 Felly ymdegon nhw o'r ffordd y cyflawn i'w lleifade lleiwyr agorwpheil sydd ymfaenigol oes iawn. Felly mae'r cyflawniau'r gwain cyflym ymdegon cyfo'r cyfrifoedd, ac yw hefyd i ni'n fydden nhw o'r bwysig gydych chi'n gwaith. Felly mae'n gwaith cyesfeyddiaeth gyda Mary Fee. Rydych chi'n dfiadwch i chi'n edrych ar gyfer i gweithio'r cymdeilig i gael Pwysig Gy interactio 4, Agenda item 4 is for the committee to consider its approach to the scrutiny of the lobbying bill at stage 1. Agenda item 5 is draft standing order changes on consolidation bills and agenda item 6 is a paper on the Scotland bill. Do members agree to take those items in private? Thank you. We are agreed to take them in private. Agenda item 2 is for the committee to decide whether it is consideration of a draft report on its inquiry into committee reform and issues papers on members interests. The Scotland bill and committee reform should be taken in private at future meetings. Are we agreed to do so? We are agreed to take them in private and that takes us neatly to agenda item 3, which is our inquiry into committee reform. Today we are going to take evidence from the business managers. We are joined today by John Finnie, who is the business manager for the independent and green group, Alison McKinnis, business manager for the Scottish Liberal Democrats and is a nominee for committee member of the year at the Herald of the Wards. It will be particularly interesting to hear what she has to say. Joe Fitzpatrick, who is the Minister for Parliamentary Business in the Scottish Government, James Kelly, the business manager for Scottish Labour and John Lamont, the business manager for the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party. Thank you all very much for coming and assisting us on this. I am going to ask questions from members, but I am going to exercise my own privilege and ask my own question first one, which has been engaging members of the committee as we have gone through so far. That is the issue of churn of membership in committees. We have got the guilty parties in front of us. It would be interesting to hear perhaps from you what considerations are in each of your minds when you are looking at making appointments or changing appointments on committees. Just to make things harder, I will start, if I may, with the minister. Thank you very much for the opportunity to come along and speak to you on this issue. It is important that the Parliament takes the time to look at its procedures routinely on an on-going basis, so it is very appropriate that the inquiry is going on. On committee churn, if you look at where we are at, there has been a reasonable time of stability across all the parties. Some churn, which perhaps happened early on, has been continuing, but in making decisions, all business managers look at the talents, the experience, the qualities and the interests of members in trying to best place them in the committees where they could be most effective. I noted what you said. You did not, in your reply, place the interests of the effective operation of committees. Do you care to expand your previous remarks? I think that committees clearly operate more effectively if they have members who are able to exercise expertise in an area, who have an interest in an area, so I think that the two things probably go side-by-side. Let's just take a sense of everybody else on the panel. Nobody gets off the hook on this one. Good morning, and thank you for the invite to come before the committee. First and foremost, in placing members to a committee, first of all, you are looking at the skillset that is required for those committees, and you are trying to match that up. That not only serves the committee well, but it also serves the member well. If members are placed on a committee that they do not have a lot of knowledge or experience in the subject matter, they may struggle to make a positive contribution. From that point of view, we are seeking as far as possible to make a match. It should be emphasised that it is not always possible. In terms of churn, it is best to try to minimise that churn, because there are instances where people will go on to a committee and may have limited knowledge or experience in that subject matter, but build that up over a period of time. If you then take that person off that committee and put someone else on, who, again, maybe has limited knowledge or experience, then you are not only disrupting the members, but you are disrupting the committee. From our perspective, we are seeking to minimise that churn. Obviously, what can drive the changes and the moves are, if there are, in Labour's case, a change of leader, which we have experienced a number of, and also the consequential shadow ministerial reshuffles. That, therefore, means a reorganisation of committees, which can be sometimes quite problematic, because there is a jigsaw involved in it. Whereas we seek to match members, experience to committees, to minimise churn, political events, which will sometimes drive the need for change in memberships, which business managers are not always in control of. Indeed. Perhaps, in your case, you might address the issues that may arise in a slightly smaller group, albeit not as extreme as they will be with other groups. Indeed. I thank you for inviting me to participate this morning as well. I share the views of James Kelly, particularly about the change of leaders within parties, which can be an important trigger in terms of the need to change the personnel on committees. The particular pressure that we face being a smaller party is competing workloads. If you find a member who is having to deal with a particularly meaty bill that is going through the Parliament, it may be necessary to change his or her committee commitments to allow them to devote the time that is required to deal with the bill. When you are a smaller group, something less than 20, it does present additional challenges. I agree that it is, in some respects, quite regrettable that each reshuffle of ministers or the shadow cabinet tends to result in the reorganisation of committee memberships. There were three changes to the nine-member justice committee during the 18 months between the committee publishing at stage one report on the criminal justice, and I was beginning to consider it. That highlights one of the problems, albeit that was an unusual bill in that it spanned such a length of time. I am a great believer in the benefits of having a lasting membership of a committee. As the business manager of a small group, there are only five of us, and we do not have representation on every committee. I thought that it was important that we kept some continuity. Although we have changed spokespersonships around a little bit, the membership of our committees has not changed, and we have benefited from that in being able to pursue particular issues over a long period of time. We