Procedures Committee, 20 Dec 2005

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Official Report 145KB pdf

---

Work Programme

Item 2 is the forward work programme. Although this is not mentioned, I asked which committee will run with the proposed Government transport and works bill to sort out the railways. I am assured that the Procedures Committee will not do so, although we will have some input. However, the bill will be mainly practical, dealing with infrastructure, and so presumably it will go to the Local Government and Transport Committee. The matter will have some effect on our future, but not much.

It might be best if members commented on paper PR/S2/05/16/2 as we go through it bit by bit. We hope to finish our consideration of private bill committee assessors at this meeting and the procedures for Crown appointees either now or at the next meeting.

I understand the position on private bills and the procedure on Crown appointees. The review of parliamentary time is discussed in paragraphs 8, 9 and 10 of the paper. Paragraphs 8 and 9, which reflect some of the issues that you raised, are neatly split into what is incorporated into the present review and what is not. The matters raised are worthy of consideration, but frankly I am dubious about the merits of completing the inquiry and potentially reopening it to consider the points in paragraph 9. I was simply wondering whether there is a method of incorporating some of those matters into the present inquiry. We have already considered stage 3—on reflection, I do not think that we have arrived at the right balance, although I thought so at the time—but it is nonsensical for us to consider part of stage 3 in this inquiry and another part of it in a separate inquiry. We should consider stage 3 at the one time.

I agree with the members who made the point in previous discussions that, in addition to the technical aspects, it is concerning that so few non-members of the relevant committee participate in debates or lodge amendments. We should perhaps also examine that, as it relates to the use of parliamentary time. It is desirable that as many members as possible take an intelligent and active part in the passage of bills.

Are you referring to the third bullet point in paragraph 9?

Yes.

That reflects my view. There is no point in having two reviews: first, making recommendations from our review of parliamentary time that would be potentially agreed to; and, secondly, having a separate review that would go back over matters that would affect either the allocation or amount of parliamentary time and for which a further report on parliamentary time would then be required. There is no logic in doing things twice. If we are going to do it, let us do it; if not, we should dismiss it now. I do not see how the issue in that bullet point can be dismissed now, as it will have an impact on parliamentary time. I hear what has been said in previous meetings about the remit of the current inquiry, but is there a way of extending our remit? I am not sure how we worked out that some of those elements should have been excluded from the present review, because the definition of parliamentary time is wide. Is there any way that the items listed in paragraph 9 could be considered in the present inquiry? It is sensible to consider those issues in this inquiry, rather than having two inquiries. I seek your assistance.

We have not come to a decision, but if the committee is minded to pursue the line that Bruce McFee has suggested, what mechanism would be applied?

The note is structured as it is because we were trying to explain that once the inquiry work that is nearly completed is completed, the committee can take on new business. The idea was that that new business would sit alongside the review of parliamentary time, which will run for some time. The committee can do more than one thing at a time. One option is to reconsider some of the specific procedural aspects of legislation—particularly stage 3—that are not so directly about parliamentary time. That would not necessarily have to be done after the review of parliamentary time; it can be done alongside it. It becomes a technicality as to whether to call that a separate inquiry or to expand the remit of the existing inquiry to include it. There was certainly no suggestion that that would be done after the review of parliamentary time.

I do not want to nit-pick, but paragraph 10 uses the words

"by means of a separate inquiry at a later stage."

I accept that "later" might mean two weeks later, but I do not see the need for a separate inquiry, because elements of what we are talking about can easily be incorporated into the present inquiry. Evidence in the inquiry has already touched on those issues, in particular what we heard in the round-table discussion. It seems strange to say that we will ignore those contributions for now but will consider them later in a separate inquiry. These things have to be dovetailed and considered as a whole, otherwise we will just be having inquiries for the sake of it. Those inquiries could reach different conclusions or conclusions that would negate each other. That would not make sense.

It is only a year since the debate on and publication of a report on these issues. We looked then at the issues that have been raised now. I am concerned that we will keep returning to them until people get the answer that they want. We considered changes to minimum intervals between stages of bills, we looked at the notice periods for lodging amendments and we made changes. I am not convinced that in the intervening year the issues that have been mentioned have caused our stage 3 problems. I am not convinced about the final bullet point in paragraph 9, which would guarantee

"all members who wish to speak during Stage 2 and Stage 3 proceedings a right to do so."

