Procedures Committee, 21 Sep 1999

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 21, 1999

Official Report 287KB pdf

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Priorities

Item 1 on the agenda is priority issues. Members have revised papers for a number of the priority issues; we will briefly note the changes. Mike might wish to give evidence on some of the original papers that have not been changed.

We must therefore consider two sets of papers: the original papers with about 30 issues and the revised papers.

Does John have a copy of the original papers, so that I can refer to all of them? I am carrying them in my head, but that is not necessarily the best way to carry them.

I will give Michael my copy.

Issues 1 and 2 are about the timing of decision time. The revised paper identifies the status quo as an option, which was not the case with the previous paper. Other than that, it is substantially the same.

The addition of the status quo balances the paper. As a party, we are persuaded that decision time at 5 o'clock requires time to be organised properly. However, for high-profile debates, decision time at 12.30 pm might be required. There should be flexibility in the standing orders to allow decision time at 12.30 pm, at the end of the morning meeting, but the 5 o'clock decision time should remain the norm for the time being.

That is an interesting concept. I am in favour of the 5 o'clock decision time. It allows ministers to go out on visits and hold meetings; it is also clear for all members when decision time is. Mike's idea that we could vary the time is sensible, as long as it is the exception for specific, high-profile debates and members are given advance notice.

I echo that. Having decision time at 12.30 pm on specific occasions, such as an emergency bill, would not be a problem if we had prior notice in the business motion the previous week. There must be prior notification and it should happen only occasionally.

The standing orders allow the Parliament, on a recommendation from the Parliamentary Bureau, to vary the voting times, so we have the flexibility to do that at the moment. Does Mike want to flag up an amendment to standing orders, to give guidance on when it would be reasonable for the bureau to recommend a change in the time of the vote?

Although the standing orders permit flexibility, members' expectation is that decision time will be at 5 o'clock because that is when we have had it, except when we are meeting as a committee. The standing orders should make clearer the circumstances in which 12.30 pm votes might be taken. It might be on a recommendation of the bureau, or, as I believe is the case at the moment—John can correct me—it might happen if Parliament agreed to take a vote at a different time.

Yes.

Presumably Parliament can always do that by suspending the standing orders.

I do not understand why the world must come to an end at 12.30 pm each day, so that if the vote was taken at 12.30 pm and the meeting drifted on for a minute or two, we would all go to jail. That seems strange. It might be enshrined in some document that we knock off for lunch at 12.30 pm. Surely if there is a vote, we could hold it at 12.30 pm and finish at 12.32 pm. It would be silly to lose a quarter of an hour of our already limited time.

There is flexibility. If one looks at the clock—not that I ever watch the clock—one sees that voting does not always start at exactly 5 o'clock. It is right that the Presiding Officer is flexible, as long as 12.30 pm or 5 o'clock do not become 12.45 pm or 5.15 pm on every occasion.

The Presiding Officer is being flexible, so I do not think that we have to change anything.

Issues 3 and 4 are about holding a vote again because of an error, and points of order being raised during divisions and elections. That paper has not been changed.

It is clear that votes should be taken again because of an error in the system or confusion. I would not define an error as a member pressing the wrong button. When voting is more complicated, for example, when we deal with legislation, we must be more careful that voting is done in the right way. If there are errors, they must be picked up quickly. That links with the fact that our present electronic voting system is less than satisfactory. I thank John for referring to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and the bureau the issue of ensuring that we have the proper voting system for the new chamber. That is crucial.

Would anyone else like to comment? Remember that we are not discussing the substantive issues this morning; we are giving Mike the opportunity to put his case as the SNP spokesman and asking questions to clarify his position. We will take the decisions next week.

Issues 6, 7 and 8 are on electronic matters.

There is some scepticism about display screens. I have been riding the hobby-horse of display screens for some time. It is important that there is a display screen—or several—in the new chamber, to give information. It should show the countdown of speakers' time, which I understand the new clocks will display.

The display screen should also show the list of speakers. A disadvantage of the present system is that the list of speakers is available to the clerks and the occupant of the chair, but not to other members. A displayed list would not inhibit members entering the debate—although each party would put forward speakers, the Presiding Officer is flexible enough to take additional contributions. It would be useful for members in the chamber and for the public to know who would speak, and for members to know at which stage they would be called to speak. On too many occasions, members have worked on speeches, have expected to be called and have not been. That is frustrating. It would be better to see a list of speakers on the screen at the start of the debate. It would be ideal to have individual screens, as in the assembly in Wales. If we did not have that, a display screen that showed who was to be called and which gave other information about the debate would be helpful.

I am sympathetic to Mike's point, but it might be too rigid to have a list of members who will speak. How would members participate in a debate to react to what somebody else had said? We must give flexibility to the Presiding Officer.