need to consider how we best allow that expertise to develop in the wider Parliament. I thank you for the opportunity to come along and share our views, which are varied in many, as you would understand. I align myself with a lot of comments from my colleague Alison McInnes. Turning it around a bit, there is not a post-person specification. The public rightly have an expectation that they have a rounded parliamentarian that has a knowledge of all committees. It can be very challenging if, if you want a better phrase, you appear to become pigeonholed with certain issues, because there nonetheless is this expectation that you have detailed knowledge of other committees. Certainly, if there had been a requirement for change in our group, then it is something that we would discuss collectively, and we would first and foremost seek a volunteer, I am sure, but thereafter, if there were competing demands, we would make a decision among our group. In the absence of a post-person specification, clearly, your knowledge can be time limited. People refer to me as a former police officer every day that passes my specific knowledge of the operational policing changes, and likewise that with the same for individuals in different fields as well. Specifically, you raised the issue of the lack of a job description. Are you suggesting implicitly that that is an issue that we should pick up? Not entirely, but if we are trying to align it to issues of the workload that is to be done, analyse how it is to be done and the skill factors that are required, if you were doing that in any other walk of life, you would have a post-person specification with essential criteria to be fit and desirable, and that might be some very formulaic. I suspect that that just does not work in those premises. As my colleague Alison has said, I think that what we strive for is continuity, particularly in our legislation over a prolonged period. I am really concerned about the size of the committees, particularly for the small groups. Do you think that all committees should have the same amount of people, or could some of the committees be smaller so that you can spread the load more evenly? If you are particularly interested in smaller groups, I am not speaking at this point for my group because we have not yet come to an agreed view on that, and there are different views within it. Personally, I would prefer larger committees. I think that there is a benefit for the smaller groups in being able to be on one or two of the larger committees with the proviso that they break down into smaller sub-groups. I could refer to the benefit of being on the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing for the last two or three years. That is perhaps the Parliament's first sub-committee. It has been—no, Mr Stevens, I am sure, will be able to correct me. It is certainly met frequently, and it has been very effective. It is not comprised of members in the same way that the main committee is. It has six members. It does not have a Government majority on it. It has not had a vote on anything, but it has been an extremely effective scrutiny committee. I perhaps wonder if there are things to learn from that. Good morning to our panellists. Just to follow on from that issue, of course, in the larger groups, we have members who are on two committees and even three committees. It is proportionate. Although I find it rather bizarre that anybody could expect an MSP to be on three committees, to deal with cross-party groups, deal with all their constituency issues and everything else, and still have time to hold a Government to account, which is one of the aims of committees. Given that we have a set number of MSPs, reducing the numbers to seven would free up some time for MSPs and allow them to more ably hold Government to account at the end of the day. Of course, the alternative is to increase the number of MSPs marginally by adding two to each of the lists in Scotland and giving us an extra 16, which would, in terms of the new powers coming our way with the Scotland arc that is coming through at the moment, be a way forward to give us a little bit of extra capacity in order to allow us to properly do our job. What comment on that? I think sticking with Mr Thomson for banging the drum in terms of more members, which he has done consistently for some time, I am not certain that there is a huge appetite for that across Scotland. Coming back to committee size, I think that there is a point that the Parliament needs to be flexible and it is for some cases horses for courses. For instance, in DPLRC, the bureau agreed to make that a smaller committee. It is a very technical committee, so it is a small committee that is doing that work and that works for it. Like Allison said, in a committee like justice, where there is a wider interest in the subject, we need a bigger committee. I think that we need to be flexible in our approach going forward. Clearly, one of the issues that we have in this Parliament is that it is probably the first time that this has happened, but there have been two significant committee additions mid-Parliament. The welfare reform committee and the independence referendum, moving on to devolution for their powers committees, became new committees. They were both committees which, as business managers, we all felt was important that they had all the voices of the Parliament on. In order to achieve that, as Allison said, they had to be bigger committees. We were not in a position to adjust the rest of the committee's system, so that meant that there were a large number of extra places required. Can I pick up my work appetite? There may or may not be an appetite. I don't think that we ask the public to do one of those politicians that I think they would like me to answer. There was an appetite for additional powers and what we do know is that there is a perception that insufficient scrutiny takes place in here. Picking up on Mr Thomson's point, again in any other workplace, you would analyse the workload and you would say what do we require to service that workload. That means one of either two things. You either have people who are working under capacity just now, and I doubt that anyone will say that if someone is on three committees, or you stop doing something. I don't think that we should discount that notion. We have to say that those additional powers are going to be far reaching. We want a situation when the Government has rightly held account. That is a prerequisite in this particular chamber, where we only have a unicameral setup. I certainly would not discount that, but perhaps it might be seen out with this being a bit of naval inspection. I think that there is a role for outside examination of this in civil society, rather than it just being seen as looking at it ourselves. Before I move on, you said stop doing something. Do you have anything specific? No, I am certainly