Chamber and committees

You are the bellwether in the seminar, Tom.

Cristina, you have already mentioned the Danish Parliament, which is not dissimilar to the Scottish Parliament. Are there any other examples of places that we can look at to see the importance of the cultural connection in committees as one piece of evidence that a committee is successful?

I will go back—I am sorry, Paul, do you want to come in?

I will not put that to the committee at the moment, if that is all right. I am conscious of the time, so we will move on to the questions on conveners.

I thank the witnesses very much for their contributions today. I reiterate my comment that, if thoughts come to you afterwards, even while you are on the way out today, you should please feed them back to the clerks.

That brings the public part of the meeting to a close.

That is very helpful. Interestingly, you talked about the resource imbalance. If there were unlimited resources, we could say, “Great, let’s have a massive Parliament and a massive Government.” However, is there something in the procedures about the timing of things? Could resource be created by lengthening the time between things?

We are looking at committee effectiveness. Part of that is to do with when committees get bills to scrutinise. Is there something to be said for looking at that wider issue? You mentioned the four-year session. We are now in the fourth year and approaching the fifth year of our session of Parliament. That latter stage is when a bulk of legislation always comes through, which is understandable. Is it worth looking at those timeframes and making them more explicit in order to balance out things? Would it be reasonable for a Government to have to operate under that constraint?

I am sure that we will come to that in the range of issues that we want to talk about.

In our previous evidence session for our inquiry, there was an interesting discussion about whom committees have a responsibility to. There was also a fascinating discussion about the perspective of the public being made front and centre in the work of committees, particularly with regard to scrutiny.

I have a broader question for all the panel members. Is there a view that the Scottish Parliament is achieving the prioritisation of public issues over party-political issues and the subjective issues of MSPs? Are we giving enough weight to what is worrying the public?

Ken Hughes, do you want to chip in?

We have an outward-looking vehicle that reaches out to the public: the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. By many accounts, it is well received and effective. Do we need to take the next step, which is to use the skills that we have to be outward-looking in involving the public—including in the Parliament building—and mine that resource for the purpose of bill scrutiny at a much more specific individual committee level? Would that assist?

Can the specialism, expertise and brilliant support given to committees offset the lack of expertise among MSPs who sit on committees? Is that a safe counterbalance, or should MSPs have a level of expertise in relation to committee work?

I do not know who wants to have a go at that question.

Our second item is the second in a series of four oral evidence sessions in our committee effectiveness inquiry. The inquiry is seeking to answer the question of whether changes to the Parliament’s procedures and practices would help committees to work more effectively. Our call for written views from political parties, committees and individual members of the Scottish Parliament closes on Friday 4 April. The call for views from the public runs until Tuesday 22 April. Today, we are seeking to explore committee effectiveness in the context of the culture of the Scottish Parliament, as well as to gather broader perspectives on issues that were raised in our previous session, on 20 March, which focused on how committees are viewed externally and how their impact is evaluated.

We are joined online by our committee inquiry adviser, Dr Danielle Beswick. I welcome the members of the panel: Professor Paul Cairney, professor of politics and public policy at the University of Stirling; Dr Tom Caygill, senior lecturer in politics at Nottingham Trent University; Ken Hughes, former assistant chief executive at the Scottish Parliament; and Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira, professor of politics at the University of Leeds.

This is a round-table evidence session. Although there will be the usual approach of questions from members to witnesses, it is intended that there will be opportunity for discussion between the witnesses in order to encourage a more open and free-flowing session. There is no expectation that all witnesses will answer all questions. Anyone who wishes to come in on a question or on a response made by another witness should indicate that and I will bring you in at the appropriate moment.

We move to questions, and it falls to me, as convener, to kick things off. My opening gambit is to Professor Cairney. I know that you have done a huge amount of work on Government legislation and on the valuability of achievement of the scrutiny of that legislation. In the past, you have been critical of the effectiveness of that scrutiny. Does that view still stand, or have you seen changes that have improved things? Perhaps you have seen changes the other way.

It was constructive.