The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-12951, in the name of Stewart Stevenson, on the proposal for a members’ interests bill. I call Stewart Stevenson to speak to and move the motion on behalf of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee.
15:57
The role of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee is to keep the Parliament’s procedures and processes under constant review. The Scotland Act 2012 gave the Parliament some extra flexibility to manage our members’ interests regime, and the committee has used that opportunity to take a fresh look at how we operate our standards.
The committee now presents the Parliament with a proposal for a committee bill, under rule 9.15 of the standing orders, which has two aims: to make the register of interests more transparent and to make the standards regime even more robust. I will first address the proposals for increased transparency.
Under the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament Act 2006, members have to register certain financial interests that are then published in the Parliament’s register of members’ interests. The register is principally concerned with interests that might prejudice or appear to prejudice a member’s ability to participate in the parliamentary proceedings in a disinterested way. The public deserve to know about a member’s financial interests, so that they can judge whether the member might be influenced by them.
Separately, members also have to register donations or loans for political activities with the Electoral Commission. The commission has its own rules and thresholds for what needs to be registered, which are different from the Parliament’s rules, and it publishes its own register. That is known as dual reporting. It means that the public have to look in two places for information about a member’s interests and that members have to register financial interests in two separate places under two separate sets of rules. The draft bill that we are bringing forward aims to end dual reporting. Members would have to register financial interests in only one place and, more important, the public would have to look in only one place to find information about a member’s financial interests.
Under our proposals, the Parliament’s existing registration requirements will continue to apply. We have been careful to leave the existing regime as undisturbed as possible. However, there will be an additional layer of reporting requirements imported from the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act 2000—PPERA, as it is known—which is the legislation that governs the Electoral Commission’s regime.
PPERA is quite a complicated set of rules. In summary, members must register donations or loans of more than £1,500 that have been received for political activities. That might be a single donation or it might be several donations of more than £500 from the same person in the same calendar year.
As its name suggests, PPERA is concerned with members of political parties but, of course, we also have independent members here. We are proposing specific changes to deal with the position of independent members. In her closing remarks, Margaret McDougall, the deputy convener, will speak about that in more detail and about other matters that I will not have time to deal with.
The bill’s proposals have been discussed in depth with the Electoral Commission. It must be satisfied that the Parliament’s register will give it all the information that it needs before it can agree to the ending of dual reporting. The commission has told us that our proposals, along with the changes that we will propose to the code of conduct, should meet its requirements. As PPERA is reserved legislation, the United Kingdom Parliament must pass a commencement order to exempt members from the PPERA reporting requirements.
I will put on record my appreciation of the commission’s help in getting the bill to this stage. Between last year’s referendum and this year’s general election, although the commission is clearly busy, it has always been helpful to us in navigating our way through its complex regime.
We are proposing an important reform, which will keep our Parliament in step with the UK Parliament. Dual reporting has ended for Westminster MPs, and we understand that the other devolved institutions are also considering changes.
The draft bill builds PPERA’s requirements into the Parliament’s interests act. I am the first to admit that the bill that we are to introduce will look complex. However, the changes can be boiled down to a number of key questions that members must ask themselves. Has anyone given them a gift or donation of money, goods or services? Has anyone funded an overseas visit for them? Have they been paid for any work that they have done outside Parliament? Do they own shares or property, apart from their own home? In all those cases, there could be a registrable interest.
As convener of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, and not simply in an effort to reduce the committee’s workload, my advice is simple: members should always ask the standards clerks for advice if they think that there is any possibility that they have acquired a new interest or that the nature of an interest that they already hold has changed, for example if the value of shares has risen above the threshold without the individual member having taken any action. The clerks can navigate the complexities of the existing legislation and the new provisions. The bottom line is that members must approach them within 30 days of acquiring a new interest; they must also look at the value of their shares annually.
The committee will propose changes to the members’ code of conduct, which relate to the changes that I am explaining. At the start of each new session, particularly the next one, the standards clerks and Electoral Commission officials will arrange briefing sessions for members on the new rules.
Our proposals will mean a more streamlined system for members. They will have to seek advice in only one place—from our standards clerks here in Parliament; they will have to register interests in only one place—here in the Parliament; and the public will be able to find all a member’s interests in only one place—the parliamentary register.
By increasing transparency, the proposals chime with other developments on the horizon, not least the proposal for a lobbying register, which we expect the Government to introduce soon.
One more benefit of ending dual reporting is that complaints about failing to register will all be dealt with by the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland. At the moment, a complaint could be investigated by the commission, by the Electoral Commission or even by both at the same time. That can be confusing for the public to navigate; it could also result in a member having to deal with two separate investigations into what is essentially the same complaint. The committee’s proposals would streamline the process so that all complaints are dealt with by the commission.