not suggesting stop doing something. I would like to do a lot more. I agree with what others have said in the sense that I think that there should be one-size-fits-all approach, and there will be a case for smaller committees and larger committees. Addressing Mr Thomson's point, I think that the issue is the number of committee places, and there is no doubt that the membership has become stretched. In some cases, we do not have the experience or resource to properly service the committees. Therefore, there may be a case for looking at a structure that reduces the number of committee places, so that we can ensure that properly skilled people are on appropriate committees and are able to give the appropriate time in order to serve the job properly. Patricia Stewart Thank you, convener. Good morning. One of the areas where there has been a degree—at least a sizable degree, perhaps—of consensus from the witnesses that we have heard from previously is around the current inability of committees to be able to do post-legislative scrutiny or to be able to do committee bills. I wonder what the committee's thinking might be around that and how that might be improved. Clearly, all of those things are tied together, and it is a bit like unscrambling a jigsaw and finding that you have one part missing when you go to put it back together again. I wonder whether any of the business managers have given any thought as to how we do that better. Is that about increasing the size of the committees? Is it having the committees meet more often? Is there a solution that would allow the committees to do those two roles, which a number of our witnesses have suggested, are almost as important as scrutinising the legislation coming in? I think that there is a challenge. This is a law making building, and an important function of that is to test the effectiveness of that law. The capacity of some committees is might be more, but I am on justice and equal ops, and justice committees have done one very short inquiry, and it would be difficult to imagine where we could fit such business in. I do not have a solution for you, my friend. In terms of post-legislative scrutiny, the committee had an inquiry into that and came to a conclusion. In summary, the conclusion was that there needs to be flexibility in the system to allow committees to do that work where they see it as appropriate. Government agreed with the committee's views on that inquiry. Obviously, that was an inquiry looking at one topic, and the committee spent some time in consideration of that. In terms of flexibility, how committees manage their time is appropriate, and we continue to look at it, but it would be wrong for the Government to say that committees should operate in such a way or in another way. I think that the issue is that committees are unable to manage their time because of the pressure of legislation coming usually from Government. One of the suggestions that has come to the committee, and I would welcome colleagues' views on that, is that, after a certain period of time, Government should be required to do its own post-legislative scrutiny and to report that to the committee where it could then be interrogated further. I wonder whether that might be an option that colleagues might think would be helpful, given that we are in a situation with a finite number of members, a finite number of committees and a finite number of opportunities for committees to meet. That was something that was considered by the committee, and the conclusion was that there should be a flexible approach. My understanding is that that approach has been taken at Westminster, and my understanding is perhaps not the effect that people thought, and it is to the point that committees are saying, stop, we are getting too much, and so they cannot then look at it. All that work has been done, and clearly, if Government is having to do work on every single bill, for instance, then that is public money. Government resources do not come out of the ether. I think that it is appropriate that post-legislative scrutiny happens, and it is appropriate that committees decide when it happens. However, a mechanism that says that it should just happen all the time for a Parliament and a Government of the size of Scotland, I think that I probably would not agree with the committee's conclusion that that was not your committee's conclusion when you looked at it in detail. The problem is capacity, obviously. I agree with the entirely that we should do legislative scrutiny, and it is disappointing that we have not been able to do it. The general problem with capacity for all the committees that we are going to have to set up with the new powers, rather than saying that maybe we need to be able to sit while Parliament is in its plenary session, which is one simple answer. I wonder whether, perhaps in terms of kickstarting some post-legislative scrutiny, we could suggest that Parliament agrees once a year something that it would like to scrutinise, and then it goes to the appropriate committee, and that the bureau is asked to consider to give up parliamentary time for that, not in the plenary session, but to say that, rather than sitting as a plenary one Thursday afternoon for a particular set of time, the committee is able to sit and do that quite thoroughly. We can all think of times when we have debated in the chamber on issues that were not perhaps as important as maybe some of the post-legislative scrutiny that we should be doing, and it might be that committees ought to be able to bid to the bureau for some of that time and make the case. James? Richard Ferguson makes some good points on post-legislative scrutiny, just on a practical point. I think that one thing that committees could look at to slot an appropriate talk, post-legislative scrutiny, is in terms of when the work programme is set up for the coming year. One of my experiences, as a committee member, is that the work programme in some cases can get driven very much by the convener in the clerks, and in some cases that results in the convener, stroke clerks, pet issues being on the work programme. If it was defined that one of the areas that should be looked at as post-legislative scrutiny and prioritised in the work programme, that might help to address some of the issues that Patricia Ferguson outlines. Three committee members have signalled to be Cameron, Gil and George. I just want to be clear that are you all coming in on this subject on new topics? Yes, it has been raised, but I would like to come back in there. Right. In that case, I am going to take Gil, then Cameron, then George. Alison raised the issue herself with regards to the committee's meeting at the same time as the chamber. Do other panel members have any comment in that regard? From a staffing perspective, from my party's perspective, I would struggle in terms of ensuring that I had enough bodies to staff the