Procedures Committee, 19 Sep 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Official Report 132KB pdf

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Committee Substitutes

The next item is about committee substitutes. The item has grown as it has proceeded because there is now an issue with substitutes for all committees and not just bill committees. The original point about substitutes on bill committees was agreed and does not need to be revisited. Therefore, we are talking about substitution on normal committees. The points raised are covered in the clerk's paper. They ask whether the reasons for substitution are sensible. For example, should

"a requirement to attend to other business in the Parliament"

refer to "other Parliamentary business" and should "adverse weather conditions" be extended to cover travel difficulties such as delayed trains?

The responses from various committee conveners and business managers support such changes. However, the clerks point out that the interpretation of "parliamentary business" could bring up more problems. To try for an exhaustive list would not be all that helpful because things would be bound to be left out.

I have a personal suggestion on which I would like to hear the committee's opinion. I thought that the rules could give more authority to the convener to judge whether the application for a substitute was reasonable. If the rules left it up to the convener to decide the issue, using the points on the list as guidance but not as absolute instructions, we would be able to rely on the convener using his or her common sense and we would not have to come up with an exhaustive list of qualifying reasons. What do members think about changing the rules to enable the convener to act as a sort of umpire with regard to whether any request is reasonable?

The suggestion is initially appealing, but I think that the imposition of another responsibility on conveners might be seen as a burden by many. My view is that we ought to take a simplistic view and that, rather than wading in and making wholesale changes, we should, in the first instance, approve the suggested changes relating to other parliamentary business and transport failures. Subsequent to that, if we come to believe that the liberalisation of the rules has led to their being abused, we can consider some of the things that are included in the paper.

Rather than having a committee convener making individual judgments, I believe that, as is the case at the moment, clarification ought to be in the hands of the Presiding Officer, who could review behaviour in relation to the procedure and express any concerns that he—or she, in the future—might have regarding the use and abuse of the privilege of substitution.

I agree with Alex Johnstone. I would be happy to go along with that.

I also agree with Alex Johnstone. In a perfect world, we would be able to have the convener deciding such things and that would be respected. However, inevitably, if the convener has the power to make a decision that affects somebody from another political party, they could end up in a difficult position. That is the nature of this place.

I should say that, if you want a quick decision, you cannot always rely on the Presiding Officer to be available.

My suggestion was that we should accept the proposed subtle changes to the way in which the rules on substitution are operated by accepting the suggestions relating to other parliamentary business and transport failures. If the fears that are expressed in the paper about opening the system up to abuses appear to be justified, we should ensure that the Presiding Officer reviews the operation of the system and refers it back to us if he has any concerns about the system.

Is the wording adequate to reflect the desire of the previous Procedures Committee that there should be a balance and that it should not be too easy to get a substitute? I thought that one of the advantages of getting the convener to decide would be that he or she would know whether someone was an habitual skiver. I am sure that none of our colleagues is an habitual skiver, but there might be some in the future.

The view that the previous Procedures Committee took is relevant to an understanding of why the rules are as they are. Obviously, it is up to this committee and the Parliament to consider whether they wish to continue to strike that balance. However, if the committee does what Alex Johnstone suggests and makes a couple of specific and modest changes to the exhaustive list, the balance would be kept pretty much as the previous Procedures Committee wanted it to be.

The proposal is that we produce proposals to change the standing orders from

"to attend to other business in the Parliament"

to

"to attend to other parliamentary business"

and include points about adverse weather conditions and travel difficulties. Do we need to mention adverse weather conditions, or would the issue of travel difficulties include it and other such matters?

If the committee agrees the general approach, the officials to the committee will come up with a precise form of words. The committee has already seen and otherwise approved a list of standing order changes in the wider inquiry; all that the committee is considering at this point are some further suggestions about how the rules might be changed to reflect the particular points that we are talking about. The committee would have an opportunity to sign off the exact wording, but it would be based on what is outlined in the paper. I would not want to commit myself to any exact words at the moment.

Is that acceptable?

Members indicated agreement.

Would the wording relating to substitutions during the consideration of bills appear at the same time?

Yes. The list that the committee has already seen covers all the other policy issues that the committee has agreed in relation to this wider inquiry. I should also add that, although the committee has signed off the report, in so far as it covers those wider issues, there will need to be some additional wording to cover the point that we are discussing. The committee will have an opportunity, in its report, to say how it expects the new wording to be interpreted. That would be a starting point in relation to the point that Alex Johnstone made.

The clerks have made good progress in arranging meetings in Westminster to discuss with the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Leader of the House the way in which their system now works. On Thursday, we put to the Conveners Group a proposal that Cathie Craigie and I, accompanied by a clerk, go to London to conduct those meetings and come back the next day.

Finally, I should say that our fifth committee report of 2006, the consultation report on parliamentary time, on which we have laboured for a long time, has been published today. For those of us who like that sort of thing, it is available in paper form as well as on a machine. We should thank the clerks for all the work that they have done in order to get some level of reasonable agreement on the document.

Meeting closed at 10:58.