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I think that, in the main, the accompanying documents are very robust. We have had a look at them over the parliamentary session. Perhaps Steven Macgregor will talk about how the documents have grown in size and complexity since the first session.
However, there may be an issue with how accessible all the documents are to members of Parliament and members of the public. We should certainly look at that. For instance, the financial memorandum is almost hidden away. It may be that each of the documents should be more easily accessible individual documents, so if somebody wants to find the financial memorandum, it should be relatively easy for them to find it as a document in its own right. We should look at how we can improve accessibility.
One way forward is to consider how to use the internet more. I know that not everyone has access to the internet but, increasingly, it is becoming the way people access information. Using the internet gives us opportunities to improve access and to make it much simpler for people to find the information that they want and access the documents. Accompanying documents are very helpful to the Parliament and the Government, so we should continue to try to improve them.
One of the challenges that we sometimes have is knowing exactly what Parliament wants in an accompanying document. That might be why, over time, documents have got bigger and bigger and yet sometimes we still hear that they are not doing what Parliament wants. There is a need for a discussion between the Parliament and the Government to work out some guidelines about what is expected to be in a financial memorandum, for instance.
The guidelines that currently exist are very high-level guidelines and sometimes what we produce is exactly what a committee wants and sometimes it is not what a committee wants. We need to have a better understanding of what it is that Parliament wants from the documents. Perhaps Steven Macgregor can talk a bit about some of the documents and how they have changed over time.
Stage 3 is the final stage of Parliament’s consideration of legislation, so it is an extremely important part of our processes. Standing orders already allow us to split stage 3, to consider amendments on one day and to hold the debate on another day—either the next day or the following week—when it is deemed to be appropriate, but we have not considered using that option very often in recent times. In the light of the evidence that the committee has received, we will give more active consideration to that for future bills. In other words, for bills that are currently being considered or are about to be considered, we will look more carefully at whether it would be appropriate for the amendment stage to be on one day and the debate on another day. I feel strongly that there should be time to consider amendments at stage 3 and to hold the stage 3 debate.
The process that we go through is that the bill team looks at the amendments that are lodged and makes a best estimate of the time that it will take to debate them. I share that best estimate with business managers in the Parliament, who will generally ask their spokespeople whether the timing is right or whether more time is needed. On some occasions, a business manager will come back and say that their members want more time to speak on a particular set of amendments. We would extend the time, based on that information. However, it will still be an estimate. Until the debate happens and we hear the contributions, we cannot know how much time we will need in order not to curtail the debate.
Obviously, standing orders give the Presiding Officer the flexibility to use a rule to extend the session. However, that happens only once and then we have the slightly clunky situation of a motion without notice being moved. I wonder whether the PO should have more flexibility. Of course, the PO always has the flexibility to delay decision time to enable further contributions at stage 3, but it is an important part of the process and standing orders perhaps do not give the PO sufficient flexibility to ensure that the debate on amendments is not curtailed. Sometimes that stage feels a bit rushed.
It was interesting to hear the views of a group of people who are not so directly engaged in the process. It would be fair to say that, although we learned a lot from them, they went away having learned a lot, too.
Following on from our two visits, there will, of course, be a formal report that the clerks will prepare for us and we will publish at a later date. However, in terms of the process of Parliament, it was enlightening for the committee to go out and engage with the public, because the public are often kept pretty distant from the processes. Our views of the processes are often about what serves us best, as we are the ones who are involved in them, and our visits gave us an opportunity to see what would best serve the public, whom we serve. It was a worthwhile initiative. Everybody who visited played a helpful part in the process.
The next agenda item concerns our inquiry into the procedures for considering legislation. We have a panel of witnesses from the Scottish Government with us today. From left to right, we have Stuart Foubister, from the directorate for legal services; Steven Macgregor, the primary legislation programme manager in the Cabinet, Parliament and governance division; Joe FitzPatrick, the Minister for Parliamentary Business; and Willie Ferrie, from the office of the Scottish parliamentary counsel.