To sum up our proposals for the ending of dual reporting, information about a member’s financial interests will be available to the public in one place, members will have a one-stop shop for advice on registering interests and we will streamline the process for dealing with complaints.
In addition, in the light of the Council of Europe’s group of states against corruption—GRECO—report, we propose to lower the threshold for registering gifts from 1 per cent of a member’s salary at the start of the session to 0.5 per cent. Responding to the GRECO report in that way will bring us into line with legislators elsewhere.
I said that the second aim of our proposed bill is to make the Parliament’s standards regime more robust. We already have a very robust regime. In the whole parliamentary session, we have had to deal with only one, relatively minor breach of the interests act by a member. It is a criminal offence when a member fails to register or declare an interest, or undertakes paid advocacy, which is not the case in the House of Commons. We should be proud of our existing regime, but we are not resting on our laurels. The committee believes that we can go further.
First, the bill will extend the sanctions that are available to the Parliament for dealing with breaches of the interests act. The power to withdraw rights and privileges is already available, but when it comes to breaches of the interests act, the Scotland Act 2012 requires us to set out specific sanctions in legislation. The bill will make sure that the widest range of sanctions are available for breaches of the interests act. Those sanctions will include excluding a member from the premises of the Parliament, withdrawing a member’s right to use the facilities and services that are provided by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, and withdrawing salary and allowances when a member is excluded.
To that end, the committee has included in its draft bill a new sanction—a motion of censure, which would allow the Parliament to draw attention to a breach in a debate in the chamber and would give the member the opportunity to comment and apologise, as appropriate. Members will appreciate that that is not a trivial sanction. For some breaches, it might be more appropriate than withdrawing pay or access.
The committee’s proposal will increase the transparency of information about our financial interests and will make the standards regime that we have even more robust. I commend the committee’s proposal to the Parliament.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees to the proposal for a Committee Bill, under Rule 9.15, contained in the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee’s 2nd Report, 2015 (Session 4), Members’ Interests Bill (SP Paper 681).
16:07
I want to start by quickly reflecting on the background to the committee’s work on updating the members’ interests statute. The committee should be commended for moving quickly to utilise the powers that arose from the implementation of the Scotland Act 2012, which gave the Parliament the ability to review the terms of the members’ interests framework in full.
We now anticipate that the Parliament will soon be responsible for all matters that are relevant to its internal operations, which is something that we have argued for since the first session of the Parliament and which this Government has advocated since coming to office. It is good that there is a general consensus that that is an area for which the Parliament should have responsibility. That default position—which is the normal position for Parliaments around the world—is only right, so I welcome the opportunity that the debate gives us to consider the substance of the proposals that are contained in the committee’s report.
The subject matter of the debate is clearly a matter for the Parliament, but I wish to take the opportunity to put the Government’s views on the record, which I hope will be helpful to the committee and to the Parliament as a whole.
I consider that the reform package that is proposed by the committee represents a significant and progressive step forward. It is good to re-emphasise what the convener said—the reform package is about making the regime more transparent and more robust. We already have transparent and robust procedures in place, but it is always appropriate for us to look at how they can be improved. It is correct that that is being done.
I am pleased to confirm that the Government is supportive of the committee’s proposals and that it considers it appropriate for a bill to be brought forward to implement them. It will, I believe, be the first committee bill for some time.
Members of the committee will recall that, during the consultation process, the Government identified two issues that it believed required careful consideration. The first was that of whether failure to register or declare an interest should no longer be a criminal offence, and the second was whether a rectification process should be introduced to deal separately with minor instances of non-compliance and thus avoid investigation of such cases by the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland.
In its response to the consultation, the Government put forward a number of arguments about the merits of implementing such policies. In particular, we were concerned that either move could be perceived as diluting the accountability of MSPs, and we therefore welcome the fact that, after careful consideration of the consultation responses, the committee has decided not to proceed with these measures.
As for the proposals that the committee seeks to implement, I particularly welcome the end of dual reporting of members’ financial interests to both the Parliament and the Electoral Commission. The benefits of this reform are twofold. First, it will streamline the registration process for MSPs, ending a confusing and potentially disruptive arrangement; and, secondly, it will provide the public with a single point of reference as well as a single complaints system for any perceived instances of non-compliance. Both benefits are very important. That said, it would be wrong to underestimate the challenges that the committee has faced in seeking to combine the two different registration schemes and the fact that it has done so without undermining the robustness of either scheme or adding unnecessary complexity is a significant achievement that I hope the whole Parliament will recognise.