chamber to allow them to also do their committee work. It would present significant challenges from a party of 20 or less. I understand the issue of the outline. It is a practicality of it. How do you prescribe when a committee would sit at the same time as the chamber? Everybody, depending on the political interests, will argue that a debate that is taking place in the chamber is important to their party or their own political interests and would not want a committee meeting at the same time to undermine it. I think that it is a reasonable suggestion, but I am not quite sure how we would operate in practice. Minister, then John. I think again that we need to remain flexible. There are likely to be times, I think, in my time on Bure, when a committee has said that it may require to go over the time and into the start of general questions on a Thursday. I think that we have approved it for one committee. That is probably the best approach that every committee feels that they need at that time. We need to look at what that demand is and what the chamber business is at the time as to whether it would be appropriate to try and manage those conflicts between committee pressures and glenaries time on a case-by-case basis. I do not think that it should be a routine thing that committees are meeting in parallel when there is a plenary business going on. Sorry, I am just going to cut across John. On that issue, if you are overlapping with general questions, does that open up the question of whether standing order should permit someone else to ask a question of someone who cannot be there because they are on committee? Given that the question process starts two weeks earlier and the request for a committee overlap probably comes up sooner, I am not advocating this. I am merely just exploring. I think that the only occasion that we have been asked to approve committee business in Parliament when plenary sessions were going on was well ahead and it was a committee. I had managed it at that time. It saw a time pressure where evidence sessions could potentially go over. I do not even know whether they had to use the plenary time or not. I cannot remember which committee it was either, so I apologise for that. It was well in advance and it was well planned out. That is one of the things that our clerks of all the committees are very good at noticing when there are pressure points well in advance. John, I will come to Cameron and follow by George. I will not repeat it in detail. My colleague, Patrick Harvie, was here last week and he cited, for example, a quote at Westminster Hall in the opportunity where that could have been that there was a recent committee, two committees, sharing a debating slot. It is about maximising the opportunity for everyone to participate in the debate, so certainly we are open minded about that. Of course, there are challenges, but nothing with any change will bring challenges and it is how we address those challenges. At the risk of moving off the topic of committees, how do you feel about having fewer people in debates but more time for the people who debate, which is one of the issues that has arisen on the appropriate occasion? For a small group, it is challenging full stop because, as you know, it is very arithmetic and unless a debate is going to a second day, we have no specific entitlement to talk, so what is different for people in my group is that we bid to speak and we go along not knowing whether we are going to speak, so we would be very wary of anything that reduced the number of opportunities for people with the larger parties to speak. We might come back to that and further question make. I have three bids from the committee and I will take them in the order of the king, which is Cameron, George and then Dave. Thank you very much, convener. With the timing committees, this committee here is constrained a rather Cinderella time because we have to finish it at half past 11. In view of that, should we change the timing of FMQs to the afternoon on a Thursday so that we are not constrained because we have to finish at half past 11 on a Thursday and it sometimes is difficult for us? I wonder if we could move—I never understand why FMQ is at 12 o'clock. I think it was for the press or something. Could it not be one thing to think about moving it to 2 o'clock? Alison, do you want to kick off on that? I do not feel strongly about that. I think that we should manage our business appropriately rather than be driven by the media's requirements, so I do not feel strongly. John. I mean, I am quite relaxed about the timing of it. I would say that I am conscious of how much time the party leaders and First Minister have to devote to preparing. From Ruth's perspective, if it was put any later, the consequence of that would be more of the day that would be spent preparing and she would have less time to do the other things that she has to do around the Parliament, whether it is meeting groups or other engagements. I think that having it at the time that it is allows sufficient prep time but at the same time allows other duties to be performed as well. For some, I guess you have made the case for making it 4.30. Anyone else want to come in on that? James. I am not in favour of changing the time. The media coverage of it is important. It is the primary event of the Parliament during the course of the week. It is important that it gets appropriate media time. The other thing I would make is that you get a lot of schools visiting the Parliament on a Thursday who will come in to FMQs. If you made it later in the day, it would be difficult around school arrangements, so I favour keeping it at 12 o'clock. I think that the school's argument is probably the best one that I have heard so far. Minister. I think that we need to be very careful that there are unintended consequences of changing our timetable. That is not to say that we should not look at any potential changes. I do understand the pressure that Thursday morning committees in particular have and maybe we should look at other other ways of addressing that particular pressure of the Thursday morning committees. I am not saying no or yes, but I am saying that we need to look at any suggestions of that sort very carefully. Curiously, committee members have not responded terribly favourably to the idea of a 730 start. George? Yes. James brought up the fact about conveners themselves in the class when he brought up the point that conveners in class sometimes can have their own idea for what they want to do for the year ahead. What kind of role do you think conveners have in continuity and also leadership on the committee so that we can get through the business that we need to get through? I think that conveners' jobs are very important, not only in providing leadership, but if you look at the agenda today, you can see student managing it because he has got to get through a specific amount