 COMERY GYNAA? ✌ Can I remind everyone to switch off a mobile phone as the effective broadcasting system? Can I inform everyone that some committee members and clerks may consult tablets during the meeting? Papers for our committee are provided in digital format, occurring to speak, and it's not just George over. It may certainly be George. But, of course, equally, I remind the Members that it is for that purpose alone that we expect the technology to be used. The first item today is for the committee to take evidence on its inquiry into the procedures for considering legislation. Rydw i chi gael ei ddesgrifennu i ei ddysgrifennu hwn o'r llag oesbryd ythydig. Mae'r ddysgu'r Chysm, Rob Gibson, y cymdeinidol yn Y Rhyw Roedd Fferdd Cymru, i'r Cymru, a'r stwip Maxill, y cyfnodd y Gymdeithasol i'r Cymru. Rydw i chi gael i'r Cymru. Rydw i chi'n dechrau i'r cyfnodd. Rydw i chi'n meddwl i'r cyfnodd yw'r lleolau a'r lleolau i'r cyfnodd. rydych chi'n siŵf yn y bwysig yw'r ddam. Dw i gyd yn ymweld y cwestiynau ar y cyfnod o'r cwestiynau, ac mae'n cael ei wneud rŵn i'r ysgolwyd yn y cyfnod o'r sefyllfa'r gwestiynau. Roeddwn i chi'n gwybod i'r cyfnod o'r gwneudio'r wneud, ac mae'n gweithio'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r gwneudio'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cefynydd. if you feel that's necessary. Rhaid Cary Holton, cened i'n fawr i chi'n femeithas fyddi'n dechrau i chi. Good morning families. Can I begin by asking about the legislative process as it is. Currently it's got three stages in principle. Is this model the right one or do you think that changes are needed? So I am happy to say to kick off, good morning everybody. I think that it is the correct approach. Our committee is broadly happy with the three-stage process. However, we are concerned about the restrictive nature and quality of scrutiny, particularly at the second and third stages, about which I'll say more. I agree with that. I think that our committee was certainly not unhappy with the model in principle, but had some criticisms of the way certain parts of the structure works. Again, I would agree with Rob particularly at stages two and stages three. I'm sure we'll get into that. I think I'm probably going to be saying something similar. I should start by saying that I'm only speaking here for myself. I'm a member of the finance committee. I'm not speaking for them. I'm not speaking for my party just in case anybody takes that differently. I think that the three-stage is right. I think that stage one was the very distinctive feature of the Scottish Parliament. When it started, there wasn't a stage one Westminster at that time. At that time, stages two and three replicate Westminster in their outward form. I suppose in summary I'm very happy with stage one, although I may go into some points about that later. Certainly the finance committee has made the point that sometimes it's not long enough for their purposes. But in general, I think stage one has been highly successful during the years of the Scottish Parliament. I would have probably some comments and concerns about stage two and three like my colleagues, but basically the three-part process I am very comfortable with. Although I suppose the last thing I would say, and I'd never thought of this before, I was interested in the suggestion, I think from the Law Society and possibly some other legal witnesses about splitting stage three into a separate final debate. And as I say, that was a new idea to me, but I was partly attracted to that, so I'm getting into the detail perhaps too soon, but I think that's possibly something that is worth considering. Could I just say before bringing Cara back in, we'll expect to and very much welcome hearing comments and some of the new ideas that are floating around. It would also be useful if, when a new idea is referred to, if you can think of any snags that might come from a new idea, because I suspect in this complex process any change will have both positives and negatives, and it's probably useful to get an opinion, and that's what I'm talking about on these as we go along. Do you have anything more? No, I've not. That's it. Right, Margaret. Thank you, and good morning, panel. To what extent does the legislative process encourage engagement from interested parties, and is it open and transparent? In reverse order this time, again, I think I've praised the stage one process, and I think that was a great advance by the Scottish Parliament on what was normal at Westminster at the time, and that has given people an opportunity to comment on a piece of legislation at the earliest opportunities. I think that has been, I mean, I'm sure people will perhaps say it could sometimes be a broader range of people, and sometimes people say it's the usual suspects that comment, but I think we do get a lot of written responses normally at stage one of a legislation, and then obviously several, if not many of those are called to give oral evidence, so I really haven't got many criticisms of that process. There's one interesting development at Westminster, of course, since probably partly we've been a driver of change at Westminster since 1999, and now they have, for some bills at Westminster, pre-legislative scrutiny, and some people are actually saying that puts Westminster ahead of us, because as you know it's the government here that consults at the pre-legislative stage, which again gives stakeholders an opportunity to participate, but committees are not formally involved at the pre-legislative stage. I think if I'm correct, one of your predecessor committees looked at this and suggested that if committees were to be involved in pre-legislative inquiries this would compromise their scrutiny rule at stage one, so I can see the merits of that argument. So, basically, I'm pretty content with the involvement and consultation at stage one. Again, I think several stakeholders have drawn attention to the fact that they feel they do not always have enough time to comment on and respond to amendments and changes that are made at stage two and stage three, so I think that would certainly be one area where it would be better for those outside the Parliament if there was longer for them to respond, because bills quite often have significant changes made to them at stages two in particular, but also stage three, and so a bit longer there for the stakeholders would be good, I think it might be good for MSPs as well. For the most part, I agree with that. I think stage one works fairly well. I think with the obvious criticism some people make about it being the usual stakeholders and I think that's sometimes true, but I think it works fairly well. I think the only thing I would maybe add is, although it's not pre-legislative scrutiny, it is open to committees to look into an area of work in advance knowing a bill is coming up, and I'll give you an example. The children and young people bill we knew was coming as a committee. Our inquiry in advance of that was to look into the effects, many of the effects which were trying to be answered in that bill on looked after children. So we did a lot of, if you like, pre-legislative work in the area, so when we came to the stage one, I think the committee was actually much better prepared for stage one and then on to stage two amendments because they had done that work. So it is open as long as you've got advance notice, and you usually do have advance notice, so it is possible for committees to do something like pre-legislative scrutiny although I wouldn't call it that. I think that worked very well given that we did that. I think it's also true to say that I agree that the ability of outside organisations and particularly individuals to get involved in any meaningful way at stage two and stage three is really quite restricted. Again, I would agree with Malcolm that we have to seriously look at the timescales involved in stage two and stage three, but I think again, and I'll give you an example from the education committee, both in the children and young people bill and the post-16 reform bill, the education committee stopped at stage two and took further evidence at that point because new sections of the bill were added between stage one and stage two. So we couldn't look at them, examine them at stage one, so we took the opportunity to examine them in advance of stage two. So there is some flexibility in the system that allows you to do that, obviously working with the business manager and others, sorry, the minister, I should say, and others to expand the space. So it is possible to do, the education committee hasn't done it, but I still think there's some way to go in improving that particular part of the process. I think