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We now come on to private bill committee assessors and related issues. There has been quite a lot of correspondence flying about. The papers that members have received since our last meeting that we should discuss are a further letter from the Faculty of Advocates, clarifying its position; a letter that I wrote to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and the Presiding Officer's response; and a note from the Scottish Executive lawyers on the submission from the Faculty of Advocates.
What papers are these?
This is agenda item 3, paper PR/S2/05/14/5.
Could we have five minutes to digest this?
Sorry—where is that paper?
Apparently, these supplementary papers were sitting on the table. I suggest that we take five or 10 minutes to read the papers.
Not 10.
Well, we can take five minutes. There is also a response from the Executive inquiry reporters unit. Some of the papers were circulated. Anyway, we will take five minutes for members to read the papers.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
Right, we will have to press on. We will start with the SPCB paper and the paper on reporters, which covers some of the same ground. The corporate body seems, by and large, to support the idea of reducing things. However, in effect, it is saying that if it has to provide a transcription service for the person who is taking evidence on behalf of the relevant committee, the service to other committees will be seriously affected. If we accept the corporate body's view, we would have to say to the inquiry reporters that they would have to arrange for transcriptions to be made by some outside source. I understand that that is what happened in Lord Fraser's inquiry. They would then recover the money from the promoter of the bill. I understand that that is the normal position.
If inquiry reporters are appointed by the Parliament, I am not sure that it would be for them to go away and secure a transcription service. It would be for the Parliament to do that and then recoup the costs from the promoter. If we are saying that the inquiry reporter is not a legal entity and is only working for a committee, I imagine—although I do not know—that we would want the committee to appoint a transcription service and the Parliament to recoup the costs from the promoter.
From reading previous notes from the reporters unit, I see that it is not normal practice to record everything verbatim anyway. Is a verbatim report of the meetings required?
I take Karen Gillon's point. The Parliament would have to arrange the transcription service, but it would not use its in-house resources. That is the key point. Karen is right. I did not make the point correctly.
It is also about having a verbatim account of everything for members, so that if there were any dubiety about what was reported, the members could go back to the transcription to see what was said and weigh it up, rather than leaving it open to interpretation.
That is a valid point. Having a verbatim transcription would allow the committee to revisit the evidence that the reporter has taken, which is an important facility. On how it would be paid for, I am sure that if the promoter wants a project to go ahead, it will be more than willing to invest in that service.
Does that satisfy you, Bruce?
I was trying to ascertain whether there was a requirement to produce a verbatim report. I take the argument that it would be a useful reference point, but I am not convinced that it would necessarily speed up the production of the reporter's report. I presume that in reaching his conclusions he will have to draw up his own report, albeit that he might have access to a verbatim minute. I hae ma doots as to whether it would speed up production of the report. I wonder whether we are deluding ourselves that the mere presence of a verbatim report will necessarily lead to a speedier conclusion. Time will tell.
I was considering the obstacles in what we are being asked to approve. The SPCB had an obstacle in that it did not want in-house transcribers to be used. We could say that that is one of the conditions that must apply. The need to have a transcription would be up to the committee to decide, as long as it is not provided by the Parliament's in-house service. As I understand it, each committee would appoint a reporter to conduct the inquiry on its behalf. It would be up to them to reach agreements about transcriptions and so on.
We can give a clear steer that the promoter should meet the cost of transcriptions and material that the committee would need for its later considerations.
The corporate body also referred to security. I think that that was to do with the whole team that would be involved in going wherever and taking evidence. I was not quite clear whether the corporate body would still be responsible for security if a reporter was holding the inquiry?
My understanding is that, under existing arrangements, when reporters hold public inquiries they do not have security staff as such—they do most things themselves. It can perhaps therefore be assumed that the Parliament's security staff would not normally be required. If official reporters are present, security staff are needed simply to pass messages to and fro, which the official reporters rely on. The SPCB made its comments in that context.
We could kill two birds with one stone. If the minuting was taken outwith the Parliament staff, we would also resolve the security issue.
I believe so.
The inquiry would not be a meeting of the Parliament, so there would not be the same package that is needed when a committee meets outside Edinburgh. It could be organised more informally.
I think that that is correct. When a committee has an official meeting in a remote venue, the Parliament feels obliged, quite properly, to send a range of support staff, including security staff. The meeting would not be a committee proceeding, so it would not require those support services.
There are no other comments on the correspondence with the corporate body.
I have a comment on the letter to the chief reporter. It is unfortunate that in a letter on behalf of the committee we seem to suggest that we had a problem with the independence of the reporters unit. I certainly did not sign up to that, and I would like to make it clear that I do not share the concerns that were raised in the letter from the committee about the independence of the inquiry reporters unit. That has been tested through the courts. I do not share the view that was expressed in the third paragraph of our letter and it is unfortunate that it was written in that way.
I understand what you are saying. I feel very strongly on this issue. I do not see how people can claim to be independent if somebody else can tell them whether or not to appear at a committee. It would have been helpful to have had oral evidence, rather than written evidence. However, your point will be on the record.