That cannot be done within a fixed timetable, because we do not know how many members wish to speak until they press their buttons on the day. Twenty members could say that they wished to speak because they wanted to stop the passage of a bill and we know that we have to go to decision time at a certain time. Both of those cannot be done.

I am not persuaded that the points about minimum intervals and notice periods for lodging amendments were not properly discussed in our previous inquiry. The matters were debated in the Parliament only a year ago and the approach to them has changed substantially. No amendments were proposed to that report and no suggestions were made to the committee at the time, so we must ask what has fundamentally changed.

I am not advocating the merits of any of those bullet points; one of them in particular could not be achieved unless we allowed open-ended debate. I am merely saying that, if we are going to consider those issues, we should do so as part of the current review and not as part of another inquiry. We need to work out the logistics of doing that without passing judgment on whether we would like to see the changes that are being advocated.

I have made the same points as Karen Gillon in the committee before. We have considered all these items and we should not go over them again after such a short time. I agree that we must keep the points in mind before we finalise our report on the current inquiry. However, when we make changes, we have to let them settle in. Last week, the stage 3 debate on the Family Law (Scotland) Bill ran for the whole day and the business managers seem to agree that that allocation of time for stage 3 should be tried for the next wee while. We should wait and see how that works out.

As Bruce McFee and Karen Gillon indicated, we will probably never be able to agree to the rules that are suggested in the third bullet point in paragraph 9. To do so would take us back to the way things were at Westminster when Parliament sat until the final member stopped speaking and sat down. Even when MPs had all that time to speak, the level of debates did not keep people up watching proceedings on Sky television in the middle of the night. We should keep the issues in mind as we proceed with our inquiry, but we should certainly not open them up again.

I was not a member of the Procedures Committee during its previous inquiry, but there are still concerns about stages 2 and 3. In particular, there are concerns about the lack of time for lodging amendments. As Cathie Craigie says, it would be as well to keep that in mind during the inquiry as one of the things that we can touch on.

For the next meeting, can the clerks give us a breakdown of the submissions that we received from members in response to the questionnaire that we issued during our previous inquiry? I would like to examine what members said at that time and the basis on which we made our decisions.

We can do that.

Convener, will you clarify that, as we proceed with our review of parliamentary time, there will be an option to expand its remit if we find that any of the issues that are mentioned in paragraph 9 is a recurring theme? I am keen for them to be considered, if only in the interest of dismissing one or two of them. They merit consideration, but we should not make them the subject of a separate inquiry. It is logical to consider them while we are examining the overall issue—indeed, they are arising during our review. As Chris Ballance said, it has come across strongly, particularly during our round-table discussions, that there are concerns. I would not like to think that a small rule somewhere would prevent us from considering issues more deeply and doing a better job.

We have agreed to have two open sessions with members, which will presumably give us a steer on what members are concerned about now rather than what they were concerned about at some stage in the past. We should pursue the issues that were raised at the two round-table discussions—otherwise, there was no point in having them. We can build up an agenda that is based on those two discussions and on what members tell us during the two forthcoming discussions and we can then decide which points to focus on in our deliberations.

Does anyone want to say anything else about the review of parliamentary time?

No.

We move on to the issue of members' bills, which is covered in paragraphs 11 to 14. As the clerk says in the paper,

"This is a relatively specific point".

Do we want to pursue it? Do we want simply to make a decision or do we want to hear other people's views first?

I have some experience of the matter because I took a member's bill on housing through the Social Justice Committee. It was not controversial but, as a member of the committee, I sometimes felt uncomfortable. I do not think that we need to carry out a full inquiry into the matter, but it would be sensible to have a general discussion on it and to make a change to standing orders so that a substitute member could stand in for a committee member who was taking a member's bill through the committee. We do not need to make a big issue of it, but that would be the sensible thing to do.

Do you think that the member who is promoting the bill should not be an active member of the committee that is dealing with it?

I certainly did not feel compromised in any way, but in the interest of proper scrutiny it is right for the committee to have a full complement of members who can question the member who is promoting the bill. I found myself in the position of being questioned by the committee for part of the meeting and then joining the committee members for the rest of the meeting. In that situation, the committee is one member down when it scrutinises the bill.