It is not usually my habit to invite opening statements, but I will give the minister the opportunity to make any comments that he wishes to make at this stage.
Yes. Obviously, in the committee’s inquiry, we are mostly looking at the Parliament’s process from stage 1 to stage 3, but the whole process begins long before that, of course, and continues after that in implementation. There is a huge amount of engagement before a bill is produced. One way in which we can do that is through using a draft bill. I think that it has been pretty consistent that there have been draft bills for around 25 per cent of the bills in all the sessions of the Parliament.
When a draft bill is appropriate, it is very helpful, but I am not sure that a draft bill would be beneficial for every single bill. It would simply not be appropriate for some bills. As I said, we already have draft bills for around 25 per cent of bills, which is helpful.
When we have looked at the process, we have wondered whether the Parliament could engage more prior to a bill’s introduction and somehow take part in the Government’s consultation work before that. That would clearly not be to form a final view. The committees would always want to protect their position in scrutinising bills that have been introduced, but that approach would offer an opportunity for members of specialist committees who have developed specialist knowledge in an area to feed into the Government’s thinking at an earlier stage in developing bills. That might be helpful.
If we do a quick check, starting from 1999, we see that the average size of the financial memorandum in the first session was three pages; in the second session, it was nine pages; in the third session, it was 15 pages; and in the current session, it is 21 pages. We are definitely providing more information, but the question is whether it is the right information.
We have been engaging with the Parliament on the issue. We have invited the Parliament to contribute to the training that we provide for bill teams and we are quite keen to continue with that. However, we also want to develop some guidance to lie behind that so that we can understand, as far as we can, what information the Parliament would like to see so that we can try to provide that for you.
How do you respond to the concerns about setting an end point by which a bill must complete its passage through Parliament? We have had criticism—or comment, I should say—about the length of time between stages 2 and 3.
I have a final question. The Law Society of Scotland mentioned the idea of having some sort of sense check after amendments have been passed at stage 3 but before the Parliament proceeds with the bill and makes a formal decision on it. What are your views on that, minister?
Again, the standing orders provide the opportunity for a sense check. The member in charge or the minister can, in effect, call a halt to proceedings and go back to lodge some correcting amendments. I think that that happened on one occasion, in 2006. It might be a reason why a bill that had a lot of complex amendments would need some time between the amendment stage and the decision, to allow a sense check to be done and a motion to be moved to allow amendments.
Are you saying that you favour the idea of publishing amendments with a short explanation of the policy thinking behind them?
Some of the stakeholders we have had before us think that it would be valuable to have the stage 3 debate in advance of the consideration of the amendments. How do you feel about that?
The existing provisions and what the Presiding Officer or the convener might say in relation to pre-emption—
My opening remarks would be similar to the written evidence that we submitted, so I will just quickly emphasise that we welcome the committee’s inquiry. It is absolutely appropriate that the Parliament periodically reviews its systems to ensure that they remain fit for purpose and to ensure that we continue to improve the Parliament’s processes. It has been interesting for us to consider the written and oral evidence that you have received and to hear just now about some of the public engagement that you have been doing as part of that process. Such public engagement is one of the increasing strengths of our Parliament.
It might be helpful if my colleagues briefly introduced themselves and said what they do as part of our team.
As a librarian, I find that interesting, because it is not about the quantity of information that can be accessed; it is about the quality of that information. The question is whether we are putting out information that supports a bill and helps all the stakeholders to understand what it is about. It is interesting to hear that we are working on that.
There is perhaps potential to consider whether there are options to set the debate in context. It seems that there is something missing in terms of the lead committee reporting back to the Parliament as a whole on what has happened. Probably the only person who could do that in an entirely neutral way would be the convener of the committee.
