Plenary, 28 Sep 2006
Meeting date: Thursday, September 28, 2006
Official Report
754KB pdf
Complaint
The next item of business is consideration of motion S2M-4846, in the name of Brian Adam, on behalf of the Standards and Public Appointments Committee, on a breach of the code of conduct for MSPs.
The details of the complaint and investigation by the Scottish parliamentary standards commissioner are set out in the report published last week by the Standards and Public Appointments Committee.
The complaint against Mr Pringle was that a submission that was circulated to all members of the Justice 1 Committee, which the committee had agreed would be published at a future date, was shown to a journalist prior to its publication.
What is important is not the fact that the information was put in the public domain—the Standards and Public Appointments Committee accepts that the information was always destined to be in the public domain—but the timing of the release of the information. The Justice 1 Committee had discussed and decided on the timing of release. It was not in the gift of any individual member of that committee to decide to pre-empt that agreement.
The Standards and Public Appointments Committee noted that the commissioner's investigation was assisted by Mr Pringle's voluntary admission to the convener of the Justice 1 Committee. As members will be aware, there have been complaints in previous years about the leaking of documents from various committees. Investigations into such leaks are notoriously difficult. In this instance, that problem was resolved by Mr Pringle's admission. However, the fact that investigations have not been conducted in the past does not mean that we should condone or tolerate the leaking of documents.
The code of conduct sets out some of the circumstances in which documents might be considered private and why it is important that that privacy is respected.
In arriving at its decision to agree with the findings and conclusion of the commissioner and recommend to Parliament a sanction, the Standards and Public Appointments Committee agreed that the sanction should be proportionate and reasonable. The committee wanted to relate the breach of the code to the proposed sanction, but in so doing had no wish to harm the inquiry that the Justice 1 Committee is still undertaking; nor did we wish to stop the member carrying out work in his constituency. The sanction proposed is short, but we believe that it is proportionate and reasonable.
We do not act out of malice, but want to send a signal. All members should be cautious in their actions and think of the possible consequences. Therefore, the Standards and Public Appointments Committee recommends to Parliament that Mr Pringle be excluded from all meetings of the Parliament and all meetings of its committees for the first five sitting days immediately after the motion is agreed.
I move,
That the Parliament notes the 2nd Report, 2006 (Session 2) of the Standards and Public Appointments Committee, Complaint against Mike Pringle MSP (SP Paper 636) and agrees to impose the sanction recommended in the report that Mike Pringle MSP be excluded from all meetings of the Parliament and all meetings of its committees for the first five sitting days immediately after this motion is agreed.
I make it clear that I wish Mike Pringle no ill will—indeed, I will oppose the motion. However, I could not, in all conscience, let the motion go without comment. It is worrying that motions such as this are not debated in the chamber.
It is proposed to ban Mike Pringle for one week, with no loss of pay and no loss of allowances for what the Standards and Public Appointments Committee has judged to be quite a serious breach of the code of conduct—a breach of confidentiality. I do not wish to judge whether the committee's conclusions are correct, because I do not profess to know enough of the detail. It is important not to judge in haste.
I pose the question to the committee and Parliament whether they honestly believe that they are conducting their business fairly, consistently and proportionately and upholding the laws of natural justice.
Last year, as the world's biggest terrorist visited our country and the Government was busy trying to co-opt and weaken the campaign and demands to make poverty history—I hope that members will respect my right to freedom of speech—this Parliament's decision to uphold the right to peaceful protest at Gleneagles was wilfully ignored by the Executive and my colleagues and I exercised our right to peaceful protest by holding up messages written on paper in the chamber. For doing so, the hasty and internationally unprecedented sanction of a month's ban, wages and allowances deductions and a fine of £30,000 was imposed without a hearing or without people thinking through the consequences. A precedent was set that could, if it is replicated, have horrific consequences.
It is clear to me that the system does not produce consistent, proportionate, fair and just outcomes. I sincerely hope that, now that time has passed and everybody has settled down a wee bit, members will have the intelligence, courage and vision to acknowledge their mistakes and ensure that no such injustice ever occurs again.
I will comment briefly on what has been said. Your fate as a result of attempting to disrupt freedom of speech in the chamber was, of course, recommended by the Standards and Public Appointments Committee and agreed to by the Parliament. That matter has been dealt with and is not relevant to the matter that is before the Parliament.