Procedures Committee, 19 Dec 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 19, 2000

Official Report 203KB pdf

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Committee Operations

Elizabeth Watson, who has been sitting nervously in the wings for nearly two hours, joins us for item 7 of the agenda. This is your moment, Elizabeth.

This is yet another item that relates to the continuing inquiry into committee operations. The issue for consideration today is "relatively minor", as paper PR/00/14/7 says.

To summarise the paper, our standing orders proceed on the basis that committees will meet in public, unless they decide to meet in private. Such decisions can be taken only in committee meetings, which may result in difficulties for members of the public or for external organisations if the decision to meet in private has not been taken in advance of the meeting at which the particular topic is under discussion.

We cannot show on the agenda that the item is definitely to be taken in private in the absence of such a decision, although we can give pretty clear indicators—as occurred in relation to item 1 of the Procedures Committee's agenda today—that the committee will at least consider whether to take an agenda item in private.

The paper suggests merely that committees should try to minimise that potential inconvenience by good forward planning and that, where possible, we should try to anticipate items that might reasonably be taken in private. When a committee decides to meet in private or to take an item in private, the reasons for so doing should be stated clearly.

When it is decided during a meeting that a later agenda item should be taken in private, would it be appropriate to spell out the reasons for that decision at the time that the decision is taken, as happened at the beginning of our meeting today? Should those reasons be repeated immediately prior to the item to be taken in private to inform members of the public who might have come in during a meeting, so that they know why they are being asked to leave?

That would be very helpful.

Let us do that—[Interruption.] People do not need to leave just yet, although they will have to do so in two seconds. I was going to implement that practice immediately by inviting members of the public to leave, but I have been pre-empted. It all seems very straightforward.

The person who left the room is an Executive official.

Is he? In that case, he counts as someone from an outside organisation. I presume that he works for Tavish Scott.

Yes.

There you go. We should have been told about him at the beginning of the meeting—this is an open Parliament.

That is enough levity. The suggestion in the paper is sensible; we should agree it and urge good practice on all committees and clerks.

Is it always the case that the likelihood of an item being taken in private is intimated?

The suggestion is that it should be intimated, but that might not have happened previously. That is the purpose of our recommendation.

As we have agreed the recommendation, we will implement it at once. I invite any remaining members of the public, press or outside organisations to leave. We will move into private session, as agreed earlier.

Meeting continued in private until 12:04.