I said that we must not be inflexible. It has been suggested that a firm list of speakers, as in the House of Lords, is the way forward. I do not think that it is. The danger is that points of order might be raised if somebody is listed as due to speak, but somebody else speaks instead. Most members will be helped by the list being displayed, as long as there is flexibility and members can speak as the spirit moves them.

I was fascinated by what Michael said about having individual screens. I did not know that the Welsh had that—it seems a great idea. Is it practical, or is it too expensive?

I might be wrong, but I thought that there was a proposal to have screens on desks in the new chamber. If there is not, there should be. It would assist members greatly to have information about speakers and voting. At the moment, there is an extraordinary combination of the electronic and the manual. Members press the voting buttons, the figures come up on a screen, the clerk writes them down on paper and passes them to the Presiding Officer.

It would be better if members and the Presiding Officer saw instantaneously on their screens what the clerks saw, which is the result of the vote. We could correct any errors in voting, as each member could check that their vote had registered. That would not be a difficult system to institute in the new chamber.

Much of what you are saying is geared towards the new chamber.

Display screens could be put on the walls before then. The idea now is that they will not be, but that there will be a refinement of the clocks—which is necessary—so that the clocks will count down individual speakers' times as well as show the time.

During the members' debate on Argyll and Bute, the timings seemed to go wrong and Alasdair Morrison was put in the difficult position of having about a minute and a half in which to respond. It is impossible for a minister to respond to a debate in a minute and half. A countdown clock, which we are meant to be getting, might have meant that all members' speeches would have been briefer.

If all members were to have a display screen, I would be worried that they would sit with their eye on the screen and nothing else. At the moment, the Presiding Officer has discretion and bears in mind the rules about having a fair distribution of speakers. Already points of order have been raised about the fact that this party has had three speakers but that one has had four, which can hold up proceedings. I understand the benefits of having a screen, but—

The screen might simply display the next speaker, or the next two speakers.

Up to now, the Presiding Officer has been saying who the next speaker will be and who will follow. That is helpful, but I think that that is as far as we should go.

I understand that, but I think that we should try things and see how they work. If the screen showed only the next two speakers, that might be fine. However, I would like to have a list of speakers, either on our desks—which would be the right way to do it—or on the wall.

I hope that any system of screens would cater for spectators. As we live nearby, my wife occasionally drops in; the last time she came, she had no idea what we were discussing for the first 20 minutes.

Join the club.

Yes, that happens not just in the gallery.

I will not say who was speaking at the time, but information for spectators about the person speaking and the subject being debated would be helpful.

I do not want the screen to look like the winter Olympics with huge amounts of information, but the subject being debated could easily be displayed. When the Parliament is meeting as a committee, it would be helpful if the screen could say, for example, that section 3(1)(a) was being discussed, because there were times during our debate on the mental health bill when it was difficult to work out where we were.

If we had the sports channel, it would stop the chamber emptying.

Absolutely—but I am not suggesting that we should also have television on the screens, although it might be an idea.

I was just laying a trap.

Issue 9 in the paper has been taken away by the bureau. We had nothing more to say on it. Does anyone want to comment on issues 10, 13, 20 and 22?

Most of them are matters for the bureau. I notice that Tom McCabe's paper for this afternoon rightly identifies areas where the standing orders do not need to be changed, but where the housekeeping aspects should be improved—the bureau is taking that seriously. Donald Gorrie has previously raised the issue of the interrelationship between the committee and the bureau. There is a strong interrelationship: issues arise in the bureau that should properly be discussed here, and issues arise in the committee on which we can give guidance to the bureau.

Issues 10, 13, 20 and 22 are all being considered by the bureau. Responsibility for budgetary control of committees should be shared by the SPCB, the bureau, the committee conveners and the committees. We are all aiming at the same thing, which is to ensure that the Parliament is open and accessible and that we go out to the country, and equally to ensure that we are seen to be responsible with public resources.

Issue 11 has been deleted from the agenda as it is a matter for the SPCB. Issues 12, 14 and 15 are being handled by the bureau. Issue 16 concerns the time available for parliamentary business.

That issue relates to Donald Gorrie's paper, to Tom McCabe's letter to the Presiding Officer, and to a bureau discussion paper that is on the agenda. It is important to start the discussion by saying that we do not know what legislative time we shall require. We are not yet in a position to know whether we have too little time for meetings of the Parliament or too much time for committees.

I broadly agree with the bureau's opinions. Monday afternoons should be available for committee meetings—at the moment, it is a little vague as to whether they are for committee time or for constituency time. That does not mean that committees must meet on Monday afternoons. However, we must make it clear that they are available, although we accept that a number of members—especially those from far-flung parts of the country—have said that it will be difficult to get here for meetings early on Monday afternoons.