the fundamental problem is that you have a government that decides on a particular line of action and it looks at an end point and therefore the process, as we suggested in our submission, then fits everything in from stage one, well, from stage three back to stage one in terms of timing. And it's obvious from our experience, for example, in the aquaculture and fisheries bill in 2012-13 that we were able to make visits to people who were directly affected both in rivers and in fish farms, and it also improved the quality of their written evidence and indeed subsequently their oral evidence at the committee. So giving time for committees to prepare for stage one was the very best innovation of the Scottish Parliament, but it's got to be respected in terms of the time that's available to do that. And so, for example, we also were designated as a lead committee on the long leases bill, Scotland, which had fallen previously because of the end of the session, and stage one had been conducted before, but we had to conduct the stage one again. And in some ways, the question of designation is something you may not have thought about, but really a subcommittee of the original committee that dealt with it would have been much more sensible. Can I just add briefly? I'm not here to represent the finance committee, but I've already referred to the feelings of the finance committee that stage one actually sometimes needs to be longer in order to deal with the financial memorandum properly. But the other example that I ought to get from the finance committee, and it was Stewart's bill in relation to children and young people, where because of the changes that had been made to the bill at stage two, there were financial implications. And the finance committee actually, you'll remember this, ended up dealing with the financial memorandum on the same day as stage three. So, obviously, there's a problem there, and I suppose it's another example of a problem that arises because there isn't enough time for stage two or, in this case, stage three. Can I just come in and pick up something Rob Gibson made reference to the long leases bill and how we might have leveraged the previous stage one better when we considered it in the current session? And perhaps direct to Malcolm Chisholm, the question, at Westminster in general terms, I understand that bills are allocated to a committee established for the purpose of dealing with a bill, whereas here our general practice is for it to go to a subject committee. And I just wondered how these two alternative approaches might be compared and what the relative advantages and disadvantages of the market, knowing that you've explained them both. I think I'm slightly hesitant when I speak now at Westminster because it actually has changed a lot over the last 15 years since I came here, but I don't think it has changed in that regard. And it was a fundamental difference between the committee system of this parliament and that parliament that there you have a standing committee that is especially created to deal with the bill, whereas here a committee education, for example, does everything enquiries legislation and so on. I think in principle our system is better because it means that the people dealing with legislation in a subject area are also experts in that area by reason of the fact that they're doing it. We can weak out, so I think in principle it's better, but I think that creates some of the time pressures and we may come on to that, but I do have concerns that sometimes the time taken on legislation at stage two may not be as great as it would be optimal. So there are some downsides, but in general I think our system is better in principle to have the same committee dealing with legislation and the enquiries on that subject. Mr Gibson said, you said the government says they want a bill and then we work backwards from there, is that right? So they said we're going to introduce a bill whenever it is, it's going to be October or November, and then you work backwards to get to stage one, two and three. Is that what you meant? No, they're looking at an end point where they think this bill is required to be passed, let's say it's June 2014, and they'll have introduced it sometime in perhaps the middle of the previous session because they're thinking about what the end point is. So they cram the stages in to fit their timetable for the end point, and that can restrict the time that we have for the major part of the committee inquiry stage, stage one, which is the only time when you can really look at the real potential of amendments and so on that might be being made to it because there is more time for it, but there could be more. And that time frame really is something which needs to be more flexible, as Malcolm Chisholm has said, because you end up with situations where a policy memorandum has been dealt with in the same day as stage three, so we really need to have more time at the earlier stages and we'll come into the middle bit, no doubt, in more detail. Can I just clarify something? So there's no misunderstanding, I mean the example that was being referred to there, what happened was there was the supplementary financial memorandum, the financial memorandum was dealt with at the start by the Finance Committee and then subsequently by the Education Committee, there was a change to the bill which meant that a supplementary financial memorandum had to be produced. That, of course, was quite correct within the rules, but what happened then was there was insufficient time, I think we could agree, for the Finance Committee then to take the time to look at the supplementary financial memorandum in advance of stage three. So it was a stage two change which created the requirement for supplementary financial memorandum and because of the relative proximity between stage two and stage three, there wasn't enough time for the Finance Committee to really properly address that and then refer back to the Education Committee or even really the Parliament. Can I just come in there before going back to Margaret, who's got some other points on this. In terms of an updated financial memorandum, I think it's correct to say that the current rules do not require Parliament to approve it, only the original one. And I wonder if, leading members perhaps to the answer to this question, whether they think that if there's a material change, and I use that word as a weasel word, to a financial memorandum it should be subject to parliamentary approval. That seems reasonable. I would agree, and I think that the fact is that supplementary financial memorandum had to be produced within the rules of the Parliament because of the particular change that took place at stage three. But the rules didn't require it to be agreed to. No, no, but the point I'm making is that given that the Parliament has identified within its rules the necessity for a supplementary financial memorandum produced, you would then think the logical extension is that Parliament should have something to say about that supplementary financial memorandum and it shouldn't just be produced and then ignored by the Parliament. I just wanted to get that on the record. It's a rather obvious point, I think. Margaret. I just wanted to follow up on the engagement. I mean, I think you all agreed that we should do the usual suspects that we hear from when we're consulting on bills. Is there anything else that can be done to encourage more engagement with the public, for example, or on bills? Well, I'm sure we should always try and do more, because it was one of the founding ideals and principles of the Parliament, obviously, that you should have wide participation. I mean, I don't think I would totally go along with the usual subjects. I think I was referring to that's what people say, because I think if you look at who responds to bills, it is pretty impressive. I would even look to put in written submissions on this inquiry, and it was quite a broad range of people and organisations. But obviously we should always aim to do more, and I suppose, and perhaps particularly reaching into more individual members of the public, I suppose most of them aren't aware of consultations on bills. So, if more could be done, then that would be desirable. But I don't think you could generally say that we get a narrow range of views on bills. I think we do get a pretty broad range of different views. So it would be desirable, but I don't think we should kind of be ourselves up too much about them. I would say that some bills are going to attract an awful lot more public comment than others, and clearly you can see from the record just exactly why that is. But the way in which lobbying works, the way