Finance Committee, 19 Sep 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 19, 2000

Official Report 145KB pdf

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European Structural Funds

I move now to the committee's inquiry into European structural funds. Members have a copy of a letter that I sent last week to the Secretary of State for Scotland. Subsequent to our meeting a fortnight ago at which we discussed the matter, there was some unfortunate and ill-informed reporting in the press that suggested that somehow the committee was slapping down the Secretary of State for Scotland for refusing to address us. We have not, however, invited John Reid to address the committee; he was invited to attend the European Committee.

We discussed a letter that John Reid wrote to the Minister for Parliament. The letter informed our discussion, but it was misunderstood by some reporters. I hope that the letter that I have written to the Secretary of State for Scotland meets with the approval of members. We understood that we should have access to UK ministers in exceptional circumstances—in anything other than exceptional circumstances, we would not want to invite a UK minister.

Subsequent to our meeting a fortnight ago, I met the Presiding Officer, who had met the Secretary of State for Scotland that day. The Presiding Officer was amenable to the suggestion that committees should have the opportunity to invite UK ministers to come before them when they think that that is necessary.

It was suggested that I should propose to the conveners liaison group that that body might act as a siphon for requests from committees for UK ministers. I have asked for that item to be placed on the agenda of the conveners liaison group's meeting, which will be held a week today. My suggestion has met with a positive response from the conveners to whom I have talked informally and it has been agreed that it might be a way of ensuring that there is support from other committees for a request to invite a UK minister. Also, the request might carry more weight if it is made by the conveners liaison group, rather than by a committee.

We have a response from the Treasury, which we will come to in a minute. First, I invite comments on the matters that I have covered so far.

Why was that matter not raised at the previous meeting of the Finance Committee? It is within your remit to send a letter to the Secretary of State for Scotland without discussing it with the committee, but I do not recall any press coverage that quoted members of the Finance Committee in the manner that you suggest.

The letter that you sent to the Secretary of State for Scotland refers to a message that he left for you. We have no note of what was in that message. It would be useful to see that correspondence—which has obviously taken place outside the Finance Committee—and the other papers.

At the meeting on 7 March, reference was made to the initial options paper that included an invitation to the Secretary of State for Scotland. I am bemused about why that invitation has not been sent, given that it was in that paper and was mentioned by you at that meeting.

This and the next item on the agenda that we will discuss take us no further than we were on 7 March—we have no evidence before us that will allow us to proceed. The letter from the Treasury is not useful. There are a number of matters that are still to be discussed.

The matter was not discussed last week because it was not on our agenda. Andrew Wilson might remember that our meeting last week was not a scheduled meeting. We discovered that we had to deal with matters relating to the Transport (Scotland) Bill. The meeting was meant to be an informal briefing.

The message from the Secretary of State for Scotland to which Andrew Wilson referred was a telephone message that he left on the night of Tuesday 5 September—the day when the coverage appeared. The first notice that I had of the situation was on Ceefax. I did not refer to members of the committee being quoted. Dr Richard Simpson was quoted extensively in the coverage, but his words were taken out of context. His comments were given a meaning in many of the reports that was different from the meaning that he intended. The bottom line is that the committee did not invite the Secretary of State for Scotland, although newspaper reports suggested that we were miffed that he had refused to appear before us.

Andrew Wilson also referred to the meeting on 7 March. I remember the discussion, but I do not remember an invitation to the Secretary of State for Scotland being discussed since then. I do not remember the committee ever saying that it had decided to invite the Secretary of State for Scotland, or that it tried to set a date for such a meeting. However, if that is in the Official Report, I will not refute it. I am aware that we have discussed the matter a number of times. I do not deny that it was discussed when we embarked on the inquiry, but I am not aware that it has been suggested again that the Secretary of State for Scotland should give evidence to the committee. The clerks will keep me right if I am straying off course.

I will deal in a minute with the points that Andrew Wilson made about the letter from the Treasury. We have received nothing in writing from the Secretary of State for Scotland. He wanted simply to clarify that he thought that it was unfortunate that it was being reported that there was disagreement between his office and the committee when that was not the case. My letter was intended to reassure him that that view was correct.

Can we invite people to give evidence to the committee? We are the best part of six months into the inquiry and no letter has gone to the Secretary of State for Scotland, which strikes me as odd. It might be most important that we speak to the Treasury, but all the relevant bodies should be invited. I am surprised, given what is in the Official Report of that first meeting, that that has not taken place. I had assumed that the process of sending out invitations was on-going and that it was in the hands of you and the clerks.

That is not strictly fair. The matter is in the hands of all the committee's members. You could have followed up the invitation if you had wanted to. This is the first time since March that the issue has been mentioned, as far as I am aware, but that is not the issue. We invited the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I understand that the European Committee invited the Secretary of State for Scotland, so such an invitation was not on our agenda after March.