A second question is whether the Parliament should meet at the same time as committees on a Wednesday morning. I am inclined to agree with the Presiding Officer: because the system of Parliament and committee meetings is untested, we should, at this early stage, avoid a collision that would mean that some members automatically could not take part in Parliament because they were in committee. Such a collision might become necessary in future, but we should not change standing orders to make it possible until we know whether we need to.

There are other solutions. One of them is mentioned in point 3, which was added to Tom McCabe's paper and has been referred to the bureau. It refers to the extension of meeting time in the evening, which is the solution that I favour at the moment. Wednesday mornings would give us a maximum of an extra three hours a week. We could easily have another hour and a half on a Wednesday, simply by extending the meeting to 6.30 pm.

I recognise the family-friendly nature of the Parliament, but in every job people have to do overtime from time to time—there is virtually no job in which people can say that they go home at 5 o'clock and that is it. We could extend the meeting to 6.30 pm, and have members' business—which is optional, and not attended by everybody—from 6.30 pm to 7 pm. We could do the same on Thursday, although I am not sure that we need to at this stage. However, that option would give an extra three hours in total without taking up Wednesday morning and without clashing with committees. We know that pressure on committee space, let alone time, is high at the moment.

Having heard the bureau's discussion and having talked to members of my party, I favour the option of extending Wednesday meetings of the Parliament to 6.30 pm. That should not be the norm, but should be the first option to extend Parliament time. Only after a Wednesday extension would Thursday extensions be considered, and only after that—when we had already added three hours—should we consider using Wednesday mornings, which would require a change of the standing orders, to allow Parliament to meet at the same time as committees.

John, I think I am right in saying that no change in standing orders is required for the Parliament to meet beyond 5 o'clock. We could have decision time at 5 pm and move on.

That is right.

I am heartened by what Mike said; those suggestions would retain the family-friendliness that this Parliament was founded on. To extend on a Thursday would be a matter for discussion in due course, but I approve of late-night politics on a Wednesday, when people who work during the day but who would like to see the Parliament could come.

I am a father of young children and I like to get back to the house, but if I am to stay here until 6.30 pm, I would not mind extending the meeting for a little longer, because I would be out that night anyway. It might be possible to go on even longer—to 7 pm, 7.30 pm, or even later—on a Wednesday. I would be in favour of that, as long as it was clear to all of us that Wednesdays were regular late nights, for which we would have to plan our diaries accordingly, and as long as it was clear to the public, so that they could come and see us after work—as I encourage them to do. I would prefer to have a late Wednesday and then not go on late on a Thursday, so that there was just one late night a week. At the moment, I would err on the side of caution, because we do not know the work that the legislative programme will involve.

We seem to be having an outbreak of consensus.

On this issue, but I am not so sure about other issues on the agenda.

It would be sensible to deal with Donald's points at this stage.

The suggestions that have been made are reasonable, and I agree with Andy that it would be reasonable to extend the time for one evening, and to go on for a bit longer than Mike suggested.

It would be useful to know how many members stay in Edinburgh on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. The family-friendly thing is a great idea, but if getting on for half the members have to stay in Edinburgh anyway, the family-friendly aspect is lost and they might as well use the evening fully. At the moment, the load is still relatively light, because the legislative system has yet to get going, but it is important that we should discuss the time that we have available and that we should have measures ready, because once bills start to be produced, the treadmill will start. The Executive will start producing bills, reasonably soon some committees will start producing bills, and some individual members have already started producing bills.

We could consider reducing the time of the recess, as has been suggested in the press. Tom McCabe is said to have remarked on that. Covering the school holidays is excellent, but we have three weeks' holiday at Christmas and new year, and most schools have only two weeks, so we could reduce recess time then. We must have measures in place to allow the Parliament fully to fulfil its task. One considerably extended evening would be a good first step. It would be interesting to see whether the whole system collapsed if there were committees at the same time as meetings of Parliament. It might be possible to experiment to see whether there was a clash, before we said that it could not be done.

Not without having to change the standing orders.

There is a practical implication of committees meeting at the same time as the Parliament, which is shortage of staff in certain areas, including the official report. I understand that, of all the options, the most expensive is to have committees meeting at the same time as the Parliament. That is not to say that it should not be done, but in my view it is one reason why it should be the last option.

I do not think that we should go too far with the contents of Donald's paper. We have an interim solution to extend meetings on a Wednesday, so let us suck it and see. We must consider that there are list MSPs, constituency MSPs, those with families, those without families, those within 20 minutes of Parliament and those who are three, four or five hours away, or even further away. We must pitch our decisions for every member of the Parliament, not just for those who live nearby. There is no single standard category of MSP—we must accommodate everybody.