in which scrutiny by trade bodies and so on is carried out, there's quite a wide discussion amongst people who are likely to be affected, but the problem is, as Malcolm says, the general public has to have an interest in something and follow how this works, and it's quite difficult for us, even with the resources we have, to reach as many people perhaps as might wish to take part, but an awful lot of the people who need to take part, I would say, do get involved. And in terms of the witnesses we call, we try to vary that and get as wide a range as possible, but inevitably because of those trade bodies, as I called them, you're bound to have some representative persons who appear time and again. I wouldn't criticise, I know the phrase, the usual suspect sounds like criticism, but I think many organisations have built up real expertise in their contributions to the Parliament, and I think that's actually very helpful, and is at advantage to committees. Obviously committees can try a variety of innovative techniques in terms of trying to reach out into other groups, depends on the legislation you're looking at. I think the Education Committee did try to do this, particularly with the Children and Young People Bill. I think one of the issues that we wrestled with in that particular area, we were dealing with a group of young people who were particularly vulnerable, and what we didn't want to do is immediately do what we're doing now, put them in a formal setting in front of a committee, and then have to deal with really quite sensitive subjects, perhaps some of them very personal problems that they had. So we did go out and meet them informally in the offices of Who Care Scotland in Glasgow, we had informal sessions here in the Parliament, again not on the record, we got them to decide what they wanted to do to tell us and they did it in a variety of ways including a short play and various other things they wanted to do, and eventually we came to the point slowly but surely where they gave us much more formal evidence, although it wasn't absolutely in this kind of format. So I think there are things that committees can do. I think sometimes we forget that we have that flexibility. Thank you. I wonder, just before we move on, we essentially have been talking about government bills, but there are four other kinds of bills. Members' bills, committee bills, private bills and hybrid bills, previously transport work bills. I just wonder if there are any facets of these other types of bills that we should be taking account of, and perhaps in particular in relation to committee bills, where the committee may be both the sponsor of the bill and the committee that considers the bill, whether there are any issues that you would like to make any comments on. And private bills as well, which I think have been. This appointment is that there have been so few committee bills, because obviously there's the opportunity for that here, which doesn't exist in Westminster, but I don't know how many there have been, but it's a pretty small number. So it's actually quite difficult to comment on the processes. We have so a few examples of how that works out in practice. I think private bills are not significantly different from the way they're dealt with at Westminster as far as I can see. And I think members' bills in principle work in the same kind of way as the public bills, so I think the big challenge for us is the committee bills. I don't disagree. Whether it's by design or by accident, I don't think I've experienced a committee bill, so therefore I couldn't really comment on that. I think they are perhaps unused resource, but it can be quite difficult, I think, for a committee to come to a conclusion that they want to introduce a bill and then to go through that process. That's quite a lengthy process, and I think that would be quite difficult. So maybe it's just the length of time it would take to come to agreement about something that committee wanted to change and bring forward a bill, so that's perhaps quite difficult for a committee to do. But I think as far as members' bills, which may be a more experience of having brought forward a members' bill in the second session, certainly I think it works pretty well overall. There's always a pressure on resources and time for using parliamentary, you know, the non-executive bills unit that I used at that time obviously had a lot of competing demands on their time, so that was sometimes quite difficult. And I think also, as an individual member, you're always, certainly, you're cutting the currents of government intentions, so therefore if the government decides to support your policy, then that policy can be removed and it's absorbed into a government bill, which happened to me. Not that that's a bad thing, because then it gets the resources that a government can throw at it, but then of course if a government resists it, then it can be very difficult for an individual member to make progress with a level of supports available. So, with those caveats, I still think that the members' bill process works pretty well and has been used by a lot of members to actually advance quite important issues. Whether or not they've ended up with legislation is maybe a slightly different story. I agree with what's been said beforehand. My experience on a private bill, tram line one, was before when we had to use the judicial powers that we had, you know, to actually deal with the stage that's now been removed, and the problems about that for the number of MSPs that we have providing extra workload on top of your regular workload, and in some cases people already had two committees. It made for a very time-consuming process, but, you know, private bills come along, some of them are more complicated than others, and we face that when we do. In terms of committee bills, I've had no experience of that, but in terms of members' bills, the one that stands out memorably was Mike Pringle's plastic bag bill, which was handled in a very fair fashion and provided us with an awful lot of information, which helped us in the process of dealing with the government's own bill on these moves, orders indeed on these matters more recently. Thank you, Richard. Well, example, can we stand on stages one, two and three? I note from the submission from both rural affairs and education. In rural affairs, in terms of engagement, in general, stage one works well, but stages two and three, you've already said this, Rob, are not very transparent or accessible to anyone outside Parliament, and consideration is to best address that while keeping the process put for purpose. Basically, the education stated that the children and young people bill had insufficient time due to the number of amendments that you got at both stages two and three. The gap wasn't very good, you were constrained, but then Parliament acknowledged that, and then the gaps were extended. So in your view, and I know you've already stated earlier in regards to some of the stages, but can you suggest any changes required in regard to the stages allowed for one, two and three, and also basically the time allowed between stages? Stage two, it's very hard, as we suggested, to pin down the number of amendments there might be. In reality, in some cases, an awful lot of amendments, and the whole process in stage two can become a very shortened, you know, tick list of getting through things without the time scrutiny that's required for these large numbers of amendments. Now, they take a lot longer to do than just one or two, obviously, but I don't think that the timetable is scheduled to allow that to happen properly, and I certainly don't think that a very short time between the end of stage two and the taking of stage three is very helpful to a process where, inevitably, as we've seen over the years, there are amendments at stage three, and when you come to that debate, curtailed into two-minute speeches and things like this, it is not proper scrutiny of major changes that can take place that have often not been researched by the committee that's looked at the whole issue, and I've been involved in some of these myself, so I would say they kind of unintended consequences, and I think it's a very good idea that we spend more time being able to scrutinise these things before they get to stage three. So, to answer your question, we need, you know, very careful tick-tack to work out how long a stage two should actually be in order to understand what the impact of the amendments are, but also we need more space between stage two and stage three if there are likely to be further amendments at that time. I think one of the problems, and if I take the children and young people bill as an