Procedures Committee, 27 Nov 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 27, 2001

Official Report 339KB pdf

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Standing Orders (Public Bills)

We are now able to reconvene. Our very alert sound engineer has had a splendid morning. I hope that he is regraded soon and mentioned in dispatches.

Item 2 is a report on Executive proposals for changes to chapter 9 of the standing orders. I note that the Executive does not wish to say anything about the paper relating to this matter—or does it?

I have not been scheduled to say anything at this meeting, but—

Come and join us. We are a very inclusive and approachable committee.

I have no particular ministerial authority to speak today, but I will be happy to do so if it would be helpful.

Does Andrew Mylne wish to say anything to the paper?

I will make some brief remarks.

As the committee will be aware, three issues have been proposed for discussion by Executive officials. The paper before us, document PR/01/12/2, aims to address each of those in turn, and proposes what I hope are sensible, workable solutions.

The first one, about the member-in-charge rule, is the most complex and takes up most space in the paper. I would say that, given current circumstances—we are expecting some changes in ministerial portfolios shortly, which will affect bills in progress—it is now the most important. The current member-in-charge rule will, I think, work adequately in the circumstances that we are anticipating, although it does not provide anything like an ideal solution. We are therefore proposing some changes that will allow the rule to work more flexibly, as circumstances change. We have sketched out how the proposed new rule might work in paragraph 11 of the paper.

We considered two related issues, which are set out further on in the paper. One is that a comparable change in relation to committee bills would be useful to deal with a similar scenario. There is also a slightly complex matter relating to rule 12.2.3, and we explain in our paper how that might be taken on board at the same time.

The aim of our paper was to sketch out how the rules might be changed, but without giving members precise forms of words for changes to the rules. If the committee agrees to the changes in principle, we can come back with precise forms of words with which to make amendments to the standing orders fairly shortly.

Let us deal with the first proposal, on the member-in-charge issue. Are there any questions? The recommendations are contained in paragraphs 11, 16 and 22 of the paper. Can we agree to those recommendations? If we do, that will have the effect of asking Andrew Mylne to come back to us with the precise form of words.

Members indicated agreement.

I invite Andrew to move on to the motions for financial resolutions.

This is a more straightforward issue. The Executive has suggested a change that would make its administrative processes slightly more simple. The paper suggests that there might also be some disadvantages, but the matter is, in many ways, not major. There is no specific recommendation; it has been a question of setting out the points that might be considered to be relevant on either side and of inviting the committee to decide how it wishes to proceed.

It might be appropriate for Andrew McNaughton to make a pitch, as it were, for the change that the Executive wishes us to make.

Our line—as it is with the member-in-charge issue—is that we would have preferred a simple, generic approach. On the first issue, we suggest that the member in charge of a bill could be regarded as a Cabinet minister. The corollary of that is that we believe that our proposal for financial resolutions is a more straightforward administrative solution. I quite accept Andrew Mylne's view and the angle that he is coming from, but we have already put our proposal in my letter to the clerk. We thought that the simple approach would work more simply administratively.

If there are no questions from members, let us take a view. Do we accept the Executive's invitation to make the change, or do we take the view that the change is unnecessary?

The change seems harmless.

It seems harmless. We will therefore magnanimously concede.

Members indicated agreement.

That is agreed unanimously.

The third issue concerns budget bills.

This is probably the simplest matter of all. The situation is set out in the paper, and it would be a relatively simple matter to allow junior Scottish ministers to play the same role as Cabinet ministers in relation to amendments to budget bills. That would make the rule on that more consistent with other rules. We are not aware of any disadvantages that such a change might have. It is a straightforward recommendation.

There are no questions or comments. Do we agree to the proposal?

Members indicated agreement.