The proposals also reflect the Parliament’s founding principles by seeking to deliver parity for MSPs. First of all, they seek to end dual reporting for independent members, despite existing statutory mechanisms being based on members of political parties, and—on the other side of the coin—require independent members to be made subject to the requirement on members of political parties to register controlled transactions such as a credit facility extended to an MSP for political activities.
Colleagues might find it useful to know that I have discussed the proposals with each of our present independent members. I note that none of them is going to speak in the debate—and I should make it clear that I do not seek to speak for them—but at no time did they indicate that the proposals were other than satisfactory.
I am sure that they would hold that view, because the committee has managed to ensure that the founding principle of treating all MSPs equally is fully reflected in the new guidance. It is very much indicative of the committee’s approach that the convener had those discussions with independent members, and the committee must also have worked very closely with the Electoral Commission in pulling together and developing these plans. That, too, should be welcomed, because we must ensure that, as well as sounding good here in the chamber, these proposals are robust and work in the real world. The committee has, without doubt, managed to achieve that in its deliberations.
The Government also welcomes the committee’s other reform proposals, namely reducing the financial threshold for registering gifts to what we and, obviously, the committee feel is a more appropriate level; giving the Parliament full flexibility over the imposition of sanctions in respect of any breach of the framework, together with the ability to agree a motion of censure; and extending the period of retention of old register entries from five to 10 years. These are all sensible proposals that the Government agrees with.
The Government recognises the amount of work that the committee has invested in the proposals in its report. That work is essential in ensuring that the members’ interests framework remains fit for purpose now and in future—and, indeed, that framework will become increasingly important as the Parliament’s competence evolves. The Government will also maintain its opposition to any moves to remove criminal offences from the 2006 act and indeed to any provision that suggests that minor indiscretions are acceptable under the framework. I am pleased that such proposals do not exist, and I hope that no one tries to introduce them at the amendment stage.
In conclusion, I reiterate that the Government welcomes the committee’s report, recognises the effort that has been involved and looks forward to the introduction of a bill that implements its recommendations.
16:14
As a new member of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee who was appointed to it after it had heard evidence on the proposed bill, I thank the members of the committee and the clerks for their support as I got up to speed with the issues.
I suspect that I will not be able to cover all the salient points of the report and its recommendations in the time that has been allotted to me, but I confirm at the outset that Scottish Labour supports the committee’s recommendations and would, in one area at least, like to go further.
Colleagues might be forgiven for thinking that issues such as the proposed members’ interests bill are not among the most important matters that Parliament might discuss, but the legislation, rules and standing orders on such subjects help to ensure that Parliament lives up to its founding principle of transparency. Therefore, we must be very careful when we consider change, and we must be confident that any change that we propose will make the system better.
It seems to me that the committee’s proposals are sensible and—perhaps as important—workable. I commend them for that. The proposed measures will help to streamline and clarify exactly what interests members have. They will also make it possible for advice to members to come from one source—the parliamentary clerks—rather than from two, as at present.
As we heard from the convener of the committee, the report suggests some changes to our current procedures. One of the most significant of the proposed changes is that we end dual reporting of financial interests. As we have heard, MSPs are currently required to report financial interests to the Electoral Commission as a condition of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, or PPERA, and they may also be required to report to Parliament. As a result, the recorded information can appear on the Electoral Commission’s website, the Parliament’s website or, in certain situations, on both. The committee’s proposals would end that dual reporting and suggest that all such information appear on the Parliament’s website.
Similarly, the current rules mean that advice to members can come from two different bodies, depending on the issue, and that anyone who seeks to check what a member’s interests are needs to check both sources. As a consequence, ending dual reporting will also end dual checking, which must be a good thing.
Currently, breaches of PPERA are investigated by the Electoral Commission, but sometimes breaches overlap the two currently separate regimes and, as such, are investigated by both the Electoral Commission and the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland. The committee has sensibly suggested that they should, in the future, be investigated by the commissioner alone, which is both a simpler way of working and much more transparent.
There is one complication in the sensible changes. Without also making changes to the Electoral Administration Act 2006, dual reporting would not be ended for independent members. It seemed to me—the committee took the same view—that all members of the Scottish Parliament must be treated in the same way. Therefore, as we have heard, the committee will seek to make the necessary alterations in due course.
With regard to the thresholds that apply to the register of interests, as we have heard, the committee proposes that the threshold for registering a gift be reduced from the current figure of £570 to £280, or 0.5 per cent of a member’s salary. That will bring it into line with a recommendation by the Council of Europe group of states against corruption—or GRECO, as it is known. It is worth noting that GRECO specifically mentioned in its report that it believes that the limits in the Scottish Parliament and those that are used by the House of Commons and the House of Lords are too high. We are not alone in proposing to reduce our threshold in line with the GRECO recommendations—both houses at Westminster also propose to do so.