One of the key questions is that of members being able to get home. Many members stay on a Wednesday night, but we should not sit until an hour when it would be impossible for members to get home by public transport and go to their bed without meeting themselves on the way out.

I am one of the people who travel all the time. I dearly love Edinburgh—it is Scotland's finest city.

Will the press please note that?

It is, and for a Glaswegian, that is saying something.

It seems possible that we might move towards working in the way that Westminster works. Previously I have said that I do not want to be locked in either the Parliament or the committee rooms. I have already been on a good number of visits to people's houses and to halls, and I would like to do that more. If we did a head count and found that, because of where they lived or because they had decided that they wanted to spend Wednesday night in Edinburgh, 50 per cent of MSPs wanted meetings of the Parliament to eat into the time that other MSPs wished to spend away from Parliament, that would be a wrong step. It would make the Parliament very unfriendly, especially towards me—I intend to continue to travel back and forth between Glasgow and Edinburgh every day, and I do not want to stay in Edinburgh.

As Andy and Michael have said, it is early doors for us to be talking about extending meetings all over the place. Michael's suggestions could make a difference if we really needed the time, but I would like more time to listen to people rather than talking to them, which Westminster does too often.

We seem to have a consensus of opinion that the existing arrangements are too restrictive. We are uncertain about what the pace of changes should be and the direction that they should take, but we agree that it would be sensible to loosen up the standing orders to allow for the various options that have been canvassed to be taken. At this stage, however, we are not anxious to remove the proscription on simultaneous meetings of Parliament and committees. We can return to that issue in next May's review of standing orders and at any time thereafter. Broadly, we are agreed that standing orders should be loosened up so that we can determine what the shape of the working week needs to be.

That takes care of the following item on the agenda as well.

Issue 17, which we will deal with now, was one of the papers that was revised. It deals with whether questions, a debate or both should follow ministerial statements. The paper was amended to take into account the possibility that members might not want to have a debate on a ministerial statement immediately after the statement but at some other time. That is an extra option, not a conclusion.

The procedure is working substantially better than it was. My group's view is that, providing that the statement is given to opposition groups in time to allow for preparation of questions and briefing, the situation is tolerable.

There are difficulties in doing that and I am grateful to the Executive for trying to provide statements as early as possible. To me, that would mean the night before, not an hour before. We are getting them between those times. If the Executive is willing, we can get to a stage where the statement procedure is fine.

If the Executive had provided a debate on last week's statement on the water industry, would the time that there was between the receipt of the minister's statement and the debate have been adequate?

No, not at all. If I remember correctly, I received the statement at some time mid-morning—I would have to ask Ian Campbell to confirm this as he gave it to me, but I think it was around half-past 11. The questions were to take place early that afternoon, so there was enough time for two spokespeople to prepare questions but not to brief a number of speakers or to consider the detail of what was said. However, the Administration did not propose that the statement was strong enough to have the burden of a debate placed upon it, I suppose.

If the Administration had wanted a debate but had not provided for a time interval between the statement and the debate, the debate would have been unfair on the opposition parties as there would have been no opportunity to research it. We have to explore how the Executive intends to handle the situation. As you said, Mike, there was no problem last week, for the reasons that you gave, but there might be a problem at some other time.

The earlier information comes from the Executive, the better and more constructive debates will be, although the Executive will worry that if it gives too much information away too quickly it will just be attacked.

We could ask Mr McCabe this afternoon about the Executive's intentions. Its general approach appears to be consensual and Mr McCabe might give us some information that would help us to come to a decision.

The proposition in the paper that questions could follow the statement immediately and that a timetabled debate would follow at the next opportunity is a good one. That would enable more members to be briefed so that there might be a discussion about a paper by people who had read the paper. That would be revolutionary, at least as far as the practice at Westminster is concerned. However, there will be occasions when the Executive has difficulty in providing the information in time.

That is a good summing-up of the situation. We will raise the matter with the minister in the afternoon.

Issue 18 deals with who should sum up debates. You have raised that before, Mike, so I suspect that you have a point to make.

This is a point on which the consensus will break down. I am tempted to force the matter to a vote while Andy is at the loo. However, as I am only giving evidence, not acting as a member of the committee, I will not.

It is well known that there is a divergence of opinion on the matter. I think that, if a non-Executive party has introduced a topic for debate, it should have the right to sum up at the end of that debate. It should have the same privilege of opening and closing the debate that is accorded to the Executive on every other debate. For the Executive to want to sum up in that debate as well strikes me as a little churlish.

The argument of the Executive is that it wants to bring information to the attention of members or respond to points that have been made, but that that can be done in the penultimate speech. If a summing-up speech is to conform to normal practice, it should not introduce new material at all but respond to the debate. It is not good enough simply to adopt the Westminster precedents when the precedents that have been set by local authorities and other Parliaments are quite convincing.

