Procedures Committee, 28 Sep 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Official Report 127KB pdf

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Bills (Timescales and Stages)

We now come to agenda item 5. If we carry on at this rate, we will be finished quickly, although I have a funny feeling that we will not.

A number of papers relate to item 5, but we will concentrate on the note from the clerk, paper PR/S2/04/12/4, which refers to some of the other papers in the bundle. I draw members' attention to a couple of corrections that should be made to the note, which was written before we received the Scottish Executive's response that is anticipated in paragraph 37 of the note as drafted. First, it turned out that the Scottish Executive was more amenable to what the committee was looking for than we expected. On our suggestions about explanatory notes, the note states:

"The Executive is not keen on such a change".

However, that is obviously out of date as a result of the letter that we have now received from the Executive. Secondly, we could have been slightly clearer in paragraph 39 that we dealt with the draft rule changes in relation to the explanatory notes to members' bills in the members' bills inquiry.

Let us go through the note paragraph by paragraph and pick up the issues that require to be addressed. Further clarification is needed on those issues following the decisions that we made at our last meeting. We do not intend to reopen the issues on which we have already reached agreement; we just seek further clarification on those points.

The paragraphs on page 1 deal with the possibility of a committee report not being published within the agreed timescale. The idea is that the proposed rule change to standing orders would require the report to be published five days before the debate. If that did not happen for some reason, the Parliament would be given the power to decide to go ahead with the debate despite the fact that the committee's report was published perhaps a day late. Paragraph 8 asks who might be able to move such a motion—whether any member could do so, whether only the member in charge of the bill could, whether a member of the Parliamentary Bureau could or whether any of those people could. Do members have any thoughts on that?

You speak about reports being published late, but I want to clarify how late would be acceptable. You suggest that a report might be published a day late, but what happens if it is published the day before the debate?

We do not want to prescribe the circumstances in which a report might be late. We just want to give some flexibility if, for example, something went wrong at the printer's.

I understand that, but if a situation arose in which a report was extremely late, going down the proposed route would present us with the problem that certain matters could be considered in the debate despite the fact that many members might not have had the opportunity to read the report. As this is my first Procedures Committee meeting, I realise that I might be getting into this issue somewhat late and that decisions might already have been taken on the matter. However, that is my concern about the proposal.

The purpose of the proposed rule change is to introduce a deadline to ensure that reports are published sufficiently far in advance of the debates to allow members of the public and Parliament time to read them properly. However, in exceptional circumstances something could go wrong with that arrangement—for example, because of the timing of committee meetings, because a committee was waiting for a supplementary report from another committee or because a committee was waiting for a minister's reply. Those circumstances could cause the publication of a report to be delayed by a day or so. It would be for the Parliament to determine whether it wished to go ahead with a debate if a report had not been published in time, but we need to decide how much flexibility should be allowed and the circumstances in which someone could move a motion to allow the debate to go ahead.

How often has such a situation happened? I have forgotten to bring my glasses again—I cannot read the table of information in the paper.

Paper PR/S2/04/12/6 shows the intervals between the stage 1 report and the stage 1 debate. As the statistics show, the interval has tended to improve as time has gone on. In session 1, the average interval between the publication of the stage 1 report and the stage 1 debate was 6.6 days for all bills and 4.6 days for Executive bills only, but we are now seeking to make the minimum five days. In the majority of cases, the minimum that we are proposing has been met; that has increasingly been the case as the Parliament has become more used to the procedures.

If we are going to allow the Parliament the flexibility to let the stage 1 debate go ahead in certain circumstances irrespective of whether the stage 1 report is published a day or two late, who should move the motion to allow that to happen? Do we want any member of the Parliament to be able to do it or do we want to restrict it to the member in charge of the bill or a member of the Parliamentary Bureau?

Surely it should be any member of the Parliament, as we believe that the circumstance will not commonly occur.

Are members happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

The next part of paper PR/S2/04/12/4 that we need to discuss is paragraphs 9 to 14, which concern the minimum interval between stages 1 and 2 and address a slight anomaly that might result from the original proposal to increase the interval from seven days to eight. The clerk is good at explaining the anomaly, so I will let him do so.