The committee also proposes amending the threshold for registering remuneration. It is suggested that that should go to the same percentage as that for gifts. We support that, but think that there might need to be more discussion about the threshold for shareholdings, which currently seems to be a fairly significant figure.
As Parliament knows, members are required to register remuneration and related undertakings, gifts, overseas visits, interests from shares and heritable property. However, I think that the time has come when we have to ask ourselves whether that is sufficient. We know that there is no financial threshold for registering a remunerated role and that if the criteria are met and the remuneration is of any value then the role must be registered, and we also know that the code of conduct prohibits forms of paid employment that involve lobbying. However, is that enough? Should we not now be stating clearly that paid directorships or consultancies be banned? Would not that be a significant move to ensure that all our constituents understand just how seriously we take our positions and their concerns?
As the committee’s members know, my party leader, Jim Murphy, wrote to the Presiding Officer asking that the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee be asked to look at how we could implement a ban on members seeking employment as paid directors or consultants while sitting as MSPs. I sincerely believe that in taking forward this issue and the work that the committee is doing on lobbying, we should look for an opportunity to consider Mr Murphy’s proposal.
Will Patricia Ferguson take an intervention?
I am certainly happy to.
Very briefly, Mr Stevenson. I am afraid that the member is coming to a close.
That is fine.
No. Please carry on, but I had to remind the member that she is to come to a close.
Speaking personally and not as the committee convener, I take a different view from Patricia Ferguson on that issue, not because I do not think that more can be done but because I think that we should focus on what people do and not on what they are. We have only to look at the lobbying legislation at Westminster, which has legislated on people’s roles rather than on what they do, to see the muddle that can be got into. There is room for further debate, but perhaps not along the lines on which the member speaks.
I am not sure that in the time that is allotted to me I can fully respond to Mr Stevenson’s concerns. I was going to go on to say that I was really pleased following our discussion at committee that everyone on the committee agreed that we should do exactly what was suggested. I am not of a mind to say that we have to be prescriptive at this point, but I think that Mr Murphy makes a very valid point and that whatever we do must be open and transparent to the people whom we serve. At the end of the day, that must be the overriding concern of every single one of us. How we express that must be done in a way that is straightforward and clear to the people whom we seek to represent. I do not think that they understand the niceties that we sometimes debate in this chamber, but I think that it would be worth our while to have that debate in the SPPA Committee and the chamber, and I very much look forward to having it very soon.
16:25
There is so much to learn when a new member comes into the Parliament. I have to say that I found the rules and regulations of the SPPA Committee quite daunting, even with the undoubted expertise of our convener and his prehistorical memory of past procedures.
The dual reporting that we have to undergo, whereby we must register interests with Parliament and the Electoral Commission, seems to me to be as unnecessary as everybody has said it is. Our proposal is that members will register their interests in only one place—here, in the Scottish Parliament. That would prove to be a great help to members, especially new members like myself, because we can then approach the SPPAC clerks for advice no matter the level of interest concerned.
The consultation with the Electoral Commission has been extremely complex and there has been a lot of work for the committee to bring rules into our Parliament’s regime and make them more accessible. It would be helpful if the Electoral Commission, together with the SPPAC clerks, could brief new members at the start of the next parliamentary session so that we can all understand the new rules from the outset, because they are very complicated.
The second point that I want to make is that when the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland receives a complaint about an MSP’s having failed to register an interest and is made aware that a criminal offence—however small—has been committed, it must be reported to the procurator fiscal. Investigations then get held up until the procurator fiscal has ended his or her investigation either by a prosecution or by deciding not to prosecute. As far as I understand it, there have been no prosecutions, so I feel that Parliament can introduce an element of flexibility in relation to this criminal offence, particularly when the matter is small. No criminal proceedings have been initiated since the Parliament’s inception in 1999; I presume that that is because it has not been in the public interest to do so.
The Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament Act 2006 required that provision be made in section 39 of the Scotland Act 1998 to proscribe certain conduct, including failure to register or declare certain interests and paid advocacy, but it makes contravention of those provisions a criminal offence. However, the Scotland Act 2012 amended section 39 to give the Scottish Parliament more flexibility in relation to the imposition of sanctions and the criminal offence attached to the failure to register or declare an interest, with options ranging from removing the criminal offence to providing for a reasonable excuse for more minor breaches.
I therefore feel that Parliament could introduce an element of flexibility in relation to the criminal offence. That should in no way be interpreted as being lenient or as weakening the punitive aspects of members’ interests rules. Another way would be not to make a criminal offence mandatory but to leave it to the discretion of the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland as he sees fit.