We can raise that with Mr McCabe this afternoon. His opinion is clear and strongly stated as well. We will try to come to some sort of consensual arrangement, although it does not look like that will be possible. We might have to have a vote on that at some point but, hey, that is politics.

Last time, we tried to dispose of item 19, which is to do with the lunchtime gap. It is back with us because of legal advice—it appears that we would have to change standing orders.

All the members of the Parliamentary Bureau thought that the matter had been finished with, then it came back. Could the committee clerk elaborate on the legal advice that makes it impossible to put item 19 into the business motion?

The arrangements in the standing orders for adjournments and suspensions of Parliament bite in this case. I am afraid that the standing orders simply cannot be circumvented.

Everyone—from the Presiding Officer to Lord James, who has to leap to his feet in an almost Pavlovian manner every lunchtime to propose that the meeting be adjourned—agrees that the standing orders should be changed to give the Presiding Officer the power to adjourn without motion in specific instances, most notably at lunchtime but also in the case of disturbance.

We will agree that we will not bother to come back to the matter next week. We have made a decision on this little matter and the clerks can resolve it with legal advice and put it in the final report.

Issue 20 has been dealt with, as have issues 22 and 21.

I would like to make a point about speeches and interventions. It is important that all parties have an understanding of the speaking times for opening and closing debates. There has been some confusion in recent weeks because the issue has not been worked out. There should be an agreement between the parties before each debate on the length of speeches. That would allow a simple calculation of the amount of time that is left for other speakers. The process is not clear at the moment and should be sharpened.

You do not think that this is a matter for standing orders but you want it remitted to the bureau.

Yes, that is right. It should be remitted to the bureau and to the Presiding Officer so that each party's business manager knows the length of the opening and closing speeches.

Should there be standard times so that we do not have to agree separate times for every debate?

There should be, but that is not a matter for the standing orders.

I think that the standard is 10 minutes for the opening speech with seven or eight for speeches that oppose the motion. In the all-day debate on the programme for government, Donald Dewar's opening speech was 20 minutes. Accordingly, there had to be a slot of 15 or 12 minutes for the opposition speakers. A table set out on a pro rata basis would be useful.

The present arrangements seriously disadvantage the Liberal Democrats.

You shouldnae have gone into coalition, then.

My views on that are well known. Is this the right forum to raise the issue of my party's disadvantage?

I think that that it is a fair question for you to raise. We can discuss it with Iain Smith this afternoon.

The Liberal Democrats have to fight their corner somewhere, but I do not know whether this is the right place.

Even if it is not, say your piece and get it on the record. If we can build your comments into the discussion, we will.

At the moment, the Liberal Democrat spokespeople get only four minutes, I think, and not many of us are called to speak. Our total number of column inches in each debate is significantly less than, for instance, the Conservatives, who have roughly the same number of MSPs as we do. The fact that we are in coalition with the Labour party is relevant, but we have less chance to contribute to debates than members of other parties. That issue needs to be examined.

Could you talk me through that again? I think that opportunities for Labour back benchers such as me to speak are also limited.

If the debate is led by a minister, the minister gets his or her time to speak, the SNP and Conservative spokespeople get roughly the same amount of time, and then everyone else usually gets four minutes each. Liberal Democrats take our chances with other people and get no summing-up rights.

Are you saying that there are Liberal Democrat spokespeople who are distinct from Government ministers and that therefore there are Liberal Democrat positions on things that ministers might not articulate?

Correct. That is the case for all issues that are outside the partnership agreement.

I suspect that the Presiding Officer would have to consider that. I am not sure that that is a matter for us, but we can hear the point of view, record it and transmit it to the Presiding Officer and the bureau as a matter that has been raised.

There is an opposite argument, which is that the coalition partners are, in effect, one party and there should be no distinction. Those are the games that big boys play.

In a yes/no vote one can go only one way.

One might say uncharitably, Donald, that the Liberal Democrats have traded their speaking rights for a mess of partnership pottage, but I appreciate the point that you are making.

We are aware of the arguments and it is reasonable that someone should examine those calmly and reflectively. It is not a matter for standing orders.

Surely it will be fascinating to hear the view on that of the Deputy Minister for Parliament this afternoon. I hope that we put that to him.

I think that we might well do that.

I would like to make a brief point about interventions. I still feel that there is some disquiet in the chamber about interventions. In the past two weeks, Scottish National party members and others have made representations about them in points of order. Interventions sometimes take up so much time that the member making the speech becomes short of time.

I also raised the point two weeks ago that a minister or a member is protected in the last minute of their speech because they are in the last minute of their speech. The speech goes on, however, for another two-and-a-half or three minutes.

I note from the briefing papers for this meeting that this committee's advice was that there was no reason to have absolute protection for ministers and members in the last part of their speeches. I have no objection to that, but interventions are still causing some difficulty.

