Public Petitions Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Official Report 412KB pdf

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Committee Working Practices

Our final item of business is consideration of a note by the clerk, PPC/S4/14/5/8, on committee working practices. At a previous meeting, the committee asked the clerk to prepare a paper about procedure when a petitioner no longer wishes to proceed with a petition. I invite contributions from members on the clerk’s paper, which, as you know, in effect says that if the petitioner says that they wish to close the petition, unless there are extraordinary other issues that should be considered, we would normally close the petition at that stage. We are developing committee policy on the issue and I throw it open to comments from committee members.

I agree in general with the paper.

I have no disagreement. We decided earlier, when there was a recommendation to close a petition, to keep it open. It is within the gift of the committee to decide when it is appropriate to close a petition and when it is appropriate, despite the fact that the petitioner is no longer engaging with the committee, to keep it open. The paper sets out the committee’s options in a fairly straightforward way.

I thank the clerk for the note.

I agree that, if the petitioner no longer wishes the petition to proceed, it seems pointless to carry on without their presence.

I reluctantly support that view.

Thank you. As I said, we are simply adopting a policy for the future. We always have the power to take a different approach if there are extraordinary circumstances, although our default position will be the approach that is outlined in the clerk’s report. As always, if there is extraordinary information, the committee can react to that.

Meeting closed at 11:11.