Official Report 163KB pdf
The next item on the agenda is an offer from the Executive to brief the committee on the consultative steering group's report on petitions and the general principles of openness and accessibility. The Parliament's research staff have offered to brief us at the same time on the handling of petitions at Westminster and elsewhere. We have been asked whether those briefings would be useful to the committee and, if we think so, whether we want them to be held informally, in private, or formally, in public.
It would be helpful to have the meeting in private as we will be able to get more in-depth information, which might embarrass other people if it were more widely known. Embarrass is perhaps the wrong word, but it would be possible to have a more frank exchange in private.
I agree. We might be given examples of situations that have proved difficult and people might not want that information to be known in public. Also, although I am sorry to harp on about constraints, it is difficult to find public committee rooms.
I would hate to give the impression that we will be meeting secretly. We will be taking part in information-gathering sessions. I would prefer it to be known that we are being briefed by ministers in that context, rather than being given information in secret.
We agreed that the meeting will be held informally and in private. The clerk will inform members of the committee when he has arranged a time for that meeting.