When, for the purpose of drafting the rules, we reconsidered the proposal to increase the interval between stages 1 and 2 from seven days to eight, I became concerned that that could create anomalies depending on when the committee that is considering stage 2 meets. The danger is that, in some situations, the effect of increasing the interval would be to add an extra week to the timetable, whereas in other situations it would not make any difference. It is more or less arbitrary which of those two situations a committee falls into. As this committee's decision might result in creating a slightly anomalous result, we propose that members either settle on the current interval—which is a whole clear week between the stages—or increase the interval by a whole week for all circumstances, which would require the rules to refer to 11 or 12 sitting days rather than seven. Eight days is neither one thing nor the other.

What are members' views on that?

We decided to increase the period because we heard a lot of evidence on the need for a decent interval to allow members to develop stage 2 amendments and outside bodies to hear about the stage 1 debate and to get involved in the process, so I would be sad if we were to retain the current interval. If, as Andrew Mylne says, the interval should, according to the maths, go up to 11 or 12 sitting days, that would be preferable to retaining the current one.

I did not hear the evidence and have only gone over the background papers briefly. Are we referring to the minimum interval between stages 1 and 2 or stages 2 and 3?

Stages 1 and 2.

So that evidence was led on stages 1 and 2.

Yes.

How many calendar weeks would the increase involve? Would it mean a full extra week between the two stages?

Yes. The current requirement for seven sitting days means that there is a whole week between the week in which the stage 1 debate takes place and the week in which stage 2 starts. If the requirement were increased to 11 or 12 sitting days, it would mean, in effect, that there were two clear weeks in between. The question is whether the committee considers that to be too long a minimum period.

How would the timetabling of parliamentary and committee work be affected if we were to make the gap two weeks? Andrew Mylne seems to suggest in his note that it would be better to have seven days than eight days. Would it also be better to have seven days than 14 days?

If the gap is seven days, the effect is consistent for all committees, irrespective of when the stage 1 debate is and irrespective of which day the committee meets on. However, if the gap is eight days, and if the debate is on the Thursday and the committee meets on a Tuesday, an extra week is added. An anomaly arises if we move from seven days to eight days. When we agreed to increase the gap to eight days, did we intend to increase the period by an additional week? If so, logic would dictate that we move to 11 days. If there were an urgent reason for a bill to progress more quickly, there would still be the opportunity to suspend the rules.

According to the figures, the average gap has been 13 days in this session of Parliament and was 15 days in the previous session. Therefore, we are not really talking about increasing the minimum.

It is certainly the case that the norm is 11 days or more at present.

That leads me to ask where the evidence for a change is coming from. If the evidence says that there is not enough time between stage 1 and stage 2, but the average gap is still greater than we are proposing, how do we square the circle? At the moment, the average is more than 11 or 12 days, but where are all these committees that are meeting early at stage 2 so that people do not get a chance to lodge amendments?

Again, I refer members to the tables in paper PR/S2/04/12/6. The paper shows that a number of bills had nine or fewer days between stage 1 and stage 2—including the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Bill and my member's bill. However, in most cases the interval was longer than that. The question is whether we want the minimum to be eight days or 11 days.

I understand the point that eight days will make it arbitrary whether the minimum gap between stages 1 and 2 is one week or two weeks. It would clearly be nonsense to go for that option if it does not ensure something other than what happens at the moment. To answer Karen Gillon's point, if the average gap is 13 days—with a few bills taking less time than that—we should make the minimum two weeks. That would give a minimum period that around 90 per cent of bills currently have anyway. Setting that minimum would not make terribly much difference to the operation of the Parliament, but it would ensure a minimum that, from the evidence that I hear, would be desirable.