example, it's the one we used in our evidence to the committee. Effectively, there are competing pressures, obviously, between the Government's attempt to get progress in legislation, which I understand irrespective of which Government is. They want to see their legislation progress at a reasonable speed, and the ability of members to undertake, firstly, proper scrutiny, and secondly, the ability to absorb any changes, particularly if there are a lot of amendments to a bill, to absorb those changes and decide what impact that has on their desire to submit further amendments for stage three. That's what happened, I think, at the children and young people bill, and possibly it was similar at the post-16 education bill that was a similar number involved in those bills as well, and that bill as well. And the problem, I think, was that the Government, at any Government, looks at the process on the basis of what is the minimum gap that we have to meet. So, understanding orders, there's a space that has to happen between stage two and stage three, and they're saying, okay, it's X number of days, so we want our stage three to happen as soon as possible. I understand why Governments want to do that, but in some cases, and this is a good example, that left individual members on the committee with some difficulty because they had to absorb what had taken place at stage two, and then, given the very, very quick timescale, get amendments in the following week. Now, that was an extremely quick timescale for them to do that. Given the size of the bill, and given the areas we were discussing, and the fact that additional changes had been made, large changes had been made just in advance of stage two, or part of stage two, that provided some difficulty. And I think that if members of a committee find that difficult, then other members in the Parliament who are not involved closely in the process find that even more difficult, and people outside of this Parliament find it almost impossible. So, I think there is a problem, which is that the pressure to get the legislation through quickly is creating too short a space between stage two and stage three. I think there has to be a bit more room for manoeuvre between stage two and three. Not always, because some bills are pretty straightforward and there's not really any problem. But some of the examples I've given I think there is a problem, and I think to be fair to all members, and I think probably it's more to be fair to opposition members than it is government members, they have to have the time to absorb the changes and decide what they want to do for stage three if we're to get a more rounded process and a fair process. I mean, I think there's two issues here. One is the gap between the stages, and also in fact the related gap between the laying of amendments and the debating of amendments. So, I think in general those gaps could be broadened. I mean, there will be cases where a government actually needs to get the legislation through very quickly. The majority of bills, if they took one or two months longer, it really wouldn't alter anything very fundamentally. So I think that the issue of gaps should be quite easy to make progress on. The other, I suppose, more equally important issue is how long do you take for stage three and stage three. I don't know if this is the right time to discuss that in detail, but if I can summarise my views on that. I do think, I have been concerned throughout the years of the Parliament that stage two is potentially too fast here, and this perhaps is the downside of the Unitary Committee, which I have praised in general, that because committees have massive agendas of lots of issues to deal with in inquiries as well as legislation, that there is a very stark contrast between the amount of time that this Parliament takes on stage two and the amount of time that Westminster takes. And I'm not asking us to go to the Westminster system because when I first went to Westminster in 1992, my first bill was actually a bankruptcy bill. And we sat with a special committee chosen for the bankruptcy bill, and we started while we would sit him in the morning from half past ten to one o'clock, we would resume again at half past four, and on occasion we were there at half past four in the morning. And people would stand up and make speeches an hour long on one or two lines of the bill. Now I'm not asking us to go to that system, but you can see why I'm contrasting it. And I do actually think some slight changes to stage two would improve it. There are two issues worth considering. I think one's easy to deal with because I notice a difference in the behaviour of committee conveners and what they allow at stage two. And I won't name which committees I'm experiencing here, but I have quite recently been told off, not told off, but forbidden to intervene on a minister during stage two. And it seems to me that that's absolutely fundamental to stage two. You get your chance perhaps just once to speak on your particular amendments, but when the minister is summing up, you need to be able to ask him to give way or her to give way to clarify a point or whatever. So I think some committee conveners do and some don't. So I think some clarification on that would help because I think the give and take between members and ministers is absolutely fundamental to the scrutiny of bills. I think that would be easy to sort. It may be that some conveners don't understand what the rules are, but I've had different accounts from different conveners about that. So I think that's easy to fix. The other thing that's worth thinking about, but it would extend the process, is that Westminster, you always have a debate on each clause of a bill. Now, you may think that's overegging it, but the advantage of that is if you think about it, part of the dealing with bills is amending it, but part of it is just proving it and trying to make sure that what's intended in the bill is actually expressed in the wording of a clause. And you may have questions to ask about a clause without necessarily wanting to have an amendment. So I think that would extend the process, but it did take me a while to get used to that because you suddenly thought, oh, I can't discuss that bill because that clause, because there's no amendment on it. So. Fynon, I'm slightly uncertain. I may have to take your voice. Given that at stage two, we actually have to agree each clause formally. But you can't have a debate on it, can you? Well, I'm not sure if that's forbidden. I think maybe what I'm hearing is simply reflecting a practice rather than a rule. Is that, does anyone want to give me advice on that? It's certainly not the practice to have. We're agreeing it's not the practice, but you raise actually quite an interesting point, and maybe it's simply practice rather than rules. So anyway, I think there are some interesting issues about stage two without going to the other. I don't know if they still do that at Westminster, but I mean, to be honest, I'm not praising what they did at Westminster because the interesting thing about standing committees at Westminster is they would meet all night, and they would meet for days on end. Nothing ever changes in a standing committee because it's a picked committee. It's picked by the whips for that purpose. If it's minimum pricing of alcohol, then I'm not going to get put on the bill because I don't take the party line. It doesn't happen, you know? There's no rebellions in stage two at Westminster anyway. That's just in case you think I'm praising that as a model system. Stage three here, I think, is the one where there's probably most universal agreement that we need to improve it. For me, the simple point is, apart from the gaps that we need, is we need longer for stage three. I think that is that we've got into the way we've kind of tailored our behaviour at stage three for the time available, so we're all used to making two-minute speeches and other people don't get to speak at all, and if it overruns that particular group of amendments, we'll even not get discussed and voted on. So I think there is a head of steam for having a longer stage three. I want to make an observation that when I took the climate change bill through and looked at stage three afterwards, the backbenchers were speaking in two-minute segments, but I spoke for over four hours, so maybe the balance between the people with an interest in stage three on the climate change bill. Oh, altogether. Oh, I see what you mean, sorry. But cumulatively, the minister actually spoke during the course of stage three for over four hours. That's my other general point. I think ministers have an easier time here than they do at Westminster, because