We proceed to item 2, on substitution on committees of the Parliament, which we discussed at our most recent meeting. A couple of matters still have to be resolved; I hope that we will do so today.
All I want to say is that the draft standing order amendments are intended to reflect the various decisions that the committee made on 18 December. The standing orders are fairly short, although they have been slightly tricky to draft. I am happy to go through them and explain each amendment, or I can just take questions.
We will address the two issues that are identified in the report and then allow members to raise points on the specific changes to the standing orders as they arise.
I take the view that it would be too disruptive for members to ship in and out of a part-meeting. In fact, having participated in such meetings myself, I think that it would be very unhelpful. Although I was fairly well briefed—or thought that I was—I found that coming back into a meeting, having missed part of it to attend another meeting, meant that I had to work a bit harder to pick up the threads again. It would be unfair on the members involved, but it would also be unfair on the committees themselves if we allowed members to attend only part of a meeting.
That seems to be the general view, to judge from the number of members nodding their heads. I recall that, when the matter first arose, that question was asked to take account of the standpoint of the smaller political parties, which have only one spokesman. Perhaps, given the cross-cutting nature of the committee briefs, it might be relevant for other spokesmen to participate in debates. Substitution would be one way of doing that. I think that Donald Gorrie called it a job-share approach when we discussed it previously. The other solution would be simply to encourage conveners to recognise the problems that we have identified and allow additional members of the Parliament to attend committees and take part in relevant debates on subjects that fall within their briefs. If conveners were doing that, the problem would resolve itself to all practical intents and purposes.
The second issue is the question whether the single-member parties should be allowed to substitute for one another.
I raised that point last week, but it is quite clear from the people who it is thought might benefit from substitution between parties that they do not believe that that would benefit individual members. I intend to drop my support for such a move. We might as well take the word of the people who know how it would affect them. I have not thought too much about how it would affect me if I were an individual member, but they certainly have.
Does that represent the general view of committee members?
We now come to the specific changes to the standing orders, which Alison Coull has generously agreed to take us through point by point. We will identify whether members have any questions on the various rule changes. Donald Gorrie usually raises such matters, but he has not given me notice that he is concerned about anything.
I have a specific question about the intent of the changes. We have talked about substitution on a very short-term basis, but there will be occasions when a longer-term substitution might be necessary. I am thinking particularly about cases of long-term sickness, and I should declare an interest, as I am also thinking about maternity leave. Do the changes that are being put in place provide fully for such circumstances? Would there effectively be a substitution for that period, assuming that all the parties concerned agreed to it?
The rule changes as drafted would do nothing to prevent a long-term substitution. The mechanism for dealing with notification is being dealt with administratively. There is nothing in the draft that would prevent that.
I understand that the Parliamentary Bureau would propose a named substitute to the Parliament. If a long-term substitution was required, and if the named substitute was not necessarily suitable for a longer period, all parties would understand that one of the parties might want to make a change in the substitution to ensure that duties could be carried out over a longer period. I do not see any difficulty with that.
On the first point, the position of conveners and deputy conveners is dealt with in the draft standing orders. The intention is that the committee substitute attends in place of the convener or deputy convener but, in those circumstances, they have only the functions of an ordinary committee member. That is dealt with in new rule 12.2A.3. Where the convener is regarded as being unavailable, the deputy convener would take over.
Is it appropriate for the standing orders to deal with notification for substitution, or would it be better for that to be regulated by practice agreed outwith the standing orders?
It is not necessary for notification for substitution to be included in the standing orders. It can be dealt with perfectly well as an administrative matter.
As there are no further questions or comments, I invite members to agree the proposed new standing orders. Are we agreed?
I thank members and also Alison Coull.
Meeting closed at 12:21.