If we were seeking to improve the information that is available to members, we would continue the current practice of producing information on the basis of groups of amendments. It would be very onerous on Government and on Parliament if there had to be an explanatory note for each individual amendment, and that might not be terribly helpful when there was a group of amendments that did something. In such circumstances, we currently produce notes that explain the purpose and effect of the group of amendments. We share those notes, but I do not know whether all members will have seen the detailed notes that we produce. I could share with the committee the explanatory notes that we produced for David Stewart’s Buildings (Recovery of Expenses) (Scotland) Bill. We shared those notes with Mr Stewart and the relevant committee.
That is quite interesting. The committee always comes back to the question whether we need to change the standing orders to make something happen. If we want to get the committees to engage in the pre-legislative consultation process that the Government already carries out, do we need a standing order change, or do we simply need to highlight the fact that committees should consider that?
A bill’s timings are often driven by a desire to implement what the bill does in a particular timescale. Normally, we look at timescales in collaboration with the lead committee to work out how much time will be required for each stage, although there are occasions when we do not get that quite right. We are always keen to listen and, if representations are made to us that the timescales are not right and are not allowing proper scrutiny, we look to be flexible.
An example of the Government being flexible in such a way was the case of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill. Concern was expressed that not enough time was available between the stages for stakeholders and the DPLR committee to consider amendments, so we extended the period to allow for that.
The Government will always listen to representations, but we want to get bills passed for a reason. There is a purpose behind the legislation that the Parliament takes forward. Over the four sessions of the Parliament, we have a pretty good record of taking forward legislation that, in the main, we would all agree is designed to improve the lives of people in Scotland.
I heard the comments from Mr Adam and Mr Buchanan on that. I understand the concerns. You go into stage 3 and all of a sudden you can be discussing what might be very technical amendments on a bill. There might be people in the gallery who have come to hear an important debate on a subject, yet they hear members talking about things that do not seem to fit in.
As the stage 3 debate consists of the minister or the member in charge of the bill moving a motion that the Parliament accepts the bill as amended, it cannot start until after the amendments have been agreed to. I understand that it seems a bit strange that there is nothing to put the amendment stage in context. Without wishing to push a Government line, I wonder whether there is a missing stage, such as a handover from the committee that dealt with the bill at stage 2 to the plenary session at stage 3. Perhaps the convener of that committee could have an opportunity to talk, in a neutral way—as conveners often manage to do—about what happened at stage 2. A bill is debated in plenary session at stage 1, goes to committee at stage 2 and comes back to the Parliament at stage 3. If the convener had an opportunity to talk about what happened at stage 2, that might set the stage 3 debate in some context. That could be an alternative to starting straight in with amendments.
I think that the stage 3 debate must take place after the consideration of amendments, because the motion that is moved—whether by the member in charge of the bill or the minister—involves accepting the bill as amended.
Those would still apply.
That is it. For a big bill, if we split stage 3 into two parts and had consideration of the amendments on one day and the stage 3 debate in the following week or even later, that would give us an opportunity to have a final look at the technical correctness of the bill and, if necessary, to tidy it up.
That is a different matter, which we will perhaps come on to. Willie Ferrie will talk first about the technology.
That would be helpful. You have anticipated my suggestion.
There are fixed times between stages 1, 2 and 3, but they can be extended. Is that what you are saying?
It is also the public who do not understand what happens. People just disappear out of the chamber and the public gallery. That is the problem, I think—it looks bad from the parliamentary point of view. As a relatively new member, I do not understand why we have the debate at the end. Something needs to change, although I cannot say exactly what should be done. As we have said, the current process is not quite right.
However, they would perhaps become a little more complex.
I do not think that there would be any need for a standing order change to allow committees to take part in pre-legislative scrutiny. In fact, a number of committees already do that. I think that the Education and Culture Committee did a fair bit of engagement prior to the introduction of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill. It knew that that bill was coming, so it started to do some work. Currently, the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee is doing some land reform scrutiny in advance of a bill.