it may be if some committees have lots of interventions on the minister at stage two, then the minister will have to know the subject pretty well, and potentially ministers can be intervened on at stage three, but they don't tend to be. So, obviously, a lot of my experience of committees here is as a minister. I would say you don't get such a hard time as a minister because of the way it's set up. Can I just put on the record, because the formal point has been brought to my attention in relation to the passing of a section. Rule 9.7.6 requires every section and schedule to be agreed to at stage two. Before the question is put, the convener may give members the opportunity to raise any issues relevant to the section or schedule that have not been adequately discussed during consideration of amendments to it. So what we have actually in the formal words specifically permits it, but I think we're all sharing an experience that we don't know of any instances where it's ever happened. So I think there's a little interesting thing, which I'm very glad that you made that point, because I think that's quite an interesting thing for us to think about. Can I just draw your attention to submission from the Rural Etc. Committee? Regarding stage three paragraph one, two, three at the bottom of page four in our submission, and it relates to the amendments that were made to the Crofting Scotland Bill of 2006-07. No, in fact, I beg your pardon, it was the agricultural holdings bill of 2003. Last minute amendments and very little scrutiny. The circumstances were such that it ended up in a case that reached the Supreme Court and it required us to undertake correcting legislation. That is a warning that the necessary work that has to be done by the government and the opposition at stage three can reach us a very difficult stage and cost in many ways about which I'll not go into the full details because they were. And in terms of the way that we work, a proper debate about that amendment that was made at the last minute for very good reasons led to a whole lot of angst and worse in the country and the correcting legislation is going to cost millions to actually sort out. I didn't mention stage three earlier, I didn't realise we were getting into it, but if we are getting into it at this point, I certainly would agree that there's change required. I've almost, from the day I joined the Parliament that stage three was slightly odd. If I can give you an example, in the 2005 bill on alcohol, that particular stage three wasn't the Parliament's finest hour. There were a lot of points of order even at the start, there were manuscript amendments, there were manuscript amendments which were refused by the Presiding Officer even though, and I tried to make one because others had made manuscript amendments which were allowed and then had they been originally laid then I would have made an amendment, but of course that was forbidden because I hadn't done it in time. That was not the best example of how a stage three could be carried out, but one of the fundamental problems in that bill, and that has happened in some others and it is a minority of cases, but I think it's important, is that there were very, very important points of principle and a lot of members had extremely serious points to make about that particular bit of legislation and that happens elsewhere, but because of the time constraints on people, and I was one of them and got called at the end of a particular section to speak on some amendments and was told I had one minute to speak, or if I could keep it to 30 seconds that would be helpful. That is just impossible for any member to do, particularly when it's such an important and serious issue, but I think the point we always, I think we seem to forget, is that a stage three is the final opportunity of members to comment on a piece of legislation, is the very last chance and of course most members are not involved in the process at stage one or stage two, at stage three where they get their first opportunity to a great extent to be involved in a bill and I think as members of parliament we have a responsibility and a duty to take that particular role very seriously and I think the time constraints at stage three are detrimental to the democratic analysis of a bill and I think genuinely, and of course it wouldn't happen very often, but when we come against something which is controversial or difficult to deal with then I think we shouldn't have the time constraints at stage three that we do have. We could put an estimate of how long it's going to take and all that, and I understand why you'd want to do that to try and manage the time available. But if there are 20 members who want to speak on an amendment and it's the final opportunity to speak on that legislation and they have a point to make or a principle to stand up for or a constituent to represent, then I think they should have that opportunity. So I know that we said and I'm rereading the letter we sent and I'm now thinking maybe we shouldn't have said it, but I mean we said that it should allow full and unlimited scrutiny. Well full scrutiny is one thing perhaps not unlimited but I think there should be not the time constraints on members at stage three that there currently are. And if that means that you know we don't finish at five or five thirty when we intend to or six when we intend to, I think that's just tough and that members will just have to accept that on those particular occasions we will have to carry on and do the work that we're here to do. I feel quite strongly about stage three that there isn't sufficient time and that all members should get the opportunity to speak if they so wish. Can I just say, I'll let you in in a second, we're now two thirds of the way through our session and I know a number of members still to contribute so let's all try and keep it concise and sharp. It's really just two points further to stage three. I mean I'm a great supporter of a family friend there so I would rather not extend except we're unavoidable so I think we used to have stage three's over two days or at least two days we could even have them a whole week if it was a big bill so I don't think there's a problem but if I can just briefly go back to this idea which is new to me from the Law Society and I think some other legal figures I think obviously if you split stage three that would create more time in itself but it's also this issue of if mistakes can be made at stage three I used to be terrified particularly in the last Parliament when votes as you know minority government were going one way winning by one, losing by one somebody could press the wrong button somebody could be out having a cup of coffee and not get back in time I used to be terrified that we would pass either the opposite of what we intended or contradictory amendments so one advantage of splitting stage three would be and I think this is in the Law Society proposal if there was something in the bill that was just absolutely contradictory or some other reason that made the legislation completely flawed you would have a final chance at the final stage of part three perhaps a week later somebody would have spotted this and it would kind of like be a backstop and some discussions about do we need a second chamber and so on no we don't need a second chamber but there may just be something we could do to provide extra protection that we're not making some fundamental mistake in our legislation I think to be fair it's remarkable with well over 100 bills how few mistakes there have been but it can happen I think Rob gave an example so that might be one way of dealing with it Just for the record there is a provision to reopen stage three that has been used but it is very restrictive in its scope Richard, did you have a further point? I did have a couple but for the sake of time I could ask you're basically saying that where it's a controversial bill we should have extended time as was in the bill from your committee Mr Maxwell was giving that extra time where it's a non-controversial bill maybe we can shorten that time or leave it the same a simple yes or no answer would suffice No, I was going to say yes is the answer I think that's fine I know that you're very keen on it and I'll be very quick the point I'm making is that I think it would be relatively rare that there would be these extended events there are only a handful examples over the years most bills would carry on pretty much as they are on the current timetable so I don't think it's that difficult for us to manage that those occasions when there is extended time at Fiona Can I take us to the supporting and accompanying documents for a bill on its introduction? Rural