Item 4 concerns the timescales for, and stages of, bills. We need to take a couple of decisions following our earlier discussions. I draw members' attention to papers PR/S2/04/13/9 and PR/S2/04/13/13. The first point that we have to agree on paper PR/S2/04/13/9 is how to deal with the publication of committee reports. We need to agree what to do if a report is not available within the suggested timeframe.
I find paragraph 3 of the clerk's note slightly confusing. Is it suggesting that we should not have a procedure whereby members can raise a matter in relation to a rule individually, and that members should instead go through the Parliamentary Bureau?
The current position that has been agreed by the committee is that there should be a five-day interval between the publication of a stage 1 report and the stage 1 debate. The committee has agreed that there should be a rule that, essentially, requires committees to publish their reports within that timeframe. The committee has also agreed in principle to the idea of employing a further mechanism if that condition is not met. That would involve a motion being moved to allow a stage 1 debate to go ahead on the day that had been planned for it.
The rationale behind the idea was so that we would know why the rule had not been complied with. For example, it might have been the committee's fault or the Executive's fault, or something might have happened that nobody had known about. There is a general frustration that stage 1 reports can sometimes be published on a Monday, with the debate following on the Wednesday. Under those circumstances, members cannot scrutinise reports effectively ahead of the debates on them. It should be set down that the member concerned should have to come before Parliament and justify why their debate should be able to go ahead.
Do members agree with that?
We will come to the wording of the proposed standing order in our private consideration later, but we will proceed as has been agreed.
After having a considerable amount of discussion with colleagues, I think that we should impose such a limit to ensure that people can make whatever arrangements are necessary should Parliament be extended. Such extensions should not conflict too far with the Parliament's family-friendly policies and objectives.
What Karen Gillon is essentially proposing is that we adopt option 1A, as described in paragraph 9 of the clerk's note. Is that agreed?
I have some difficulty with that. There could be the odd set of circumstances in which, in order to get the matter thrashed out, we would need to go beyond a specific time. I am not sure what Karen Gillon is proposing as a maximum extension to stage 3 debating time. Frankly, it should be left to members to decide. Presumably, if a member moves a motion without notice to extend a debate, members are perfectly entitled to say no.
It is majority voting.
Absolutely—it is a democracy. It should be left to the good sense of members. I understand where Karen Gillon is coming from but, given the number of stage 3 debates that there are likely to be in a year, the good sense of members should prevail. That is where the final arbitration should lie.
There is a stage 3 debate every three weeks on average, I think.
As paragraph 10 of the note sets out, the Presiding Officer would have a role in addition to there being a vote among members. Convention would not normally allow further such motions to be moved after extensions totalling 30 minutes had already been agreed to. That would appear to achieve 95 per cent of what Karen Gillon wants while giving some flexibility and avoiding a situation where stage 3 debates are curtailed due to unforeseen circumstances—perhaps if an important issue came up that was not thought of when the motion without notice was moved, perhaps an hour or two previously.
I do not believe that those circumstances would arise. People know where the contentious issues are at stage 3—those issues do not, or at least should not, come up suddenly in a debate. Members should be better informed.
That is a valid point. Part of the reason for the changes to the timing of amendments at stage 3 is to allow for a more informed timetabling motion to be lodged. Because we will know the groupings earlier, members should be able to make clearer to their business managers, before the timetabling motion is drafted, how long they think that they will require for debate and what the contentious issues are. My personal view is that if option 1A were introduced initially, it could be reviewed at a future date and would be sufficient to allow the flexibility that is needed. Are members content to accept option 1A?
No. I move that we accept option 1B.
The question is, that the committee agrees to accept option 1A. Are we agreed?
No.
There will be a division.
For
The result of the division is: For 4, Against 2, Abstentions 0. Option 1A is accepted.