That is a matter for the Presiding Officer rather than for anyone else, but it has caused disquiet among members.

The feeling at our previous meeting was that this is not a matter for standing orders, but it is a matter on which we should express an opinion.

Items further down the agenda will, I hope, reflect what we discussed and decided. There is a copy in the papers for this meeting of a letter containing our views on that, which I sent to Sir David Steel. I do not see that there is any scope to change the standing orders to influence that. It is, however, reasonable that we should review the topic as practice evolves. We are all still on an upward learning curve and that is an area in which things are not working as smoothly as one hopes they will.

Someone at the previous meeting mentioned that a little courtesy could be shown. However, when members making speeches say that they will take no more interventions, other members are still popping up. The Presiding Officer could be tougher on that.

We will move on to issues 23 and 24, which relate to a revision of question time to allow for specific question times for specific ministers. That option was raised at our previous meeting and the issue of a First Minister's question time is already on the agenda.

We will not resolve those matters today. I have allowed a full discussion to develop on many of the points made earlier because that has helped to move us in the right direction. I would prefer Mike simply to set out his position on this issue and we will then ask questions of him. We will need to discuss this at some length and make some recommendations at our next meeting.

That is very wise, Murray. I see a way in which we can reach consensus on this issue. Many of us came at the issue from radically different positions—I was from the school of thought that said that a major change was required. Having seen the system operate in the past two or three weeks, I think that some incremental changes, rather than root-and-branch changes, to the suggestions of the consultative steering group might be needed.

The major weakness at the moment is our inability to get the game going. If we compare the situation to a game of tennis, there are no volleys and returns—the ball just gets to the net and drops. The difficulty arises from further supplementary questions not being allowed during open questions. There is a suggestion that supplementary questions should be allowed from constituency or regional members on subjects that relate to their constituencies. I think that that is too narrow and I am glad that Tom McCabe is of the same view.

The Presiding Officer must be allowed and encouraged to take supplementary questions from members other than the member who asked the original question. The first supplementary question should come from the member who asked the original question and the second and subsequent supplementary questions should come from a wider group in the chamber who have indicated their desire to speak.

The downside of that is that fewer questions can be taken. It would reduce the number from the 20 or 22 questions that we get some days to 14 or 12. It would, however, be far better to have 12 substantial discussions in which points can be made and information given. I feel that ministers would prefer that to simply standing and giving their answers and sitting down again. Ministers do not at present have the chance to develop lines of argument or thought on particular issues.

The key issue is about supplementary questions during open question time. Things are beginning to work a bit better in terms of closed questions, but a little more flexibility would be appropriate. Once Alex Salmond has asked the two or three supplementary questions that he is permitted, it should be possible to widen the debate a bit. That is not happening—we move on to questions from David McLetchie almost by rote. It is important that that is relaxed a bit.

In terms of immediate changes to the standing orders, I would be prepared to leave things as they are for the time being. We will be able to conduct our full review of standing orders in the light of better experience.

I would, however, suggest one further change. I think that eight days is too long a period of notice for lodging questions. It is impossible to have topical and up-to-date questions if questions must be lodged eight days in advance. I can see no reason for that.

It would be possible to table questions on a Friday for the following week, which would leave two extra days. It would not be impossible to lodge questions on a Monday and that would allow us to hear questions that were topical and up to date. We could examine that again to see whether it has worked properly, when we fully review the standing orders.

It is tempting to say that we should have a session for named ministers, but until question time works more flexibly, I do think we can say that. We need some immediate changes and some further changes when we have examined the situation.

You suggested a more flexible approach to supplementary questions, which would result in fewer questions. The alternative to having fewer questions in that case would be to allocate more time to questions. How do you feel about that?

The session, which lasts for 45 minutes at the moment, could be lengthened to an hour. There could be five minutes more allocated to closed questions and ten further minutes added for open questions.

The order of questions could, of course, be reversed. Closed questions could be asked first. I would be interested to see what that would produce. I thought at first that that might produce something dramatic, but now I am not sure that it would.

If members were minded to lengthen question time to an hour, that would strike a balance. Roughly the same number of questions would be asked but there would be a bit more to-ing and fro-ing.

Are there any questions to Mike?

Would Mike Russell consider having another question time, perhaps on Wednesdays?

I know that there is pressure for that, but I do not favour that option. My view is that because there is only a day and a half of plenary meetings it would be overkill to have another period of questions on Wednesdays, given the distinct possibility that there will also be written questions to deal with. If plenary meetings took place on three days a week, Tuesday and Thursday might have been suitable for questions. It would be difficult to justify having question time on two days out of two.

I agree broadly with what Michael says. I will be interested to hear what Tom McCabe has to say today about tabling questions.

