Scottish Parliament and Business Exchange
We move on to item 4, which concerns the Scottish Parliament and Business Exchange. First I should remind members that, until very recently, I was a director of the exchange. As I understand it, the committee's interest in the scheme springs from an obligation to ensure that members who participate in it act in a manner that does not conflict with the code of conduct. The committee's ninth report in 2002 states:
"The Standards Committee wishes to make it clear that there has been no evidence or allegation of impropriety in relation to the Exchange."
As a result of various meetings between the business exchange and the previous Standards Committee, the exchange has carried out a review at the end of its operation. The report before us is a consequence of that review.
The committee needs to decide whether to respond to the exchange's conclusions and whether we accept its offer to copy the committee into its quarterly reports to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body.
I am keen to hear other members' comments. Although my own background with the business exchange might help with this matter, I want to hear what other members who were not involved have to say.
I have read most of the papers, although I cannot claim to have read every page. However, I think that we should pursue the interesting idea of broadening the exchange's membership, as it would help to remove any suspicion that it is a sort of clique in which members scratch each other's backs.
Representatives of the business exchange have offered to come and speak to us, so I thought that it might be useful to get them to explain to us the mechanisms by which the scheme could be widened out. Are commercial businesses the only ones involved, or are community businesses, co-operatives, do-gooding organisations and universities included? I would like to explore that.
All those things are either under review or happening. At one of the recent meetings, someone representing the small business sector was appointed as a director. The broadening-out that you talk about has happened, but that is not to say that we cannot talk to representatives of the exchange further. Indeed, I believe that they have offered not only to submit quarterly written reports to the SPCB but to appear before it to give an account of the organisation. I am confident that that offer would also be made to the committee.
I think that the business exchange has received a lot of unfair publicity. There has been a lot of hysteria around the subject but it has been based on little substance. The danger is that, if we over-regulate the body to the extent that we look like we are continually down the throats of the people involved, we might frighten off the business community and severely damage what is a good and—with regard to the experience of Westminster—well tested and successful way of building relationships between parliamentarians and business.
I think that we should agree that we should accept a copy of the quarterly report and perhaps have an informal presentation on the work of the exchange around the time of the submission of the annual report.
We should leave the organisation alone and watch how it progresses. If further issues arise, we can intervene at that point. We have enough on our plate without further delving into the workings of the exchange in a way that would send out the wrong message. The SPCB already has tight procedures in place with regard to audit and so on and I believe that that will ensure that the £100,000 of public money that will be invested in the organisation over three years will be spent wisely.
Taking this matter any further would over-egg the pudding, duplicate work and send out the wrong message.
As a member of the previous Standards Committee, which published a report on the business exchange in the first session of Parliament, perhaps I could give the committee an idea of—[Interruption.] Someone has dropped a clanger in the committee room above us.
I whole-heartedly endorse what Alex Neil said. When the previous Standards Committee considered the issue of the business exchange, the atmosphere was a bit fevered. Our colleague Margaret Jamieson had been the subject of rather hostile press coverage for trying to participate in the exchange, which was found to be wanting to the extent that it did not protect her sufficiently in relation to the confidentiality agreement that she was asked to sign. She referred the matter to the Standards Committee, in fact, so it was thanks to her that we dealt with it.
While we were considering that matter, the media were reporting that many of the people who were involved in the exchange on the business side were lobbyists. Actually, they were not so much lobbyists as people from the parliamentary affairs departments of the big companies. I was not surprised about that, as those are the people who tend to deal with parliamentarians.
At that time, however, there was undoubtedly a rather suspicious and fevered look—I was going to say hysterical, but that is not the right word—at the ways in which the exchange operated. I served on the committee at the time and thought that that was a bit unfair, but we had reservations about the way in which it was structured.
The business exchange responded to that. We were concerned about lines of accountability and about whether there was sufficient protection both for individual MSPs and for business people taking part in the exchange. There is no point in having an exchange if people are not protected. The whole point of an exchange is to protect those who take part from suspicions that their behaviour is anything other than open. Any of us as individuals can go and visit a business or set up for ourselves an exchange with a business; we do not need an official body to do that. The point of having such a body is to offer an extra degree of protection and a formal structure in which to operate. That makes the process more transparent and makes it easier for everyone to see what is going on.
