Referendum (Scotland) Bill Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, January 31, 2013

Official Report 334KB pdf

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Work Programme

Item 3 provides the committee with an opportunity to discuss the response from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities to the letter that we agreed I should send her about the timetable for scrutinising the referendum bill. Paper 3 sets out, in addition to the two original options, a third option that would give a bit more flexibility by postponing the stage 3 process until November.

From a practical point of view, I can see merit in adopting option 3 as the basis for planning at this stage. However, I think that we should understand that doing so does not stop us bringing the process in earlier if we think that we can achieve that. Others may have a different view on how we should go about things; the purpose of this item is to discuss that.

Option 3 provides the committee with more flexibility over the timescales, so I certainly recommend it.

One point on which I want to provide encouragement to committee members—although it will depend on what comes down the line to us in our debates over the coming months—is that I have a personal thing against holding reports over a summer recess. Under option 3, we would consider our draft stage 1 report on the referendum bill at our meeting on 27 June and finalise that report at our meeting on 5 September. I would prefer us either to sign off the report before the summer recess or to begin our consideration of it after the recess.

I say that because I have previously put on record a similar point about other reports in other parliamentary committees. Apart from that, I agree that option 3 provides the committee with a bit more flexibility.

I, too, was a member of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee. Stuart McMillan makes a fair point, but there is a difference in that the EET report to which he refers was on a very long inquiry into renewable energy rather than on scrutiny of a bill. Although there will probably be more politics in the referendum bill’s scrutiny than there was in that inquiry, the bill will probably be slightly more straightforward in substance.

Therefore, I do not think that it will be a disaster if our timetable for consideration of our stage 1 report stretches over the summer recess. It would be preferable to complete the stage 1 report before we break for the summer recess, but I do not think that it is worth dying in a ditch for.

As I remember it from our previous discussion on the issue, there was general agreement around the table that we do not want to be dealing with our stage 1 report on the referendum bill at the same time as the stage 3 consideration of the franchise bill is to take place in plenary session, which will be during the last week before the summer recess. The proposed timetable avoids that.

I welcome the correspondence from the cabinet secretary and her indication that the timetable for the referendum bill could be extended to November. The greater clarity provided by the Electoral Commission’s announcement yesterday, which has been welcomed in statements from the different campaign organisations and political parties, should make our committee’s job a lot easier and take some of the heat out of the process.

Obviously, our committee will still need to do a proper job of interrogating the legislation, but option 3 gives a reasonable timetable for that. I accept that, if we can, we should try to accelerate that and bring things forward. That is fair enough.

On Stuart McMillan’s point about the stage 1 report, although it would be better to finish the report before the summer recess, we have to bear it in mind that we will have stage 3 of the franchise bill in the final week before the recess, as the convener said. We do not want to be in a situation in which we have too much work crammed into the final week and we potentially take our eye off the ball. Option 3 is reasonable and it allows for flexibility if the timetable can be accelerated.

I, too, welcome the cabinet secretary’s letter, which is extremely helpful. Option 3 will give us flexibility and let us keep a connection between the stage 1 report and the debate. I am with Stuart McMillan in that I do not like the idea of the hiatus that would occur if the report comes out but the debate is held a couple of months later. Option 3 deals with that but builds in flexibility.

The other thing that we need to bear in mind is that, as James Kelly correctly said, the Electoral Commission’s pronouncements yesterday clarified to some extent what we may expect to be the content of the referendum bill. However, it seems from the evidence that we heard this morning that some challenges may arise for the franchise bill, and the referendum bill timetable might have to be tweaked a bit, depending on what is happening and when. Option 3 gives us flexibility and a bit of comfort.

In mentioning that if we can get the bill in earlier, so much the better, I am conscious that, as James Kelly said, the committee has a job to do in scrutinising the legislation and we might suggest things to the Government that require secondary legislation and regulation. The referendum could be not in October but in September, and the bill needs to be passed quite cleanly through royal assent by the end of the year to allow time to get any regulations through before the six-month rule kicks in. We need to be acutely aware of that. The Government might have regulations at this stage or it might not—I do not know. We might suggest stuff that it needs to take on board.

I agree with the thrust of what colleagues have said. On option 3, I say well done to the clerks for coming up with the suggested timetable. I think that it works.

I have two points to make. First, I echo what the convener said about the possibility, at least, of further secondary legislation. The mid-November date has to be the absolute cut-off, in my view, because there is an expectation that we will do our job properly and within an appropriate time to allow other things to happen at the right time as well.

Secondly, as I said last week, it has been suggested that we have consecutive meetings, and we can meet earlier, if necessary. I am sure that we will find the will to do what we need to do.

You might well have discussed this previously, convener, but is there any clarity on the publication date of the white paper? Does that require to be considered in looking at the committee’s work programme?

I think that “associated legislation” is the wording in our remit. The white paper is not actually legislation in its nature.

Issues might come out of it, though. I was just asking the question.

I do not know any more about the timing than what you folks know from what has already been put out in the media.

On a related point, does our remit cover the order that is talked about in paragraph 4 of paper 3, or does it cover only the bills?

The remit covers associated legislation. We would have to reconvene to—

I wonder whether we might at some point consider whether to seek the Parliament’s consent to broaden the remit to cover other aspects of the Government’s work in relation to the referendum. We could consider whether we want to take evidence on that. There might be things that are not formally legislation and are outwith our current remit that we believe there is a continued role for the committee to scrutinise.

Let us come back and look at that later. Let us get the job that we have been set up to do done first and ensure that the legislation is fit for purpose. That is the job that the Parliament has set us. We can always examine further down the track whether we want to consider wider issues than just the legislation.

As there are no other comments, I thank members for their participation. We have already agreed that Government officials will come to give us an informal briefing on the 28th. The next meeting is scheduled for 7 February.

The briefing will be on 28 February, not 28 January.

Yes. I note that the paper says January. That is why I intentionally said February, Mr Gibson.

On 7 February, we will continue stage 1 oral evidence taking on the franchise bill with a videoconference with Michael de la Haye from Jersey and Paul Whitfield from Guernsey. I look forward to seeing members on that occasion. Thank you.

Meeting closed at 11:00.