Such an approach is therefore possible, and it happens. When it does, it means that committee members are able to engage at stage 1 with a much higher level of understanding of the thinking of the Government and stakeholders. There might be an additional opportunity to engage with the Government’s consultation process, which probably does not happen very much now. However, I do not think that any of that would need standing order changes. Perhaps we should highlight the fact that that opportunity exists.
We always try to do things by discussion with the Parliament and the committees. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, for instance, has raised concerns about the fact that the delegated powers memorandum does not include guidance and direction-making powers. The standing orders do not require that, but there is probably not a good reason for that not to be the case. That may be something that you want to look at.
On technological developments, work is on-going to refresh our bill drafting software, as the minister said. We in the OSPC are working in conjunction with the clerks in the Parliament’s legislation team to develop new software for drafting bills, including for drafting amendments. The software that we use dates from 1999 and is a bit creaky. We need something that is more fit for the digital age.
We want to move away from the system that the minister described, in which we draft each amendment as a separate document that is separate from the bill, which means that amendments and bills must be looked at separately. We hope that, with the new software, the drafter will be able to call up the bill on screen, type the desired changes straight into the bill, in order to see how amendments would look in the bill, and press a button to make the software produce the list of amendments.
I do not think that we can move away from having the marshalled list of amendments, as the standing orders require it for consideration of and voting on amendments. However, we hope that, because the drafters will, in effect, be writing amendments straight into the bill as they are drafted, the new software will make it easier to produce a version of the bill with the amendments marked up. That version could be made available to members and the public, which might help to make the process more transparent and make it easier to understand what amendments would do. We hope that that software will be available for use by the end of 2015—that is the project’s current timeframe.
I am thinking on my feet here, but you are leading me to think about the model that we occasionally use in relation to ministerial statements, which are made without interruption and are followed by a debate on the contents of the statement. I wonder whether what you are saying leads us to think that we might start the stage 3 amendment process with a statement from the member in charge of the bill, from the committee convener and perhaps one other member to set a context for that amendment stage. Would that be possible? I am not necessarily looking for a definitive answer.
10:00
I understand that it is possible for corrections to be made to the text as long as they do not affect the effect. Would you care to speak about that? For example, when I took the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill through Parliament, because of the huge number of amendments and the fact that we had to vote on a consequential amendment before we voted on the substantial amendments, none of us twigged that we had voted to accept a consequential amendment and had then voted down the substantial amendment, meaning that we had a reference to something that was not in the bill. That was corrected simply by taking out that reference.
Will you share those on the record or for background briefing?
I am from the office of the Scottish parliamentary counsel. Our office is responsible for the drafting of the bills that form the Government’s legislative programme, including the amendments to bills.
On your examples, when I was a member of the Health and Sport Committee, we took that approach knowing that the integration agenda was coming. The committee therefore did a short inquiry before that, which helped.
Can I go on to one of the other items that—
We would be happy to discuss that further.
There are two processes. The formal process, which we have discussed, is the one in which, if we split the amendments from the debate, amendments can be lodged that will correct amendments. That might have helped in the case that you describe and on the few other occasions when there have been slip-ups. There is also some limited scope to make what are known as printing changes, which we discuss with the clerks and which are made when there is an obvious error—usually a printing or typographical error—that can be corrected with a clear sense of what Parliament had intended to achieve. Something that is not clear could be made clear simply by correcting a printing error.
If the bill is beyond stage 3 and, therefore, beyond the stage at which it can be amended, the only opportunity to change things is through printing changes, and they are not put before members for scrutiny. We use that procedure only very rarely. If the process was split, members could take the opportunity to make a formal clarificatory amendment. The scope for making printing changes can be quite limited.
We would have to give careful consideration to what the consequences could be for managing the proceedings in relation to other amendments and other groups if we decided to deal with a group of amendments through one vote. There would be issues to consider, such as pre-emption and whether votes on alternative and competing amendments might be taken on different days. For example, what would happen if members voted on a group one day but then, on a later day, had to deal with a competing amendment that was in the same place? Those issues would have to be thought through carefully. At this stage, we cannot say that it is not doable; we just have to ensure that we think through those technical issues about the handling of amendments.