I have always thought that it was odd that the Secretary of State for Scotland wrote to the Minister for Parliament in the first place. The Minister for Parliament is a member of the Executive and the committee is dealing with a parliamentary matter. I do not understand why a member of the Executive—who has no locus when it comes to the work of committees, although he would like to have—was contacted in this regard by the Secretary of State for Scotland. That was inappropriate.

Now that the Secretary of State for Scotland has done what he should have done and spoken to the Presiding Officer, perhaps the convener can illuminate us on the subject of the last line of his letter, which talks about an "understanding" that would avoid such events recurring. I do not know how much the convener knows about that understanding, but I would like to have further details of it.

My final point concerns the conveners liaison group. I get so fed up with the bureaucracy in this place. It grows and grows like Topsy. I suppose that it is fair enough to suggest that invitations to UK ministers should have the support of other conveners and I will not make a meal out of that. However, I am concerned about the understanding that has been reached between the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Presiding Officer.

It would be helpful if the convener could provide us with some details. The Presiding Officer should either make a statement about the matter in the chamber or issue a written statement—as he has done frequently in the past—to give us an indication of what he has agreed with the secretary of state. We can then decide whether that is acceptable to the Parliament.

The clerk and I met the Presiding Officer on 5 September, an hour or two before he met the secretary of state. It is entirely a matter for the Presiding Officer whether he makes a statement to Parliament or issues guidance on the issue. However, the understanding that was reached by the Presiding Officer and the secretary of state—as stated in the exchange of correspondence that took place, rightly or wrongly, between the Minister for Parliament and the Secretary of State for Scotland—is that UK ministers will give evidence to committees of the Scottish Parliament in exceptional circumstances. That understanding has been accepted by other committees, but I do not know whether it will be formalised. The Presiding Officer accepted it as reasonable in the circumstances.

At the end of the day, we cannot force UK ministers to appear before our committees, much as we might like to. We must reach an understanding that will allow that to happen in a spirit of co-operation. That is what this and the European Committee set out to do in the inquiry.

I apologise for being late; my train was delayed.

We have argued that, as a matter of principle, we should be able to gain access to Cabinet ministers and their civil servants—we should continue to hold the line on that. If we can achieve that through the conveners liaison group, that is well and good. I agree with Keith Raffan that we need a statement from the Presiding Officer, but I am concerned about the bureaucracy of the Parliament coming between a minister and a committee when the business of an inquiry involves only those two parties. It is for the committee to present its findings to Parliament, which it would do in due course.

For the Parliament to work, the Cabinet and the Executive need to show a spirit of good will. It is incumbent on them to play their part. The committees have worked well and will work even better as time goes on. We have buried the hatchet politically in order to get the job done. It is incumbent on the secretary of state, as a member of the Cabinet, to play his part and to volunteer information on when he would be prepared to appear before committees. The phrase "in exceptional circumstances" is not qualified or quantified. It would be helpful if that could be done.

We will come back to that point. How can one qualify exceptional circumstances? They defy description.

We were not party to the discussion that took place between the secretary of state and the Presiding Officer. As you are in correspondence with the secretary of state, perhaps you could drop him a note asking him to clarify how he interprets the phrase "in exceptional circumstances".

We could do that or we could ask the Presiding Officer to clarify it. However, I do not see how one can clarify exceptional circumstances.

That is the point. Exceptional to one person is not exceptional to another. It is a completely subjective definition. We might not be privy to what has happened, but I do not see how the Presiding Officer can—for want of another phrase—do a deal with the secretary of state on such an issue without consulting the Parliamentary Bureau and the conveners liaison group. It is more important that he consults the conveners liaison group than that he consults the Parliamentary Bureau, which has far too much power.

To some extent, access to officials is more important than access to ministers when we are seeking clarification of what is happening at UK level. "Exceptional" should certainly not apply to officials. Your letter implies that, convener, but we should make it explicit.

If there is to be a protocol, which we are inching towards, it must be open and it must be discussed so that everyone understands what it is. We are creating something that we hope will last. This is not about only the present incumbent and the present Government; it is about the relationship between the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament.

In my view, "exceptional" should apply to UK ministers, apart from the Secretary of State for Scotland. He is our link to the UK Government, so he is in a different position from other ministers. If my memory serves me correctly, when we discussed this issue previously, I said that the circumstances in which we invite the secretary of state to appear before us should always be specific and defined. However, they should not necessarily be exceptional. "Exceptional" implies that the secretary of state is much more dissociated from the Scottish Parliament than he or she might be in future.