When a member introduces a member's bill, it is usually on a subject in which they have a specific interest—for example, I have a specific interest in housing. I would not want the fact that I was promoting a member's bill on housing to bar me from being a member of the committee that dealt with that issue. It would be reasonable to change the rules that state that a substitute member can attend a committee only in an emergency. Such a change would allow a substitute to attend when a member was taking a member's bill through the committee.

To be clear, do you propose that the substitute member would attend the committee meeting only for the relevant agenda item? Are you suggesting that the promoter of the bill would not be a member of the committee for that item but that they would be a member of it for the rest of the meeting?

I do not see why that approach would not be possible, but we should examine the rules and discuss the matter. I repeat that the committee does not need to undertake a full inquiry into the issue. It would be sensible to make a small change to deal with it.

I have a slightly different view. I do not think that the member who is promoting the bill should sit on the committee while it is considering the bill. In the interests of openness and transparency, the committee should be allowed to get on with its work without that member. The substitute should take over for the whole meeting when the bill is being considered.

I have experience of the matter from the other side. It is difficult to detach oneself from a close colleague on a committee and thoroughly to scrutinise their bill in the way that one would scrutinise other bills if that colleague is sitting around the table for the other five items on the agenda. In those circumstances, it should be possible for a substitute to attend the meeting. I think that the rules currently state that the substitute has to attend the whole meeting. That would be appropriate in the circumstances that we are discussing. It would also mean that the member promoting the bill would have more time to focus on the bill, which will bring an additional workload.

There are implications for the substitute member's commitments to other committees and there are particular implications for the smaller parties, but we must consider the interests of openness and transparency. Executive ministers are not members of committees and they do not vote on their own bills, so it is inappropriate for members from the back benches to do so.

I have a slightly different view. We should not tell members who are promoting a member's bill that is being considered by a particular committee that they must be removed from that committee when it is considering the bill. Substitution is done on a voluntary basis when an individual is unable to go to a meeting and they notify their substitute that that is the case.

I would not welcome a situation in which, because a member was in charge of a member's bill, they had to be excluded from the committee, especially if they were a member of one of the smaller parties. It should be a matter for the member's discretion whether they decided to stand down for that specific meeting—and it would have to be for the whole meeting, rather than just for an item. At the moment, substitution is permitted in cases of illness, pressing family circumstances, adverse weather conditions, blah, blah, blah. If the rules on substitution were changed so that it was allowed also when a member was leading on a member's bill, it could be left to the member's discretion whether they stood down from a meeting. That is a sensible way in which to proceed. We should not force people down a specific route. It would be entirely different for us to say that someone could be a member of a certain committee only at a certain time.

We are in danger of discussing the issue rather than the question whether we should discuss it. The point has been well made that there are grounds for considering the proposal. I note the clerk's suggestion that it would not be necessary to take oral or written evidence. However, if we were to consider the item at a future meeting, we could say that if any MSPs had views that they would like to pass on to the committee, they could do so.

Would it be possible for the clerks to set out the options that are available?

Yes. If the committee agrees that the issue is worth considering, we will produce a full issues paper that will discuss the options and the considerations in more depth. If members wished, it would be possible to invite any member who had specific concerns about the issue to submit comments to the committee.

Right, but we are not making a big meal of the thing.

It is up to the committee.

Where has the pressure come from for this? Has it come from members who have taken bills through, or has it come from conveners?

Paragraph 11 of the clerk's paper tells us that the convener of the Local Government and Transport Committee has asked us to consider the matter.

I understand that the request has come from Bristow Muldoon, but I am asking what has driven it. Was the concern raised by a member who was promoting a bill, by the Local Government and Transport Committee, or by the convener of that committee? I am concerned that the proposal may be tailored to one incident, which is probably a bad basis on which to consider making changes. I would like to know what the driver is behind the proposal. I presume that more than one convener has shown interest in the matter.

Perhaps Andrew Mylne can enlighten us.

