Chamber and committees

I am happy to speak to where my thinking on that broadly is. This is not necessarily finalised, and I am happy to hear what people think. There absolutely does not have to be a grace period. I am also happy to speak to where we might end up on regulations for councillors.

I do not think that the grace period should be the same for each cohort. When he made the proposals, Mr Simpson proffered a period of eight days for MPs and peers. Having spoken with IPSA, I think that we could work with such a system, but I am beginning to think that it would be preferable to have a slightly longer period for MPs, which might be tied to the period between the election and the summer recess, largely for the practical matter of an MP winding up their office in an orderly fashion, although IPSA informed me that that is built into the system already.

We have absolutely no ability to legislate for what IPSA might put in place or what the rules might be for the House of Commons, so the system could change. To go back to a point that I made earlier about future proofing systems, it would be sensible for us to have a short grace period that is probably a little longer than eight days.

My exception would relate to the situation where, for example someone is elected as a councillor—

That is no problem.

By and large, I think that the answer is no, for practical reasons. There might be exceptions in relation to certain allowances, such as for setting up an office. I have not drawn a specific conclusion on that; it could be more hassle than it is worth, although that must be balanced against the question of why, if a person decides not to quit as an MP, we would let them set up an office for a few weeks. That is something that we need to grapple with.

The more fundamental questions are around a person’s ability to participate in parliamentary proceedings. I do not think that we should limit that for the very practical reason that that would impact the selection of the Parliament’s nominee for First Minister and parliamentarians’ ability to determine who the Presiding Officer and the Deputy Presiding Officers were and who should hold ministerial office. That takes us into real questions around the public having elected the Parliament on a specific, proportionate basis, which should be reflected. It would add a level of complication that would not be helpful.

We have not considered that. Again, that would add another layer of complication. Those are issues on which we would be guided by practical considerations. Realistically, although we would have a prescribed period in which a person must state their intentions, I would be surprised if a person was appointed to ministerial office if they did not give an early indication that they intended to leave the institution.

I will be perfectly candid. I am grappling with my personal perspective and what I think the Parliament might expect. That is where I am now.

There is a complicating factor. It is not for me to say who the committee should take evidence from, but I found it useful to take evidence from the people who I have mentioned, and I am sure that the committee would, too. The clerk from the House of Lords said that their processes have changed. A leave of absence used to be from parliamentary session to parliamentary session; the process now has to do be done each and every year. That would be another complicating factor for us. Who is checking that here? That is something else that we need to consider.

As I grapple with my perspective, the other factor is that far more people who responded to the consultation said that the person should resign from the Lords than said that they should take a leave of absence.

We would be naive to suggest that politics will not come into the process; that is the nature of the process in which we participate. It could ultimately only be put to the test if we institute such a system.

Otherwise, unfortunately, we would have to go through the process of a recall, which we all would hope not to happen. However, if we consider those recalls that have taken place—we have only one experience of that in respect of the Westminster system in Scotland, and my experience of that recall was that people were focused on the conduct of the individual member. I am struggling to think why that would be any different if the process related to a regional member rather than to a constituency representative. Ultimately, we would only know that if we had to go through the experience.

We said that with particular reference to one area, and it is largely predicated on the experience that we are going through right now, in which the Parliament has instructed the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body to go away and consider the process that we have for sanctioning an individual MSP. It alludes to the fact that we need to be careful that we do not prescribe a specific process in the bill.

Through that memorandum, we were offering prompts for the committee to consider. The committee and the Parliament have to consider whether the bill should be overly prescriptive about that process, or whether we should recognise that, right now, for instance, the corporate body is considering a potential change to the process and might make recommendations on that, so we might want to have the ability to reflect those in any process of recall that is instituted.

I only proffered the example of the corporate body process because we are going through that right now, but, inevitably, standing orders and processes change, develop and adapt all the time. That is the only thing that the memorandum was referencing.

If I picked up the question correctly, the point about whether it should be done by secondary legislation or whether there should be a reference to standing orders, the development of which is an iterative process, takes us back to the point about future proofing. We should not second guess what the corporate body will recommend. Its process is under way, which is welcome. I suppose that it is theoretically possible that a recommendation will come forth that there is no need for change. However, the process that we have means that we would need to consider a change to our standing orders.

I say again that the Government does not have a specific perspective on the issue, so I am only proffering these ideas as suggestions to be explored. I think that the committee needs to grapple with whether the bill should include a reference to our standing orders or whether these things could be done through secondary legislation. Both approaches are possible.

We have not taken a specific view on that. The fundamental issue that we are grappling with is that, if a person who was elected to represent a constituency was recalled, I do not think that we could do anything other than enable them to stand in any subsequent by-election, but there is no by-election process in place for regions. Mr Simpson has proffered a solution earnestly and in good faith, I believe, and the question is whether that should be reflected in the system. That is something for the Parliament to grapple with; the Government does not have a view on it.