of business by half past 11. That is very important. What I would say is that it is important for the convener to involve the other members in his approach and to bring them with him. I have seen different conveners who will name them, operate differently. Some will take a very single-minded approach and they have been around the Parliament for a long time and they know best. It is important to take the whole committee with you to take the different views and to have a team approach. That is particularly important in a situation in which the Government has a majority in nearly all of the committees. If the committees are to work appropriately, people need to work together and they need to work with respect. Therefore, there is a big job for the conveners to do in regard to that. That convener regards a day when I do not learn something as a wasted day. There are a very few of these, I have to say. Dave, followed by Cameron. Thank you very much, convener. It is just to follow on from this point on committees and chamber and so on. We have already heard from Alison and others that there are sometimes debates in the plenary sessions that we would feel would be less important than some of the work that we might be able to do in committee and so on. What would the panellist feel about reducing the coer plenary sessions? At the moment, we have two to five, two to five, two to three to five, which is eight and a half hours a week. If we change that to three to five, three to five and three to five, that would give us six hours coer a week. That would allow committees to run on after lunchtime. They could go from 10 to 12.30, have a short lunch break for half an hour and start from one o'clock, right up to three o'clock, if they needed to do it. That could be done on Thursday as well. We could finish at 11.30, if MQs etc. take place, we could then reconvene at half past one or two o'clock and work on till three o'clock if we had business. The plenary sessions, if they needed to, could run on past five o'clock. What would the panellist feel about reducing the plenary sessions and giving the committee's flexibility to run over a lunchtime and after a lunchtime? I am sorry to keep referring outwith, but I think that sometimes other points of residence are helpful. Are we driven by a formula that means that we have to full time or do we make the formula full the workload? There could be a period when in one week there will be a number of very important debates taking place in committee, and I am sure that all their debates are jewels, they are just jewels of varying quality in the chamber. Should some of the debates or should some of the scrutiny that takes place in committees be taking place in the chamber, would that give it a bigger profile? To stress again, certainly other groups see a role for external scrutiny as well, so not just the consultation but involvement there. I think Patrick Harvie touched on that last week. One of the things that I have asked one or two others who have come before us is whether they think that it would be useful, appropriate or proper, to second people from outside Parliament on to committees to participate in the questioning of witnesses and discussions, but obviously not to have a deliberative role in casting a vote of making decisions. Is that where you are attempting to lead us? Yes indeed, convener, you will be aware that committees call on expertise from outwith and that individual will sit quietly at the end of the table on many occasions, I am sure, exasperated at the way things are going and capable of suggesting other lines, so certainly we would be open to these sort of suggestions. I think that you are right to say not in a voting capacity obviously. In terms of that specific area, I think that one of the very effective tools that committees use are the round table events. I think that I have sat chairing a round table event when I was chairing local government when I think that the actual members of the committee were almost silent through the whole event as people from across, or guests from across the table were actually interviewing each other and the committee found that very useful in terms of a way of gaining evidence. I think that a number of committees are using that as a tool which obviously allows for that crossover of ideas when you are people who are originally a starting point, it might be very different. That is a useful way that many committees, but not all, involve external scrutiny. In terms of Dave's idea about changing the timings after three o'clock, it is not something that I have had any consideration. I do think that there would be two immediate impacts that I could guarantee because of the reduction. It is pretty sure that it would be more challenging for the smaller parties to take part in those debates, just by the way that the Presiding Officer has to allocate time. Secondly, I can absolutely guarantee that we would be having many more late night sittings, which potentially has the impact on our attempt to be a family-friendly Parliament. When we have stage 3s or even sometimes stage 1s in order to make sure that all the voices are heard, we would need to be extending. Flexibility is the best thing, and it is whether we could find a way where we could sometimes be flexible in that kind of way. However, if we were routinely constraining the plenary sessions, we would find it very difficult to get through the business that we need to get through. I think that what Mr Thompson suggests would create real headache for Government business managers in particular, but also for the bureau. Stage 3 is the first thing that springs to mind. When we reformed parliamentary time most recently, we lost the Thursday mornings. That has already caused problems at stage 3. Mr Stevenson will remember the climate change Bill stage 3, which I think certainly ran for the whole day and might have run over two days. That was appropriate. We needed to have that length of time, and we found it quite difficult to be able to cope with some of our busier bills at stage 3 already. I would be reluctant to change the time like that. I go back to what I suggested. It might be that committees could identify well ahead of time some pieces of work—not the legislative work, but the scrutiny work or post-leg work—that they could anticipate that they needed some time and then, perhaps, some way flexibly bidding to the bureau for some time to be taken out of the plenary. That is a much more managed way. The Government business manager would be able to look at it and say, well, we have a number of stage 3s and we need room for ministerial statements or whatever. Just to speak personally, on the climate change bill, I spoke as minister for over four hours during stage 3. I note that our longest afternoon is from 2 o'clock to 5 o'clock, which is only three hours, so I think that the point is well made. That opens up one of