Procedures Committee,

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 29, 2001

Official Report 286KB pdf

---

Minutes (Publication)

The second item on the agenda is the publication of Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and Parliamentary Bureau minutes. The item has arisen as a result of a letter by Lloyd Quinan. I invite Lloyd Quinan to make introductory comments before I open up the discussion.

My letter is fairly self-explanatory. To me, this is an issue of principle and an issue of best practice in a new structure. My fear, which a number of members share, is that the practice of behind-closed-doors meetings, specifically those of the Parliamentary Bureau and the horse-trading that goes on there, is not in the best interests of members of the Parliament or in the best interests of the broadest concepts of democracy. I say that fully aware that the deputy chief whip of my party is to my left.

The bureau has become the trading place between parties, not the place where the business of the Parliament is done in the Parliament's best interests. It is becoming the place where power is exercised by the business managers, who are—let us face facts—the effective transubstantiation of their party leaders. That is not, to my mind and the minds of a number of other people, the best way for us to proceed if we wish to do so democratically. It is also entirely at odds with the essential spirit of the consultative steering group report. It suits the business managers, the parties and the party leaders to operate on that basis, but it denies the people of this country the right to know why decisions are being made about issues such as parliamentary time.

Frankly, if we were simply to receive notes of the bureau's decisions that are anyway made available 24 hours later either in the bulletin or in other parliamentary publications, that would be a waste of paper. Full minutes are the only way for us to have a genuinely open and democratic structure at the heart of the programming of the Parliament. It is the key to what goes on in relation to the membership of committees, debates and the timetabling of all work in the chamber.

My feeling—and this has been expressed by people from a number of parties—is that we need to go back to the CSG report and, taking on board its spirit, produce full minutes of bureau meetings. I appreciate that there are questions and concerns specifically to do with commercial confidentiality, which might arise with the SPCB. My feeling is that slightly more clarity comes from the SPCB, but considerably less clarity and understanding comes from the secret society that is the bureau and the business managers.

Will you clarify what you mean when you say that you want full minutes from the bureau?

I mean in exactly the same way as we have published minutes from the official report.

You mean that you want an Official Report of bureau meetings?

Absolutely.

Do you believe that bureau meetings should take place in public?

I have not thought seriously about the issue. That may be a step too far. It would not necessarily be advantageous to have those meetings in public where there is potential for conflict, but I leave that entirely to the Procedures Committee to consider.

I want to explore whether there might be some ground between the notes of decisions taken that are sent out at the moment and the Hansard that you are proposing. A fuller note of the business of the bureau, which records any votes or matters of dispute, could satisfy what you think is the reasonable demand of the Parliament. We all go to meetings at which there are minutes of varying fullness. Would a fairly full minute but not a verbatim record be satisfactory?

I welcome your suggestion, but we have to recognise that the archive of the Parliament will be around for many centuries. If we begin the process of democracy in this country on the basis of having limited minutes, we deny to future generations access to the reality of the Scottish Parliament in the years 1999, 2000 and 2001. We cannot in any conscience do that.

It strikes me that, if we are to do what Donald Gorrie suggests and have a fuller description of decisions, that might mean that we would have a clue about, for example, what was discussed under points 1 to 5 as opposed to being told only what was said under points 6 to 12, as outlined in annexe C. I do not think that that alone would meet the requirements of open democracy.

It requires some discipline from the business managers and the bureau to operate as the bureau of the Parliament rather than the bureau of the party leaders. That is the essence of the issue: the Parliamentary Bureau should not be a minor battleground for party politics; it should be about the timetabling of the Parliament's business. As we are all aware, the powers that the business managers are given by the Parliamentary Bureau allow them to apply muscle on the members of their group, particularly with regard to members' business debates.

The clerk has asked me to point out that something funny happened with the software in annexe C. The meeting of 24 April is covered in points 1 to 5 and the meeting of 1 May is covered by points 6 to 11.

So they are not from the same meeting.

No. Point 6 should have been point 1.

That explains why we need to have a fuller minute. Researchers going through the dusty archives of the Scottish Parliament in 100 years' time will not have the benefit of having the clerk at their right shoulder to tell them that that is the case.

It is on the record now. Would a clerk like to make an intervention? No? It appears that the clerks are not prepared for their words to appear in the Official Report.

Would there be a difference between the way in which the Parliamentary Bureau and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body would be reported? The fact that the law governing the SPCB—

As I said in my opening remarks, I fully appreciate the requirements of commercial confidentiality. My concern about a lack of openness or transparency is not as great in relation to the SPCB as it is in relation to the dark and secret society that is the Parliamentary Bureau.