I do not disagree with that, but the folk who led the evidence were probably referring to the majority of bills, for which the gap was already 13 days. Our proposal will not change the situation in which those people found it difficult to lodge amendments. I do not have a problem with setting the minimum at 11 or 12 days, but the evidence suggests that, unless we set it at around 20 days, we will not satisfy some of the people who complained to the committee. However, I do not think that 20 days would be feasible, because it would disrupt the work of the Parliament. Our proposal would only ensure something that happens in most cases anyway. That would not be satisfactory to the organisations that have commented.

The reality is that every organisation would want more time, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. I propose that we move to 11 days.

Members indicated agreement.

We agreed in principle that when a committee meets twice in the same week to consider stage 2 amendments there should be only one lodging day. The issue is that a slight anomaly arises if, for example, there is a meeting on a Monday and a meeting on a Friday. Do we have the same lodging deadline compared with the situation when there is a meeting on the Friday and one on the Monday? We are trying to resolve that slight anomaly. Are we talking about the calendar week or are we talking about the interval between the committee meetings, if you see what I mean?

The clerk's note gives two options. One of them is that, if a committee meets in the same week to dispose of amendments, there should be a single lodging day. The other option is that, if the lodging deadline for the second meeting would be before the first meeting had taken place, the two meetings should have the same lodging deadline—that effectively would apply to committees meeting within a two-day interval.

Could you repeat that?

I will try. If a committee is due to meet twice and the first meeting would be before the lodging deadline for amendments for the second meeting, there would be a single lodging deadline. The lodging deadline for the first meeting would become the lodging deadline for the second meeting, which essentially means that, if there is less than a two-day gap between meetings, the lodging deadline for the meetings would be the same.

If the object of the exercise is to make it easier for people to participate and to understand the procedure, the lodging deadline should be the same whether committees meet on a Monday and a Wednesday or a Monday and a Friday. That would make it much easier for people to understand; they would know that there was just one lodging deadline and when that was.

I agree with Karen Gillon. I think that, to clarify the situation, we need one lodging deadline for all committee meetings in the same week. Instead of referring to the number of days between meetings, we should refer to whether the meetings fall within the Monday to Friday period. There is a big difference between a Monday committee meeting then a Friday committee meeting—although there are more sitting days in between—and a Friday meeting then a Monday meeting. Rather than referring to the number of days between the meetings, we should make the decision on the basis of whether the meetings are in the same week. That would be clearer.

Option A is essentially what Mark Ballard is suggesting. Are members content that we go with option A rather than the slightly more complicated option B?

Members indicated agreement.

Paragraph 21 is on the lodging deadline for normal lodging days. There is currently no such deadline, but clerical practice is that the lodging deadline is 4.30 pm. Are members content that we formally put that into the rules? It does not make any difference to current practice, but it makes the situation clear in the rules.

Members indicated agreement.

Can I go back to that issue? I am not clear whether we took evidence on this, but one of the big issues at stage 3 for me is that we do not get the amendments quickly enough. If the lodging deadline is left at 4.30 pm—

The proposal does not apply to the final day of lodging: the final day deadline is earlier, at 2 pm.

Okay. Does that apply for all stages?

Yes. For all stages the deadline on a normal lodging day is 4.30 pm, but 2 pm on final lodging days at stage 2.

Okay.

We will now consider motions without notice to alter stage 3 timetabling motions. There are three issues. One is whether we should put a limit on the length of time by which we can extend the debate. The second is whether there should be an overall limit on how many times that can be done at stage 3. How many motions without notice to increase the length of the debate can we have during the debate? The third question is who should be allowed to lodge those motions. Should any member be able to lodge such a motion, should a member of the bureau, which is responsible for lodging the timetable motion, do so, or should the member in charge of the bill do it?

I do not think that we should put a limit on the time, because the Parliament will decide that. However, once a motion has been voted on and rejected—and I do not know if this is possible—members should not be able to lodge another such motion while we are discussing the same group of amendments. In other words, it is fine for the Parliament to vote on a motion to extend the debate by 15 minutes. If there is then another motion to extend the debate and Parliament says no, we should not have another motion two minutes later as a time-wasting measure. I do not know whether that can be accommodated in the rules.