the things that we have been looking at, which is whether, more routinely, we should be scheduling stage 3s over multiple days. I am not here wanting to open up too much about parliamentary structures because we are inquiring about committees, but I think that there is an interaction, because, of course, when we have a stage 3 dealing with amendments, in a strict sense, Parliament is sitting as a committee. It is not strictly sitting as Parliament. Are witnesses wanting to make any comment on that? I think that I will move on to Cameron and then Patricia. Thank you very much, convener. My point has already been answered, so I will move off. I did note earlier that the Minister for Parliamentary Business commented that there needed to be flexibility in committees to decide what their business should be. I think that we would all agree with that, but I would just make the point before I ask my question that the problem that is being presented to us is that there is no flexibility to do that kind of work, and what the committee is trying to do is to find some way of allowing that flexibility to be there. However, one of the issues that has been raised with us, where there probably is no consensus but where there is an interesting debate, is around the status of conveners of committees. It has been suggested to us, not necessarily by a convener, I have to say, that perhaps committee conveners should be paid some kind of allowance and that that should be seen as an alternative career route, if you like, to being involved in Government. It has also been suggested to us that we need to find other ways of enhancing the status of conveners to recognise the importance that we are told of the committee process itself. I would be really interested in colleagues' views on that. We all have an enhanced role. We are all very well-reminerated and it is a privilege to be in this building, and I think that we forget that at our peril. I think that conveners of committees are afforded respect for the additional tasks that they take on, but certainly a route would be totally opposed to sending entirely the wrong message if there was to be any remuneration attached to that. I have read some of the background and I understand that there might be additional pressures that would mean that it could intrude into their constituency work. We would certainly be open to that being looked at at additional support regarding their other duties, but as regards specific remuneration, I think that that would send entirely the wrong signal. It is about that we are all here, we are all capable of doing a job and that is the way it should be. To be clear, Mr Finnie, you would not stand in the way of a specific additional allowance, which is not for the personal benefit of the individual who has been elected to the Parliament, but to support their other activities because they are having to take time from that. That would need to be looked at in detail. We need to be… You are not opposing that, are you? Not opposing, in principle, but a remuneration attached to the individual. I think that one of the challenges that members have is how they stretch the allowances that they have to support them in terms of constituency work and in terms of the committee work that they have. On the allowances that the members of the Scottish Parliament have, that is a very difficult thing for members to balance. We have been talking to some extent about other places and, if you look at other places, they have allowances that make sure that they can have well-staffed constituency offices and a well-staffed resource to support them in their committee work. That is something that we should look to. Obviously, our clerks try to do a good job in supporting members, but that can only go so far. That is probably one of the things that I would hope the Parliament at some point could look at, how that can be addressed. I think that it is worth saying that that is a novel suggestion. I do not think that we have, as a committee, heard before, but one that I think is worthy of further thought. Do other business managers have an immediate reaction to the alternative idea that there could be a modest uplift in allowances to cover the work, Mr Lamont? I am going to put you all in the spot, but I think that it will be very difficult to sell to the outside world any case or argument for paying politicians more. I think that the media would have a feeding frenzy at that. I think that we would have to be very, very sure of our case before that was progressed. I think that the issue perhaps should be more a change in culture. If you compare some of the committee conveners Westminster and elsewhere, there is much more of a willingness, I would suggest, to issue statements and reports that are critical of Government policy. I think that there is a feeling in certain elements within the Scottish Parliament just now that there is a reluctance to do that. I think that that culture change would arguably achieve many of the things that address some of the concerns that have been raised about how the committees are working just now. I suspect that Government ministers do not always welcome Mr Gibson, Mr Graham or even on a couple of recent occasions Mr Dawn rising to the feet, but there we are. Mr Kelly? I am not convinced about the need to pay conveners. I think that if you start to get down that route then you could argue that for other positions in the Parliament, spokesperson roles, party leader roles, I think that that would then become difficult. On enhancing the allowance, I am cautious about that. I think that it would be better to explore how the clerks and the work behind the committee could be better resourced. I agree with John Lennon on the need to change the culture. I think that this session has continued. There has been evidence that the Government has sought to seek greater control, particularly over reports that are coming out of committees, and I think that that has been a regrettable development. Ms McInnes? I think that the Presiding Officer has set out here an argument for the role of an elected convener and for a convener to be remunerated. It is a recognition of the Parliament's role and a sense that we should strengthen the voice of Parliament in that way, just as we reward the PON and the DPOs and things. Those are important roles, and I think that there is a benefit in considering how we enhance that independence of committees. Committee conveners are already significant leaders. They have a strong role in fostering committee cohesion and encouraging a cross-party approach to any scrutiny that they are doing. However, I think that independence might be enhanced by considering what the Presiding Officer has set out clearly in our presentations. I wonder whether colleagues are attracted to the idea of there being more committees where, as of right, the opposition has the position of chair. I do not