There are other ways of strengthening Parliament’s powers to deal with breaches, including motions of censure or withdrawal of members’ rights and privileges—again, without it necessarily becoming a criminal offence. It would also mean that breaches or complaints could be dealt with more speedily and, if necessary, be resolved in shorter timescales. There could still be a need for prosecution for serious breaches of the rules. Such breaches would then be reported to the procurator fiscal, but it is all about deciding and not defining what constitutes a serious breach of parliamentary rules. The committee has taken the views of others into account and has agreed not to change the criminal offence at this time, but it is something that I believe should be considered again in the future, for the reasons I have outlined today.
Two members wish to contribute in the open debate. I call Gil Paterson.
16:26
Before I start, Presiding Officer, I wonder whether you will indulge me, since this is my first opportunity to speak. I want to record a personal message of sympathy for the family of my friend Tom McCabe. He was a good friend and a good colleague.
I want to say something similar to what Cameron Buchanan said. At present, when a complaint comes in in respect of a member’s interests, the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland conducts an in-depth investigation, and if a breach is found there is an automatic referral to the procurator fiscal. I have raised that issue in committee since the first session of Parliament, but this is the first time that I have brought it to the chamber. I am conscious that no matter how trivial the matter is, there is no discretion at the hand of the commissioner. As has been pointed out, since Parliament started in 1999, there has been almost no comment on matters that have been referred to the fiscal. In a political sense, that is a problem for members, because some people think that when someone is referred to the fiscal there is no smoke without fire. That is something that we should look at.
Just a few weeks ago, such a minor breach was brought to and dealt with by the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. That minor breach was investigated thoroughly by the commissioner, and because it was agreed to be a breach it was passed to the fiscal’s office, although no action was taken. Yet again, the fiscal’s time was wasted, in my view.
We have a commissioner who completely investigates all such matters—it is not the case that he sees them as trivial; if he finds on investigation that a breach has been committed he has to move it on—so I think that it would be much better to allow the commissioner, who is already doing that good work, to have discretion to deal with minor breaches as he does now, but to report directly to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee for sanctions. I am confident that the commissioner has the expertise and experience in that regard. The committee is fully supportive of the strongest possible system of standards, and my colleagues have adequately described that. In no way is the committee reducing accountability and transparency for the public. I support everything that has been said and the committee’s report.
I certainly do not want to weaken in any way the robust standards regime that we have. It speaks for itself. I do believe, however, that it is worth considering the matter and that we should ask the best people to look into it. For me, the best people are the commissioner and the Procurator Fiscal Service, who can give their considered opinions. There might be good reasons why the way in which we do things at present is the only way—I do not know. There may be a legal or administrative imperative whereby we would damage the system if we changed it in any way. If that is the case, I would not support the change, but I would certainly be grateful for the benefit of the knowledge of the commissioner and the Procurator Fiscal Service, and would ask them to consider the matter on behalf of Parliament.
16:31
I note that the lowering of the threshold for registered gifts is being undertaken to comply with the recommendation of the group of states against corruption, GRECO, which is a monitoring body including all members of the Council of Europe as well as the United States and Belarus. Not only did GRECO state that it thought that the threshold for MSPs—along with those for members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords—was “rather high”, but it noted:
“This state of affairs is particularly worrying because ... there are no restrictions on the acceptance of gifts without regard to whether they are required to be registered.”
As an institution, the Parliament has always striven to operate with the highest standards of propriety, so it is right and proper that we should take on board that recommendation and that the threshold should be reduced to 0.5 per cent.
The GRECO report seems to have missed the advice that MSPs are already given about accepting gifts. I think that we have fairly explicit arrangements, especially when it comes to the advice on commercial lobbyists, which could be summarised as, “If you’re in any doubt, don’t.”
When it comes to the proposal to streamline the reporting requirements, it is clearly a commonsense approach to rationalise from two systems to one. Why have two reports for MSPs to make, two places for the public to search, two places for people to complain and overlaps because of dual reporting when we could make life easier for all concerned with one report, one search and one place to go for those who believe that the requirements have not been met?
Although most breaches of the reporting requirements since 1999 have been relatively minor and have generally been oversights, as the Parliament has been able to deal with them through the sanctions that it possesses, it is important that the option of prosecution is retained to deal with any serious offence. To do otherwise would be to undermine the importance that we as a Parliament attach to openness and transparency in the actions of elected members. That is particularly important for anyone who undertakes paid advocacy work.
On the question of the retention of records, 10 years seems not unreasonable to me, and I can think of no good reason why records for the previous two sessions of the Parliament should not be publicly available.
Although the committee has taken on board most of the GRECO recommendations, the exception—the issue on which we might consider going further—concerns the matter of shareholdings. GRECO considered that
“a Member may be more influenced by the effect of a matter on his/her stocks than by the receipt of a payment for a speech”.
