That takes us to item 5 on the agenda. We might have needed one of the unscripted breaks that we were talking about while we waited for the official who will speak to the report to arrive but, fortunately, he is at hand. We have only to keep talking among ourselves for a few moments—nature abhors a vacuum. However, it does not mind Ken Hughes too much.
As part of good business practice, the Presiding Officers regularly review business management in the chamber. To that end, an analysis of points of order was undertaken for the period between 10 January and 24 May this year. There were 167 points of order raised in that period, of which 72 were not genuine. Furthermore, on five occasions, inappropriate points of order took an average of about 8.5 minutes to deal with. Admittedly, those occasions are exceptional and at present there is not a significant problem with them. However, that evidence shows that there exists the potential for the prosecution of proceedings to be disrupted by abuses of points of order. Therefore, after consideration of the matter, the Presiding Officers suggested that the Procedures Committee consider changing rule 8.17.2 to allow members to speak for up to one minute on a point of order. That is suggested on the bases that one minute should be sufficient to express genuine points of order and that the current limit of three minutes provides too much scope for disruption of business. Having said that, I stress that there is no wish to interfere with members' legitimate rights to raise points of order and that this is merely a suggestion that the committee might wish to consider.
I know how scrupulously you research such matters, Ken. I am therefore sure that you will be able to answer my question. Of the 167 points of order, how many took more than a minute?
Precious few.
Being the sad, pathetic creature that I am, I read in the Official Report the five circumstances that you identified. Not counting all the times that Margo MacDonald tried to make a point of order but was not allowed to, there were 53 individual points of order, although—as you said—many were not points of order, but interruptions in disguise. I thought that only one such point of order took more than a minute. It occurred on 14 March, when John Swinney attempted to make a speech about what had happened in the previous week's vote on fisheries. On that occasion, I thought that it was appropriate that the leader of the Opposition should have had a couple of minutes in which to make a point. It was a pity that it had to be done as a point of order, but if the Presiding Officer felt that it was not appropriate, he had the opportunity to close him down almost immediately because he was making a speech rather than a point of order.
I agree. The occasion to which you refer was the only inappropriate point of order that lasted more than a minute. The intention is not to dwell on or rake over what has happened in the past, but merely to consider what could happen. There could well be difficulties if a member rehearses an argument that leads to an inappropriate point of order, which does not allow the Presiding Officer to intervene and nip it in the bud.
A Presiding Officer would just say, "Get to the point." Presiding Officers in fact do that.
Yes, they do.
Murray Tosh has hit the nail on the head. It is not a question of the time taken; rather the issue is the frequency of interventions that are made through points of order, 40 per cent of which are seemingly made on spurious grounds. Ken Hughes has carried out other research and has looked into the rules of other parliaments and bodies. There are rules in some other parliaments to the effect that members who raise points of order should name the relevant standing order, although practice seems to be that they have not done so. It strikes me that that would kill repeated interruptions stone dead. If a member cannot name the rule that relates to his or her point of order, that could allow the Presiding Officer to intervene.
Do you mean that members should tell the Presiding Officer in advance that they would make points of order?
Either that, or members should have sufficient awareness of the standing orders to know which rule it is to which their point of order relates. The points of order that are currently raised during debates are often not legitimate with regard to the standing orders, but might be legitimate in the theatre of debate. Members use the mechanism of a point of order to make points that they might have made in the debate anyway. If we are serious about addressing an excessive number of interventions that are made through points of order, the Presiding Officer should try to intervene when a member does not know the standing order to which their point of order refers.
Do not members frequently know that their intervention is not in fact a point of order? They are often determined to get up and make a point anyway.
I was suggesting merely that there could be a rule whereby members had to name the relevant standing order and, if they could not name it, they would have to sit down immediately. That would address the issue. Otherwise, what is the point of having standing orders?
I know that you have the standing orders in your Filofax, Frank.
No, I do not. I do not intervene using points of order, on the basis that I would not have an idea of the standing order to which my point of order related; that is different to reacting to a debate as it develops.
I do not think that Frank McAveety's idea provides a solution. A member who was switched on about the standing orders might get up and say that he or she was going to make a point of order on such-and-such a rule, but then go off on a tangent.
That sums up the matter well. The committee has always attempted to assist the Presiding Officers in sharpening up and streamlining business, and I am sure that we remain in that position. I think that, where there are difficulties, the answer might be for certain members who feature prominently in this regard to reflect on their own conduct. Other than in cases of individual serial interrupters, I think that it is for all members to think about how they handle such situations. The Parliament must support the Presiding Officer during times of turbulence, and it must accept that if members witter on unreasonably, their microphones will be switched off and business moved on.
Meeting closed at 11:19.
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