.
The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill would be a good bill to consider, as it had everything.
I agree.
We can consider the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill as a case study from the previous session.
The National Parks (Scotland) Bill was also different in that, although there was some heat around the issue of whether northern Perthshire should be included in the Cairngorms national park, the way in which the bill was considered was quite successful.
We wanted to suggest a bill from the current session as well, just so that we have something slightly more up to date.
Why are there no members' bills or committee bills? I am not convinced by the argument that it is always Executive bills that bring pressures. Pressures come from other bills, too, and it would be interesting to examine some of the issues surrounding those bills. We are kidding ourselves if we think that the issue is just about Executive bills. Every bill that comes to the Parliament should follow the same procedures and we need to ask how those procedures have operated.
The problem with members' bills is finding a typical one to study. By definition, such bills are not typical. With Executive bills, because there are more of them, it is easier to identify bills of a specific type. The issue is about testing the procedures rather than about where the bill has come from.
Should we be testing the procedures against different types of bills, rather than just against Executive bills? Executive bills come with a different set of support from that attaching to members' bills or committee bills. I have been through the committee bill process and I would be happy for that to be scrutinised by the committee—we could consider how the bill was dealt with by the secondary committee and what pressure the bill put on the lead committee, the secondary committee and the other committees that were involved.
I know what you are saying, but I think that we agreed a remit that indicated that we would be concentrating on Executive bills. We shall check that remit.
If members have time to reflect on things and ask whether there is something that we could do better, does the committee's investigation need to be set in stone by the remit that has been agreed? I thought that the whole point of the exercise was for us to look at the procedures, which are not exclusive to Executive bills and which affect all members.
Nobody is preventing anyone—including members of this or any other committee—from presenting any evidence or from raising concerns that have arisen from any bill, which the committee can then look at. However, if we just pluck something out of the air and add it to the inquiry, our inquiry could become so open ended that we will not reach any conclusions. We are considering issues relating to the timetabling of bills. If members are aware of specific issues that relate to the timetabling of members' bills and that are not the same as issues relating to Executive bills, they should give a note to the clerk to indicate what those concerns are. We can then find out how best to take evidence on those issues.
The issues relate to the fact that different people have different levels of support. When the Executive introduces an Executive bill and lodges amendments so many days before a deadline, it has a vast array of civil servants supporting it. A member or a committee will not necessarily have that support. If we are going to make changes, we need to consider how they will impact on other types of bills that come through the Parliament and that do not necessarily have the support that is available to the Executive.
With respect, we have looked at this item on a couple of occasions before and you have not raised that issue—you are now asking me to make a decision on something that you have not raised before. I am quite happy for you to make suggestions on the issues that you think need to be considered in relation to the timetabling of non-Executive bills, which we can examine at our next meeting. We do not have a definitive list of witnesses yet and we are still waiting for written evidence. If members have additional suggestions for things that we ought to be looking at and if they are clear about the issues that we should include, I am happy for those issues to be looked at and for us to decide how best we can address them.
Let me be very clear about what I am asking for. If, at the end of the investigation, we are to make changes to the timetable for legislation, we must take into account how such changes will impact on bills that do not come from the Executive. That is a serious and potentially problematic issue. If we do not, as part of our inquiry, take evidence on how such changes will affect other types of bills, we could adversely affect procedures for those bills that do not come from the Executive.
I accept what you are saying, but we are not starting from an assumption that we will make changes. We are looking at the timetabling to see whether it is adequate at present. It may be the case that, for some aspects of the members' bills process, the timetable is inadequate. I have not received any evidence to back that up but, if there is such evidence, we will have to consider it. We are not necessarily going to end up making changes at the end of the process; we will make changes only if we find that there is a problem that requires changes to be made.
Is every bill subject to the same timetabling restrictions once it has started going through the process of stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3?
Yes.
Therefore any changes that we make will affect all bills, not just Executive bills.
Yes.
I assume that the purpose of the inquiry is to make changes and not to retain the status quo. It would be naive of us to suggest that, once we open up the subject for consideration, we will end up concluding that we should keep the system that we have now. We already have a letter from a committee saying that it cannot cope under the current system. I assume that we will make changes, so it would be remiss of us not to consider how that would affect all bills and not just Executive bills.
I am not disputing that. I am simply saying that we will make changes if during the inquiry we identify changes that need to be made. Moreover, if we make changes, we will consider how those changes would impact on all bills. Because of the situation with members' bills, we might need to make changes that we would not have had to make if we were dealing only with Executive bills. We need evidence about the issues. Are you suggesting that, instead of considering two Executive bills, we take a non-Executive bill as the second example?
Yes.
Does anyone have a suggestion as to what non-Executive bill we should consider? At present we do not have any to choose from. Karen Gillon is suggesting that, instead of taking as examples two Executive bills, we consider an Executive bill and a non-Executive bill. I do not think that we are in a position to make a judgment on that at this stage. Members might be able to think of particular bills that would provide useful illustrations. The important point is that we do not want to consider particular bills just because they experienced a problem. The exceptions at either end—the particularly easy or particularly difficult bills—will not necessarily give us the best indication of what the process should be.
What about the Dog Fouling (Scotland) Bill? We have just picked the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill and the National Parks (Scotland) Bill, which are not on the list. We have just done exactly what you said we should not be doing.
With respect, I was saying that we had no indication of any non-Executive bills that we might want to consider. You have given us one suggestion.
What about the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill?
Are members happy with that suggestion?
We will go with the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill and the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill, if members are happy that those will give us a range of issues to consider. That does not prevent members from coming forward with concerns that they have had about other bills. We are just trying to focus the inquiry on a couple of bills to get the issues sorted out. If anyone has other suggestions for the inquiry, they should let me or the clerks know as soon as possible.
I have a question on that. My experience is that it is pretty pointless hearing from Executive officials at a committee meeting without a minister being present, because when the officials are asked a difficult or political question they refer us back to the minister. Perhaps it would make more sense to hear from the Minister for Parliamentary Business as well as from the officials.
I was thinking of information gathering rather than asking political questions. I am sure that we would want to hear from the minister later, but we are talking at this stage about drafting issues and the time required for lodging amendments, which are technical rather than political issues.
We might ask the officials a question that they deem political.
They would be free to say that the question was political and that the minister could answer it.
What is the difficulty with having the minister and the officials together?
I would have thought that we would want to hear from the minister later in the inquiry when we have got further with our proposals. We could question her about specific proposals rather than getting technical information.
We could hear from her twice, because I imagine that she is involved in the process.
We can ask the minister to come twice. I am sure that she would be happy to do that.
We can require her to come twice.
On that note, I thank members and bring the meeting to a close.
Meeting closed at 12:20.
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