I note that the committee decided that the level was right “on balance”. The decision seems to be based on the levels for the Lords and the Commons being higher, and on those for the Northern Ireland Assembly being only a few grand lower.
I am not sure whether there are any other arguments against the level being lower. I know that few, if any, of my constituents would regard having £28,000 in company shares as an insignificant financial interest. Although that is below our threshold, there could be several such holdings without any needing to be registered. Perhaps that could be addressed when the committee’s deputy convener sums up.
16:35
It is not worth saying much more than that, in the words of Nicholas Parsons, there should be no repetition, no duplication and no hesitation. I do not think that there is anything else to say. We all agree and we should not say any more.
That gives me a little bit of time in hand for the rest of the closing speeches, if members wish to use it.
16:36
I, too, thank the members of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee for their work in producing the draft bill and the work that they are committed to doing to make the register of interests more transparent and the standards regime more robust.
I also thank Gil Paterson for his comments about Tom McCabe. He was instrumental in ensuring that the rules of Parliament served us well for many years.
As my colleagues Patricia Ferguson and John Pentland have said, the Labour Party fully supports the aims of having more transparency and the highest possible standards. People deserve and need to have faith and trust in those who are elected to serve them. We therefore need a system of members’ interests that is fully transparent and which expects the highest standards of its members.
Labour is fully committed to transparency and openness. That is why, for example, my colleague Neil Findlay proposed that there should be a lobbying bill. As well as members’ interests, there needs to be proper scrutiny of lobbying that applies to members and Government ministers. Following Mr Findlay’s proposals, the Government said that it would legislate in that area and I hope that we will see some movement on the issue in the near future.
I welcome the fact that, in producing the draft bill, the committee has engaged in lengthy discussions with the independent Electoral Commission. I hope and anticipate that that will continue. Simplifying the reporting process appears to be sensible. Not having dual reporting will hopefully allow increased transparency as members will have registered their interests in one place. Such measures should be helpful to members and, crucially, to those people who scrutinise us. I also support lowering the threshold for registering gifts. I understand that the GRECO group recommended that and I note that there are proposals in the House of Commons to lower the existing threshold.
The member will have noted that a few references have been made to paid advocacy. Would it be useful for us all to think about what “paid” means? It is not just about cash; it is about reward or the future prospect of reward. In other words, it is about a benefit that is to be derived.
I hope that the member will agree that, as we take the bill forward, we might examine carefully what we mean when we talk about pay so that our colleagues do not get confused and inadvertently transgress the rules, and so that we can be sure that the public are aware of where we are coming from when we talk about paid advocacy. I am sure that there is a huge measure of agreement between us on that point.
Yes, and I anticipate that the committee will consider those issues. As my colleague Patricia Ferguson said, the public sometimes do not appreciate the niceties and the nuances.
As Patricia Ferguson also said, in supporting the recommendations we must consider whether we can do even more. Further consideration of the issue of shareholdings is certainly one thing that must be done.
Members are aware that, in February, Jim Murphy spoke out about the issue of second jobs for MSPs and MPs. Mr Murphy wrote to the Presiding Officer to ask that the committee consider introducing a ban on members seeking employment as paid directors or consultants while sitting as MSPs. I do not believe that the public will accept inaction on this issue and, therefore, we need to consider how best and how quickly that can be achieved. Our first and last role is to represent the people who elect us, not outside consultants or companies. We cannot afford to give any other impression.
If we accept the principle that there should not be outside jobs, why should there be a ban only on MSPs or MPs being directors or consultants? Why not a ban on everything? It seems rather odd to choose two particular professions out of the wide range of professions that might be available to us.
Those are two roles that could have an impact on the public’s perception with regard to conflicts of interest. The committee should certainly start to consider the issue. Those are two examples of roles on which the committee should look to introduce a ban.
Any measures that are aimed at improving transparency should be applied fully to Government ministers as well as to other members. The United Kingdom Government publishes online its ministers’ register of interests, but I do not believe that the Scottish Government does the same. Last June, I asked the Scottish Parliament information centre to check that out and it replied that it had
“contacted the office of the Permanent Secretary who confirmed that the Scottish Government does maintain a register but it is not published.”
Why is it not published? All members of this Parliament have their register of interests published and UK Government ministers have their register of interests published, so I find it inexplicable that Scottish Government ministers, in their capacity as ministers, do not. Not only have they failed to publish a register, but they have even rejected a freedom of information request that was made in 2010 by the Sunday Herald. I find that odd, and I would like to ask the minister for his view on that.
I thank the committee members for the work that they have done so far on these important issues. Labour will support efforts to improve transparency and to have higher standards in relation to members’ interests, but we will also look at whether what is proposed goes far enough and consider in which areas we could do more. I look forward to the committee considering those issues and will support it in its deliberations.