The question is whether, if there is a change to the timetabling motion, the member moving that motion should have the option of specifying that they want only the next time limit in the timetable to be altered, or whether the only option should be to move back all the time limits. The issue is the balance to be struck between simplicity and flexibility. I have sketched out a scenario that could arise, in which the extra flexibility would be useful although, on the other hand, giving members extra latitude in relation to the motions that they move complicates the process of moving them and disposing of them clearly in what is necessarily a last-minute procedure of which members do not have much notice. It is a matter of striking a balance between simplicity and flexibility, and it is up to the committee to decide which of those is more important in this circumstance.
I have a point for clarification. I am attracted to option 2A. It contains flexibility in that, if we come to the end of a section quicker than is timetabled, we can just move on to the next section and keep moving on until we are finished. I am not sure what the merits of option 2B are—forgive me if it is very simple and I just do not understand it. My assumption is that if I move a motion without notice on a section, it extends the time for the whole debate by, say, half an hour and each section just moves according to the timetabling motion by that half an hour. If the debate on the specific section finishes a bit sooner, there is more time for the next section. Am I right?
That is correct. If you chose that option, whereby any motion without notice under the new procedure would automatically move back all the deadlines, you would be more likely to keep running ahead of all the deadlines subsequently and you might well finish the whole stage 3 ahead of the final deadline. The possible disadvantage of that approach would be that, while you were completing stage 3, there would be some uncertainty about when things were going to finish. You would not know until the end of the process that you were going to finish ahead of time and you would introduce a degree of uncertainty about when people would be able to leave at the end of the day. If all you wanted to do was to extend the next part of the timetable for a specific group of amendments, you could do that without introducing any uncertainty about when stage 3 was going to finish.
But you would then reduce the agreed timetable for the following groupings.
Yes, and whether that is a realistic approach depends entirely on circumstances. In some cases, quite large chunks of time are allocated and it might be reasonable to assume that a 10-minute overrun in one area could easily be made up in the next area. However, that will not be the case in other circumstances. Again, the question is whether you need flexibility to adjust for different circumstances.
My question is a simple one. Would choosing option 2A not mean that we could end up losing certain groupings or large amounts of certain groupings later?
Under option 2A, if it were agreed through a motion without notice to extend consideration of amendments by 30 minutes, 30 minutes would be added to everything. For example, if one hour had been allocated to the first block of amendments and two hours to the next and you agreed to extend consideration by half an hour, you would then have one and a half hours and two and a half hours respectively for consideration.
I am concerned about the sentence in the paper that reads:
We could still make that time up.
It is important to bear in mind that the timetable sets limits, not targets. As Karen Gillon has just pointed out, if we add extra time to an early block of amendments but then make it up because we do not need it later, so what?
In simple terms, would adopting option 2A disadvantage any items of business that might follow that day's consideration of amendments?
No.
Is that a definite no? I am picking up a maybe.
Option 2A straight away extends the upper limit for the whole of stage 3. As a result, reaching that revised upper limit will have a knock-on effect on decision time or any following items of business. However, in practice, you might not use that extra time at the end of proceedings. You will be able to pull things back. The question is whether you want to introduce uncertainty about the timing of later items early on in proceedings.
The whole point behind option 1A is that it provides only a half-hour's flexibility at the end of proceedings, which means that we can still have decision time and members' business within a fairly sensible timeframe. We should not lose any business at the other end. I understand Andrew Mylne's point that, when we agree to an upper limit and therefore do not know exactly when we will finish our consideration of amendments, we might not need all that time. However, in reality, members have usually timetabled to be in the chamber until the end of the stage 3. If things run half an hour longer, so be it; no one would say, "Stage 3 is timetabled to end at 5.30 pm; I'll nip away at 4 o'clock." That does not happen. Members have to be around until stage 3 consideration is over.
If we are introducing such flexibility, we should make the procedure as simple as possible at this stage. We can always revisit the matter in future if we feel that more flexibility is needed. As a result, I propose that we accept option 2A. Are members agreed?
The third question concerns the Presiding Officer's discretion to allow debate on an amendment to a motion.