Affairs and Professor Regime have read his submission talking in particular about accompanying documents and sustainable development but can I wind in it and ask the members because I think the financial memorandum is something that's worth looking at as well if there's any changes that need to the rules or the actual supporting documents that we ask for The policy memoranda ought to have environmental, economic and social impacts identified not in any tick box way because we're trying to underline the cross cutting nature of climate change and so on and that nationally every one of our committees is a climate change committee so if we're dealing with the matters of environmental things then the policy memoranda for each kind of bill should respect that but the economic and social impacts too and we would like to see those policy memoranda expanded and made more explicit because we think that thinking in the Government would help to make better laws but the financial memoranda we've found weakest of all and we realise it's difficult of course to estimate accurately what the costs of certain bills are we've already heard about the need to have supplementary memoranda but you know it's not been helpful to the scrutiny of the bill at stage one to have very vague figures and the robustness of that is something we would ask the committee to seek in terms of its report Can I just come in on that when we have amendments at stage two and stage three should we require policy statements to be associated with those? It might well be an important point I can't say generally that would be essential but it might well be preferable if there are major changes and I haven't seen a bill where there's been major changes of that sort but perhaps in the education side of things I was going to say I don't think it's necessary I think in most cases the amendments are pretty straightforward and we understand what's being done there may be occasions where a small note of explanation might be helpful but it would only be where there are major changes or particularly complex changes other than that I wouldn't think it would be necessary I'll be brief because I've made comments about financial memorandums previously I think I agree with Rob they have to be more robust we've certainly criticised several financial memorandums but I think the other thing is making sure that there's time for them which is the point that I've made already Right George Yes I was going to ask about how effective you believe stage two and three is but you've already kind of gone at length regarding that but one of the things that I'd like to explore even more is stage three itself I think George mentioned the fact that it was the 2005 licensing act that you were talking about because I was at the other side as a councillor having to deal with the mess that came from that on the licensing board and I can experience how stage three probably would have possibly helped out now do you think it might be better if we do split it some of the ideas here are that there should be a split I find in my limited experience here that you know you have stage three and you have a debate tacked on at the end which is a complete waste of time in my experience because I don't see any personally any value to it so if any of the more experienced members here could possibly tell me am I missing something here whereas somewhere else we could put that debate that would be of more value because I'm still we're always limited to the five o'clock cut-off time and is it better just to maybe go on to a later time have a proper debate about it pre the actual amendments going in as well I wouldn't say it should be pre the amendments stage I think it's a bit of a horses for courses this one I think it would depend on the bill I mean I think sometimes if you have the debate immediately I know what Mr Adam was talking about in terms of sometimes it feels a bit formulaic most people will have written the speech before hand anyway when you've written the speech then you go on to stage three so I think that's maybe a bit formulaic sometimes but I think I can see the advantages sometimes and the attractiveness of splitting the debate off and giving a pause for thought I can see the advantages of that but at the same time sometimes in some debates on stage three of the bill because you have just gone through that particular process then the actual debate is much more relevant and fiery and interesting because you've been talking about it and then you go straight into the debate on it and I think sometimes that can be a useful thing, it can be an advantage to do that whereas if you wait 24 hours or particularly a week then you know it was last weeks news in a sense it was last weeks bill that bill has now passed much of the argument and the heat has gone out of it and I think sometimes it might be a bit more formulaic even than it currently is sometimes if you left it for a week Can I just say that yes I understand your point of view but sometimes because of time you're cut down to four minutes and how are you going to make that fiery argument within that four minutes? I've already said that I think that when it comes to stage three we should be much more flexible about time I don't think we should have these very rigid cut-offs either during the stage three process or if that restricts the debate afterwards I think we should be more flexible about that and people should get the opportunity to speak so I understand what Malcolm said earlier and I wouldn't want to drive a coach in horses through that because I think that would be wrong but at the same time on the limited number of occasions we're talking about I think we should just expand the time whether that means finishing it six or seven or even eight o'clock I personally think that's one of those things that's on very rare occasions we should do Well I mean again I've made my point I don't have strong views on this but I think there are certain advantages in splitting it and not least create more time I think we're all agreed we want more time so it's just a matter of how we do that I mean I think if it's a big bill there's no reason why you shouldn't take three afternoons in the week when I did the planning bill some of you will remember it was a day and a half it may even have been two full days I certainly know it was a whole of Thursday and either half or whole of Wednesday so that equates to at least three afternoons under the current arrangements and I think for a big important bill probably like the children's bill I think in general one of the fundamental things that a Parliament does if not the fundamental thing is passed laws so I think in general I would say let's be prepared to spend a bit more time on it I'm not downgrading or being disrespectful to any of the debates that we have but I think some of them we could say we could do without in the interest of a piece of legislation so I think we ought to generally just elevate the centrality of legislation I have a little to add In terms of stage 2 in particular the way we do with amendments effective in particular just articulating one of my personal hobby horses is the way in which we progress on the voting of amendments appropriate because of course we vote on amendments as we meet them in the bill rather than where we had them in the debate and I always go back to the example at stage 2 in land reform where an amendment of mine was debated in June and voted on at the end of October because it was grouped with something at the beginning of the bill and therefore was in the first of the 18 stage 2 debates but it was right at the end of the bill that it had its effect as to whether you have any views on that Do I see Malcolm Ketchum in my life? I don't have strong views on that I mean it sounds reasonable what you're suggesting in terms of it makes it easier for members to know what they're voting on which is obviously a good thing but there obviously are downsides and I suppose I suppose it means that you can't look at a clause in its totality you've already dealt with some of it beforehand but I suppose my attitude to that would be apart from yourself I'm not aware of anybody else having raised that as an issue so I think I would really want to hear the pros and cons of that I think it's worth exploring but I feel there are downsides and probably I haven't quite articulated them all I think on balance I would not support that although I think I would want to take further time to consider it but I think thinking about it now I think the problem would be that you would be jumping about in the bill if you did it the way that you suggest and I think that would be even more complicated and less transparent