Would Mr Quinan care to tell us what he thinks happens at meetings of the Parliamentary Bureau—

You are overly protective of it, Brian.

I have not even asked my question, Lloyd. You seem to be rather sensitive about the issue. What do you think is happening at the Parliamentary Bureau that you feel is being hidden by this dark and secret society, as you describe it?

As you know, some decisions in the Parliamentary Bureau are made on the basis of a trade-off. For us simply to get a note of the decision that has been made when a trade-off has taken place in which party interest has won over a member's desire for a debate—which you know happens regularly—is not good enough.

That does not characterise my experience of the Parliamentary Bureau meetings.

In that case, produce the minutes and you will not have to explain yourself in a committee.

I do not feel that I have to explain myself.

I point out to Lloyd Quinan that, if the organisation were secret, we would not know its membership.

In your letter, Lloyd, you talk about the four key principles of the CSG. Which of those does non-publication of a full minute breach?

Primarily, the first, which is:

"The Scottish Parliament should embody and reflect the sharing of power between the people of Scotland, the legislators and the Scottish Executive".

Could you expand on that?

It breaches it on the basis that the access to the full deliberations of our Parliament are not accessible to the people of Scotland if the meetings that are at the centre of the programming of the Parliament are, effectively, held in secret.

Do you see any benefit in keeping the new minute?

In keeping it as it is?

Yes.

I can see that it would be useful if the creeping presence of Westminster practices continues. That presence has wandered into a world that is not in keeping with the spirit of the CSG report and is more informed by the behaviour in another place. That is a corrupting influence in the centre of our Parliament.

Do you see any benefit in a fuller minute?

The greatest benefit would be absolute clarity for the people of our country—the electors who put us here. More important, we should consider the matter from the historical point of view. Instead of speculating about how decisions were made on the basis of a note of decisions, historians, political historians and sociologists in future could have a full understanding of the reasons why decisions were made. The most important element is that the bureau should be a place not for the exercise of party politics, but for an open and democratic approach to the timetabling of Parliament for the benefit of Parliament and therefore for the people of Scotland.

Have you spoken to any members of the bureau on this matter, and have they explained why it is a good idea to keep things the way they are? In fact, the bureau has only recently changed procedure.

I can say only that my discussions have been informal. As my position is known, the information that I gain from members of the bureau is limited.

I have never before been accused of being a member of a secret society. Given that I do not have a vote on the bureau, I will exempt myself from Lloyd Quinan's description.

I do not recognise Lloyd Quinan's suspicions about the bureau, which is the body that Brian Adam and I sit on. Having said that, I am sure that Lloyd would say that I have the advantage in that respect, because he does not go to the meetings. However, I have a couple of points on that. First, as the note of decisions makes clear, many of the issues are straightforward and are more or less nodded through. Such issues include the appointment of advisers, requests from committees to meet outside Edinburgh—which is something that the bureau would always encourage—and the allocation of business to one committee or another, which is a straightforward process in the majority of cases and involves a discussion with the conveners of the relevant committees.

You said that you would like historians to be able to look back and find out why decisions were taken. Can you illuminate our discussion with some examples of decisions that have concerned you and that have had a result with which you were uncomfortable?

There was the whole palaver—that is the only way that I can describe it—over the restructuring of committees. I can speak very specifically from the party group of which I am a member, in which there was an absolute lack of understanding about what was really going on. None of the decisions that were taken or discussions that were had could be supported by minutes of meetings. We must remember that, in the bureau, the business manager of a party presents a group—not a party political—approach on an issue. I am dependent entirely on my faith in that individual that they are giving a full and true account of that meeting. However, that is not appropriate in the circumstances. A minute of meetings would have a double effect. I believe that, again for historical reasons, it gives us a guarantee. Moreover, if members are aware that there is a minute, they will be more open and straightforward in what they say.

To be honest, Lloyd Quinan may be highlighting a weakness within his political group. I am not sure that that was the experience of other parties. It was certainly not the experience within my party. If the bureau were required to publish full minutes, would not that encourage decisions to be made elsewhere and not at its meeting?

Without doubt, that is the greatest fear. As we know, a lot of the horse-trading is done at the pre-meeting of the bureau and the informal meetings between the business managers before the bureau meetings. It could be argued that, if a full minute were taken, those meetings would make even more decisions in greater secrecy. To go back to the spirit of the CSG, if we said that a full minute would be taken, it is to be hoped that those backstairs, pre-bureau meetings would not become the place where decisions were made before meetings at which decisions went through on the nod.