We have considered several ways of coming at the issue. The existing rule, which allows an extension of up to 30 minutes on any debate, has been used only once. There is a protection under the rule that, if such a motion is moved and disagreed to, another motion to extend the same debate cannot be moved.

We took the view that perhaps that was not appropriate in this context. The difficulty is that we do not know whether an extension is necessary until just before the deadline is about to expire. It is difficult to see so far ahead and there is a risk that, if a member tried to extend the debate too early, the motion would be defeated, because members would not know at that stage whether an extension was going to be necessary. That would prevent anyone else from trying to extend the debate later on when it became clear that an extension was going to be necessary.

Our inclination was not to go down that road but to put in a protection whereby the Presiding Officer has to agree to any such motion being moved. That would guard against the overuse of the procedure, because the Presiding Officer will presumably not allow a sequence of motions to be moved if that was a time-wasting device.

That is an awful lot of power for the Presiding Officer.

It is not the only way of doing it. Your suggestion is an alternative.

I assume that the answer to this question will be yes. Karen, are you suggesting that, if a motion to extend is moved once during a debate on a group of amendments and is rejected, that is the matter dead within that part of the debate?

Yes.

The argument that someone might move a motion too early without knowing whether the debate needed to be extended is not a good one. I believe that having a limit of one motion for each group of amendments would be acceptable and that any member of the Parliament should be able to move such a motion. The only thing that I would caution against would be malicious use of the procedure early on in a debate in order to prevent an extension, although I am sure that no one would do that. That is the only circumstance where we might fall foul, but I think that the ability to move such a motion once in a debate on a group of amendments is reasonable.

Such a motion should be able to be moved more than once within a group, but only until the Parliament rejects a motion.

Yes.

A member could move at the beginning of the debate that it be extended by 15 minutes. Near the end of the debate, when it became apparent that six members were still waiting to speak, another motion could be moved. If the Parliament agrees to the motion, that is fine, but, if the Parliament rejects it, that is it.

Once the motion has been denied, that is the end of the matter.

Yes.

Is it the view of the committee that there should be no limit to the number of extensions that can be applied for during a stage 3 debate? In theory, we could have a 15-minute extension to every group. Are we content with that?

Members indicated agreement.

Does the committee want to indicate a limit on the time allowed for the extension for a debate on a group or should that be left open?

If we have the option to move such a motion more than once, we could set a time limit. It could be set at 30 minutes and a member could move for a debate to be extended for any length of time up to 30 minutes. I would be reluctant to allow an hour or two hours because we might not need it, but if members have the power to move such motions more than once, I would be happy to set a 30-minute limit.

There is a logic in using terminology such as "up to", because it sets a maximum but does not mean that a member has to ask for the entire 30 minutes.

The motion would be to extend the debate for a specified time up to 30 minutes. The specified time does not have to be 30 minutes. Is that right?

Yes.

Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Are we also agreed that any member will be able to move such a motion?

Members indicated agreement.

Paragraphs 30 to 34 are about the delegated powers memorandum. Are members happy with that proposal?

Members indicated agreement.

The suggestion for the revised or supplementary delegated powers memorandum is that the Executive could choose whether to revise fully the memorandum or just write a supplement to it depending on the extent to which changes had been made to the bill at stage 2.

As I mentioned earlier, the Executive seems to have come to the view that it is willing to provide explanatory notes, so I suggest that the committee accepts that gracious offer.

There is an additional issue about the suspension of committee meetings. Currently, a committee meeting cannot be suspended while a plenary meeting takes place. It makes sense to amend standing orders to allow committees to be suspended in such circumstances, as that would allow a committee to meet before Parliament starts on a Thursday morning and again at lunch time without having to create two separate meetings. Are members content with that proposed change?

Members indicated agreement.

The final point is on private bills. Because we are in the process of reviewing the procedure for private bills, it would make more sense to hold over any changes to standing orders relating to private bills. There are few amendments to private bills, so the changes would not have had a major effect and I suggest that we leave the matter to be resolved in our private bills inquiry. Are members content with that?

Members indicated agreement.

We now move into private session.

Meeting continued in private until 12:06.