than the way we currently do it I think on stage to amendments what I would say about it it's efficient but maybe not transparent and I think is it effective? I think it's effective in what it's trying to do but I think that the point is certainly for anybody who comes and sits and watches I sometimes feel sympathy for members of the public who have wandered in accidentally to a stage 2 process and find it almost impossible to understand what on earth is going on but in general I think it's probably a pretty effective and efficient process I think the way that we do it when we vote, debate and then vote on balance the best way to do it I'm always open to discussion and debate on these things but I think maybe I'm speaking as a convener here I'm very clear about what we're doing in the process we're going through in the way that we deal with it and I know that I've dealt with it and I can move on if we started to jump about I might feel less comfortable as a convener maybe that's my personal views four minutes left I would just say that I think we should look at the norm and find out whether in fact there is any problem here because I suspect that while outsiders might not understand the process the people who are involved do understand the process and it's just like points of law which are perhaps obstruced to delay person but the opportunities to scrutinise things properly seems to me to have taken place because I haven't seen any restriction or having the debates about amendments at stage two That's fine, Cameron Good morning, as a relatively new member I still fail to understand why we have the debate on stage three after the amendments everybody just disappears from the chamber I wonder what everybody thinks about that because it doesn't seem to me a point surely we should have the debate and then the amendments rather than the debate rather than the other way around no, we should surely be debating the thing first debating it and then voting I don't understand why it's reversed we have a debate after everything's done We've already had a stage one debate so I suppose you have one at the beginning and one at the end I suppose part of the answer to many of these questions is that this Parliament's more modelled on Westminster than some of us perhaps are aware of perhaps even like to think about it that's obviously that stage three and I suppose in particular where you have a controversial bill it seems quite right to have a final debate where the other interesting thing is we often actually agree about legislation to a remarkable extent if you were to examine that I don't know how many bills must be over 200 rather than over 100 but I think we do need to have a final debate where people actually can express their different views about a piece of legislation I think it would be a bit awkward to have it before we had the final form of the bill because we would then be we'd be debating really the bill as it was at stage two rather than the bill as it was in its final form which is what we have to vote on Can I wonder if you're going to ask about committees? Yes I'm going to ask about the secondary committees the secondary committees that we've got here do you think they're effective you know the the ultimate secondary committees like delegated powers in law reform that are effective having a secondary committee The finance committee is very effective I didn't say the finance committee actually I didn't say the finance committee I used to be on the delegated reform committee but I haven't been on it recently so it seemed to me and I read their comments they seemed to do their work very thoroughly I was a substitute in the finance committee a couple of times but I was on the then called subordinate legislation committee now the delegated I can't remember his name I was on the subleg for four years I think the members of the subleg committee take their job very seriously and do a good job in providing technical evidence for subject committees it's up to the members of subject committees though to take the work seriously I think that's maybe where the issue is and read properly and understand the work that's going on in the finance committee I think that's a good question because if you've got experience of being on one of these committees then you've got a good understanding of the work they do and what they're trying to achieve and the information they're providing you if you've never been on one of those committees perhaps it seems a bit esoteric and you're not quite sure so maybe that's maybe a job for individual members to perhaps be more proactive and understanding the work of these particularly secondary committees but at the end if I can just go round and see if there's any final wrap-up points you think we've not covered a final point you want to make starting raw I'm just happy with the delegated powers and the law reform because of the fact that the convener is a member of our committee so he can keep us right if there's anything we don't understand otherwise I'm happy with what I've said do colleagues have any final comments they wish to make? No? Right. Can I thank you very much indeed that's been a very interesting and illuminating conversation where we've all learned a few things from that and I thank you very much and you've nicely teed up the next panel who of course represent the external view and I expect to hear some rather different things from them. Thank you, I suspend the meeting while we change witnesses. Colleagues The second panel from left to right as I'm sitting and Henderson who is the assistant secretary of the Scottish trade union congress Magnus Gardam who is here not representing his employer but of course the Scottish Parliamentary Journalists Association and Professor Colin T read the school of law at the University of Dundee I know you had a little bit of the previous session which was very internally focused being as it was parliamentarians giving us evidence we hope that you'll give us some useful insights into how the world sees us and how we might improve how the world sees us and how we might improve our approaches. Now the approach I intend to take is we'll go straight to questions at the very end we'll give you the opportunity if you think there are any things to just draw that to our attention and say anything. I'm particularly grateful to Magnus Gardam who I know Thursdays are a particularly busy day we will finish no later than 11.30 and we'll finish earlier if that's the appropriate thing to do so straight to questions Kara Hilton Good morning panel, just to kick off the legislation process in the Scottish Parliament has got three stages in principle is this model the right one or are changes needed? General patterns about right the idea that you have a sort of general discussion of principles policies where the things going and particularly with the stage one process that this parliament uses which is so open of our opportunities for people to contribute I think it's very good then obviously you get on to more technical more detailed stages at stages two and three it's appropriate that they should be more streamlined in a sense to some extent more internally focused I think having had a quick look through the written submissions have come to the mid I think there's fairly general themes coming through that perhaps at stages two and three that streamlining is ending up with things being squeezed so much that if significant changes are made people don't feel they've got the chance really to engage with them but the basic idea I think is that Yeah I mean I don't think sort of we as the journalists covering Holyrood would have a view on whether the sort of three stage process was you know good bad or inappropriate or whether it could be improved however there are certainly issues when it comes to the way that the workings of parliament are covered which is sort of certainly thrown up by stage threes as Professor Reid has mentioned which we might sort of come to later on Yeah I think again from the STUC's point of view the general framework the three stages is clear I certainly think and we would like to comment later on how condensed stage three becomes and how difficult it is sometimes to engage with that I think there are some quite interesting issues around where draft bills have been introduced prior to going into the formal a formal bill is being lodged and I think that's allowed sometimes a little bit more engagement and picking up on some of the difficulties rather than running into the actual formal bill being lodged straight away and I also think that we try as much as we can to in terms of public bills to participate in the Scottish Government consultations prior to the stage where