It might be surprising if we were not to agree with the DPLR committee on that particular subject. Another issue has arisen in other contexts in relation to the financial memorandum in particular, as well as other supporting documents. The financial memorandum, of course, is required to be passed by Parliament at stage 1. However, if it is updated, it is not required to be re-endorsed by Parliament. If we were to consider that when the financial memorandum changes, it should require to be re-endorsed by Parliament, what might the implications of that be?
There are minimum timescales in standing orders, which we perhaps work to a bit more than we should. As an outcome of the evidence that the committee has taken, we will look more carefully at whether there is a need to work to minimum timescales. Sometimes there will be, and we would want to maintain the flexibility to set timescales to the minimum level, when that is appropriate, but we will try not to do that. The general thrust of what the Government has put across to bill teams is that they should not expect to work to the minimum timescales.
Will there be an opportunity to produce an explanation of the policy thinking behind amendments? That would improve the understanding of the public and members who are not closely involved with a bill.
I will share them with members for background reading, if that is okay.
I work in the Cabinet, Parliament and governance division. I lead the Scottish Government’s legislation team, so I am responsible for co-ordinating the Scottish Government’s legislative programme. To do that, I work closely with individual bill teams, as well as the minister.
Clearly, we want to give Parliament as much information as possible and as much time to consider documents that are produced as possible. Normally, we get that right. We need to be careful that we are not putting up barriers along the way that make it very difficult for legislation to proceed.
We heard from organisations such as Shelter that the deadline for lodging amendments is very difficult to meet—I think it was Shelter that said that. Should the deadline be extended? Professionals—people who come here all the time—said that there is sometimes not enough time to lodge amendments.
Printing changes can and have been used to correct technical errors in the drafting that have resulted from the parliamentary process. They can be used as long as they do not change the intent of the bill. Does that capture what happens? I do not want to bounce you into giving a description that you are uncomfortable with.
I am sorry, but I have a question before we leave that subject. Is there the view on the panel that committees engaging in pre-legislative scrutiny might help those who contribute to consultations? Currently, they may have to contribute to the Government’s consultation and then to the committee’s consultation. Perhaps it might make things simpler and more straightforward. Alternatively, would it carry the risk of denying people the opportunity to have second thoughts when the committee was considering the bill or is it a question of horses for courses?
Before we move on, I seek Steven Macgregor’s view—if he is the right person to respond to my question—on some of the mechanics. At present, the republication of the bill after amendment at stage 3 seems to take place on the following day. Is that a practical and normal timetable? If we separated the stage 3 debate on the bill from the stage 3 amendment consideration, I imagine that we would wish to have that debate in the context of having the amended bill in front of us. What would be the practicalities associated with that? I chose Steven Macgregor, but I see Willie Ferrie nodding, which perhaps suggests that the question is for him.
It is important that members understand the intention behind amendments and groups of amendments. Supporting information on amendments is already produced for the Government and we share it with the relevant committee clerks. We would need to consider whether that information could be shared more widely.
One of my concerns about publishing purpose-and-effect notes is that courts might rely on them, which might have a big implication for the time that is taken to produce the notes. We would have to ensure that everything that was said in the notes was legally sound, as they might be used in court if they were published.
Producing a note for members’ information would be different from producing something that might be used in court because it was published. We already produce supporting information, and we will look at whether we might be able to share that information more widely with members.
I have a question for Stuart Foubister. One document that has come up when we have talked about all the accompanying documents is the Scottish Parliament information centre briefing. It is not part of the suite of documents that has to be produced, but it is always produced. I understand that, because it is not part of the suite of documents that has to be produced, it has no legal standing. Is that the case?
The bottom line is that, if the committee wants to consider the subject and comment on it, you are not strongly advocating that we desist from so doing.