Last week Phil Gallie, in a supplementary question to Jack McConnell, went completely off the subject of the original question. The Presiding Officer should deal with such instances.

The Presiding Officer did slap him down.

We should learn from that. What we say in the discussions here should be heard by other members. They should know that they cannot simply go off the subject of the original question. Mr Gallie was not slapped down as quickly as I thought he would be.

My interpretation was that he was trying to ask a question, but that he did not phrase it very well. Supplementary questions must relate to the question, or to the answer that is given to the question.

We can move on to issue 25, which is about holding answers given in response to written questions. I know that a number of Scottish National party members have been concerned about that. Do you have evidence to give on that?

We seem, with the exception of Keith Raffan, to be asking more questions than previously. It is inevitable, then, that we will get more holding answers, but there is concern that holding answers are being used too extensively. I have personal experience of that.

Ministers are trying to move away from the use of such answers. There have been problems, particularly during the summer recess. I would like—with your permission, convener—to extend into that area as I think the issues are linked.

We will take issues 25 and 26 together.

There is a need to have written questions and answers during summer recess. It is an obvious requirement that should be introduced to Westminster and that has been debated there. It must be recognised that people might be on holiday during the summer and that it might be more difficult to get things done. We must examine the issue of written questions in two ways.

We must first ask if the present system works. If answers are received within two weeks, then the system will work. Can we improve the system? We probably can, but the principal improvement would be in resources. We are not in charge of those resources, so all we can do is recognise that there are difficulties for the Executive, particularly in the summer. During the summer there should be a slightly different procedure for written answers. We could, perhaps, wait three weeks.

A system for priority questions should be introduced for those requiring urgent answers. As long as such a system is not abused, it will benefit both ministers and members. The way to stop abuse is to have any question that a member wishes to raise during recess or when Parliament meets certified by the clerks. There should be a procedure for that.

If a member wishes a question to be treated as a priority question, that member cannot merely say that it is a priority question. That priority must be proved. There will always be arguments about that, but we have arguments about the phrasing of or eligibility of motions. We will get it right through the interaction between the members and the clerks.

The ministers should endeavour to give a written answer within a fortnight. They should be sparing with holding answers. There will be occasions when their use is necessary, but ministers must be prepared to justify the use of holding answers on each occasion on which they are used. As a quid pro quo, time allowed for producing a written answer might be extended by a week or so.

There should at all times be provision for urgent answers. The most important example of that was during the situation at Continental Tyres Ltd, when there was no procedure for getting a quick answer from a minister. In such a case and in that of Levi Strauss (UK) Ltd there should be the opportunity to get a quick answer.

I am broadly sympathetic to what you say, but would we be exposing the clerks to something to which we do not want to expose them? They might have to make decisions on subjects that I, for example, could argue were politically urgent, but which they might think were not urgent.

Ultimately, that decision is for the Presiding Officer.

Do you think that the authority to make that decision is the Presiding Officer's?

It must be. If one has an emergency motion to lodge it is the Presiding Officer's decision to accept it or not. I would not expect an emergency motion to do more than speed past the Presiding Officer's desk, if it was obviously not an emergency. The Presiding Officer and, on his behalf, the clerks should have the ability to certify an emergency question that would require an answer in 48 hours, or whatever period is decided.

I would be surprised if there were to be more than two or three such questions a week. There might not even be that many, but we need to refine our questioning system.

I would very surprised if there were only two or three in a week.

I was talking about successfully lodged questions.

I agree with Andy. How do we lay down the guidelines by which the clerks would make decisions? If a question then has to go to the Presiding Officer, that will add to the time and will detract from the urgency of the question.

We should be strict with those who attempt to lodge half a dozen emergency questions a day for the first three weeks. We must look for responsibility in members and this would be the right way forward.

Emergency questions might have to be lodged through the business managers. I would have no objection to finding a way to filter emergency questions through the parties. The responsibility would be on the parties to ensure that questions were genuine.

There would have to be ways of stopping emergency questions being abused. One man's emergency is the bee in another man's bonnet.

There are examples of other procedures that are in place where there must be internal certification by business managers. That might be the way to do it. The Presiding Officer would be able to tell the business managers that they could not certify 12 emergency questions in a day because they will not be approved.

We must, in any case, overcome the over-zealous. There is a problem—emergency questions must be raised. That should not suffer because some people try to abuse the system. People will try to abuse the system no matter what we say and no matter what the standing orders say.

I agree in principle—there should be a method for getting answers to questions on genuine emergencies quickly.

Is the proper mechanism for such questions to go not to the clerks—who might become political footballs—but either to the business managers or directly to the Presiding Officer?

Perhaps they should be channelled through the business managers to the Presiding Officer.

