Parliamentary Business
Item 4 is a paper by Donald Gorrie. I shall ask you to speak on this in a moment, Donald. I appreciate the effort that you have put into it, especially in working through the amendments to standing orders that would be necessary. This report is slightly premature in our work programme, as both committee work and legislation are in the forward work programme anyway, and I do not think that we want to initiate action on points in advance of the completion of that work. That is a pitch for you to make.
I have been involved with the legislative process, having followed the Rural Affairs Committee's scrutiny of the National Parks (Scotland) Bill, and my views are broadly similar to those in the paper. However, I am conscious that not every committee has dealt with legislation, and that members may feel that some of the points in the report are premature—not because they are wrong in any way, but simply because not everyone has yet had the experience from which to derive either the conclusions that are contained in the report or different conclusions.
With that caveat, I invite Donald Gorrie to make a few comments on the paper.
I am not sure whether some of the problems outlined in the paper are within the remit of this committee or that of the Parliamentary Bureau. Ultimately, they are in the hands of the Parliament. I accept that some issues may take a while to enter the system, but some of them could be dealt with more rapidly. If the Parliamentary Bureau acted on even some of the suggestions, that would be a step in the right direction.
We have previously discussed the role of the Presiding Officer as the business manager of the Parliament, with responsibility for answering questions on its building and so on. There should also be a time for the Government's business manager to answer questions. One of the most profitable times in the Westminster week is when the Leader of the House of Commons announces the business and answers questions. We need not slavishly copy that model, but there should be an opportunity for members to ask about timetabling decisions and for the Minister for Parliament to explain the thinking behind them.
I have some points about the general conduct of the Parliament. I have spoken to several people who agree with me. We have too many debates and some of the shorter debates are rather pointless. Many debates are on anodyne motions. Either the Executive lodges a motion in which it tells us how marvellously it is running the health service and the Opposition speaks to an amendment saying how awful it is, or there is an Opposition motion that says how awful the health service is and an Executive amendment saying how marvellous it is, none of which gets us very far.
We could examine the way in which we use our time. If we had fewer but longer debates, it might improve the situation. The current structure tends to exclude back benchers. The people involved in the committees, who know most about the subject and want to speak about it, get first kick of the party ball. However, there may be other members who are not in the committee who could make a useful contribution; often those members do not get in because there is a limited amount of time for back benchers. If we had fewer but longer debates, there would be more time for back benchers to contribute. Although it is good not to have great long speeches as they do at Westminster, four minutes per speech is rather tight, particularly if a member takes interventions.
I have some proposals on the timetable for bills. Like you, convener, I have been involved in the process of one bill, which will have its final session tomorrow. It seems to me that the way in which we deal with bills is rather like those cycle races on a track: people cruise around gently for several laps and then there is a helter-skelter sprint at the finish. We have quite a relaxed time scale for pre-legislative scrutiny, but as soon as the legislative process begins, the timetable is very tight and there is little chance to examine the wording of amendments to decide whether they meet one's requirements.
I suggest that there should be a deadline for lodging amendments, but that there should be three days' grace to allow members to adjust or withdraw those amendments. Often the sense of an amendment is quite good, but members disagree to it because it is allegedly badly drafted and the minister has said that the idea is quite good but that the lawyers advise the Executive that the roof would fall in if it were to be agreed to. However, if there had been more time to adjust the amendment, it might have been agreed to.
We could improve the way in which we operate in several areas. I suggest that we open correspondence with Tom McCabe on the issue of question time for the Minister for Parliament. We could send an end-of-term circular to MSPs, asking about their experiences and views on some of those issues. That would inform us whether there is widespread support for my ideas.
Donald Gorrie said that many of those matters might best be addressed to the Parliamentary Bureau. He has raised many issues, some of which—I say this with all due respect—are simply personal thoughts. I have such thoughts every day, but I do not feel moved to present them in a paper to a committee.
On the point that he raised about stage 2 timetabling, I think that it is rather early in the legislative programme to start going into that level of detail. We have not had the benefit of dealing with a lot of bills. I accept the point about bills being rushed at stage 2 for various reasons, but sometimes timetables have to be adhered to and sometimes the Parliament has to be seen to make progress. A lot of things need to be taken into consideration.