In my view, that is a good thing, as it sends out a positive message to the business community that members of the Parliament are interested in knowing what is going in the business community. I know that there are often reports to the contrary, which say that we do not have enough entrepreneurial background and are not interested in business activity but are too interested in the public sector. There is a need for a business exchange and it has to work properly. With regard to concerns about accountability, the business exchange has improved and tightened up its procedures, and we can see that what happened to Margaret Jamieson will not be allowed to happen again.
The previous Standards Committee was also concerned by what it described as the "hybrid nature" of the exchange. The Scottish Parliament and Business Exchange is a separate company and is not totally answerable to Parliament. Rather, it is answerable to its board of directors, and it is through the MSPs on the board that it is answerable to Parliament. It is therefore answerable to two bodies, as it were, and is not solely under the control of the Parliament. There was some concern about that, which has been addressed in the paper. The paper points out that changing the structure and bringing the exchange under the control of the Parliament would be a big and unnecessary expense. It would also be breaking the relationship, as we would no longer be treating the businesses as equal partners. Both those points are very fair.
The other issues raised, which are to do with accountability, are more important. They are certainly the issues that I was more concerned about during the previous Standards Committee's initial discussion of the matter. The business exchange has offered to come along to address the Parliament on an annual basis and to give us a quarterly report. That is very encouraging and I think that we should take it up on that. The exchange has obviously gone over the procedures and had a look at how it is operating. It is widening its reach in terms of both businesses and MSPs. It is also trying to rebuild confidence, which we should encourage. We should actively support the exchange in doing that, as there is a need for that body.
Donald Gorrie suggested that we should hear from witnesses from the exchange. I am quite relaxed about that. I would not want to send out any signals to say that we have doubts about its continuation. However, if we have any further questions about how it operates or what it is doing, it might be a good idea to ask a member of the board of directors to come to the committee. If we are going to do that, I suggest that we also ask one of the MSPs involved to come too. That is only fair, as the MSPs can answer better to the Standards Committee. Ultimately, it is MSPs' behaviour that we are regulating and not the behaviour of the companies involved.
I am content with the report. I hear what Ken Macintosh is saying. It is useful for me and other new members to hear the background and history of the matter. However, I do not think that there is any necessity to ask anybody to come to the committee. I tend to agree with Alex Neil that if we have the written quarterly reports for scrutiny and information, and then the annual presentation to the committee, that will be fine at this stage. If anything were to arise, we would obviously take it into consideration and act accordingly. At this stage, however, I am not minded to call anybody even to come and have a chat with us. I think that we should just follow Alex Neil's suggestion.
The business exchange has made its intentions quite clear through the paper. I think that its intentions are honourable and correct and that we should give it a chance to prove that its actions are as good as its words. For the time being, we should leave it in peace to get on with it. We have the option to call witnesses later if we want to do so, and I am content to go along with that.
Members may not have been aware that, as Kenneth Macintosh rightly said, the Standards Committee first took an interest because of the circumstances surrounding Margaret Jamieson's placement. It is a great measure of the confidence that Margaret has in the exchange that she is now one of the board of directors; she must feel that matters have been resolved satisfactorily.
I was interested in what was said. If the business exchange is already broadening its membership, there is no need to ask somebody to come to the committee to say whether it will do that. I am happy about that, and I accept the points made by Alex Neil and others. In no way did I want to suggest that we were hostile to the exchange, and I suppose that that interpretation could be made if we asked somebody to come to the committee. If the exchange continues along the lines that you have described, I am content with that.
If members are content with the report from the exchange, we will be delighted to see its quarterly reports, and we shall take it up on its offer to have people appear before us, at an appropriate point, if the need arises.
Informally over cheese and wine, perhaps.
Who would pay?
We shall move into private session for item 5.
Meeting continued in private until 11:54.