16:43
This has been a good and consensual debate that has reflected the approach that the committee has taken to moving forward on the issue. There has been general support for what the committee proposes for the members’ interests framework. I repeat that the Government sees the proposals as sensible and clear and believes that a relevant approach has been adopted that will benefit not only members of the Parliament but members of the public, as it will enable them to understand the process better.
John Pentland made good points about gifts and the benefit of doing away with dual reporting in that regard. What he said was important.
I should have started by concurring with Gil Paterson’s comments and associating myself with his expression of condolences to Tom McCabe’s family. Mr McCabe was the first minister with responsibility for parliamentary business—the post was called Minister for Parliament then—and he did us a great service in laying the groundwork for that role. I knew him as a member of the Finance Committee, and I think that he is one of the members of the Parliament who have commanded respect across the political spectrum. He was a really honest guy and a person who folk could trust and go to for advice, irrespective of what party they were in. He will be sadly missed by everyone in the chamber and by those who are no longer here.
Cameron Buchanan made a useful suggestion about new members. Although it is important that we have good, robust procedures in place, it is also important that we all understand them. As one of our newest members of the Parliament, he will most acutely remember what it was like to come into this fantastic chamber and these fantastic buildings and work out for himself how he was going to get on. At the start of a session, there is a more orchestrated induction process for MSPs, but we should always listen to suggestions about how such things can be improved. Perhaps involving the Electoral Commission in that in the future would be a good thing.
Mr Bibby made points about ministers. To be clear, ministers are required to register interests in the same way as any other member is. He also asked about our situation with lobbying. Although those are two different aspects, particularly when we are talking about paid advocacy, there is clearly a crossover, and the Government is grateful to the committee for the work that it put into considering how we might introduce a lobbying register.
I put it on the record that the Government is committed to introducing a lobbying transparency bill before the end of the parliamentary session. That commitment has been reiterated several times—most recently in our programme for government and the debate in the chamber.
Our bill will continue the process of consultation and trying to pull everyone on side. There will therefore be a consultation and dialogue with all interested parties. We are speaking to political parties to ensure that, when we move to consult, we have the broadest consensus possible in the chamber and across the political parties. However, members should rest absolutely assured that we will introduce the bill in this parliamentary session.
I am aware that ministers need to complete a register of ministers’ interests. Why is that not published online and publicly available? Does the minister believe that it should be?
Ministers have to fill out the parliamentary register of members’ interests in the same way as every other member does. They are not exempt from any of the parliamentary rules, so that provision exists for everyone. The Parliament does not distinguish between members who are ministers and members who are not ministers. The register of interests exists and is public.
I contacted SPICe about the issue. It said that the Scottish Government maintains its own register of interests for ministers, which is not published. Will the minister shed light on that?
Although there are perhaps other registers, all ministers are obliged to comply with the same rules as every other member of the Parliament is. Ministers go further, in that they publish details of meetings and events as well. It is not a ministerial register of interests, because ministers register their interests as members in the same way as everyone else does.
It would be helpful if the minister clarified whether there is a ministerial register—that is the point. If there is, why is it not published? A member could have, for example, a shareholding in a private health company that was not registrable because it was below the threshold. That might be regarded as not being an interest but, if that member happened to be a health minister, it would absolutely be an interest that people outside the Parliament and we as members would want to know about.
I have to hurry you along.
There can be a bit of a disparity and it would be helpful to have clarification.
The test is the public test of what a person in the street would consider to be a registrable interest. If a health secretary had shares in a health company, I think that any reasonable person would see that as a registrable interest, so it should be registrable. However, I will check whether there is a gap someplace. If there is, clearly we should look at that.
Patricia Ferguson made interesting points about shareholdings and what the threshold should be. The committee report shows why the committee thinks that the current levels are correct. There is a reasonable argument to be made for perhaps looking again at the threshold. That would clearly be a matter for the committee.
I cannot believe that the Presiding Officer is indicating that I am short of time, but—
I am sorry, but I am trying to protect the time for the committee closing speech.
Okay—sorry. I need to pick up on two points. There was some suggestion that we should have a rectification procedure; the Government would argue against any such safety-net mechanism. We are concerned about the notion of minor complaints and feel that such a message should be avoided. It could create confusion.
As I said in my opening speech, we would be very much against the idea of moving away from criminal offences, because of probity. The signal that that would send to members of the public would be entirely wrong. Although the Parliament has not been involved in any of the mire that we have seen elsewhere, moving away from having the criminal offences would send out the wrong message, so we would be very much against it. Thank you for your forbearance, Presiding Officer.
Margaret McDougall will wind up the debate on behalf of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee.
