The next item of business is a debate on S4M-15201, in the name of Stewart Stevenson, on the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament (Amendment) Bill. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible. I call Stewart Stevenson to speak to and move the motion on behalf of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee.
15:54
There is always a benefit in reviewing, with a critical eye, the regimes that govern our work and that of individual members here in Parliament.
The bill’s proposals seek to improve the public accessibility of information reported by MSPs, allowing for effective public scrutiny. The bill will also ensure that a wide range of parliamentary sanctions are available and will broaden the definition of the serious criminal offence of paid advocacy.
Due to partial overlaps in the reporting requirements on MSPs under the Parliament’s register of interests and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—otherwise known as PPERA—certain financial interests must be reported to both the Electoral Commission and to the Parliament. That is known as dual reporting. The PPERA requirements are defined in terms of donations to political activities, which include parliamentary activities, whereas the Parliament is interested solely in financial interests that could be perceived to influence MSPs in carrying out their parliamentary duties.
The two regimes have different criteria for registration, which can make the system complex. There are also two separate complaints processes depending on whether an MSP is reported to the Electoral Commission or to the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland for failure to register a financial interest.
Removing dual reporting will provide for simpler reporting requirements for financial interests overall for MSPs and greater transparency and accountability to the public than is the case at present. That will make details of MSPs’ financial interests more transparent, as they will be more easily accessible in a single place, on our Parliament’s website; the means of pursuing a complaint in relation to a financial interest will also be streamlined for the public.
The bill makes the necessary adjustments to the categories of registrable interest to enable the Electoral Commission to draw all the information that it needs from the Parliament’s register.
When dual reporting ends, the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland will take on sole responsibility for investigating breaches of those PPERA requirements that are currently investigated by the Electoral Commission. The bill will incorporate that into our revised register of categories. It will broaden the commissioner’s remit and simplify the process for the public, providing one place to direct complaints.
The group of states against corruption—GRECO—published a report in 2013 that recommended that consideration be given to lowering the thresholds for registering gifts. At present, members must register gifts over the value of 1 per cent of a member’s salary at the start of the parliamentary session. That makes the current figure £570. The qualification is that it excludes gifts that do not meet the prejudice test, for example, gifts between members of the MSP’s family.
Other jurisdictions have lower levels of registration. The House of Commons proposes to lower the threshold to £300, the House of Lords will go to £140, and the threshold in the Northern Ireland Assembly is £240. With those developments in mind, and the desire to increase transparency of members’ interests in this place, the committee decided to include a measure in the bill to lower the threshold for registering gifts to 0.5% of a member’s salary, rounded down to the nearest £10, at the beginning of the current parliamentary session. That would presently be £280.
I turn to the paid advocacy provisions. Paid advocacy is where an individual uses their position as an MSP to advocate a particular matter in return for payment, including a benefit in kind, or to urge any other MSP to do so. It is a criminal offence and a breach of the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament Act 2006 for an MSP to undertake paid advocacy.
As I have stated in previous debates—we first debated the subject in April—no MSP has ever been found to be in breach of the paid advocacy provisions. Given the gravity with which paid advocacy should be treated, the committee is very clear that there is a case for increasing the scope of the criminal offence. To that end, the bill amends the existing paid advocacy offence to ensure greater consistency with the Bribery Act 2010. The paid advocacy offence currently requires actual receipt of an inducement by an MSP or an MSP’s partner where that results in some benefit to the MSP. The Bribery Act 2010 goes further than that: it does not require an individual actually to receive inducements in order to commit an offence; they must only agree to receive such inducements.
The committee considers that if an MSP is found to have agreed to undertake advocacy for financial gain or to have encouraged a fellow MSP to do so, they should be considered to be guilty of an offence regardless of whether inducements have actually been received. During the stage 1 debate, Tavish Scott asked me whether that would cover a scenario in which a member requested an inducement for advocating a cause. I took the opportunity to amend the bill at stage 2 to put beyond doubt that that scenario, too, should be covered by the paid advocacy offence.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees that the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament (Amendment) Bill be passed.
16:01
I do not propose to take too much time to comment on the details of the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament (Amendment) Bill.
It will probably come as no surprise to hear that the Government continues to give the bill its full support. I congratulate the members of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee and, indeed, its clerks. The committee has made excellent and rapid use of the relevant powers that have been made available to the Parliament under the Scotland Act 2012.