necessarily mean one opposition party, I just mean opposition. That would depend very much on the makeup of committees. I think that there is a very good reason why the Audit Committee has that rule. We need to be very careful about making changes to that in terms of subject committees and other committees. We need to make sure that the Parliament is reflecting the democratic wishes of the electorate in an election. I think that there is a balance to be had. We need to be very careful about what we are proposing. I take Joe's point that the committee structure has got to reflect the democratic outcome of the election. However, I would make the point that if committees are going to operate properly and serve a purpose, they need to properly hold the Government to account. If we get into a situation in which the Government, as has been the case in some instances, is a simple user majority to push report changes through a committee, it undermines democracy and also undermines the role of committees. From that point of view, if we are serious about moving forward and making the Parliament more effective and making committees more effective, we should look at the idea of giving more a stronger voice to opposition within committees as a counterbalance to the control that the Government seeks to exercise. I think that our committees do a really good job in terms of the scrutiny of legislation. There have been a couple of comments around that area. Obviously, there are times when committees come down to party politics. At those points, people have joined the political parties around for a reason because they agree with colleagues, and on those points people vote down party lines. Across the parties, if you look at where there have been divisions within parties, I think that the Green Party is the most united and probably 100 per cent of the time, the Green Party votes together. Lib Dems are the second, and I am not sure if there have been any occasions where Lib Dems have voted against each other. It is certainly difficult on committee because they never have more than one member on committee. Conservatives are likewise very united in terms of the way they voted together. Labour and the SNP will find a small number of occasions where Labour members and SNP members have voted against their colleagues on committee. That is when it comes down to party politics, and that is what we expect, because we have joined parties. Most of the time, particularly when committees are looking at legislation, they take their hats off in terms of party politics and look at the legislation properly. If we look at some of the stage 1 reports that have come out of committees right across the committee, we keep hearing people saying that their committee is different, but it is all the committees that are different. All the committees take their role particularly at stage 1 very seriously. The Government then looks at those reports and acts on those reports. There are a couple of very good examples from this session where mental health has been one of them, so it is a committee that has a majority of Government member backbenchers on it, but it has a Labour convener where I could read those through, but there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 very significant recommendations in the stage 1 report that the Government came back and, in various ways, accepted into the legislation either by working with a member on the committee or bringing back Government amendments at stage 2 or stage 3. The other example and probably the more significant example would be when the local government committee looked at community empowerment. I have a list of some 20 recommendations from the stage 1 report. That is a committee that has an SNP convener, but it does not have a Government majority. Some 20 recommendations where the Government has listened to what the committee is saying, the committee has probed, questioned and done its job at stage 1. The Government has come back and again either worked with individual members or brought back Government amendments at stage 2 or at stage 3 to take on the recommendations of that committee based on the evidence that they took at stage 1. I think that our committees do a fantastic job and we should shout about it more often. Clearly, the media are only interested where there is a party political division that gets reported and when the Government accepts the recommendations of committees it does not get reported. However, if we go right back to 1999, whatever Government it has been, I think that our committees have done a very good job. The committee looks forward to working with you on the lobbying bill and we will see how you respond to the comments that we have made most recently. Can I respond to Ms Ferguson on that? I think that to suggest that we should somehow set aside some particular committees only for opposition or for a balance of opposition is the wrong approach to take. I believe that all members are capable of setting aside their political beliefs when they are properly immersed in the work. That takes us back to earlier what we need to do is foster that independence and encourage that kind of cohesive maturity that you get. I have seen committees change as we have gone through and people become more confident, more independent and minded about pursuing things. We should develop those parliamentary skills and that sense of belonging to the committee rather than starting to say that Government members are not capable of setting that aside. I understand that it seems like a simple suggestion, but we should go back to what we do to give the respect to committee members and give them their independence. Those who suggested to us that that would be one way of adding more independence to committees were not suggesting that the committees could not act independently, but they were recognising that, at the moment, some committees, because of their nature, for example Audit, are chaired by opposition members as of right and that perhaps as we are a unicameral body and as we get further powers that it might be possible or might be sensible to extend that further. I do not think that they were suggesting to us that it should be all committees, conveners. I think that they were thinking that there were certain committees where that might be something that would be worth considering. Just to return to something that Alison McKinnon said quite early on, which I think we have sort of worked our way back to, the reference was made to three members of the Justice Committee during the lookie at the justice bill, having changed during the course of the stage one discussion. The question that I had in my mind from the point that we said that it has not otherwise arisen, which I will now perhaps ask is, when you have a major piece of legislation that one can reasonably foresee will take some considerable time, is there a case for having a bill