Item 7 is on the Procedures Committee inquiry into the consultative steering group principles. The conveners group has invited all committees to comment on the Procedures Committee inquiry into adherence to the principles outlined by the CSG on how the Parliament should operate. The terms of reference for the Procedures Committee inquiry have been circulated. Do members have any comments?
I have a comment about point 4 on the front page of the briefing paper, EU/01/08/8, which states that the remit of the inquiry is
That is a matter for the Parliamentary Bureau.
It is not a matter for the Parliamentary Bureau. It is in the CSG report.
It has been agreed by the political parties. A procedure was set up to address the matter and that is how the agreement has panned out. It has been approved by the Parliament and I do not intend to reopen the issue. Other than that, are there any other comments?
I am sorry, convener—
I am sorry: we are not addressing that issue. I am the convener of this meeting.
We are being asked for a report on what we believe the committee is doing correctly or incorrectly in relation to the principles in the CSG report. That has nothing to do with a decision made in the Parliament or by the bureau. We have been asked to refer back to the Procedures Committee our views on whether we are meeting the key recommendations of the CSG report, one of which was that no committee of the Parliament should have a convener and deputy convener from the same party. If you want to claim that that is not in the report, that is fine. Let us dig out the report and debate the matter. What the Procedures Committee wants to know from members of this committee is whether we are meeting the key consultative steering group principles and on one of them we are failing.
No matter how many times and in how many different ways Lloyd Quinan says what he has to say, his point of view does not have the committee's support. He can go elsewhere and make his submission to the Procedures Committee, which may or may not be persuaded by his arguments, but I am not persuaded by what he says. He cannot impose his view on me. I am happy to accept that the consultative steering group's report is not a bible. It set up recommendations that the Parliamentary Bureau took a view on. It is for the Scottish Parliament and individual parliamentarians to say whether they agree with the recommendations. Lloyd Quinan is entitled to his view, but we do not have to agree with it.
Lloyd Quinan and Helen Eadie both make valid points. We are being asked for the committee's position, not an individual's. As a back bencher, my only worry is about the Parliamentary Bureau's relationship to Parliament. I am aware that all parties came to a decision at the bureau—well, not all the parties, as they are not all included, which is regrettable—but that does not always serve the best interests of democracy or the principles of the Parliament.
We have been asked to comment on sharing power, accountability and equal opportunities, and whether the Parliament and its committees are failing on that.
The sharing of power is an important principle, as was enunciated by the consultative steering group. I shall not enter into a discussion of the personalities involved in this committee, but I share Lloyd Quinan's view that no committee of the Parliament should have a convener and deputy convener from the same party, given the pluralist composition of the Parliament as a whole. Although Lloyd Quinan and I may hold that view strongly, I doubt very much that it is the view of the committee. I would therefore be content to make whatever comments I have in my individual submission to the Procedures Committee, unless a majority of committee members agree with the point of view expressed by Lloyd Quinan and me, which I think is unlikely.
I have simply opened up a debate. That is what I thought this was about. I find it bizarre that Mrs Eadie feels that I am dissenting from something. I thought that there had to be a debate to begin with before anyone could dissent from it. I have merely presented one position. I believe that the committee needs to debate the matter so that we can return to the Procedures Committee with the committee's view. To my knowledge, we did not have a view before we started talking about the issue; I remember no meetings at which we have dealt with it before. What was the committee's view before we opened up the matter for debate five or 10 minutes ago?
We must also recognise that the appointment of conveners and deputy conveners was a matter for each of the parties. It could be the case that, when making nominations, some of the parties chose not to nominate anyone for this committee. The way that the numbers worked out was all agreed on the basis of the numbers within Parliament. Other than to open up the whole agreement on committees, which is—
That is not what I am suggesting. I am suggesting that we have a debate about whether we are meeting the CSG principles. I have said that I do not believe that we are. Whether that debate results in a change is not the issue. The Procedures Committee is asking only that we submit our view as part of its inquiry. That is all. It is not asking us to rerun anything.
Lloyd Quinan has expressed a view. I do not agree with his position that the convener and the deputy convener have to belong to different parties. This committee does not often take matters to a vote, but we can test the extent to which Lloyd Quinan's view is shared by committee members by having one.
Helen—
Let me finish, Lloyd. You had a chance to say what you wanted to say.
Does anyone else have the impression that Helen Eadie has failed to understand my entire contribution?
We need to make a decision—
It would be helpful if we could identify whether there is any problem. If there is a technical problem about which party the convener or the deputy convener of a committee is a member of—
That is not the point.
It is important that I state this, Lloyd. To all intents and purposes, a committee, particularly when exercising its scrutiny role, should be non-political. It should seek to get evidence and to reach conclusions based on that evidence. When a committee examines legislation, it is inevitable that politics will come into it. When we exercise our scrutiny role, which is the bulk of this committee's work, we should check our party political affiliations at the door and work as parliamentarians. In my experience, the best committees work that way, although it is impossible to do so on some subjects.
If we are to have a committee position, we should be allowed to have a debate first. I know that we have a heavy work load and, being practical, I agree with what John Home Robertson has just said. I trust my colleagues, except, perhaps, in relation to legislative scrutiny. I am not a conspiracy theorist. However, given that we are trying to come to a view as a committee, I think that Helen Eadie is wrong. I have views about the accessibility of information in this committee and I think that elements of that issue go against the principles of the consultative steering group. I think that those principles are not being met in practice.
I am not against having a committee position. I said that we needed to test whether there is a division of opinion in the committee, which I believe there to be. If members are not happy with the view that we arrive at as a result of the vote, they have the right to make a private submission as well. That is the point about which there might have been a misunderstanding.
Ben Wallace made the valid point that, if we are to reach agreement, we should have specific terms of reference. At the moment, we are dealing with a general paper. We should ask the Procedures Committee what the deadline is and, if necessary, come back at a future meeting with specific terms of reference.
Do we have time to do that?
I do not know what the deadline is.
I am not sure either. Another relevant issue is the accountability of the Scottish Executive to the Scottish Parliament. Earlier, we decided to write to Jack McConnell about a procedure that would allow us to be informed timeously of what the Executive is up to on European Union matters. I cited the example of the Executive's failure to keep us informed of what it is doing in consultation with other devolved Administrations. It may be helpful if we get the Procedures Committee to support our position on this issue. It would strengthen our arm if representations came not only from the European Committee but from the Procedures Committee.
I do not know what the deadline is for submissions to the inquiry, but we will find out. It would be wrong to make recommendations on one or two matters but not on others. Ben Wallace made the point that we need to have proper terms of reference for the inquiry. We could send our correspondence to the Procedures Committee and draw its attention to that. It would be obvious from the tenor of previous correspondence and agenda items that we are concerned to ensure that the Executive is properly accountable. We do not need to make a decision on our response today.
I remind the committee of what I started off by saying. The Procedures Committee is inviting us to make a contribution to its inquiry and to set out this committee's view on how the four key principles highlighted by the CSG report are being applied. This is not about anything other than that, Mrs Eadie. It is not about divisions; it is about having a debate. The fact that I said that, in my opinion, our having a convener and deputy convener from the same party does not accord with the CSG principles may have coloured entirely your understanding of the point that I was trying to make. That is your problem, not mine.
No, it is your problem.
We have heard enough. We will obtain more information from the Procedures Committee. If necessary, we will draw up terms of reference. In the meantime, it may be helpful if, as Dennis Canavan said, we bring to the attention of the Procedures Committee the points that we have made about Executive accountability, as conclusions can be drawn from those. However, we will not take a position on the paper until we have received more specific terms of reference.
Meeting continued in private until 15:21.
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