My recollection from the letter that we received is that the matter was raised in the Local Government and Transport Committee. The question initially arose as to what the procedures were, which led to a discussion about the appropriateness of the situation. That committee agreed to write to the Procedures Committee and I understand that the member in charge of the bill in question was content for that to happen and said so. There was consensus among the members present, who could see no clear resolution to the issue and who recognised it as a procedural matter, which is why they referred it to the Procedures Committee. I believe that similar concerns have been raised in the past but that the issue has never been raised formally with the Procedures Committee.

It will increasingly become an issue as more bills go through the system. Relatively few members' bills got through the system in the previous parliamentary session, but that situation will change in this session and the next, so the issue is worthy of further consideration. There is a potential conflict of interest if someone votes at stages 1 and 2 if they are the member in charge of the bill.

The clerk will set all that out in a paper and we will discuss how to proceed.

The next item is consolidation bills. The clerk suggests that we hold one short oral evidence session with the people who were involved in the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Consolidation) (Scotland) Bill Committee. I am happy to accede to the clerk's recommendations.

Could I have a wee bit more information on why we would want to do that?

The issue has been around for a while. It is now some time since that first and only consolidation bill went through the Parliament. The matter is on the list of issues for the committee to consider because, in its report, the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Consolidation) (Scotland) Bill Committee raised several procedural issues that it had encountered in working through the procedure for consolidation bills for the first time. Those were flagged up as issues to be looked into, with a view to making small adjustments to the procedure. I took note of those issues at the time and have kept the item on a list of items that this committee may want to address at some point.

Can you remind the committee what the procedures are for dealing with a consolidation bill?

There are specific rules on consolidation bills in chapter 9 of the standing orders. Consolidation bills are a specific type of bill that restates existing law all in one place for the sake of convenience, making only minor changes that might have been recommended by the Scottish Law Commission. Because such bills do not, to any significant extent, make new law, they are subject to a much more limited scrutiny process that does not allow the same opportunity for evidence taking and the lodging of amendments. There is a more technical consideration of the issues.

There are specific rules that bite on this kind of bill. When the procedure was run for the first time, one or two concerns were raised that it was perhaps too inflexible in some respects and the suggestion was made that the Procedures Committee might review the procedure.

This would probably be a good time for us to do that, as there is a possibility that the Scottish Executive may produce some consolidation bills on housing. We have passed some excellent legislation on housing, but there is a thought that the issue might be best dealt with through a consolidation bill. We need to have the correct procedure in place.

The idea was that any changes to the procedure should be implemented before the next consolidation bill was introduced. I am not aware of any imminent consolidation bill. However, I am not fully up to speed on that and it may be that there is one in preparation.

Do we agree to speak to the people who know about these things and act accordingly?

Members indicated agreement.

On hybrid bills, would it not be more sensible to let the proposed public works bill progress? This seems to cover the same ground. If the Government wants to introduce hybridism—or whatever the word is—it can do that.

Agreed.

For God's sake, let us not get into that now.

Paragraph 21 deals with subordinate legislation procedure. We are told merely that it is necessary for us to be aware of the Subordinate Legislation Committee's review in our long-term planning. I do not think that we need to make a decision on it today.

There is a separate paper on the guidance on motions. The clerk's paper merely tells us of a train that is trundling along the track in our direction.

Yes. The guidance on motions is being revised and will be brought to the committee in due course. Small changes may also be made to the standing orders, which will be useful in tidying up aspects of the procedure. It is suggested that that might be done as a small technical exercise before the guidance is signed off.

Who signs off the guidance?

A separate note has been circulated in the committee papers that describes the process that has been used in the past. Essentially, the Procedures Committee is invited to clear the guidance that has been prepared by the clerks as a way of conferring additional authority on it. The practice has been to bring substantial revisions to guidance volumes before the Procedures Committee.

So the Procedures Committee will sign it off.

We do not just comment on it; we must agree it.

The practice has been to run volumes of guidance through the committee to enable members to comment on them, as part of the committee's general remit to oversee the procedure of the Parliament. The guidance is published after that process so that it has received the committee's stamp of authority.

How much sway does the Procedures Committee have in that process?

The clerks who are responsible for the guidance will address any comments that members make when the guidance is put in front of them.

There is growing concern in the Parliament that things happen without members making decisions on them. We would be prepared to sign something off only if we were to have some input into and authority over what is put before us.

Indeed.