We need more bills to go through before we can see whether there are identifiable criticisms that the committee can say are a problem and so we can ask how they should be addressed. It is a bit early to get into that at the moment. Most of the other points that Donald Gorrie made are best addressed by the Parliamentary Bureau. Will he clarify whether when he talks about anodyne debates he is talking about Executive motions specifically or about Opposition motions as well?
They tend to be abrasive rather than anodyne.
Neither advances the public good very much.
Is that something that this committee can address, convener? Are we going to be prescriptive about the topics that the Opposition parties, in particular, can put down for debate?
Opposition parties or the Executive.
To be fair.
Again, the matter is premature. On quite a few occasions in the past year, we have sensed that we are talking about a subject again. Some of the debates have not really been for any visible purpose or output. To a degree, we have been treading water while awaiting the arrival of legislation. It may well be that once we have a full working year with legislation in committees and committee reports coming out, the aspect of some of our debates filling time will die a natural death. Nevertheless, it is valid to point out to the bureau that some of the debates seem to lack a little bit of focus and that the time might be reallocated for subjects that are likely to arouse more interest among members.
I am conscious of the points raised by Donald Gorrie about the lack of opportunity for back benchers and the four-minute speech. I hear people criticise in the chamber, saying that they have been waiting to get to speak and have not been able to, that the minister was allocated 18 minutes and took 22 minutes, that the front benchers dominated the debate or that there was not an opportunity for other people to get in. Those concerns are widespread. There may be a purpose in asking the bureau to reflect on that and possibly in doing a survey of members' attitudes.
One of the Parliament's fundamental principles was sharing the power. Sharing means sharing the time and the opportunity. If there is a sense among MSPs that the system is not working properly, it is appropriate for us to consider it. It is not necessarily something that means changing standing orders; it may be something for the Parliamentary Bureau or the Presiding Officer to clarify.
There are many important points in the paper. I am slightly tempted to tell the old joke and say that it is good and original, but that what is good is not original and what is original is not good. A lot of the points are already being addressed. Janis Hughes is absolutely correct in saying that the right place to address many of the points is the Parliamentary Bureau. I do not think that it is giving away secrets to say that the bureau discusses debates and agonises about many of the points raised. I want to pick up on one or two of these points.
On the question of people not being taken and the length of speeches, there should be a solid allocation of time for back-bench speakers if front benchers stick to the time that they are given. The latest changes we made to speaking times in the hour-long debates were made deliberately to allow extra time for back-bench speeches. That is a chairing issue, rather than an issue for the bureau. If front benchers stick to their time, there should always be time for back benchers. The question of whether speeches by back benchers are four, five, six or seven minutes is a question for back benchers, but the longer the speeches, the fewer people will get in. If people want six or seven minutes, they will have to reconcile themselves to the fact that fewer people will be called. Until now, the view in the bureau has been to try to call as many people as possible.
Some months ago, a set of statistics was drawn up on people who had not got in and the time of speeches, which indicated that far fewer people were not getting in now than a year ago. With your permission, convener, I suggest that John Patterson might like to talk to the clerk to the Parliamentary Bureau to see whether those figures could be provided to this committee and perhaps updated. They will indicate that progress has been made in this matter.
The suggestion of an Executive business manager's question time is superficially attractive. However, surely that runs contrary to the way in which this Parliament has been set up? It is not about things being done behind the Speaker's chair and one minister taking responsibility in the chamber. There is a Parliamentary Bureau that consists of representatives of the four parties, who are meant to decide on the business in a consensual manner.
If we were to call Tom McCabe to the chamber every week, every two weeks or every three weeks to answer for the decisions that have been made, for whom would he be answering? Would he be answering for me, as a member of the bureau and the Opposition, or would he be answering for the Executive? In the latter case, he would not be representing fully what took place in the bureau.