I welcome the fact that the Presiding Officer seems to be inching towards a protocol. That protocol should be open, discussed and defined. However, at this point I would not like the committee to commit to use of the word "exceptional", which appears in John Reid's letter, particularly with respect to the Secretary of State for Scotland.

We should keep at the front of our minds the suggestion in John Reid's letter that committees would use the presence of UK ministers for partial political purposes. The tone and implications of that are unacceptable.

Although I was not at the debates that took place during the passage of the Scotland Act 1998, I understand that when the issue of the ability of committees of the Scottish Parliament to summon UK ministers was raised, ministers responded that such a power would not be necessary because the relationship between the two Parliaments would be so co-operative. Within a matter of months, that has been shown not to be the case. The Presiding Officer might want to consider that.

We cannot proceed with the inquiry until we obtain information from the UK Government, and that is not happening. We are now six months—half a year—into our inquiry. That situation is absurd.

I do not think that we should stall the inquiry over the issue, but it needs to be resolved. I have slight reservations about referring the issue to the conveners liaison group, because that group does not yet have official status.

No, but it will have. It will become an official body of the Parliament and will probably be called the conveners panel.

If that is the case, I am happy that the CLG should deal with the matter. As Richard Simpson said, we are inching towards a protocol, which needs to be drawn up formally. At the moment we are not entirely clear on what the understanding is and we need more detail. A formal protocol might be necessary in future.

I hope that the conveners will get together and ask the Presiding Officer to put such a protocol in place.

I do not think that we will get any further in our attempts to obtain information for the inquiry; we have probably got as far as we can. As Andrew Wilson said, the letter that we received from the Treasury contains virtually nothing new. I am not happy about the fact that the first half of several brief paragraphs is taken up with reiteration of the question. Basically, the letter refers us to the Scottish Executive. That is not helpful.

However, what is the point of continuing to bang on about the issue? The general principles that govern the relationship between the Scottish Parliament and its committees on the one hand and UK ministers on the other hand need to be established. If we continue to bang on about the difficulties that we have encountered in our inquiry, we might make that more difficult rather than facilitate it. We can discuss separately what we do about the inquiry, but we need to consider how we can take matters forward generally for the Parliament.

I was trying to take things forward. Given the amount of outstanding work that we have in other areas, would it be appropriate to suspend the European structural funds inquiry and deal with something else until the background is sorted out?

For some months the inquiry has, in effect, been suspended. I would be happy to take advice from the clerk on that. There would be a purpose in suspending the inquiry formally only if we were able to come back to it in future and obtain information that is not currently available.

What is your view on that?

I have no strong views either way. We enter into inquiries with a view to producing reports that shed light rather than heat. We do not have a huge amount of information—apart from the factual briefings that we have received from academics and from the Minister for Finance—to enable us to do that in this instance. If the committee believes that we should revisit our inquiry at a later date, I would have no objection to that. However, if we are to publish a report, it must say something that justifies our having conducted the inquiry.

The situation is very serious—the committee has embarked on an inquiry into a reasonably important issue, but that inquiry has hit the rocks and been stalled by the inability or unwillingness of UK officials and ministers to give us the information that we require. Where does that leave the Scottish Parliament, the question of parliamentary sovereignty and the Parliament's ability to be accountable and to hold people to account for their actions?

If an inquiry such as this hits the rocks, what is the function of the Scottish Parliament? What are we here for? If we cannot report on issues such as this, what is the point of being here? I do not use the word crisis lightly, but it strikes me as odd that an inquiry in which the Finance Committee has been engaged for six months is being wrecked because the Treasury refuses to give us information. We cannot simply sit back and say that we will put off the inquiry for six months, at the end of which everyone will—some would hope—have forgotten what has happened. How will we answer for ourselves to people outside Parliament on the matter?

The issue affects every committee in the Parliament and it needs to be resolved for the whole Parliament, rather than only for the Finance Committee. The way forward is to discuss the matter in the appropriate places—in the conveners liaison group, with Sir David Steel and so on. It might be that we cannot proceed with the inquiry until a protocol is in place. Some of the language that Andrew Wilson used was a little heated. This is a new Parliament and we have always known that we would come across new situations constantly, for which we would have to develop protocols and good working practices. Clearly, this is one such situation.

David Davidson suggested that we suspend the inquiry. Is the suggestion that we should suspend it formally, on the basis that some form of protocol will be issued that will enable us to take the matter forward in future?

Convener, I asked for your advice and I think that you have given it. I understand the situation in which you have been placed on the committee's behalf. As Elaine Thomson stated, this is a matter of principle that affects the whole Parliament. We are wasting time dealing with the inquiry regularly when it is going nowhere. There is other work that we could do. The budget process will be arduous for us all and we have a duty to ensure that the Finance Committee plays its part in it so that the other committees of the Parliament can play theirs. We should suspend the inquiry formally and report that to the Parliament through the convener.

