Standards Committee, 29 Jun 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Official Report 163KB pdf

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Members' Interests

We have two papers to consider on replacing the Scotland Act 1998 (Transitory and Transitional Provisions) (Members' Interests) Order 1999. The first is on election expenses and the second is a draft consultation paper.

We will take the election expenses paper first. We agreed at our meeting on 9 March that there was a need to require MSPs to register election expenses, given their duties under election law. The committee asked for a paper comparing the requirements under electoral law and those under the members' interests order. That paper has now been circulated. Paragraph 18 offers options for the committee:

"Include a provision on registration of electoral expenses in the proposed Members' Interests Bill … which either adopts or expands upon the provision in the existing MIO; or … Not include any such provision in the proposed Bill, leaving election expenses to be registered with the returning officer and the Electoral Commission in accordance with the Scottish Parliament (Elections etc) Order 2002."

Depending on our decision on election expenses, the consultation paper will be revised accordingly and a new draft sent to members by e-mail.

Members are welcome to offer suggestions, but my proposal is that we consult on the basis that we should drop election expenses from the proposed bill, as they are covered by other legal avenues and the Electoral Commission takes care of them. I suggest that we consult on whether the provision should be dropped and include a question that is phrased to that effect. Are members content for us to do that?

I agree. We must ensure that there is no duplication. Although it is important that any money that a member receives to assist with their election expenses is registered, there is a question mark over whether it also needs to be registered under members' interests legislation. On that basis, we should ask members of the public whether they think that there are compelling reasons why such expenses should be listed in accordance with the Scottish Parliament's election law and under members' interests legislation.

I see no point in consulting people on the matter. To have two pieces of legislation covering the same thing would be idiotic and we should not do that. We should leave the question of any irregularity in election expenses to the Electoral Commission and the law dealing with returning officers. It is nothing to do with our job. We are interested in people's standards of behaviour as MSPs; a totally different set-up exists to monitor whether we behave ourselves as candidates and it is quite wrong for us to trespass into that territory. We are going to ask people hundreds of questions anyway and to include some extra questions that are idiotic would not be sensible. We should not include a question on the matter but should just forget about the whole thing and leave the law as it stands, allowing irregularities to be dealt with through the electoral machinery. I therefore oppose your proposal, convener.

If it is a viable option for us not to consult on the matter and to drop it, I support that whole-heartedly. I see no point in duplication, which is what it would be.

I was initially attracted by your proposal, convener. However, if someone commits one offence but can be done for it under two pieces of legislation, that takes us into the realms of stupidity. I would not have thought it right in law that, having failed to declare an election expense, I could be done for that under members' interests legislation as well as through the activities of the Electoral Commission. Is that not called double jeopardy? I am not a lawyer, but I do not think that someone should be done twice. Given that the law already covers the matter, Donald Gorrie's point seems to be common sense.

I am not sure how Karen Whitefield's view differs from mine.

It does not.

I am quite happy to go along with what Mr Fergusson, Mr Gorrie and Mr Neil have said, if that is the will of the committee. I see no reason why we need to consult on the issue. We are discussing what will appear in the consultation document. If members of the public are concerned about the matter—I have a further proposal anyway—there is no reason why they cannot write to us. If our judgment is wrong in their view, we may choose to put that provision in the bill. It will be open to any member of the Parliament to reintroduce it if that is their wish.

Like Alex Neil, I was initially attracted to your proposal, convener. However, I do not think that we can consult on something that we have no intention of putting into force. I would not—and I do not think that the Parliament would—support a provision that duplicated another piece of legislation. On that basis, attractive as the initial proposal was, we should modify it and simply go with what Mr Gorrie has suggested.

That is clearly the will of the committee and I bow to the will of the committee. We will not include that question in the consultation document.

Over recent months, we have spent some considerable time discussing the detail of the proposals and we now have a draft consultation document. I do not see any great need to reopen the discussion on the questions that it contains. The only suggestion that I make is that we should include a catch-all question at the end of the document, asking members of the public to let us know if there are any other issues that they wish us to consider. We can include some appropriate wording to that effect. Do members have any other comments to make on the draft consultation document?

I propose that we accept it.

Mr Gorrie is looking puzzled.

Yes. Personally, I would scrub the whole thing. In my view, we are into serious hair-shirt territory, on the wrong side of Calvinism. However, I have a specific point to make. Paragraph 13 of the document states:

"Members of the current Committee support the view that the requirement to register gifts from family members is an unacceptable invasion of MSPs' and their families' privacy. The Committee wishes however to avoid creating a loophole whereby an individual or organisation could seek to influence a Member by sending gifts to his or her spouse."

That is not the issue: the second of those sentences is not related to the first. At a previous discussion, we established that if my wife decided—because she loved me so dearly—to give me a present that was worth more than £250, it would be idiotic if that had to be declared. The second of those sentences reads:

"The Committee wishes … to avoid creating a loophole".

However, I do not see where there is a loophole. The issue is gifts within the family. Unless I have a nephew who wishes to suborn me in some way, the problem does not occur.

Are you suggesting that that sentence should be deleted from the draft consultation document?

I think that I am. Unless I have misunderstood it and the wise people who drafted it are of greater wisdom than I am—

Is any member of the committee otherwise minded?

No.

It is a token gesture against the hair shirt and I will accept the rest. I think that it is all rubbish, but I will not carry on.

I remind you that it is a requirement of the Parliament to consult on any legislation. We have debated the consultation document for at least six months. I am happy to go along with your specific proposal, but I suggest that, if no one is otherwise minded, we accept the draft document with two amendments. The first of those is the one that Mr Gorrie has just proposed—the deletion of the second sentence in paragraph 13—and the second is that we include an appropriate catch-all question at the end, through which people can raise their concerns with us. We do not necessarily have all the answers to all the questions—or, indeed, all the questions.

It is the third sentence of paragraph 13. I did not read out the first sentence. For the record, we are deleting the third sentence.

It is the second and third sentences that you wish to delete.

No. We are keeping the second sentence of paragraph 13 and deleting the third sentence. That was my intention.

I did not count the sentences appropriately, but we got the sense of what you meant.

You numbered the sentence wrongly. I did not read out the first sentence in the paragraph.

Indeed. I plead guilty to that. Thank you for the correction.