Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Official Report 574KB pdf

Decision on Taking Business in Private

Good morning, and welcome to the last meeting in 2023 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee.

First, I will make a general comment in respect of certain social media commentary that has been promoted since our meeting a fortnight ago. It is important to understand that all the members of the committee act impartially in support of advancing the aims of our petitioners. We do not necessarily do that with any personal commitment to a petition or because we support it or oppose it. Our responsibility is to seek to advance the aims of the petition, as requested by the petitioner.

However, when it becomes clear to us that we are unable to take the matters in a petition forward, we have, in fairness to other petitions that we can advance, no option at that point but to move to close the petition. In closing a petition, we are not expressing a view about its merits or giving the personal view of any member of the committee. It is simply that, at that stage, we are unable to take the aims of the petition any further forward.

Of course, it is open to any petitioner, after a period of time, to lodge a fresh petition. It may well be that, in the circumstances that exist at that point, the aims of a petition that could not previously have been advanced can be taken forward.

I wanted to explain that, because our situation is different from the positions of other committees. All the members here act in the best interests of advancing a petition, as long as we are able to do so. The matter harks back to one of the conclusions that arose from our inquiry into deliberative democracy, which was that a distinction is to be drawn between Parliament and the Government. This is not the Government; this is Parliament. We are not the ones who are develop national legislation; we are the ones who hold Government to account, insofar as we are able so to do.

That brings us to agenda item 1, which is consideration of whether to take items 4 and 5 in private. Those items will be to discuss the evidence that we hear today and how we might want to take forward our inquiry into the A9. Are colleagues content to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.