The business managers are a good filter, because they can tell their party members quite bluntly that there is no chance of a question being accepted.

That would work, because if we submitted emergency questions to our business manager every five minutes, it would not take him too long to tell us to stop; he could not be bothered with them.

This would be a useful point to raise with Mr McCabe this afternoon—we have to talk to him about something. [Laughter.] We will have plenty to talk to him about.

Does that take care of items 25 and 26, Mike?

Yes. Item 27 has also been dealt with.

That takes us to item 28, which we deleted at our previous meeting. Item 29 concerns a rather technical matter. Item 30 relates to emergency bills and members' bills. Do you have anything to say about that, Mike?

In his paper, Tom McCabe says that the Executive is considering the procedure for emergency bills. There needs to be a partnership between this committee, the Executive and the bureau to ensure that our procedures are altered to make it possible for the Parliament to take emergency bills. The fact that we had to suspend part of our standing orders to take a piece of emergency legislation was no big deal, but it should alert us to the fact that we have not got the procedure right in standing orders. I believe that we have asked for a redraft of standing orders that would remedy the situation.

I have a number of concerns about members' bills. We have still to test the system, but I am concerned that there is no time allocated in standing orders for members' bills. It was assumed that there was time, but John will confirm that no sitting days were specifically allocated for members' bills. A discussion has arisen in the bureau on where that time should come from. My assumption is that all time belongs to the Parliament, which can decide how its time is used. That is technically true, because Parliament approves business motions. However, there is another school of thought that argues that all time that is not already allocated belongs to the Executive. That would mean that the Executive would have to give up time to allow consideration of members' bills and that such bills could not be debated if it was unwilling to do that.

This is a crucial issue. Time is allocated for non-Executive debates and for committee business—15 and 12 days respectively. The Executive assumes that all other time is Executive time, but I argue that all other time is Parliament time. Parliament gives that time to the Executive, but it could say that it intends normally to allocate five or 10 half days for dealing with members' bills.

The first member's bill is almost ready to be lodged and will presumably go before the Justice and Home Affairs Committee. It is possible that that committee will put it to the Parliament in the time allocated to it for its business, but there is no guarantee that that will happen; I do not think that it is even likely to happen—Gordon is shaking his head.

The Justice and Home Affairs Committee wants to bring in its own bill, on which it is currently taking evidence. It is unlikely that we would give up our bill for someone else's.

Members' bills will come to the bureau, which—as I understand it—is obliged to schedule stage 1. However, it is not obliged to do anything thereafter, so we may run into a bottleneck on members' bills. Extraordinarily—this is a defect of standing orders, but I do not think that anything can be done about it—if each member introduces the two bills to which they are entitled, over four years that would amount to more than 250 bills, which could stop the Parliament in its tracks. Not every member will introduce two bills, but they have the right to do so. If they did, that would mean 250 stage 1 debates—250 half days over four years—but not one half day is allocated in standing orders.

Parliament time and committee time are separate issues. The bureau has asked us to consider the problem of Parliament time. The issue of committee time is being discussed in the informal group of committee conveners, who may suggest a further amendment to standing orders. The concerns that Mike has raised are real and are being acknowledged. I am not sure what the answers are, but the matter is on our agenda.

Do members have any questions about what Mike has said?

I may have missed this, Mike, but what did you anticipate the solution being?

That is a good question.

You can see the value of a legal mind.

Absolutely. I am afraid that I will trip myself up when an advocate asks me that sort of question.

An allocation of time for Members' bills has to be laid down in the standing orders. The consequence of there being none is that there will be a bottleneck of members' bills, which will create some difficulty. We must allocate space in the timetable for a certain number of half days—probably between 10 and 12 a year—for members' bills. The downside is that members will find it much harder than they think to get their bills through, simply because of the shortage of legislative time.

Where do you plan to get those half days from?

I go back to the philosophical point that I made earlier: if the time belongs to the Parliament, the Parliament can allocate that time. My view is that the rest of the time then belongs to the Executive, but I think that the committee will find that Tom McCabe takes a different view.

This obviously ties in to some extent with our earlier discussion about extending the length of the parliamentary week. If we create more time for our business, one of the beneficiaries may be members' bills. That would provide more flexibility all round. This matter must be resolved—we need to consider whether a time allocation should be specified in standing orders.

Does that take us to the end of your submission, Mike? Do you wish to make a final statement?

All members—and certainly all the members of my group—want to make the present standing orders work as well as possible, although they are keen for there to be revisions within a definable time scale. I hope that this committee will achieve its objective of presenting some revisions by the end of October, before undertaking a full review. The revisions should be designed to make the work of members easier, because the Parliament belongs to its members, rather than to any party or Government. Standing orders should make the job of members more obvious, more transparent and easier to execute. We are going some way towards doing that.

Thank you.