Chamber and committees

I think that Mark Ruskell has the next question as well.

I am sure that a lot has happened since then.

Okay. So there are still on-going discussions.

You could consult them to see whether that would work.

Might it therefore be more important to have the ability to offset that across the whole of the United Kingdom rather than just in Scottish waters, or is that not the case?

Your point about the fact that you got the bill the day before it was introduced is interesting to me, cabinet secretary. It would help me to understand, and it might help the committee, if you could share with us the letter of 9 August that you sent to the UK Government. I cannot see it online. Perhaps I have missed it, but perhaps you could send it to us so that we have an idea of the substantive questions that you raised at that stage that have not been answered.

I thank you and your officials for your time and for coming to the committee.

That concludes the public part of our meeting, so we will move into private session.

I do not want to kick off; I want to have a reasoned discussion. Ever since becoming a member of this committee, I have voiced concerns about the amount of work that cross-party groups require from MSPs. In trying to support CPGs, some MSPs take on a huge number of responsibilities, and some feel pressurised into doing so. New members sometimes get themselves into a situation in which they are on several cross-party groups and cannot give any group their full attention.

The chart in the report is extremely interesting. The vast majority of groups are green-lighted—if that is the right description—in that they comply with the rules, but a significant number have one or more yellow warning lights and some have one or more red stop lights.

We need to do more work to consider how to resolve the problem. My gut feeling is that, if a group has two red lights, that is a clear indication that we need to ask whether it is fulfilling its role. The same applies if a group has two yellow lights and a red light.

I do not propose to go through the list—members can do that for themselves and come to their own decisions—but my view is that the committee has a role in helping cross-party groups to decide whether they have a future. We should be forthright in our questioning. We should encourage groups to fulfil the requirements, but, if they cannot do so, we should suggest to them that they drop out.

I say for the record that I do not want my comments to be taken as meaning that I am against all cross-party groups: I am not. I convene two cross-party groups and I give them my entire attention and work hard on them. A lot of MSPs work hard on cross-party groups. However, could I be a member of three, four, five or—as is sometimes the case—10 cross-party groups? I would struggle. I will leave it there.

In the six years that I have been in Parliament, I have noticed exactly the same thing. I have also noticed the amount of time that it takes for motions to be approved and come back through from the Parliament, which suggests that there is a problem in resourcing the system, possibly in funding it, and with the number of motions.

It has changed. In the past, such motions were to congratulate groups and organisations, and now, although I am not saying that we have got to this level, in some cases we are almost at the level of congratulating somebody for baking a cake. I wonder whether that is what the system was proposed for.

We do need to look at this. It would be helpful to have views from people who have been members of the Parliament for longer than I have, to see whether they have noticed the same. Graeme Dey might also come to give evidence to the committee.

I agree with Bob Doris. I have noticed a far more tribal approach to motions. The debates that are interesting are the ones in which members can inform themselves about an issue. There are issues about which I have no idea, but I will volunteer to speak in a debate on such an issue, because the debate will inform me about what is going on. Those are the useful motions: they highlight in the Parliament important things that are going on.

I agree with Bob that some motions that are lodged for members’ business debates are purely political. I think that that is wrong, but it probably reflects frustration about the lack of ability to debate such matters in other parliamentary time.

We should have members’ business debates not to make political points but to inform debate. The reason for such debates is to inform us and sometimes celebrate things that are going on.

I echo Bob’s views. We should have a wider inquiry into all those things and consider costings—that is important. We have all found ourselves settling down at 9 o’clock in the evening only to have a heap of motions flood into our inboxes—sometimes there are six motions from just one person. I am not saying that such motions are meaningless, but flooding members’ inboxes with six motions on quite minor issues is not a way to get parliamentarians informed or involved in processes.

I totally agree with that suggestion. In that letter, could you be quite firm in saying that we will continue to look at the matter? You might also offer CPGs that have not complied the opportunity to consider whether they wish to withdraw the group. As an MSP, once you get tied into a group, it is really difficult to say, “Maybe this isn’t working.” If you give those groups the opportunity to consider withdrawing, that might be useful to some members of those groups.