Point of Order
I welcome committee members and members of the press and public to the 16th meeting in 2004 of the Finance Committee. I remind everyone to turn off mobile phones and pagers. We have received apologies from Ted Brocklebank. Jim Mather has unexpected urgent business and is unlikely to get to Edinburgh in time for the bulk of the meeting.
On a point of order, convener. I have raised this matter privately, both earlier this morning and in correspondence with you—I first e-mailed you about the matter last Tuesday.
The committee carried out a fairly substantial piece of work on the finances of the water industry, which led to a report. In the committee's private discussions on the report, Jim Mather, John Swinburne and I expressed dissent on some aspects of the committee's conclusions and said that we wished to produce a minority view. The discussions were in private, but my understanding was that the minority view would be incorporated in and published alongside the report of the majority in the committee. When, to my surprise, the minority view was not published in the report, I suggested to the convener that it could be included on the committee's website. I did so because Jim Mather and I received inquiries from interested parties who wanted to know where the minority view was, because they could not find it on the website.
My request is simply that there be an agenda item at next week's meeting to discuss the issue. As I understand it, your response, convener, has been to decline that request—at least, you certainly have not agreed to it—on the basis that the advice from the clerk is that publishing the minority view would be incompetent under the rules that govern the committee's proceedings. In my view, that advice is incomplete, because there are precedents.
John Swinburne, Jim Mather and I have asked that the committee debate the matter at next week's meeting. In the five years that I have been a member of the Parliament, I have made requests sparingly for matters to go on agendas—I have done so only once in this session of Parliament in the Finance Committee. We do not overburden you with unreasonable or numerous requests. If three members of the committee ask that we debate a matter, that is a legitimate request.
There is no agreement about the procedures. As always, I respect the advice that we have received from the clerk, but I believe that it is incomplete. I hope that we will discuss the issues at next week's meeting. If we do not, I am afraid that serious questions will be raised about how we promote minority views in the Parliament. At the moment—if your ruling and the guidance that you describe are correct, convener—minority views are not promoted on the website. However, I believe that we should respect such views and that, when they are expressed in the context of major reports, they should be incorporated on the website along with the majority view.
I hope that we will have an agenda item to discuss these serious issues next week. It may be that the committee cannot reach a conclusion and that after our discussion we will have to refer the matter to the Conveners Group—so be it, but we are in the Parliament to express our views in public and I believe that we should do so on this occasion. I have no regrets about raising the matter, because fundamental issues are at stake about whether parliamentary committees operate for the Parliament or to express the views of the Executive parties. I intend to pursue the matter, but I hope that members will afford me and my two colleagues the courtesy of having a proper debate about it next week. Had my initial request been agreed to, we would have saved the time that has been used in this contribution today.
I treat the matter that Fergus Ewing has raised as a procedural issue and I respond to it in the following terms. I do not think that the clerk said that the matter is incompetent. The issue concerns the application of the "Guidance for the Operation of Committees", the second edition of which was published in 2003. Paragraph 16.9 of that guidance states:
"There is no provision for the production of minority committee reports, although dissenting members have occasionally produced their own papers."
There are precedents for members doing that, but there is no precedent for a committee publishing a minority or individual report. In this instance, the document to which Mr Ewing refers, which I understand is in the name of Mr Mather, was received two weeks after the committee agreed to its report. All the documentary information that was received prior to the committee agreeing to the report was incorporated into the report. The advice that I have received, which I have checked and rechecked, is that there is simply no mechanism in the guidance for replying positively to Fergus Ewing's initial request, which was for the minority report to be published on the committee's website. That is my ruling.
During the past week or so, I have sought alternative mechanisms through which Fergus Ewing can address the procedural issues that concern him. It is, of course, open to him as a member to raise procedural issues and in this instance he needs to raise the matter with the Conveners Group, which is responsible for the production of the guidance for the operation of committees. If members wish to have a discussion that will allow the committee to make representations to the Conveners Group, that is a matter for them. Alternatively, the committee might decide, in the circumstances, that it does not wish to take the matter forward, in which case I presume that there would be no point in having a further discussion next week. I am open to contributions from members of the committee, other than me and Fergus Ewing.
Can I clarify one point?
I will let you back in at the end.
Before the debate goes any further, I should clarify that my suggestion is that the view should be expressed as a minority view, for which there is ample precedent—that has happened several times. You said that doing that is not incompetent, so I want it to be made absolutely clear that the view can be placed on the website as a minority view.
Fergus, I think that you are—
I accept that there is no such thing as a minority report in standing orders, but there is a minority view and I ask for it to be placed on the website as such.
Paragraph 16.7 of the "Guidance for the Operation of Committees" states:
"A number of mechanisms exist for reflecting minority views."
We decide, as a committee, how to deal with those views when we agree to the report. There is no basis on which we can go back and change the position after we have agreed to the report.
I point out that the committee did not agree to the report unanimously. I stated from day one that I would not associate myself with the report and the forthcoming bill, because anything that disadvantages senior citizens will never get a vote from me.