The bureau minutes are not published at present, and we may need to address that. The standing orders state specifically that meetings of the bureau should take place in private, but perhaps the minutes should be made more widely available. However, at the heart of the consultative steering group principles is a consensual approach to deciding the Parliament's business.
On committee days, there is an opportunity for debates on subjects. Committees can propose debates on subjects, and there is no need for amendments. I think that it is helpful if committee reports are not amended, and if there is an opportunity for the chamber to discuss a subject as opposed to a motion. Perhaps we need more committee days, although this year we have had some difficulty filling the existing days.
The convener made the important point that this is the Parliament's first year. There have been mistakes and some things have not worked. The Executive admits that bills have been introduced too late and that there has been back-end pressure on committees and the chamber. Hardly any bills were introduced before Christmas, and the result is that bills have been rushed through.
I have repeatedly requested a better timetabling of bills, so that bills are introduced early and there is more time to consider them. I am not unique in that. I would be very annoyed if this time next year there was the same legislative pressure on committees and the chamber. However, we should remember that bills do not fall at the beginning of the summer recess; they go on. Parliamentary draftsmen, ministers and others have not fully realised that we need a rolling programme of bills.
It is a good idea to list members who have asked to speak in a debate and have not been called. I see no difficulty with that, and it would indicate when members wanted to speak. However, those statistics are already kept. If we examine the figures, we will find that fewer members who want to speak in a debate are not being called.
The one point on which I agree profoundly with Donald Gorrie relates to his proposed amendment to standing orders rule 9.10.6. I do not think that the wording is appropriate, but I agree that members face considerable problems in drafting amendments, particularly amendments to legislation. The Executive has a very big advantage in that respect. Donald Gorrie referred to ministers rejecting amendments for technical reasons. The ace minister for doing that was Peter Peacock. During consideration of the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill, on every occasion he said, "Good idea, but badly drafted"—a civil service excuse.
We deal with that not by having the chair allow endless manuscript amendments, which would become incredibly messy—members would not know what they were debating—but by providing members with high-level assistance in drafting. We need a more consensual approach that would enable civil servants, even civil servants in the relevant subject department, to help members to draft appropriate amendments. At some stage, this committee will have to consider how that can be achieved.
I would be delighted if Donald Gorrie's paper were passed to the bureau. However, some parts of the paper misunderstand the nature of the organisation in which we are working. Other parts express legitimate concerns, but it would be wrong to imply that those concerns are not shared by the bureau and many other people and are not the subject of constant discussion. The solution to those problems is not as straight line as this paper would suggest.
I endorse those comments. Michael Russell has dealt with many of the points that I wanted to make, so there is no point in rehearsing them.
For clarification, convener, could you say whether, if the paper is referred to the Parliamentary Bureau, that will be done in a neutral manner? I would not like our passing the paper on to be interpreted as an endorsement of it.
Two things will come from the paper. First, the points that it makes will be noted and held against on-going committee work on changes to standing orders, the legislation review and the committee practice review. Secondly, all the points that have been made, apart from those that we intend to deal with ourselves, will be referred to the bureau for consideration.
I would like us to refer all Donald Gorrie's points to the bureau for a response, without deleting any because we happen not to agree with his recommendation. It is perfectly possible that the bureau may feel that it wishes to clarify some of the issues, make specific responses or change some practices.
I am not sure whether that answers the question. Does that mean that by passing on the paper, we are supporting it, or do we hold a neutral view on its content?
We will send an extract from the discussion. It will be clear that some committee members have approved some parts of it and others have suggested that some parts of it do not meet with their support. The bureau will get from that the sense that it is not a committee report. In a sense, the committee is asking the bureau to respond before we take a decision on it.
I am sure that there is no problem with passing it to the bureau to consider the points that are relevant to the bureau.
I wish to make a few specific points.
First, Mike Russell has covered quite a lot of this, but a point to bear in mind is that the Executive does not control the entire business of the plenary sessions. That is why the question of the Executive business manager question time is probably not appropriate. Almost a third of plenary sessions are in the hands of the Opposition parties or the committees: 28 sessions out of about 111 in a full parliamentary year.
