Plenary, 29 Nov 2006
Meeting date: Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Official Report
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Points of Order
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I want to ask about the conduct of the Executive parties in the Parliamentary Bureau with regard to my Commissioner for Older People (Scotland) Bill.
I have adhered to both the letter and the spirit of the standing orders, as well as the founding principles of the Parliament. The way in which members' bills have been dealt with recently is frankly unacceptable. There has been a deliberate attempt by the Executive parties to butcher the bills and put them into the long grass. That fails to live up to the basic principles of the Parliament.
Presiding Officer, I beg that you reopen the issue, because we expect you to defend the interests of back-bench members and individual members in every respect. I hope that you will take up the matter with the bureau and ask it to come to its senses and reconsider.
The role of the Minister for Parliamentary Business is not just to represent the Labour Party, but to ensure that we adhere to the founding principles of the Parliament.
Further to that point of order, Presiding Officer. I introduced my Home Energy Efficiency Targets (Scotland) Bill on 19 September, with cross-party support from 40 MSPs. That is well over a third of those members eligible to sign their support, and one of the highest levels of support for any member's bill in this session.
The bill would do what the title suggests: improve energy efficiency levels in Scotland's homes in order to reduce energy use. As such, it clearly lies within the energy efficiency remit of the Enterprise and Culture Committee. It would also tackle fuel poverty, which comes under the remit of the Communities Committee. The bill thus falls within the remit of two committees equally.
The Greens argued that the bill should be referred to the Enterprise and Culture Committee because the Communities Committee was clearly overburdened with legislation following the Executive's decision to ask Parliament to change that committee's remit to cover the Executive's Schools (Health Promotion and Nutrition) (Scotland) Bill—a bill that clearly fell under the remit of either the Health Committee or the Education Committee rather than the Communities Committee. Despite that, the Parliamentary Bureau referred my bill to the Communities Committee, which has understandably ruled that it does not have time to consider it.
Presiding Officer, I ask you for a ruling on the criteria that you and the bureau use, or should use, when considering which committee a bill is referred to. Do you take into account the committee's workload and whether it is likely to be able to examine the bill? Do you agree that it would be appropriate to consider re-referring the bill to a committee that has sufficient time and whose remit covers the bill?
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I stand to seek support for the Treatment of Drug Users (Scotland) Bill to be considered again. It has been dropped from the agenda because of the shortage of time in the Health Committee.
I would like to move a motion to have the bill considered by the Health Committee or a substitute committee under rule 9.6.1 of the standing orders, which states that the lead committee
"shall consider and report on the general principles of the Bill."
We are bringing the Parliament into disrepute by leaving members with no choice but to make points of order about their bills. My bill met the timescales given, the consultation was wide, and the responses to it were hugely in favour. Drug treatment and rehabilitation is a huge issue in our communities, and the bill should be heard. I would like to move that motion, and I would like the Parliamentary Bureau to reconsider the bill and the Procedures Committee to examine the situation.
I thank the members for giving prior notification of the points of order.
As members are aware, the bureau has considered the matter on several occasions, including at its meeting yesterday, which I attended. While recognising the concerns that have been raised, the bureau has confirmed its earlier decision not to set deadlines for the bills. However, I understand that the Procedures Committee is examining the management of members' bills; I hope that that will address the issues in the forthcoming session. I cannot reopen the matter, and I suggest that we move on.