I am from the directorate for legal services. I have a co-ordinating role in respect of the Scottish Government legal directorate’s interest in primary legislation. The SGLD is responsible for instructing all Government bills and the associated legal work in taking them through.
It probably is horses for courses to some extent, but any committee involvement in pre-legislative scrutiny would have to not debar it from making decisions about how it would scrutinise any bill that came out of that process. That would be a very important principle to maintain. The opportunity would be an additional opportunity that would not take away at all from the stage 1 scrutiny.
Yes, generally. I cannot think of particular instances in which the courts have had regard to a SPICe briefing, although it is a growing area. For instance, the courts are having much more regard to policy memoranda than they did in the past, mainly in relation to things such as European convention on human rights considerations when they think about the policy justification for Parliament having done something. The fact that the SPICe briefing does not come from the member in charge of the bill means that, in the long term, it may not be considered completely relevant.
Clearly, if an updated financial memorandum underpins what will now happen in the bill, it is part of what Parliament receives when it decides what it will do at stage 2 and stage 3. I can see an argument on both sides—it can be considered as part of the input.
That is correct.
We need to be careful. If we allow more time for people to lodge amendments, will that take away from the time that is available to consider amendments? That is a risk, particularly at stage 2 of a complex bill. The committee amendment stage has consequences for the next stage, so there are implications.
However, it is reasonable for the committee—and we would be happy to engage with you on this—to consider whether guidance can be produced to ensure that, whenever possible, more time is available, as appropriate, depending on the bill.
I think that I can answer that. Our office is involved in preparing an as-amended print, in conjunction with the clerks. That is normally produced overnight—that is certainly always the aim. However, with very big bills that have been heavily amended, it sometimes takes a couple of days to make the as-amended print available. Normally, the aim is to have the bill published on the Parliament’s website the following day so, if the debate was separated from the amendment process, the as-amended print should be available.
As I say, there are limits. If Parliament has voted on a particular amendment, we cannot undo the vote. However, if that amendment has resulted in a cross-reference to something that is wrong or that just does not appear in the bill, we can address that through a printing change. We cannot use printing changes to undo something that Parliament has agreed to.
As the minister said, we would require to consider the implications of such material being used in court. The courts’ general approach is that a bill means what it says. The first thing that they look at in trying to ascertain parliamentary intention is the bill’s text. The courts go behind that to look at extraneous materials such as debates in Parliament, policy memoranda and explanatory notes only if the text is ambiguous. If a new element of explanatory material was offered with amendments as a matter of course, the courts might look at that. There are issues to consider, but I do not think that anything is insurmountable.
10:15
At the end of our questioning, I will give our witnesses an opportunity to raise issues that they think we have missed.
That is perhaps a more adequate description than the one that I chose to give.
I quite like the idea of software for the bill team to use when the bill is going through Parliament. My current system, which I used for the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill and the Post-16 Education (Scotland) Bill, is very analogue—it could have been made in the 1970s. I think that physically seeing how things fit is better. I do not know whether it is because I am a control freak, but I would rather know exactly where amendments fit in a bill. At the moment, much to her dismay, my wife has to put post-it notes into the bill for me.
What are your views on the input of secondary committees—the Finance Committee and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee—in the process? Earlier this year, the Finance Committee was able to see a revised financial memorandum only on the morning of the stage 3 debate.
Another issue that has arisen is the documents that accompany bills when they are introduced. The documents that we have to introduce and their format have been laid down. Do we need to change our approach to make the documents more accessible?
09:45
To be precise, when you say “the following day”, what time would that be?
Item 3 relates to our inquiry into procedures for considering legislation. Members will be aware that we have had two public engagement events—in Glasgow and Stirling—in the past couple of weeks. I would like to get feedback on the record from the members who participated, who were Fiona McLeod, Cameron Buchanan, Margaret McDougall and me. Who wants to kick off on the Glasgow event—Fiona or Cameron?