The preparatory work to underpin the policy reforms in the bill was carefully considered and has led to a robust framework. That was added to by the amendments that the convener of the committee mentioned. Obviously, it is worth noting that the bill is a committee bill. We do not have such bills too often, so it is useful to highlight that fact. Committee bills are a useful tool in our parliamentary processes, and it was appropriate that a committee bill was introduced.
During the stage 1 debate, members across the chamber stood together behind the proposals, and I have no reason to consider that that position will change today. It is not often that a bill receives such unified support, and that deserves special mention.
At stage 1, I summarised my broad assessment of what the bill delivers. There are three main things from the Government’s perspective.
First, the bill seeks to establish measures to enhance members’ accountability to the public and to reflect the latest views on what constitutes appropriate probity standards. Secondly, in looking to standardise arrangements for reporting interests, it streamlines the activity that is required of members and offers the public a single point of reference. It ends the dual reporting that the convener talked about. Thirdly, it offers the Parliament flexibility in the event that circumstances ever arise that necessitate enforcement activity.
The bill aimed high in seeking to produce a comprehensive review of existing practices. Any one of those three major areas would have been significant in the first place, so we really cannot overestimate the amount of work that went into producing the bill and pulling together the three different strands.
I consider that every member of the Parliament will benefit as a result of the changes, be that in demonstrating their accountability to their electorate or from the streamlined reporting processes.
The proposal to end dual reporting is a significant step forward. I commend the committee for its commitment to that move and the benefits that it should deliver for members of the Scottish Parliament and members of the public.
The measures in the bill are not just symbolic reforms; they can be characterised as practical improvements that can be realised from the start of the next parliamentary session.
The Government welcomes the commitment that the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee has shown, and I look forward to the bill being passed at decision time.
16:04
This is a short but nevertheless important debate on the interests of members of the Scottish Parliament. Across the chamber we all agree that we need robust, accountable and transparent mechanisms for reporting members’ interests.
The Parliament rightly prides itself on its openness and accountability, and the bill gives the opportunity to revisit the existing legislation on members’ interests. The bill will help to increase the transparency and accessibility of information about members’ financial interests and it will ensure that the Parliament has a robust set of sanctions to deal with any breaches of its rules.
A useful measure included in the bill is the motion of censure, which will serve as a useful middle ground if a member is found to be in breach of the rules but that breach is not serious enough to justify the removal of parliamentary privilege. A motion of censure would allow debate and would give the member in question the opportunity to explain the breach and to apologise.
Another useful change is the length of time for which information on members’ interests will be kept. The committee considered it more appropriate to keep register entries for 10 years instead of five. There are a number of practical reasons for that. It will assist members by ensuring that information about their previously held interests is available at the start of a session. Similarly, if a member is not returned to Parliament but returns at a subsequent election, it will be easier for them to check the interests that were previously recorded.
The change will also increase transparency in relation to members’ interests, as the information will be easily accessible to the public for longer. Those changes, combined with the changes to the register, will provide an additional layer of transparency to the public in seeking to access information on members’ interests.
As Stewart Stevenson said in his opening comments, the ending of dual reporting is an important step. At the moment, information is on the Parliament’s website and the Electoral Commission’s website, depending on the nature of the interest. Streamlining the process will assist people in accessing the information and it will help members to comply more easily with the regime.
I am pleased that no member has ever been found to be in breach of the rules on paid advocacy, but we must keep those rules under review, so it is right to strengthen them through the bill. Most members of the public would expect there to be a breach if a member agreed to undertake paid advocacy, even when cash does not change hands. The bill will ensure that such behaviour will be caught.
The amendments that were lodged by Stewart Stevenson at stage 2, which extend section 9 of the bill so that it covers a member or their partner requesting an inducement for the member to carry out paid advocacy, were a further and very useful clarification, and a welcome addition to the bill.
I take this opportunity to thank Stewart Stevenson, the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee and the clerks for the work that they have done to progress this important piece of legislation.
I am pleased to speak today for Scottish Labour and to support the motion, which seeks the Parliament’s agreement to the principles of the bill. The provisions will increase transparency and strengthen the standards regime in the Scottish Parliament. Openness, transparency and accountability must be at the forefront of the way in which the Parliament operates. I am happy to support the motion in Stewart Stevenson’s name and to support the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament (Amendment) Bill.