I sympathise with the thrust of Lloyd Quinan's remarks, but I am not sure about some of his colourful language. Such matters should be treated with greater transparency. It is unfortunate that people might suspect that decisions are taken in a certain manner when that is not necessarily the case. I am happy that the bureau's decisions are published. There should, however, be greater openness with the SPCB; I do not share Lloyd Quinan's faith in it. I know less about what is going on in the SPCB than I do about the bureau.

The broader issue concerns the balance of power between back benchers and those front benchers who make the decisions on their behalf. That is a housekeeping matter and we appoint a business manager to make decisions for us. We are not happy with all the decisions, but I favour greater transparency.

Lloyd Quinan highlighted the committee restructuring. If we are honest about that, we have all been told different things at different times, such as that one party had signed up to something, while another party had signed up to something else, when, in fact, no party had signed up to anything. If details of the broader issue and discussions were available to us all, we would all know exactly what was happening or what was about to happen. We could then have input to the process.

The point was made earlier that meetings and telephone calls happened away from the bureau and that much of the horse-trading was conducted face-to-face between the participants, not by the bureau as a whole. A full Official Report of the bureau's meetings would not advance our knowledge.

What would help would be to know what is being discussed and decided at the bureau meetings. I am not convinced of the case for coverage of the proceedings in an Official Report. I have always been in favour of crisp minutes that explain what was decided, rather than long verbatim reports of who said what. We shall note the position today, but as Lloyd Quinan said, it is appropriate that we examine some of the issues that have been highlighted today in the context of our CSG inquiry.

I do not know whether I can reassure Lloyd Quinan, but the Presiding Officer is a jealous guardian of Parliament's rights as opposed to those of a particular party or the Executive. He takes that responsibility seriously within the bureau and other committees, including the SPCB.

I fully appreciate that. Thank you, Ken Macintosh—as you know, I use colourful language at the best of times.

I am not expressing a deep-seated fear that there is an internal Bilderberg group in the Scottish Parliament. The general issue is about our being open. Let every word be printed for posterity, so that people can see what decisions were made. I appreciate what you said, convener—in many contexts, the type of minute that you were talking about is absolutely appropriate. However, when we make decisions that affect directly the lives of the people who entrusted us with making those decisions, names must be named. We work and live in a structure that is personality driven to a degree, in so far as ballot papers show the names of individual candidates, not the names of the parties, and it is vital that decisions have names attached to them.

In my stupidity, I have so far failed to mention the position of the minority parties and of independents and potential independents. That issue will be around for a long time and I hope that when committee members consider it in relation to the bureau, they will also consider the idea of independents or smaller parties having a rotational presence on the bureau—again, for the sake of greater democracy.

Large numbers of people throughout the country voted for the two party leaders—Tommy Sheridan and Robin Harper—who sit in the Parliament and the largest individual vote went to Dennis Canavan, the independent member. We should not wait for a party to have five MSPs before it is considered to be a real party. This is about the big parties exercising protectionism—they want to protect their time and their backs. However, that is anti-democratic and some of the decisions that are made in the bureau affect the independent member and the leaders of the two smaller parties, who have no access to information about those decisions.

I would like to make a point of clarification, as that is not the case. A full briefing is given to those members after every bureau meeting. We have discussed this issue before and I accept completely Lloyd Quinan's point that those members do not sit on the bureau—he outlined the reasons for that. However, they are fully briefed after each meeting.

Lloyd Quinan has done the committee a service this morning by raising those issues, some of which are uncomfortable. As I said, we will reconsider the matters again during our CSG inquiry. However, this morning I wish members simply to note that the bureau has responded to our previous request by producing the level of minute that it now publishes and to note the position in relation to the SPCB, where an outcome is expected in the fullness of time.

I thank Lloyd Quinan for sharing with us the idea that Brian Adam is to his left—[Laughter.] We did not think that any member of the Scottish Parliament was to the left of Lloyd Quinan, but there you go.

Just you, convener.

It would be possible for us to recommend that the minute of the bureau meetings should be much fuller on the matter of the future business programme. The other matters are technical.

I accept that there was a big disaster over the handling of committee restructuring, which gave rise to a lot of suspicion. However, the bureau's normal business is the business programme, and it would be helpful if the minute on that item was less opaque. If the committee were to agree, my suggestion could be transmitted to the bureau.

Those comments will be held until we discuss these matters again, as we should consider them in the round.

Does the committee agree to note the position as it stands?

Members indicated agreement.