If we concluded the inquiry now, our report would state that we were unable to ascertain some of the facts to our satisfaction. That is not very satisfactory. If we suspend the inquiry pending the determination of the protocol, that will give us an opportunity to see whether the protocol is adequate to allow the committee to obtain the information that we feel is necessary for the report.

I am not happy about suspending an investigation. I understood that there was going to be a delay and that a draft report would be prepared during the summer. I may be wrong about that, but at the end of June our work programme was pretty congested. It might help to break the logjam if our report said in no uncertain terms that we could not obtain all the information that we needed—that would highlight the issue.

I am not sure that we would gain much by suspending the inquiry. I have a horrid feeling that the protocol will end up being a vague document that contains a large number of subjective phrases that are open to different interpretations by the UK Government and by us. Waiting for it will simply delay matters further. In my view, we should go ahead with a report. We could issue it as a part 1 report and make it clear that, when further information becomes available, we will return to the issue and elaborate on the recommendations that we make.

On Keith Raffan's point, we should suspend rather than wind up the inquiry, because suspension keeps the issue live. We cannot walk away with sour grapes just because we did not get what we wanted. If we suspend the inquiry formally, explain the reason to Parliament and wait with an open mind for whatever protocol might emerge, we can pick up the issue any time that we choose. If we close the matter, we will have to go through the procedure again and put it back on the agenda at another date.

I should point out that there is no commitment to issuing a protocol as yet, although we hope that that will happen.

I agree with Keith Raffan's sentiments, but a suspension would at least allow the convener to report the situation to Parliament. The fact that a parliamentary committee's inquiry has had to be suspended for want of a protocol could be used to give weight to our case that a protocol should be issued. If we follow Keith Raffan's suggestion—to which I am, however, sympathetic—we will close the issue off. On balance, I side with David Davidson's suggestion.

We have to decide how to proceed. Is there support for David Davidson's suggestion, which has been seconded by Andrew Wilson, that we suspend the inquiry, pending a protocol that clarifies the circumstances in which UK ministers will attend committees to give evidence? On the other hand, Keith Raffan has suggested that we produce a kind of part 1 report.

When will we return to the inquiry? I would agree to a suspension of the inquiry, pending some information from the Presiding Officer or Parliament about progress on a protocol. However, we must be specific about the terms of the suspension. We should not be alarmist about the situation; we need to make some progress and, if necessary, stick a date on the matter.

Your suggestion contains a contradiction—as soon as we have a deadline for lifting the suspension, we make it an issue. We have a heavy agenda later in the year with the budget and so on. I do not want to put a date on when the suspension should end; we should return to the inquiry as soon as that is practicable. Whether there is a protocol is out of the committee's hands and a deadline might just make things more difficult.

I agree with Ken Macintosh. I cannot support the suspension as it stands—it is too open-ended. We would not necessarily need to specify a date. For example, it is quite reasonable to say that we will return to the matter to review the position no later than the last meeting before the Christmas recess. If we do not do that, the matter is left completely open-ended.

I think that we will have to take a vote on the matter.

Convener, you should write to the Presiding Officer saying that we want a protocol and asking him to follow the matter up. He will respond and keep us up to date on any progress. In that way, the matter will be updated regularly without the committee having to put the inquiry on its agenda. We will make the decision about the inquiry when the information comes. Sticking dates on such matters is not all that helpful.

I want to move to a decision now. David Davidson has made a proposal, which has been seconded by Andrew Wilson, that we suspend the inquiry without specifying a date for lifting the suspension. On the other hand, Keith Raffan has suggested that we include a date for lifting the suspension—that suggestion is backed by Ken Macintosh.

The question is, that the committee agrees that the terms of the suspension of the inquiry into European structural funds include a date for lifting that suspension.

For

Macintosh, Mr Kenneth (Eastwood) (Lab)
Raffan, Mr Keith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (LD)

Against

Davidson, Mr David (North-East Scotland) (Con)
Grant, Rhoda (Highlands and Islands) (Lab)
Simpson, Dr Richard (Ochil) (Lab)
Thomson, Elaine (Aberdeen North) (Lab)
Watson, Mike (Glasgow Cathcart) (Lab)
Wilson, Andrew (Central Scotland) (SNP)

The result of the division is: For 2, Against 5, Abstentions 0.

Motion disagreed to.

The committee has agreed to suspend its inquiry into European structural funds, but not to include a date for lifting that suspension within the terms of the suspension.

It is regrettable that we have had to spend the first 35 minutes of the meeting on that issue; however, it sums up the rather unsteady progress of the inquiry.