Procedures Committee, 21 Mar 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Official Report 191KB pdf

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Legislative Process

I asked the clerks to put the legislative process on the agenda so that anyone who had an early response to the debate on it in the chamber could air their thoughts. Again, we could perhaps ask the clerk to go through the Official Report and make bullet points of specific points that were made so that we do not lose them.

I think that the Parliament debate was useful and constructive. In addition to the concern about stages 2 and 3 of bills, the two key aspects for me were the Subordinate Legislation Committee's concern about inadequate time and so on, and the Finance Committee's concern that the financial memoranda of bills are inadequate. The speeches on those two aspects were helpful because I had not given them enough thought, although other members might have done so.

Do members have comments on the debate or on points that they especially liked or disliked? We all liked our own speeches.

I particularly liked yours, convener.

Yours was not bad, either.

I am sorry that I missed a love-in among members of the Procedures Committee.

Me too.

Chris Ballance, Alex Johnstone and Richard Baker spoke in the debate and might want to comment.

It was notable how much of the debate was in line with comments that we have received as part of our review of parliamentary time.

It was obvious that there is wide concern about the compressed timescale between the end of stage 2 and the end of the bill process. Members want to avoid pitfalls in that approach.

The debate flagged up the potential importance of our review on parliamentary time. Time was the pinch point in every key area. Committees want to engage in more pre-legislative and post-legislative scrutiny, but there is a time issue. Members are also concerned about the timescale for stage 3. We must consider not just the amount of time that there is in the parliamentary week but how flexibly we use that time.

There was marked agreement from all parties on different issues and a number of innovative ideas were proposed. Our review could offer help in areas that cause members concern.

Some speakers made it clear that they were asking not for more time but for better use of the time that we have. If there were fewer vacuous debates, there could be time for interpellations or better scrutiny of bills, for example.

I did not attend the debate, so I cannot take part in the mutual admiration session. However, important points were made when we went to Estonia and Finland. Both countries have unicameral Parliaments, but both have Presidents and one of the countries has a constitutional committee, which ensures that laws that have been passed comply with the constitution. There is a mechanism whereby the process of signing off a bill can be held up if it does not comply with the constitution. The practice is not to hold the process up, but the system exists.

There is an added onus on a Parliament that has only one chamber to ensure that the legislation that it passes is bang on, because there is no further mechanism for scrutiny until the legislation is enacted. It must be possible to devise a system that would prevent our being in the ridiculous situation of agreeing to bills to which amendments are lodged hours, if not minutes, before the stage 3 debate. Sometimes the proposed new provisions have not been researched and debated, and members might not even have read the amendments unless they picked up the list of amendments before they entered the chamber. We cannot have such a situation in which there are no checks and balances at the end of the process.

I do not have the answer to the problem, but the issue has been flagged up. I was aware of it before the debate, as I think were most members of the committee. There is concern among members of all parties. It is not a party-political issue and no party is trying to secure an advantage; it is a practical issue.

Do members agree that the clerks should produce a bullet-point summary, so that points are not lost in the general maelstrom?

Members indicated agreement.