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Item 5 is for the committee to consider the payment of expenses to witnesses. We have already agreed to take this item in public. I suggest that we agree to pay expenses.
I am afraid that I am going to disagree with you, convener. I feel strongly about the issue. Lots of organisations, such as local enterprise companies, send witnesses from the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland to parliamentary committees and they do not get their expenses paid by the Parliament, however exorbitant those expenses might be. I do not see why. There is financial pressure on such organisations.
Okay. I am not going to go to the barricades on this, Tavish.
I think that we will send the wrong signal to Shetland if we say that a parliamentary committee will pay the expenses of people who are going to Shetland but, when the converse happens, will do nothing to help. That is quite unfair.
I am interested to hear that those witnesses do not get their expenses paid. Is that customary? Does that mean that their expenses are not paid by any committee?
If Shetland Islands Tourism was to give evidence to the committee in Edinburgh, for example, the witnesses' expenses would be paid by Shetland Islands Tourism, not by the committee.
On any committee that I have been on, the witnesses have mainly been there as individuals. If an individual has to come and give evidence, we generally pay their expenses. However, we have never normally paid the expenses of someone who is representing a public or private sector body. I do not know of anyone who has had their expenses paid other than witnesses who are appearing as individuals.
Is it not the case in this instance that we are taking the witnesses to Shetland?
I am intrigued to find out that we do not pay the expenses of people whom we invite to Edinburgh. In this case, we should consider whether we are putting an individual out. We should not put people off.
There is a difference between whether we grant expenses or the witnesses claim expenses. Tavish Scott is no doubt right that people coming from the Western Isles, for example, have never been paid expenses. However, had they asked for expenses, whether they received them would be the committee's decision. Do we know that the reason why witnesses have never been paid expenses is that they have never asked for them?
If I may turn the question around again, I do not think that they have been offered expenses. The conveners liaison group would need to take a line on the issue, because there would be a budgetary implication for the Parliament if people—from the islands or from other places—who were eligible could claim for expenses when parliamentary committees invited evidence from them. We would need to watch that.
Is that an issue? I would be disappointed if it put people off coming.
I agree. People are put off at the moment. For example, the Public Petitions Committee took evidence from groups in Shetland. Those individuals could not afford to get to Edinburgh, so they gave their evidence through videoconferencing, which is not the perfect way of giving evidence. It worked to some extent, but it was not as good as attending the meeting and being able informally to engage with members.
I agree with Tavish Scott, particularly as we are talking about a public agency that already receives resources from the block grant to do its business. That money is supposed to reflect its problems of isolation and rurality, for example. The committee should keep out of the issue until the CLG and perhaps the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body get involved.
We are talking about the local economic forum. I am not sure whether it has such a budget. The local enterprise companies do.
The members of the forum come from organisations that do.
Not necessarily.
Not many members of LEFs are independent people.
I am sure that Moray, Badenoch and Strathspey Enterprise will pay for two representatives to visit Shetland to give evidence to the committee. If the LEC did not do that, that would be an issue in itself.
This is not an issue on which I would go to the barricades. Tavish Scott is right that there should be a parliamentary line on the issue. That is critical.
I share Ken Macintosh's surprise, but I take Tavish Scott's point. My concern is that—leaving aside the embarrassment if those bodies say that they are not coming—we have set the programme. I accept that that might be an issue in and of itself. I have an anxiety about the fact that we are setting the pace and outlining a cost. I am not sure that LEFs have a substantial budget. I take Tavish Scott's point about the LEC, but whether it pays depends on its good will. I do not think that the LEC has any obligation to pay for the LEF members to give evidence to the committee in Shetland.
I will clarify the situation on expenses for witnesses. There is a scheme to finance witnesses. This committee has probably used it less than have other committees, because most of our witnesses have come from professional, representative bodies. It has been extremely rare for us to pay expenses to witnesses. Usually, witnesses do not ask for expenses. This circumstance is exceptional. The witnesses who are representing Moray, Badenoch and Strathspey LEF and Argyll and the Islands LEF have asked to be paid. In each case, one is an employee of the LEC and another is a private businessperson, who is the chair of the forum.
Do we know whether in either case the LEC is paying any of the expenses? The LEC will certainly be paying the expenses of the employee. I would find it astonishing if the LEC were not also paying the expenses of the other person. Could that question be asked?
Why would the LEC be paying? If I asked Scottish Enterprise Dumfries and Galloway to pay expenses, it would not do it. It would come back with the usual stuff; it would say that it was accountable to the public and ask why it should pay for a third party's accommodation.
That is right.
I understand the point about people coming from Shetland and I do not want to say anything inflammatory about living in the islands, but there is something slightly different about taking the committee to Shetland. I am trying to get my mind round the issue. We normally meet in Edinburgh, so if we invite people to come to Edinburgh to give evidence, that is the deal. No extra expense is incurred—Edinburgh is where we are. If a person happens to live in Shetland, it costs them a lot of money to come to Edinburgh; if a person lives in Bathgate, it costs them less money to come. That is just the deal of living in Shetland and the Parliament being in Edinburgh.
I find this case difficult. We have chosen to meet in Shetland as a committee of the Parliament and we have asked people to come to our meeting, which is a meeting of the Parliament. The Parliament represents all Scotland's people and I would be minded to pay the expenses in question. If everyone who was attending the meeting were a representative of organisations such as enterprise companies, I would be happy with Tavish Scott's point, as those organisations would obviously pay the expenses of the people concerned. However, we are talking about people who will perhaps not be able to get their expenses paid, which might debar them from coming.
We would always pay expenses in such a situation, even when the meeting is being held in Edinburgh.
That is not what I picked up from what Simon Watkins was saying.
I have a suggestion to make. We must make a distinction between the people who are representing public bodies and those who are not representing public bodies.
That is the point that I was making.
The LEF is not a public body—it is not core funded by the public sector. I suggest that we agree not to pay the expenses of the LEC employees, because that would represent the transfer of expenditure from the Parliament to a public body, and that we agree to pay the expenses of the other individuals, if the LEC will not pay those expenses.
That might be a good compromise.
Okay, is that agreeable?
In the meantime, I will raise the issue with the CLG. Does the committee agree that I should write to the CLG asking for a policy on the matter to be developed for the future?
We have agreed to discuss item 6 in private because it involves the drafting of our final report on lifelong learning. We will have a coffee and reassemble in private at 2.20 pm.
Meeting suspended until 14:26 and thereafter continued in private until 14:54.
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