Plenary, 29 Jun 2005

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Official Report 837KB pdf

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Point of Order

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. It has been brought to my attention that one of the senior members of this Parliament, who is not on the Justice 1 Committee, may have received a draft copy of a report on the Family Law (Scotland) Bill, which is currently being discussed confidentially by the Justice 1 Committee.

In the light of rule 12.8.3 of the standing orders, which states that publication will be by the Parliament's clerk, will you confirm that no such report has been received by the clerk and that no such report has yet been published?

Further, in the light of paragraph 9.4.2 of the code of conduct for members, which states that

"All drafts of Committee reports should be kept confidential",

will you indicate whether it would be a prima facie breach of standing orders 12.8.3 and 14.3.1, which govern publication, for any person not being a member of the committee and not being the clerk to publish, or to appear to use in any way whatever, material derived from a committee report that is not yet published by the laid down procedure?

I thank Mr Stevenson for giving me advance notice of his point of order. I preface my remarks by saying that I have no knowledge of the detail of the matter to which Mr Stevenson refers. I understand that the Justice 1 Committee is still in the process of agreeing a draft report, so no report has yet been published. Any leak of a draft committee report is a serious matter, but it is not one in which I can intervene directly. Therefore, Mr Stevenson should raise the matter directly with the committee in the first instance.