Health Committee, 15 Jun 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Official Report 284KB pdf

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Timescales and Stages of Bills

We move on briskly to agenda item 5. I refer to paper HC/S2/04/16/11. With the leave of the committee, we will focus only on the parts of the paper that are in bold, as the rest is narrative. Are members content with that?

Members indicated agreement.

The first part in bold is on page 3. Could I have members' comments so that we can come to some kind of agreement? We want to finalise the response today.

The draft response suggests that there should be

"a minimum period of eight weeks in which to gather evidence prior to taking a decision as to oral witnesses."

Are members content with that?

Members indicated agreement.

The next bit states:

"We have no experience this session of acting in the capacity of a secondary committee.

It is suggested that the following factors should be taken into consideration when the timetable for Stage 1 is agreed—

The Bill's length and the complexity of the issues."

Do members agree? That is common sense.

Members indicated agreement.

The next two factors are:

"The number of different subject areas covered by a Bill."

and

"The number of other committees which may require to contribute to the process."

I think that those are obvious. The next factor is:

"Politically sensitivity; is the Bill contentious? Reports may take longer to draft, discuss and agree."

Will you remind me of the comment that I sent to the clerks? I had a very hectic weekend.

The comment that you sent us was:

"May I propose that the Business Bureau along with the propose of any Bill meet with the lead and secondary committees to negotiate the timetabling once the scale of the proposed legislation is made available."

Thank you.

We could add that at the end of the list as a further bullet point. At the moment, the final point is:

"The workload of the lead and secondary committees – other referred work can include SSIs and petitions together with the Committee's own inquiry work."

We could add that the proposer of a bill—your email says "propose", but I think that it should be "proposer"—should meet the lead and secondary committees to negotiate the timetables, presumably, in many cases, with the minister. However, is it not the bureau that does that?

That was my question. Is it not the bureau that decides that?

Yes. I do not think that the suggestion is appropriate, but perhaps we need more input at an early stage from the lead committee and the secondary committees, before the bureau takes over. We want the bureau to make contact with the lead and secondary committees—

To consult them.

That is the word that I am looking for. The bureau should consult the committees before setting the timetable.

Quite simply, I do not understand how, with its work load, the business bureau would be able to anticipate certain nuances that would lead the committee to decide how deeply it would want to dig into a matter. It would save a lot of time and argument if that was done early on. Some bills might be simple, but others might be more complex.

Will you give us the wording that you want?

Perhaps someone could refresh members' memories of what I sent to the clerks. In any case, I think that it contains a typing error.

So you have the wording with you.

The e-mail says:

"May I propose that the Business Bureau along with the"

proposer

"of any Bill meet with the lead and secondary committees to negotiate the timetabling once the scale of the proposed legislation is made available."

I went on to say:

"It is quite ridiculous that a standard timetable is set-up as Bills can range from simple to complex"

and so on.

We have already dealt with the point in the paper about

"The Bill's length and the complexity of the issues".

That would be covered by the reference to consultation. After all, in the consultation, the lead committee or any other committee could comment on the amount of time that might be needed to consider a bill. Instead of saying that there should be a meeting with the bureau to discuss the matter, which might be difficult, we could have a pro forma which might be used to submit comments.

Does that not already happen through the clerks?

No.

Then how do they feed into the bureau at that point? Is the matter directed by the business manager of the Parliament?

I think that that is correct. To the best of my knowledge, I do not think that we have any input.

I presume that she receives advice about how long things are likely to take.

I think that some clerks have discussions.

I know that if there is a problem, the conveners go along to the bureau. I believe that that approach has worked up to now.

I understand that, at the moment, representations are made, but not formally.

In that case, should we say something about formalising current practice to ensure that there is consultation with the lead and secondary committees prior to setting a timetable?

I am certainly not hung up on my wording. I just think that my suggestion would simplify matters.

We will send members a form of wording about consultation prior to setting a timetable.

On page 4, the paper says:

"For both Stage 2 and Stage 3 members are invited to consider the following … The timing of the daily deadline—should it be the same time on every lodging day? Should it be 2pm as set down in standing orders for the final day on which notice of amendments may be given before Stage 2?"

I think that, for the sake of simplicity, the time should be the same on every lodging day, as it means that we do not miss anything. Therefore, the question is: what should that time be? I believe that it is 4.30 pm at the moment. Should we say that it should be 4.30 pm for all lodging days?

Members indicated agreement.

The paper then goes on to ask our views about the number of days before the day of consideration by the committee by which amendments should be lodged. At present, the deadline is two sitting days.

I do not think that that is long enough.

Neither do I. Should we suggest that the deadline is five sitting days? After all, that is a working week.

It should be five working days. After all, that is the deadline for Executive amendments.

On the lodging of Executive amendments, the paper asks for our views on the number of days prior to the deadline for members' amendments, and says:

"At present the agreement is 5 sitting days with Standing Orders allowing lodging up to 2 sitting days".

I believe that we want that deadline to be formalised to five or more sitting days. Do we want more of a deadline for Executive amendments?

Would that not require standing orders to be changed?

Yes, but the Procedures Committee is considering changes to standing orders in this respect. Do members agree that the deadline should be five sitting days for Executive and members' amendments?

Members indicated agreement.

I know that it is not in bold type, but the conclusion of the paper states in relation to the work of the former Health and Community Care Committee on the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill:

"The members of the Committee at that time felt that the passage of this Bill was extremely unsatisfactory and the quality of scrutiny was severely compromised."

As a member of the previous committee, I have to say that members were very unhappy about what happened with the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill. Indeed, it is noted earlier in the paper that the bill took longer to come before the committee than we had been led to believe. However, I do not want people to think that the legislation that we passed was compromised in any way. Although it is correct that we found it difficult to get the bill through in time, the committee worked very hard and gave the bill a lot of scrutiny. Certainly, we should make it clear that we need to learn lessons for the future from what happened, but I feel that the phrases "extremely unsatisfactory" and "severely compromised" do not reflect previous committee members' work on the bill.

I cannot comment on that, because I was not a member of the committee. I seek comments from the other member who was on the committee at the time.

I am not going to go to the wire on this matter, but I must say that it is possible that the bill was compromised. After all, the fact that the Executive has had to fix some of the legislation as a result of certain problems suggests that, due to the rush and lack of time for scrutiny, things were not done as they should have been. Whether that means that the bill was compromised or "severely compromised" is a matter of wording. However, the legislation was not as good as it should have been.

The huge problem was that 480 amendments were lodged at stage 3. Janis, would you be content to say that the quality of parliamentary scrutiny was compromised? After all, it is terribly hard for MSPs to give any thorough consideration to amendments at stage 3. We rely on what the committee does at stage 2.

I would be happy to say that the passage of the bill was unsatisfactory and that the quality of scrutiny may have been compromised. I am not suggesting that we ignore that fact completely. I just feel that the wording as it stands—

Do you want to say that the quality of scrutiny by Parliament may have been compromised because so many amendments were lodged at stage 3?

I am happy with the phrase "may have been compromised".

If we include the phrase "scrutiny by Parliament", it gives some focus to the problems at stage 3. Are members happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you. That concludes the meeting.

Meeting closed at 16:51.