16:52
I have enjoyed listening to the speeches in this short but important debate. I thank members for their contributions and the clerks for their support in preparing the bill. The convener and other committee members have explained much of what is in the bill. As the committee’s deputy convener, I will cover three proposals: expanding the paid advocacy offence; ending dual reporting for independent members; and retaining members’ register entries.
As we have heard, the Parliament’s standards regime is robust. Members take seriously the responsibility to register financial interests. However, we should never be complacent. There is always room for reform and improvement. That is what the committee hopes the bill will achieve.
Paid advocacy means in effect an MSP taking up a cause or matter in return for reward. I highlight that, since 1999, no member has ever been found to have breached the prohibition on paid advocacy. However, in the spirit of ensuring that the Parliament’s regime is as robust as it can be, the committee proposes to extend the offence of paid advocacy.
At the moment, a member has to receive the payment or benefit before it is considered an offence. The committee’s proposals will extend the provision so that it will be an offence for a member to agree to accept payment in return for advocating a cause, whether or not they go on to receive the payment or benefit. Those changes are along the lines of changes made in the Bribery Act 2010 and represent a further strengthening of the Parliament’s standards regime.
As for the treatment of independent members in ending dual reporting, the convener spoke about the committee’s proposals for ending dual reporting. Section 59 of the Electoral Administration Act 2006—the section that will exempt members from PPERA reporting once it is commenced—was intended to remove the requirement for elected members to report donations to the Electoral Commission.
However, the section covers only elected members who are members of political parties. If that section was commenced as it stands, dual reporting would end for MSPs who are members of political parties, but independent members would still be required to report donations to both the Electoral Commission and the Parliament.
The committee’s initial view was that it would not be possible to end dual reporting for independent members, as they were expressly excepted from the relevant legal mechanism for ending dual reporting. However, we were concerned about that, since we consider it highly desirable that all members should be treated equally. We therefore revisited the issue and concluded that legislative changes should be made to allow the ending of dual reporting for independent members.
The draft bill that is included with our report does not yet include that amendment. However, we have been discussing possible changes with the Electoral Commission and the UK Cabinet Office. Our aim is to include the necessary amendments in the bill as it is introduced to end dual reporting for all members.
The third committee proposal that I will highlight is on publishing and retaining the register of interests. The Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament Act 2006 states:
“the Clerk shall keep a copy of the old entries for a period of 5 years from the date of making the last amendment.”
That means that members’ entries are disposed of when the five-year period has passed.
A number of MSPs found during the initial registration process at the start of session 4 that they did not consider that the prejudice test applied to some of the interests that they had registered in the previous session. On that basis, there was no requirement for them to include those interests in the register for the new session. However, since their old entries from the previous session were no longer available to view, they felt that they should include those interests to ensure that they remained in the public domain.
Snapshots of the register from the previous session are now available online to try to address that point. However, the committee felt that it would be helpful to amend the 2006 act to make it clear that registers may be kept for a longer period—[Interruption.]
Order, please. Members are a bit loud.
The registers provide a history of information about things such as members’ external employment or significant gifts to members, which is of genuine public interest. Researchers may want access to registers from earlier sessions in the future, and it would provide a more complete picture of the Parliament and its members if they were made available as a historic record.
The committee proposes a 10-year retention period for old entries. That means, for example, that people could still refer to the old register for a member who was not re-elected in one session but was then returned in the following session. The intention is that old entries would be held only for the 10-year period and would then be transferred to National Records of Scotland for historic preservation—[Interruption.]
Order, please. I ask members to respect the fact that the committee member is concluding the debate.
Gil Paterson and Cameron Buchanan talked about the committee’s original proposal to remove the criminal offence for failure to register or to declare an interest.
I say to correct the record that I made no such claim. That is not what I said. I said that the commissioner should look at minor offences. I also said that I would not support anything that would disturb the system in any way and would not work.
I will have to check the record to see what Gil Paterson actually said.
The committee felt that such breaches could be dealt with using parliamentary sanctions, which are robust. However, following consultation, the committee took on board the point that such a change could be seen as making our system more lenient, and we decided not to change the criminal offence provisions at this time. However, as those members highlighted, there may be a case at some point in the future for considering whether more discretion is needed.
You must draw to a close.
I remind members how important it is that we have a robust and wide range of measures in place to deal with breaches of the rules. The Scottish Parliament has seen very few breaches, and we want to keep it that way.
The proposals to extend the offence of paid advocacy, to add new sanctions for breaches and to ensure that rights and privileges can be withdrawn when appropriate will make our regime stronger. The message is clear: the Parliament has the power to punish members for serious breaches of the rules and it will use those powers if it needs to do so. This is a comprehensive set of measures that will improve what is already a robust standards regime. The committee asks members to support the motion and agree that the bill can be introduced.
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