I, too, have concerns. I checked the Official Report of our first discussion on this issue, when we took evidence from Margaret Curran, Tavish Scott and civil servants. The ministers were supported by two of the most senior legal civil servants—I cannot remember their titles, but I am sure that they will be mentioned somewhere in the Official Report. On that occasion, I asked about the independence of the inquiry reporters unit. The clear response was that the unit is established in law and that the courts agreed that the reporters unit operates independently. That has been said on more than one occasion, not by politicians or ministers but by senior legal professionals. That was strong evidence. Convener, I do not know whether you were writing on behalf of the committee or as an individual on that point, but I was certainly reassured by the evidence that the committee received.
I am not as exercised on this issue as the two previous speakers were. I do not take the point that you expressed, convener—you will perhaps correct me on this—as being a challenge to the independence of the reporters unit. I think that the point that you were making—although I have not discussed this with you—related to the public view of the arrangements that would apply to a new and controversial bill procedure. It is welcome to have posed that question and to get the answer to it in the public domain. I have no doubt that, as the three forthcoming railway bills progress, if they follow the route proposed, there will be challenges to the independence of the reporters. It is useful to have the issue flagged up at this stage.
I have obviously stirred up something of a hornet's nest. The matter was raised in oral evidence to the committee. Bruce McFee is quite correct to point out that it is a matter of public perception. We must be confident that the reporters are completely independent. It seemed to me that, although they are no doubt totally independent when they are conducting an inquiry, the refusal to allow them to give oral evidence, as well as the nature of some of their written evidence, indicated that they are, in many respects, civil servants as opposed to independent reporters. I think that that is a problem.
I am interested to know where all the questions came from.
The questions came from members of the committee, as I understand it. That is what was asked for, and the committee clerks, having gone through the previous papers—
I would be grateful to know how we came up with such a long list of questions. During the previous discussion, a number of members said that they found the last response to be one of the better responses that we have received and to be quite comprehensive. There are 16 questions and I am surprised that there are so many.
I think that the questions are helpful. For example, we gave the reporters unit an opportunity to dispose of Shepherd and Wedderburn's point about many people going to retire quite soon. Additional information is helpful to us, so I think that the questions are reasonable. They are all quite factual and are trying to get the unit's technical answer to various points. I do not see how we can be criticised for asking too many questions.
No, but the previous practice was that questions were signed off either by the committee or by the convener and deputy convener. That practice was not followed in this instance. I think that we need to decide how we will deal with matters such as this that have been discussed at a committee meeting, irrespective of whether we have a list of questions. It would be good to know the procedure so that we are clear about the system under which we are operating.
I will discuss that with you afterwards. I was not aware that I was transgressing in any way. I must say that I did not personally inspire the questions, so there is not some sort of plot afoot.
I am not suggesting that there is, convener.
Okay, thank you. As no member has anything further to say about the inquiry reporters unit, we will move on.
Yes. This is a total reversal of the situation at the previous meeting when the faculty was clear in its advice and the Executive lawyers were sitting on the fence. Now, the faculty is sitting on the fence and the Executive lawyers are clear in their advice. Perhaps we might have expected that.
Given that we have not received a further legal briefing from our own legal department, can I assume that it is content with the information that we now have?
I have nothing to add.
Personally, I am not entirely impressed by all the Executive's arguments. However, on balance, I am content to progress with the proposal that is before us rather than stop it on the ground that it is legally flawed.
Much of what we have been discussing, including the points about the inquiry reporters unit, has come about because the proposal is being pushed through at a speed that relates to the Executive's requirements for putting bills through rather than to Parliament's requirements for ensuring that all the evidence is properly considered. For example, we had to send a response quite quickly, so our letter resulted from discussions between staff and the convener rather than from a considered discussion of the whole committee. Indeed, the best thing would have been for such a response to have been given after we had had the inquiry reporters unit before us. In addition, we have had a great deal of conflicting material being thrown between the different lawyers without the chance to take a considered opinion on the matter. However, it is undeniable that the letter of 15 November from the Faculty of Advocates weakens the position that the faculty set out last week. We need to take that on board. My only wish is that we had an extra couple of meetings for our inquiry so that we could dot the i's and cross the t's. We are not doing that at the moment.
In a sense, we will be able to do that. I think that if we instruct the clerk, he will produce a draft report for our next meeting.
I am already working on it.
I think that we will need both a draft report and a draft of the changes that would need to be made to standing orders.
Those changes are also being worked on.
We are making progress in that direction. The only other point that we need to add is that the Parliament would pay for external transcribers but not provide such transcription in house.
No, the Parliament would require the promoter to pay for that.
I beg your pardon. I meant that the Parliament would initially pay for the external transcribers but would then recover the costs from the promoter. The promoter would pay for the transcribers, but the Parliament would make the arrangements. That would mean that there would be no drain on our in-house resources.
If members think that helpful, I can put something to that effect in the draft report.
As the private bill committee would need to appoint the reporter, it would need to be involved as early as possible.
If our response to the corporate body's letter is to provide some direction about the road that we potentially want to go down, we should pick up on the suggestion that
My view is, similarly, that there should be individual contracts. The argument from economies of scale is probably quite bogus. If we lump all the contracts together, they will probably proceed at the speed of the slowest. That would not be desirable, if the rationale behind the introduction of this move is correct.
The clerk has confirmed that our response to the Presiding Officer will indicate that, although we do not support that particular point in his proposals, we accept the other point about the need for external transcribers.
Meeting closed at 12:34.
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