It does not seem unreasonable that Parliament should be able to express a view in some way.
During our evidence sessions, there has been a general consensus that stage 3 needs to be reformed in some way. Should stage 3 be structured differently? Should it be given more time? Should it be split, so that consideration of amendments and the debate on the bill take place on separate days?
Should we leave the SPICe briefing as it is, as a non-statutory document that accompanies a bill?
The Glasgow event was incredibly well organised, not just on our side but by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations. A lot of people came and truly engaged with how the Parliament goes about producing legislation.
I picked out two things from the event. One is a great concern about timings, particularly for amendments at stages 2 and 3. The attendees were all policy officers, so they were well versed in the process, but another issue that they talked about was needing supporting documents at all stages of the process. They would like supporting documents from the lodgers of amendments that show a clear policy intent for amendments and how they will affect the overall bill.
Having read the note on the Stirling event, I am delighted that the people of Stirling think that we should reinstate the Parliament’s partnership libraries.
Let us move on to people’s understanding of amendments and why they have been lodged. Do you have any suggestions about how the consideration of amendments in committee and the chamber could be made more transparent?
Sometimes, those committees cause us a bit of trouble, but they are invaluable in terms of the Parliament’s process. They have a hugely important role to play—
I have been pursuing issues around stage 1 of the legislative process. During our inquiry, most witnesses have said that the stage 1 process is good, fairly robust and not in need of a lot of changes. However, people have raised issues about the pre-stage 1 process—pre-legislative consultation, draft bills and so on. The committee has begun to hear some good statistics on what the Government already does. Could you talk about the pre-legislative process?
Normally, the aim is to publish bills by about 8 o’clock on the Parliament website. We normally get an advance draft of the bill as amended, on the assumption that certain amendments will be voted in. We have a chance to check it in advance, and we then check it against how the votes went on the day.
That is probably a matter for the Parliament. However, given that all the other documentation that is required is, in effect, produced by the member in charge—or by the Government if it is a Government bill—the SPICe briefing is in a slightly different category.
So, on the mechanics, if we were to have the debate on the bill on the following day, in general members would have the morning to consider the amended bill and to incorporate that in the remarks that they made in the debate. However, on the basis of what you have said, we would be unwise to mandate that the amended bill should be available the following day.
One of the big challenges, particularly for a member of the public, is to understand where an amendment fits into the bill. In order for that to happen, the amendment must say something like, “Delete paragraph X.” However, that often does not mean anything at all on its own, so you need to have the bill beside the amendment in order to see the bit that will be taken out and work out how that squares with everything else. That is quite difficult for anyone to do.
My view is that this is where technology should be able to help us. We should be able to go to a website, click on an amendment and be shown how that amendment would fit within the bill and how it would change the bill. Some work is being done on the digitisation of the bill-making process, and we are content to continue working with Parliament to see how that process can be improved so that there is a clear understanding of how amendments interact with bills. A fair bit of work is also being done on an information technology project. Perhaps Willie Ferrie can talk about the work that is being done.
Let us turn to how amendments are dealt with where there is interaction between consequential amendments and the substantive amendment. Would it be useful if the Presiding Officer had the power to designate a group of amendments that clearly stood together to be voted on together in a single vote? Alternatively, should there be a change to the current drafting rules under which, when a proposed change would affect different parts of the bill, it has to be broken down into separate amendments rather than submitted as a single amendment to be voted on? I seem to remember that, when we make amendments to a bill that, in turn, amends pre-existing legislation, those amendments can have a scattergun effect.
I wonder whether you might care to rephrase your comment, minister, in order to make it clear that the Government and the bill sponsors occasionally cause the committees some trouble.
It was interesting to have a couple of former MSPs at the Glasgow event, who were useful. They were Iain Smith and a guy from the Greens—
Yes—I would caution against that because, with big bills, it can sometimes take a couple of days.