Secondly, on the subject of short debates, one of the problems is the one-and-a-half hour slot on a Thursday afternoon. It is difficult to work out what business to put forward to utilise that slot. That could be addressed at the same time as the issue of where question time should be positioned in the week. Thursday is used for that for a number of reasons, not least to do with broadcasting, but it means a short debating slot.
Thirdly, Mike Russell commented that statistics have been presented to the bureau about the number of members not called in debates, which indicate that, following the introduction of the new speaking times agreed by the business managers, fewer members have been called than previously. It is worth asking the bureau to keep a view on that.
Finally, Mike Russell's point about the timetabling of bills was well made—that issue is accepted by the Executive. It was not deliberate that bills did not appear until later on. The Executive discovered that pressures over time were greater than expected; it is making an effort to timetable bills over the next session better than they were timetabled in the current one.
Having said that, before the summer recess, we should have passed 11 Executive bills out of 15, which will be quite a good record for the Parliament in its first year.
I think we know where we are going. I shall give Donald Gorrie the opportunity to close, if he wants to take it.
Thank you. I am happy that the matter progresses as you indicated.
If there is a difficulty about an hour-and-a-half slot, what about using it for members' business motions? There are a lot of good ones and there is a queue to get in. Some of the time could be used for that.
I do not accept two of Mike Russell's arguments. It is quite possible for Tom McCabe to answer questions on behalf of the bureau—the decisions are made collectively—but the bureau should be the servant of the Parliament. At the moment, there is no way for the Parliament to put pressure on the bureau.
It is difficult to say this non-offensively, but given the way that human beings work, it is quite possible that the bureau, which represents the four main parties, will become a sort of collective that tends to work in its own way and that does not necessarily represent the views of the Parliament as a whole. The Parliament should have some way of scrutinising that and it is quite reasonable for the leading member of the bureau to answer questions.
I do not accept the argument that the overall length of time of debates is irrelevant. One of my suggestions for reducing the number of debates on issues was to allow more time for debates on bills, which are grossly over-curtailed. The overall timetabling is important. More people could get in and there would be slightly more time for speeches if there were fewer, longer—and therefore better—debates.
I am very happy to continue this matter. If these views are widely shared, there is not much point in muttering about them over cups of coffee. Let us put them on the table and find out where people agree.
Although I entirely agree with Donald that checks and balances should be observed, every week we have an opportunity to challenge the business motion, which represents the principal decisions of the Parliamentary Bureau. A procedure is set down for it. I think that I am one of only two people who have opposed the business motion, and I am a member of the bureau. Last week, Donald Gorrie challenged a timetabling motion—in my view, quite correctly, given what happened that afternoon. Although I share the responsibility for having been involved in the decision, I think that, last week, Donald was wise to anticipate the difficulties that we discovered. That said, the claim that there is no opportunity to challenge the decisions of the bureau should not go unchallenged; there is an opportunity to do so every week, and quite often twice a week.
That will appear in the Official Report—Mike Russell has thrown down the gauntlet and Donald Gorrie will not be slow to pick it up.
I am delighted to give out that information. That is why the procedure is there.
The bureau might also reflect on the difficulty of slotting anything substantive into the hour and a half on a Thursday afternoon. Sometimes the Thursday mornings seem to drag on for a very long time.
That only happens when there are Tory motions.
Actually, it is not really a problem on Opposition days, because Opposition parties now timetable two topics in the morning. It is the three-hour debates that sometimes flag a little; perhaps there is scope for reviewing the allocation of time between morning and afternoon sessions. I simply throw that suggestion in as something that the bureau might reflect on when it considers all the other matters that have been raised. Are members satisfied that we have thrashed the matter out sufficiently?
Members indicated agreement.
We note the paper. The Presiding Officer reads all the committee reports—he says—and perhaps we should flag this report up to him as one that he might examine closely, as some points have been made about the management of debates.
It is important that, when the paper is sent to the bureau, the Official Report of this discussion is included for the two bureau members who are not here.
Otherwise the demonstration of bureau solidarity has been noted and much appreciated.
And it will be very short-lived.