This is simply a question of balancing flexibility and simplicity. We propose that, during the normal course of events, motions to extend proceedings should not be debated or amended. The point is to reach a decision quickly and not to spend time debating such motions. After all, that would take time away from debating the amendments to the bill.
I confused myself over what was meant by debating an amendment to a motion.
The question is whether that would be a blanket prohibition or whether we should build in some flexibility for the Presiding Officer to allow however much debate he thought fit on such a motion if he felt that there was a particular need. For example, different members might argue for different lengths of extension and the Presiding Officer might need some flexibility in his back pocket.
I presume that that relates to the fact that, if a 10-minute extension was proposed, a member who wanted a 30-minute extension would have to move an amendment to the motion without notice.
Such a situation would be precluded if we went for the simpler option and said that such motions could not be debated or amended.
For the sake of simplicity for folk who are watching, if a motion without notice is moved, can members speak against it?
Not if the motion cannot be debated or amended. The motion would simply be moved formally and disposed of immediately.
There is sometimes confusion in the public gallery. For example, if a motion is moved and members vote immediately, the public do not know why members are voting against it. There is no explanation of why some members do not think that there should be a 20-minute extension. No one gets up and says, "We're going to vote against this because of X, Y and Z." There is sometimes confusion about why 55 Labour members or 20 Scottish National Party members vote against a motion, because there has been no opportunity to tell the public why that decision is being made.
The only problem with that is that, if we had the opportunity to make a decision, we would probably need a longer extension, because we would use up the half-hour.
Yes, okay.
There are merits in a system in which somebody moves a motion for a 20-minute extension and we go straight to the vote. Otherwise, we would end up wasting the very time that we are seeking to use.
A member would have to move another motion later if they wanted to extend the debate for a further 10 minutes.
The suggestion is simply to enable the Presiding Officer to allow a limited amount of debate; we are talking about unusual circumstances, not the norm.
On an individual upper limit on time extension, I am inclined to say that, as we are setting a maximum of 30 minutes, there is no need to specify other limits at this stage.
If members used up all the time in one go, that would be that.
That would be up to members.
The final paper is on implementation. Are members content to endorse the approach that is set out in the paper? The approach seems to make sense.
I took the liberty of discussing the matter with the minister. There seems to be some confusion on the part of the minister and her officials about paragraph 6 and whether the preceding paragraphs have been agreed to.
I can clarify that. The matter arose at a relatively late stage in our discussions and all we were able to do was discuss it informally with Executive officials. As far as I know, it did not go to the minister. However, what Executive officials take to the minister is a matter for the officials. We discussed the matter with officials and they indicated informally that they were content with it. That is all that we have secured.
There is a suggestion that, if we secure a debate in the chamber in December, the implementation date would be some time during the Christmas recess.
That sounds about right.
Would the recommendations apply to all bills that are in the process, whether or not consideration had started?
Yes.
The recommendations will have an effect on the timetabling of business, so should the Parliamentary Bureau be consulted as well as the non-Executive bills unit and the Executive?
Yes.
There is no reason why we should not consult the Parliamentary Bureau, too, if we are considering implementation after the debate. The bureau will certainly have three, four or more weeks' warning, so there should be no major implications for the timetabling of business. We can consult the Presiding Officer about the matter.
We should do so sooner rather than later. We do not want a protracted discussion between every party in the Parliament about the timetable that suits each party's agenda. If the Parliament makes a decision as a result of the debate, that decision should be implemented as soon as possible.
The approach that has been outlined, which the committee is being asked to agree in principle, is simply that there should be a single date on which the proposals come into effect across the board for all bills, rather than a phased approach, which would be more complicated. If the committee agrees that in principle, it is suggested that the date itself should be discussed in the run-up to the debate, so that the motion that is lodged specifies a date that has been arrived at through discussions among all the people who would be affected, by which I mean the Executive and all the people who would have bills going through committees at the time. The aim would be to choose a date that would have the least impact on bills in progress.
Do members agree to endorse that approach?
That concludes the public part of the meeting. I thank members of the public for their attendance.
Meeting continued in private until 11.22.