committee so that you clearly put people on that bill committee with that bill remit alone? Clearly, we are going to have a greater chance of seeing it through to the end, at least of stage one, and one would like to think all the way through. We can do that under process procedures right now, so there's nothing to stop us doing it, but does Ms McKinnon think that that is in any way a useful way of dealing with that issue that she properly raised quite early on? It's worth considering. I suppose the danger of that is that you don't bring the expertise that sits with the thematic committee necessarily and that you're actually putting people, you know, I know how difficult it is for business managers to find people to put on any other committee. It might fit better with the idea of a larger committee that could break itself down into subcommittees and that people from the larger committee could elect to spend a lot of time working on a bill via a subcommittee. It's worth just saying, and again, wearing a personal hat, not a community hat, that about 10 years ago we had a joint meeting with the Westminster Bill Committee and our thematic committee, because both were about to start legislating in the same area, and it was immediately apparent that we were much better informed than engaged, because there was nothing to do with politics, just the composition. There was a very good example that I can draw on, but I just wanted to address that issue and see what others' views were. Minister, you broadly agree with us, and others are innocent. Right, I'm getting nodding heads on that. Oh, Dave, sorry. What do the panellists think about a limit on the number of bills that a Government can take forward in any given year? I understand there's a lot of politics behind this, and there have been accusations against certain Governments in the past that they were policy light, bill light and all the rest of it, but then again you know you can go the other way. If a Government was limited to, I don't know, 10 or 12 major bills per session, would that be a good thing or a bad thing? What do you mean by major bills? Well, bills that need to go through, well, I suppose any bills, I. It's an interesting figure that you've come up, because that's about what there's been. That's where we're at. In the first session of the first Parliament, there were 12 and a half bills on average per year, second session 13.25 per year, the third session 10.5, and this session we expect it to be 13.2. It's always about the same. There's always an extra pressure towards the end because you have bills that slip a little bit from one year into the next, and the pressure comes up. Clearly, if you look at the programmes, the final year of a Parliament, there are less bills introduced. We have the additional pressure of additional members' bills coming in in the last year. People have a cut-off, the members' bill unit prescribes, and that means that there's a number of bills coming in at the very end, so they're all additional pressures, but I think that the pressures that in general the Parliament manages to cope with, and what I try and do is work with the irrelevant conveners to try and manage that so that the workload is where possible, spread across committees and across the years of the Parliament. To signal to everyone, I certainly am drawing this to a close in about 15 minutes. If we drop short, that's fine. We'll do that. That's what I'm looking at at the moment, James. I don't favour Mr Thomson's suggestion of putting a cap on a number of bills, whereas you would hope that the Government wouldn't be legislating for just the sake of bringing legislation forward. If you put a cap on it, you're putting yourself in a situation where there may be events in different portfolio areas that drive the need for legislation, and we could end up tying our hands, so I don't favour that. The one thing that we haven't really covered is anything very specific about the remit of committees. Do the business managers and the minister have a view of any opportunities that there are for merging existing committees? I mean, I just throw, without advocating this, could DPLR and this committee coexist because they're kind of in the same relatively technical area, other subject committees that could sensibly be merged? Obviously, when the Parliament was first elected in 2011, business managers did not include myself. We sat down and discussed what the best make-up committees would be, taking into account the subject areas and the sizes of the various groups. I'm sure that the Liberal Democrats would love to be on every single committee. It would be impossible for them to manage to service every single committee. Those sort of things had to be taken into account. You can't work that out until you see the outcome of the election. However, if we were to sit down and have that conversation now with the powers that the Parliament currently has, I'm pretty sure that we would come to a different outcome than we've got in terms of the current make-up, but it's very difficult to change the midstream. There will be a discussion of business managers early after the next election to look at, based on the outcome of the election and the make-up of MSPs. Did I see Mr Lamont or were you merely nodding? I'm quite content with that. I'm not getting any other requests for questions. Perhaps I'll put it to our witnesses. Are there any matters that you want to briefly draw to our attention that we've not otherwise covered that you think we might usefully pick up as part of our inquiry? The question of human rights and whether the Parliament should have its own standalone human rights committee has been raised on a number of occasions and discounted, but we would certainly favour the equal opportunities committees that we might have been extended to specifically include human rights. It is part of the remit of the DPLR committee to check whether it's conformant, but that is substantially less than I suspect you are set. Yes, indeed, and there is a role for justice as well. I know that I was raised in a previous session with you, but just the role of parliamentary liaison officers sitting on committees, I think that whole area needs to be clarified in terms of what is the job of their parliamentary liaison officer and what their remit is in terms of whether it's correct that they sit on a committee and, if they are sitting on a committee, are they then able to take an objective view as legislation and issues are progressing through a committee? I think that that's something that the committee needs to bear in mind. Right. I'm not seeing any appetite for anything further. That's been a very useful session. Thank you very much for giving us of your time, and we'll certainly take account of what we've heard today, some interesting thoughts. Thank you very much. That completes our public session. We now move into private session.