Finance Committee, 09 Nov 1999

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 9, 1999

Official Report 181KB pdf

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Written Agreements

Item 1 on the agenda concerns written agreements with the Scottish Executive. The draft agreements have been circulated. I do not want to re-open the debate, but if members feel that anything in the drafts does not reflect their recollection of our discussions, this is their opportunity to raise the matter. Does anyone want to do that?

The draft agreement on the budgeting process—under the stage 1 heading on page 2—says

"This document will set out general expenditure".

I would add the words "and income". We discussed this point and, although it is covered elsewhere, it may not be reinforced enough here. We require that detail. An example of that will come up in the documents for discussion later today, which include a listing but not the details. What are your views on that addition?

If I may respond, I recall that we wanted to seek information on whether receipts would be included and that, if they were not, we would want to specify such inclusion. The footnote—unfortunately it has slipped over to the next page in this draft—asks that question. If members want that requirement to be explicit, we can easily change the wording to "This document will set out general expenditure including income" or, "including receipts."

An explicit statement would make matters clear for everyone who reads the document in future.

The word to be inserted should be "receipts" rather than "income". Is that correct?

Yes.

Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

The wording will be, "This document will set out general expenditure and receipts."

In paragraph 7 on page 3, the draft agreement states:

"Normally the Scottish Ministers will present their proposals to the Parliament by 30 September".

In fact, the standing orders refer to the proposals being laid before Parliament no later than 20 September. We must delete "30 September" and insert "20 September". I do not imagine that that will cause any problems.

Members indicated agreement.

We discussed paragraph 16 at some length. Would it be possible, or desirable, to mention timing in that paragraph? One of my main concerns in our previous debate was that the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body's budget should be considered before the Executive's budget process started. That may be covered in the written agreement between the committee and the SPCB, but it is not clear in this text.

It might be helpful if I clarify this point. It is intended that any written agreement between the Parliament—in the form of the SPCB—and the Finance Committee will include timings. We will discuss that later when we talk about supplementary estimates. The SPCB has indicated that it would be happy to include such timings, therefore our agreement with the SPCB—rather than this document—would be the proper document to cover that.

Has the SPCB expressed a view on the timing?

The indication is that it will be a month or so before the start of the Executive's budget process.

Can you clarify this point, in particular the last sentence in paragraph 16? Who will draft the "separate understanding"—will it be the Finance Committee or the SPCB?

I have drafted it so far. We will probably discuss that later. The agreement will be open for discussion between the SPCB and us; there is no suggestion that it will be imposed on us.

Will the SPCB debate the matter then get back to us?

Yes.

What is the deadline for that?

That is still open.

I would think the sooner the better.

Are members prepared to accept the situation on that?

Members indicated agreement.

Are there any further points?

I am a little unhappy about the wording on page 4, paragraph 13, which states:

"Wherever possible, the Parliamentary Bureau will endeavour to timetable a debate".

Can we not simply say, "the Parliamentary Bureau will timetable a debate"? "Wherever possible" is covered elsewhere in the document; I am unhappy, at this early stage, about allowing too much variance when we have not yet seen the roll-out of a year.

We do not need "Wherever possible" and "will endeavour"; we could certainly delete one of those expressions. Perhaps we should do that, then see how things roll out, as David put it. If we want to come back to this later—

If we did that, we would not apply any pressure. We are establishing a firm time scale for dealing with this exercise in future. If we include times for some items, we ought to be firm throughout the programme so that we do not get into bottlenecks and end up having only two hours to make a decision such as this. A good result could not possibly be produced in that time.

The paragraph says clearly that

"the Parliament may not vote on the Budget Bill until 20 days have elapsed from the date it was presented. The Parliament must however vote on the Bill within 30 days of its presentation."

We could add a phrase to say that a debate must take place within that period of time.

The point is that we would want the debate as soon as possible after the 20 days.

It does not, however, need to be tied to a fixed date; rather it could be done as soon as is practicable within that period.

Mr Davidson's point is different. His suggestion is that the date be fixed to 14 February. Is that correct?

I want it to state that the bureau "will timetable a debate" prior to 14 February, not "will endeavour to timetable a debate".

So you want it tied to a date. Elaine's point, however, is that the matter could be accommodated if the document said "as soon as possible".

Yes. The debate would take place between 20 and 30 days after presentation of the budget.

Those are two different points of view. Are there any others? Should we tie the date down as tightly as David has suggested?

It is pretty tight anyway. Twenty days from 20 January takes us to around 9 February. The debate cannot take place before 9 February and it has to take place by 19 February, unless the budget bill is presented significantly earlier than 20 January. The timing is fairly well tied down. This is a minor issue.

I agree with Keith. A date—20 January—is given in paragraph 12, so the timetable is already defined.

Yes. If the bill is presented on 20 January, the debate cannot take place before 9 February.

It is not clear what would happen if the bureau, having endeavoured to timetable a debate prior to 14 February, failed do so; it has only five days.

It depends on what day of the week 14 February falls. The bureau has some flexibility—it has four or five days. I am not too fussed about the matter.

Should we say that "the Parliamentary Bureau will timetable a debate no later than 19 February"? That would fit in with the time scale.

That is already stated in the first two sentences of paragraph 13.

In that case, why is the sentence that we are discussing—the third sentence—necessary? Is it included to give the bureau a cushion?

It is to allow time for royal assent and

"to give spending bodies as much notice as possible of their spending allocations".

That, rather than royal assent, is the crucial point.

I suggest that we delete the words "endeavour to"—on the ground that the debate has to happen in that time scale—but otherwise leave the text as it is.

Should the text read "Wherever possible" or "Whenever possible"? "Wherever possible" seems odd; is that a typographical error or just bad English? Never mind, either will do; let us just get on with it.

Do we agree to delete "endeavour to"?

Members indicated agreement.

Is there anything else on that? Do members agree that I should write to the minister, following the draft letter that members received with the committee papers?

Members indicated agreement.