16:08
I associate myself with the comments made by Mary Fee. I also thank Stewart Stevenson and the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee for bringing forward the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament (Amendment) Bill. Can I say, Presiding Officer, that it is very nice to have the last debate of the year on a consensual note?
Anything that brings greater transparency to this issue has to be welcomed. In the interests of clarity, transparency and consistency, I take the opportunity to raise the same question that I raised at stage 2, which relates to benefits in kind. Given that we have the opportunity for the full chamber to hear, it would be appropriate to get some clarity on the issue.
Stewart Stevenson said at stage 2:
“It is not currently an offence to receive an inducement, as long as the member does not do anything in response to receipt of the inducement”.
That is fine. He also said:
“It is the conditionality—the link between the benefit that is delivered and the action that the member has taken—that is important.”—[Official Report, Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament (Amendment) Bill Committee, 10 November 2015; c 2, 4.]
Each and every one of us across the chamber will have been invited out to dinner quite regularly by hosts who tend to take full advantage of their time with us to let us know exactly what their concerns are. The example that I would like to use today relates to the University of the Highlands and Islands college lecturers. If I were still a lecturer, I might be telling Mr Matheson to keep quiet as I speak—it was never easy as a teacher when someone chattered in the background, cabinet secretary or no cabinet secretary.
We all need to learn from you, Mrs Scanlon.
If I am invited out to dinner and my UHI hosts highlight the fact that lecturers in the Highlands are paid £7,000 below lecturers elsewhere in Scotland, and the following week I come into Parliament and raise the issue of unfair pay for lecturers in the Highlands, have I received a benefit in kind—that is to say, dinner—and then become a paid advocate, or have I just received information? I seek clarity on that issue, and I think that we would all welcome such clarity.
I call Stewart Stevenson to wind up the debate.
16:11
Let me start with the point that Mary Scanlon has made, which is a fair and proper one, by addressing the example that she gives of any of us being out to dinner with someone who wishes to put a point to us. That is not caught by the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament (Amendment) Bill unless the dinner is provided on condition that we take an action. It is that conditionality that is important.
Parliament will be likely to be returning to the broader issue that Mary Scanlon has captured when we discuss the Lobbying (Scotland) Bill, because that may well be a matter of lobbying that is caught, and the people who are lobbying would be likely to have to register under the Lobbying (Scotland) Bill. That is for another day but, in response to Mary Scanlon’s point, I say that it is the conditionality that is important. We can still go out to dinner. I am going out tonight, although I think that I am paying, so that certainly will not be caught.
Are we all invited?
Invitations are now closed.
Mary Fee dealt more than adequately with the subject of the sanctions that are being introduced and with the broad sanction regime. In particular, she addressed the issue of a motion of censure, so I do not propose to say anything more that is material about that.
I do, however, want to talk about the removal of dual reporting. Although we will be passing a bill today, it cannot proceed as a new part of our law and our procedures until the Electoral Commission is satisfied that the information in the register of interests will be sufficient to meet its needs. The clerks to the committee have been working with the Electoral Commission to ensure that the provisions in the bill are satisfactory, and I, like other members, thank officials in the Parliament and at the Electoral Commission for their assistance in that matter.
The current framework for ending dual reporting in the Electoral Administration Act 2006 does not extend to independent MSPs, and I want to say a word or two about that. As that act stands, dual reporting can be ended only for members of registered political parties, and not for independent members. Our bill contains an amendment to that act that will allow dual reporting to be ended for all MSPs, and I am pleased to have been able to work with each of the independent members in this Parliament to ensure that the provisions in that regard are understood and agreed. Indeed, I saw Margo MacDonald towards the end of her life; I had a three-minute discussion on this subject and an hour of updates on what was going on in Parliament. I will not reveal what I told her about what everyone was up to, as that would be a breach of confidence beyond what would be proper.
In closing, I am pleased that the committee has been able to bring forward this committee bill, which I believe will streamline processes for dealing with financial interests, increase transparency and ensure that we have robust sanctions. I encourage all colleagues to support this change in the next few minutes.
Thank you very much, Mr Stevenson. I do not expect an answer just now, but perhaps when the Lobbying (Scotland) Bill is debated you can tell me whether, if Santa brings me presents, I will be a paid advocate for him.
That concludes the debate on the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament (Amendment) Bill.