Welcome to the fifth meeting of the Justice Committee in 2013. I ask everyone to switch off mobile phones and other electronic devices completely, as they interfere with the broadcasting system even when they are switched to silent. We have received no apologies.
No.
Right. Let us hear why you do not agree.
As you know convener, I have raised several times the issue of the committee taking business in private, but it is particularly concerning this morning, because it is proposed that we take four items of business in private and only one in public. The items that might be considered in private include the arrangements for future scrutiny of policing, which I think should be conducted in public in the public interest and in the interests of transparency, accountability and open democracy.
Can I come in, convener?
Yes. Can we have moderation in the contributions and not party politics, please? I am not interested in party politics in the committee; I am interested in substantive reasons.
We take the issue seriously, which is why, as I have said previously, I am pretty much appalled by Jenny Marra’s behaviour.
Now, now.
That is all I will say on that.
I say to everybody that I want a proper discussion without the little interchange of adjectives. Control the adjectives.
This is the Justice Committee, so I think that I am entitled to defend my party.
My mother used to call it “tit for tat”. Let us not have tit for tat.
Item 2, on policing, is fine. Under item 3, we are to consider arrangements, and I believe that it is normal practice to consider such items in private. I do not have a problem with not taking item 4 in private. On item 5, I reiterate Jenny Marra’s point that we do not know what it is. However, I do not see how we can discuss it in public if we do not know what it is yet. I am happy to take item 4 in public, but we should take items 3 and 5 in private.
I, too, have concerns. I understand the committee’s process of publishing an agenda and that, if an item is not on the agenda, it cannot be considered. That said, given the profile of the issues around the Scottish police service, it is reasonable for the public to expect to understand what role we are playing in that. The public will not understand that if we consider those matters in private.
No. We cannot go into the substance of the issue just now because to do so would mean doing it in public. We are talking about the principles behind doing what we do in private or in public.
It is for that reason that I would like us to do these items in public.
May I say something about the work programme, because I seem to have stopped you in your tracks? We usually discuss our work programme in private because it allows the clerks to address us and give us updates or timetables and to talk about issues that are being dealt with through correspondence. They would not be able to do that if we were to discuss the work programme in public. It is just a bit of housekeeping and there is nothing duplicitous. It allows our clerks to speak to us.
I am not suggesting that there is anything inappropriate but, for the reasons that I have outlined, the public expect to hear our views. I wonder whether the procedure allows that it is perfectly competent to hear elements of an item. I am sure that it has happened elsewhere. We could discuss those elements and then go into private session to hear something that the clerks wish to tell us about those elements.
We would have to make those separate items on the agenda. That would be a way of doing it and there is no problem with that. However, work programme discussions often go into other issues, and discussion in private allows the clerks to speak. I do not want to go into the substance of it, but that is why the work programme is done in that way.
Convener, I think that the item should be taken in public. I see no reason for it not to be.
I will come to that.
John Finnie has stolen my thunder to some extent by asking why we should not separate out some of the agenda items so that we can discuss the substance in public and, if there are sensitivities around advice that we need to receive from the clerks, we can agree to go into private session.
I do not have a problem with that.
Why was it proposed that it should be in private in the first place?
It was not proposed; the suggestion has been put to the committee for consideration, and I did not say what I wanted. I am not unhappy with item 4 being discussed in public, so let us discount item 4.
But it is in the papers. I read it three times and thought that I was missing something. I discovered that I was not missing anything. The item should be discussed in public.
It is because it was proposed by the clerks as a general approach to the legislation. That is the usual principle, but I have no issues about item 4 being discussed in public. I will come to the others later.
Convener, did you approve the agenda?
Yes. The agenda comes—
So—you approved those items being considered in private.
No. I do not make decisions about what the committee does. Heaven forfend! That is obvious. If a member wants to discuss something in public, the committee debates it and we decide whether to debate it in public or private. In this case the proposal follows principles that have operated in this Parliament for 13 years. I weary of this. Perhaps it should not always be the case, but it has been the case that it is proposed that certain items—including committees’ work programmes, the general approach to a piece of work, consideration of whether to have witnesses or not in relation to a bill, as is the case in agenda item 6, and general bits of housekeeping—be dealt with in private. There is no change here to anything that has been happening for the past 13 years—during eight of which, I might add, other parties were in power and the procedure was never an issue. I do not know, to be frank, why it is an issue now. However, on we go. I am listening.
I suggest that, in the past decade, there has been a change of culture, and there is an interest among the general public in the work that we do here. A change in the way in which we manage these things might be appropriate.
For the record, I agree that item 4 should be in public. I see no reason for it to be otherwise.
We have had those discussions twice before, both times in private. That is my point. This is nothing different.
On that point—
I will let you back in, as you raised the issue, but I will let Graeme ask a question. I am sorry—I mean Colin.
I thought that the convener was giving you another shot, Graeme.
Before you go on, I have just been reminded that we agreed at a previous meeting to take item 6 in private, so that is what we will do. We have agreed to hold item 4 in public. We are talking about 3 and 5.
Having sat on the Public Audit Committee for the past couple of years and having attended a couple of European and External Relations Committee meetings, I can say that those committees have no problem with dealing with their general work programme stuff and so on in private because they know that, eventually, they will come to substantive debates on the matters, which will be held in public. I also have a bit of experience in local government, where meetings are held in private for the same general reasons that the convener outlined about naming people and deciding who to invite to attend future meetings. All of that is housekeeping, and substantive debates are held in public.