That was reflected in the committee's report and your view was incorporated in the text.
Notwithstanding what we decide about this report, I want the convener to raise the matter on behalf of the committee at the Conveners Group with a view to getting some clear guidance. If there are rules, we should stick to them. I am unhappy about the amount of time that we are spending on the matter and I do not think that it does the committee any good to have such an argument publicly. Of course people's views should be public when they are different from the committee's majority view. There is no reason why they should not be published, but I think that this discussion puts everyone, including the staff, in a difficult position. I would like the convener to raise the matter at the Conveners Group, to clarify the rules and to consider whether they need to be changed. I do not see why minority views should not be published alongside majority views but, if there is a need for change, I would like the Conveners Group to examine the matter.
As I said in the private discussion, I am disappointed that the deputy convener has not reached an agreement with the convener on the matter. The approach that the convener outlined is the right one. I share Kate Maclean's view that this discussion does not do the committee any services. It is extraordinary posturing for Mr Ewing to seek to take up so much of the committee's time on a procedural matter, given that there have been opportunities to dissent or to advertise other views. If the procedural matter needs to be taken forward by the Conveners Group, I welcome that, but we need to get on to the more important agenda items.
We now have two proposals: first, that we take up the matter with the Conveners Group as an issue of principle; and, secondly, that we return to it next week as an agenda item, which is Fergus Ewing's suggestion. What do members think about those two propositions?
They are not alternatives. I fully support taking the issue up with the Conveners Group, but it was the Finance Committee that made the report and it seems to me that the starting point is here.
I am bound to say that several minority views have been published in the past—one example is the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee's third report in 2000, on housing stock transfer. There is a clear precedent for the publication of minority views. It has been said that there is no such precedent and that that is the advice from the clerks. As I said, I respect the assistance that we have had from the clerks—that is absolute. I am not criticising the clerks, but the issue is more complicated than meets the eye. If members are denied a debate on the basis of the convener saying that the clerks' advice takes precedence, that will be an unfortunate precedent.
I say to Jeremy Purvis that I expressed my dissent during the debate, as is minuted in the report, so it is wrong to suggest that I have not taken previous opportunities. However, the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee's report provides a precedent. If the minority needs the consent of the majority to express its views in the Parliament, then the Parliament is not a Parliament but a plaything of the Executive. There are very serious issues at stake. Surely the starting point for a debate on the matter is the committee that dealt with it in the first place. We can pursue both options. We should start by debating the matter here and refer it to the Conveners Group thereafter.
Let us be quite clear. We would diminish the authority of the Parliament and turn it into a plaything by making up as we go along the rules for how members dissent. The issue is not the right to dissent, but how dissent is properly expressed within the procedures of the Parliament. The issue of the procedure for expressing dissent has been raised. That is not a matter for this committee, because it is not subject specific—it is a procedural issue and should be dealt with by the Procedures Committee. The two proposals that have been made are alternatives. I want to give no credence to the notion that we should diminish the authority of the Parliament by allowing dissent to be expressed willy-nilly, in any way that people wish. The way in which to protect the minority is to have clear rules about how the Parliament operates and to apply those rules.
It is important that the Procedures Committee clarify the procedure for expressing dissent and ensure that that happens within the rules of the Parliament and is not open to manipulation now or at any point in the future. It would be a mistake for members to pre-empt discussion at, or a decision by, the Procedures Committee by minuting dissent. There are two proposals and we should vote on them. The matter should be referred to the Procedures Committee, so that it can clarify how dissent may be expressed in accordance with the rules of the Parliament.
I agree with Wendy Alexander. I have no desire to spend large amounts of time in committee discussing this issue again. We have discussed the variety of views that members have taken on the Cuthberts' original paper. It is right and appropriate that members should have the opportunity to express those views. At the pre-meeting, we were not apprised of the fact that a minority report had been published, presumably on the website. We are entitled to seek advice on the matter from the Procedures Committee, given that it has been brought to our attention again. I have no desire for the issue to be placed on the agenda for our next meeting. A considerable amount of the committee's time is already taken up by grandstanding and I do not want there to be further opportunities for that.
I will make one important point of clarification. The precedent in the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee to which Fergus Ewing referred related to an entirely different situation. The minority report that we are discussing was made available two weeks after the committee's report was agreed to. In the case of the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee, members presented their minority views while the committee was drafting its report. In this case, members want to include a post hoc, additional element in a committee report after it has been agreed to. That has caused a procedural problem. It is clear to me that such a process could have very adverse consequences.
The majority of members want us to seek procedural clarification on the matter. In this instance, we should refer the issue to the Conveners Group, rather than to the Procedures Committee, because the Conveners Group is the custodian of the "Guidance for the Operation of Committees". The majority of members have indicated that they do not want the matter to be included on the agenda for next week's meeting. Is that the wish of the committee?
Members indicated agreement.