The role of those committees is to be welcomed because, ultimately, we all have an interest in passing robust legislation. It is absolutely correct that those committees continue to have that role, and it is incumbent on us to do our best to accommodate and facilitate their investigations and the work that they do as part of the bill process. We should always try to ensure that as much time as possible is given to those committees in the process, which might involve flagging that up to the subject committees so that, when they work out their work programme for a bill, they take into account the work that needs to be done by the committees that you mention, which play important specialist roles.
The current situation, whereby we debate a group of amendments and vote on them at different times—sometimes weeks later—is very confusing for just about everyone concerned. I am pretty sure that, when members vote on amendments, they sometimes have little recollection of the debate that took place. One challenge that we face is the rule of progression in moving through a bill. However, I wonder whether we could find a way whereby, when we have debated a suite of amendments in a group, if we cannot vote on them as one group we can at least vote on them all together, so that there is more clarity for anyone who is watching and for members who are taking part in the process at stages 2 and 3. That might improve things, but we must be careful that there are no unintended consequences. We would have to work with Parliament to achieve such a change.
Mark Ballard.
That point is clearly understood. I just wanted to ensure that we understand the mechanical bit.
They were useful because they gave us timetables and told us from an insider’s point of view what they thought was wrong. The timing of bills—everything that we will discuss—is thought to be wrong.
Leaving aside the rule of progression, are there any legal issues around our changing our approach in the way that has been described?
That concludes our questioning. Does any member of the panel wish to add anything to our consideration at this stage?
No. As I say, we continue to watch your proceedings with interest, and we are keen to work with the committee in any way that we can to take forward some of the thinking that comes out of the inquiry.
I am not sure that there are necessarily any legal issues; it is just an issue of how Parliament handles the business. If you vote through a whole block of amendments in one go, there is always a risk that there may be the potential for clashes with conflicting amendments that come later. Nevertheless, I would hope that such issues could be worked out in the context of agreeing the groupings, so that amendments that were related to the same topic would be grouped together. I do not know that there is a particular legal issue.
That is fine. Does Margaret McDougall want to add anything from our Stirling event?
On separating the amendment and debate stages, we would not want that to be laid down in firm rules, because I am not sure that it would be appropriate for every bill but, based on the evidence that the committee has received, I accept that it would be appropriate for some bills. For a couple of bills, I am actively considering whether that approach would be appropriate.
The event was interesting. The attendees were from the voluntary sector and organisations that support people. For example, there were attendees from a domestic violence support group.
The difficulty that participants raised was about communication. Not everybody has access to the internet, and some people have literacy problems. How do we get information to those people?
A network group representative said that it is difficult to disseminate information once it has been found. All the attendees seemed to have difficulty in finding information. Some people also did not know the process for getting an issue raised in Parliament. I think that the attendees found the event useful. I certainly found it informative.
Thank you for a pretty helpful set of inputs. We will leave it to you to judge what we do with them and to make your own comments in due course.
10:23 Meeting suspended.
Given that standing orders permit that and that it is occasionally done, the committee might limit itself to making a recommendation. This is anticipating what my colleagues might come up with, but we might change the name of the debate stage and call it the decision stage, rather than stage 3, so that the public understand.
It was interesting that the attendees liked the informal session; some of them were not the kind of people who would normally appear as witnesses. Some people from Children 1st and the Women 4 Women group would never come to the Parliament—they had never been here and had no intention of coming here. Such informal events are useful, because they are the basis of the Parliament’s outreach work, which is important. That was a good aspect.
I was not aware that stage 3 could be split, and I am not sure that everyone else is aware of that.
It has happened.
As a relatively new member, I was not aware of that. That is a useful point.
In fact, for big bills, the stage 3 amendment part can straddle more than one day. Sometimes, we cannot fit it into a single day. The Parliament’s rules are more flexible than we sometimes imagine them to be when we look at the practice of Parliament.
Cara, do you have any more questions?
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