Enterprise and Culture Committee, 30 Nov 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Official Report 263KB pdf

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St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday Bill

We move to agenda item 3, which is on the proposed St Andrew's day holiday bill. I think that we are all in need of a holiday.

I welcome to the committee Dennis Canavan, who is well known to everyone. My apologies, Dennis; we ran a bit over time for the previous item. I am sorry to have kept you waiting.

A paper has been circulated that is fairly self-explanatory. However, I give Dennis the opportunity to say a few words and then to answer any questions.

Thank you convener. I also thank the committee for giving me this opportunity to speak about the consultation process on my bill proposal. I have brought along my assistant, Maureen Conner, who is sitting on my right, to help me to leaf through the documentation relating to the consultation process, just in case there are any questions from members.

I also wish the convener and the committee a happy St Andrew's day.

From the outset, I followed closely the advice of Parliament's non-Executive bills unit and I am grateful to the unit's staff for their assistance. The committee has a copy of my consultation paper, which was issued in July this year. That is the main reason for my contention that I have already conducted sufficient consultation on my proposal.

However, I also draw the committee's attention to further evidence of public consultation since I published my statement of reasons. A week ago there was a MORI opinion poll based on a sample of 1,006 people from all the regions of Scotland. The result of that poll was that 75 per cent were in favour of St Andrew's day being recognised as a national holiday.

Yesterday, I had a public launch of my proposal, which was attended by senior representatives of churches, trade unions, the business community and civic society. There was fairly good and positive media coverage, some of it interactive, whereby members of the public were asked to express their views on the proposal.

I now have the support of 50 members from all political groups within Parliament and I also intend to consult the Scottish Executive. Indeed, I have a meeting tomorrow with the First Minister to discuss the proposal, and I hope to have Scottish Executive support, but that remains to be seen.

Thank you for that introduction. Is there any indication that there might be a body or bodies that have legitimate interests but which you have not managed to consult, or do you believe that your distribution list covered just about everybody?

I think that I have covered virtually everybody and every interested organisation throughout Scotland. I have also, through the media, made it clear that any person can make an electronic response through my website.

Whatever one's view on the merits of your proposal—personally, I am reasonably sympathetic to the principle of a St Andrew's day holiday—nobody could accuse you of not having engaged fully with the public. In fact, I have listened to numerous radio programmes in the past 48 hours during which the issue seems never to have been off the airwaves. Nobody could say that there has not been a proper public debate, but there has been concern expressed, primarily from business interests, about the impact that the proposal would have. Will you confirm for us what engagement you have had with the business community on the proposal and how many responses you have had from businesses or organisations that represent business?

I understand that a copy of my consultation document has been given to all members of the committee. If you look at the distribution list on the last page, it states that the

"Distribution List includes the following:

CBI Scotland
Scottish Clearing Banks
Scottish Chambers of Commerce
Scottish Council for Development & Industry
Scottish Enterprise
Federation of Small Businesses
Licensed trade and hospitality representatives".

Of course, many individual business people have also expressed their views on the proposal, including Lord Macfarlane of Bearsden, who is very supportive of it.

Have you received responses from all those groups?

Five of those business organisations have taken the trouble to respond.

The consultation certainly seems adequate, but as a member of the Procedures Committee that brought in the new procedures, I feel that I should ask a couple of questions. I do not know how your consultation compares with the new process. Another committee said that the rules should say that the consultation should be waived in exceptional circumstances, and I understand that you launched your consultation before the new procedure was introduced. Why do you not want to go through the consultation process again? Is it to do with delay or is it because you would be repeating the exercise?

It would simply be a repeat exercise. From the outset, I have followed closely the non-Executive bills unit's advice. When I discussed my proposal with NEBU at the beginning of the summer, it indicated to me the strong likelihood of the Parliament's approving a new procedure for members' bills and therefore advised me to follow as closely as possible the proposed new procedure rather than the old one, which was probably going to become obsolete within a few months. That was why I launched the nationwide consultation even before Parliament approved the new procedure. I am not trying to by-pass the new procedure; in a sense, I anticipated it.

That is very helpful.

Dennis Canavan will be pleased to hear that I, too, think that there should be no more consultation. Parliament should identify many opportunities for taking decisions more quickly. People wonder why we keep asking them about things and are asking us to get on with it. However, it is worth reminding ourselves why Parliament built into its procedures a high standard of pre-legislative scrutiny. It is not about consulting for the sake of consulting—consultation is intended to shape, influence and improve legislation. If it is not crossing the line at this stage, can you give us an indication of how the consultative process that has been undertaken has shaped and influenced your thinking and the detail of your proposal?

The question is okay, if Dennis Canavan is happy to answer it.

As members can see from the consultation paper, I did not simply ask—as the MORI opinion poll asked—whether people were in favour of or against a St Andrew's day national holiday. I asked a series of questions that allowed people to express their views and to offer criticism, if they had criticism to make. For example, I asked not only what would be the benefits of establishing a St Andrew's day bank holiday but what problems, if any, might arise from doing so. I went on to ask a detailed question about whether people were in favour of a fixed bank holiday on 30 November or whether the holiday should be on the Monday or Friday nearest to that date. My last question was:

"Do you have any further comments to make?"

Anyone who thought that their views could not be expressed fully in answer to the first six questions could easily add something in their answer to the seventh question. People had ample opportunity to express their views. That indicates the comprehensiveness of my consultation process.

How has the consultation shaped and influenced your thinking about the proposal?

That is for the next stage of the process. We are still finalising analysis of the responses before we consider the detail of whether the holiday should be fixed or whether it should be on a Monday or a Friday.

Where can people access the responses? Will they be available on the Parliament's website?

I understand that the responses will be available in SPICe, unless the respondents asked to remain anonymous. Very few, if any, people requested that.

In your statement of reasons, you say that the papers that were submitted in response to your consultation will be available in SPICe. When will the analysis of the responses be available? The paper that you submitted to the committee is dated 12 November, so has the analysis now been completed?

I am working with the non-Executive bills unit to finish analysing the responses. I hope that the analysis will be available in the next week or so.

I notice that the analysis will be made available to the lead committee on the bill. Has the lead committee been appointed, or do you have an idea which committee may be the lead committee?

No. It is for the Parliamentary Bureau to lodge an appropriate motion and for Parliament to decide which should be the lead committee. On the member's previous question, I am advised that analysis of the responses will be submitted at the same time that the formal proposal is lodged.

I do not know whether the formal decision has been taken, but the information that I have suggests that we will be the lead committee. I am sure that all members would be happy to accept that task.

I sense that the committee is satisfied with the reasons that Dennis Canavan has provided and that we believe that the bill proposal should go forward to its next stage. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you for your evidence, which was very helpful.

I thank the convener and members of the committee.