The onus is on the committee to always be as open and transparent as we can be, and it should be by exception only that we take business in private. I agree with everyone else that item 4 ought to be in public.
Do you have any concerns about going through the names of MSPs in public? That is what concerns me.
Can I speak on that point?
You can in a minute. I am asking Alison McInnes what she thinks about that issue.
We might need to speak about it in a slightly different way. Some of the discussion about who will be on the sub-committee is for business managers and political groups to have. However, it has surely now been publicised that we wish to proceed with the sub-committee.
We should not draw a comparison between naming people who might come to the committee as witnesses and naming MSPs in relation to our discussion on police scrutiny. MSPs are elected to carry out a public accountability function, and I do not see it as a problem if their names are discussed in public. The public have a right to know which MSPs will be sitting on the sub-committee. As I said, we cannot draw a comparison between naming potential witnesses to come to the committee and naming MSPs, because this is our job. I understand that we have probably had such discussions in private before, but there is a majority on the committee to push through the discussions you want to have in private, and concerns have previously been raised that this matter should not be discussed in private.
I appreciate that, but if we are going to discuss item 3 in public, I do not want MSPs’ names to be mentioned. It is not up to the committee to select the members of the proposed sub-committee; it is up to the Parliamentary Bureau. It would be invidious for us to propose in public names that the Parliamentary Bureau would not necessarily select. It would be indiscreet. If you are content not to talk about the substance of the sub-committee, and not to mention MSPs’ names, that could be a compromise. My concern is that we are talking about individuals—as we might also talk about witnesses. How do you feel about that? I do not want to take it to a division.
I am relaxed about that. I would like some clarification on the procedures, however. I am deeply frustrated about the issue of the Crown Office, and several weeks have elapsed—
We are going to discuss that—
Can I pose a question, please? Can a member of the committee request that an item be placed on the agenda?
Yes.
If so, can we place the item of the complaints procedure—
You did. That is why it is on the agenda.
Yes, but I did so in order that people could see that we are discussing it, not so that people could see that it is on the agenda but we cannot discuss it in public.
I do not want to talk in public about what we have done, but the communications have not involved correspondence from the committee to the Crown Office; they have been communications between the clerks and the Crown Office. I have had to make discussion of the issue private so that the clerks can tell us about it, and we can then make up our minds what the committee should do. It is on the agenda because you asked for it to be on the agenda and the reason why it is not in public is so that the clerks can speak. It is as simple as that. Otherwise, the clerks cannot tell us what has been going on. We can put it on to the public agenda next week. I would be the last person to suppress the Megrahi stuff, by the way.
I am grateful that it is on the agenda when it was not going to be, but I would be more grateful if you could advise me whether I can ask for an item to be placed on the agenda for discussion in open forum.
Yes—but in this instance the communications have been between the clerks and the Crown Office, so the clerks have to speak. I do not know how often I have to say it: they cannot speak in public. We can have something on the agenda next week, when we might have put something in writing and done various things that would allow us then to have an open discussion on the matter. It is simply that I cannot let the clerks tell the committee in public about their communications.
Could we have an item next week discussing complaints procedures for public authorities? If there is any useful information that the Crown Office, for instance, might wish to impart in relation to that agenda item, that would be helpful.
We should discuss that in relation to the work programme and what you want to put on the agenda.
It is a catch-22 situation.
No, it is not.
I ask for clarification first. If we take item 3 in public, we cannot mention annex B of paper 2. The paper also mentions political parties. Two of the political parties have only one member each on the committee, so it would not take the Brain of Britain to understand who the two members of the sub-committee will be. Whether we name them or not, they will be known. They are members of this committee and there is only one from each party. That is mentioned in the paper.
No, we do not have to name them. The paper suggests that the sub-committee should have four members from the Justice Committee and two from other committees, but it does not have to have that balance. We can keep the discussion about that fairly discreet.
Convener, do you take my point that MSPs are different and that there is no problem with naming or discussing representatives in public?
Jenny, bear with me. We are only making a recommendation. If we were to recommended people and the Parliamentary Bureau did not accept that recommendation, that would cause a stramash that need not happen. That would not be fair to those individuals, whoever they are. It has nothing to do with their parties.
Could you help me? Forgive my ignorance. Is it feasible that the clerks allow us to discuss part of the item—about the general principles and so forth—in public and that we then step into private session to allow us to have the discussion that you suggest, convener?
Bear with me for a minute; I will check.
Convener, will you clarify that, just for me?
My proposal for the item on the future scrutiny of policing is that we discuss in public the format of scrutiny and, perhaps, the political balance on the sub-committee, the numbers of members and even recommendations for which committees they should come from, but we will not name individual members. Then, having taken a view on the structure, we can consider under our work programme our recommendations for membership. However, it may be that committee members have still to talk to their parties about who may or may not be available. People may not want to take part, to be frank; we know that the Finance Committee has no one available.
I say to John Finnie that I would prefer to hold the discussion about the Crown Office under the work programme in private simply so that the clerks can give us an update. Once we get that, we can go on from there and, if appropriate, put something in public on the agenda. However, I need them to tell you what has been going on.
Thank you.
There are two parts to the discussion on the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Bill. I am going to have the first part, which is on the approach—[Interruption.] Members have got me all confused. Item 6 is fine.
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