Last week, we asked the clerks to bring back a paper on the work of the Standards Committee in the previous session for our consideration. The paper is quite short—it has only 12 paragraphs—but a number of points are made. Perhaps the best way of dealing with it is to go through the items in order.
Paragraph 5 of the paper says:
I thought that the invitation to examine the operation of the federal lobbyists registration scheme in Canada was very welcome. I welcome the idea that we write to the Minister for Parliamentary Business and I will do so, if everyone is agreed. As I recall, the minister told the committee last session that the review of the Scottish ministerial code would be implemented, but we could write requesting an update.
Is there an issue to do with the membership requirements that cross-party groups must meet to be reconstituted? As they stand, the regulations require a member of each political party to join. Members think that that would be an onerous requirement for some of the smaller parties in particular, given the number of groups. Might the committee require to make a decision on that before the summer recess?
Hopefully, we will deal with that under item 3 and come to a decision on the matter, at least to provide guidance on how to interpret that particular anomaly.
It is entirely sensible that we do not rush to set the future programme today, especially as one of our number is not with us at the moment. However, it is sensible that we come to at least an interim position on cross-party groups, which we will be addressing under item 3. It is an important matter.
I have been going through the paper in order, but I will jump now to paragraphs 10 and 11, on cross-party groups. Of all the items outstanding from last session, I would like to give most priority to the matter of cross-party groups. We have all adopted a holding position on cross-party groups until the current investigation is concluded—I think that that goes for most MSPs. There is a need for the Standards Committee to conclude its review on cross-party groups with some urgency. However, I note that the research that we have commissioned will not be returned to us until towards the end of the year, which sets the timetable for us. Nevertheless, it is still the issue that I would like to progress first.
Have we gone on to item 3 now? Are we coming back to cross-party groups later in the meeting?
We are definitely returning to cross-party groups under item 3.
In that case, I will leave my remarks until then.
Are there any other comments under item 2, about future business or the work of the committee in session 1?
Being new to the committee I want to ask whether the bill proposing the mandatory registration of non-pecuniary or non-financial interests is scheduled for introduction in the first year of this session of the Parliament—or is it not yet scheduled?
It is my understanding that it is not yet scheduled.
So we are under no pressure to do that.
No, we are not. In fact, the new intake of MSPs has signed up under the old system. As members know, there was a great deal of pressure on the clerks to get MSPs to sign up under that system. Now that that has happened there is no pressing urgency, but we want to reform the system and put the new rules in place when we can.
Paragraph 12 concerns the Scottish Parliament and Business Exchange, which, as members know, was the subject of some controversy last year. I suggest that we write to the exchange to ask what progress it is making in examining our recommendations. When we come to discuss the work programme, presumably after the recess, we can perhaps build in some kind of monitoring exercise to find out what progress has been made.
That is a helpful suggestion. We have covered four items in the paper, to do with lobbying, members' interests, cross-party groups, and the business exchange, all of which are what I would describe as unfinished business. We will need to come back to those. As I understand it, we are waiting for the business exchange to finish its review of structures and come back to us with a recommendation. However, it would do no harm to write a letter to the exchange to find out when that will happen.
Presumably the business exchange gets reconstituted.
As I understand it, the business exchange is a separate company.
I think that it recently had another inaugural meeting for this session and that there are new directors.
We are obviously working slightly in the dark here. A letter to the business exchange is a useful idea, and we will try to get something on the agenda for when we come back after the summer.
It would be helpful if we could discuss the draft bill that is mentioned in paragraph 9 of the report, because there are a number of outstanding issues. The question of how far we probe into partners' finances is a tricky one—there may be strong arguments both ways. There is a minor technicality about registering shares whose market value exceeds £25,000. As we have seen recently, shares can go up and down by a great deal, so someone would keep on coming in and out of the register.
Indeed. Donald Gorrie has touched on some of the Standards Committee's key discussions last session. If we want to push the bill forward in a draft form it will have to go before Parliament and will therefore be discussed by all MSPs. Perhaps what we are mulling over this morning is not so much the need to think further about those four items but when we want to have a discussion on the draft bill.
As long as it is in the list.
Indeed. I suspect that the previous committee broke the back of the matter, and at least gave us an outline that we can try to work round and reach agreement on. It is really just a case of when we want to wrestle with that and bring it to the Parliament. The bill will have to be a committee bill, so we have to find a slot. My feeling is that we need to come back—[Interruption.] We have been heckled by alarms all morning. We will need to have a fuller paper after the summer, to discuss our future work agenda, those four outstanding items and any other items that members feel that the committee should be discussing. We can work out from that how we will prioritise our timetable. I am not in a rush to do that before the summer.
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