the bill is drafted and drawn up and I think that I see that one of the suggestions in the submissions from the Parliamentary Minister for Business is indeed that there be an increased parliamentary attention paid to the consultation prior to the bill being introduced and again and I think that we would be quite interested in that apart from anything else it may be removed some of the duplication or it would allow us to discuss as the STC with parliamentarians earlier in the process Margaret Thank you and good morning panel to what extent does the legislative process encourage engagement from interested parties and is it open and transparent enough that you could start, Ann, if you want My previous answer touched on some of that from our point of view we represent a significant range of different sectors to trade unions representing workers across both geographically and industrially across Scotland so it's quite important for us that there's time within the process to mean that when we come to the committee of the STC we've had time to consult with our own membership and that's the case for a whole number of organisations in civic Scotland who come to give evidence to committee so I think it's important that the kind of key messages of a piece of legislation or the stage one process is very visible and I think the parliament does try to do that sometimes it feels as if when we're, for instance, submitting to a committee inquiry request or a committee's call for evidence on stage one it sometimes feels as if it's quite a quick turnaround and I think there's not always adequate time at that point for us to then go back and consult fully with our members which would mean we could then identify more easily the best expertise pertinent to a particular piece of legislation Does the Government's annual announcement of its programme for legislation which is generally in early September clearly this year might be slightly different Is that helpful that you are working out the shape of your year? Yes it is, obviously things then happen during the process that's happened with the criminal justice bill and developments then change that but yes it's helpful to have an idea set out in advance of the key messages of what's likely to be coming forward in legislation. I think it would be hard for us to take a view on whether engagement could be improved or not we see what engagement there is and submissions, we write stories based on that we go and talk to the people and the groups who make submissions now whether a greater range of engagement or submissions could be attracted I don't know I think it's important to see the legislative stage is only part of a much bigger process which will start with perhaps earlier policy documents consultation exercises on those there may or may not be a draft bill the primary legislation going through but very often there's then going to be rules regulations, secondary legislation coming through so in terms of outside engagement it's the opportunity throughout that extended process rather than just looking at the narrow legislative stage of the primary bill going through parliament that's important and most of the time there are opportunities beforehand stage one is very good the problems come sometimes at the stages two and three and then subsequent regulations because sometimes you're approving a bill when you don't have a clear idea of it's a very broad enabling act which in some ways is appropriate but there may be things you want to say that depend on answers to later questions I admit I give up at stages two and three I'll engage with a process and a bill follow it up to stage one and then see what comes out at the end but there's not much effort to try and follow all the amendments work out I know you can find out this stuff but it's not a priority and I think it would be too much effort to actually try and follow everything all the way through given that you're professionally involved in this as a professor of law and find it difficult from your distance do you have any sense that that creates difficulties that matter to the effectiveness of the process for the legislator I suspect it does I think that an experienced I was going to say lobby group an interest group who is a stakeholder involved in the legislation if they have the capacity to have people dedicated we're going to be following it carefully to be reading the amendments seeing what's happening, seeing how the balance is coming through the people who are in the know and are the inside outsiders they can follow it somebody who's a first time trying to follow the process and so on I suspect we'll find it very hard and get very difficult to follow what happens after stage 1 is there a suggestion indirectly that the process would be enhanced if the novices had some source of support for their activity to your legislation possibly or greater explanation of what's going on that when you look at the list of amendments it's very hard to work out which ones are significant, which ones are technical tidying up, what's the policy do any of these add up to a shift in the policy policy outcome I was quite interested in Magnus Gardner when you said that you felt your role at this stage in engaging the public once the submissions came in publicise them, report on them but we heard from the earlier panel about how do we get more people engaged at that stage 1 or pre stage 1 and I know the Parliament's doing all sorts of interesting things like tweeting about stuff so that it goes beyond the usual people that look at these things and I was wondering do you think there is a role for the media here in almost being part of that pre stage 1 seeing these are the bills that are coming these are the people writing stories that would get folks interest More and more journalists are tweeting and flagging things up rather than being purely reactive and reporting what has happened but I think primarily the role of the media is essentially passive in this, it will be a case of reporting what's there I'm not sure how active a role the media could play that would strike me more a job for the parliamentary authorities really in terms of tweeting and blogging and Facebooking and drumming up a bit of interest that way clearly if it's something which is going to be newsworthy then an issue is going to attract a greater degree of pre publicity a lot of the work of the Parliament isn't hugely newsworthy so I think there is a role for the parliamentary authorities there possibly I'm going to ask if there is any other ways of encouraging engagement from interested parties I mean if anyone has touched on social media do you have any other suggestions that could encourage more engagement and did you want to I was just I was thinking about some of the things that the STUC has worked on with parliamentarians over the last few years and I know that the specifics of this discussion are looking at public bills but if you look at some of the experience we've had with members' bills I think that that's where they've then for instance on trafficking recently being taken in to become a public Scottish Government piece of work being of some aspects of the work we did over the years on asbestosis or in health and safety conditions and things that has come to the attention it's become a joint piece of work with external organisations the work we've done on health and safety in the workplace and the asbestosis myth of Lithomania involved a lot of communities retired members constituents talking to their MSPs and there was a huge amount of work done although on a piece of paper or on a website that may just appear as there's a member's bill being proposed and then some process happens and the issue becomes supported by Government but actually there's an awful lot has gone on behind the scenes coming in and lobbying articles in the press all sorts of things so it's maybe maybe there's a little bit in there about how we look at how much engagement there's been I think looking at the evidence on this particular enquiry there will be a lot of people who've looked at the heading and thought, this doesn't affect us, when of course it does so this kind of wider world out there does have an interest in how legislation is made and what access they've got to making comment on it, but we've not there's something maybe about exactly about how the Parliament conducts consultations on how different things are headed How do we link up with the work the education departments doing for instance with schools Rwyf yn cyfnod hynny, oedd yr unigiaid yn digwydd ddau fel ar dros yr hyn. Ond yn ddau'r grifennu, rydym yn byw, sy'n gystod o'ch cyd-dyn nhw i'r ysgolau i'r ysgolau a'r wrthwyffu i'r prifyn sy'n gweithio gyd, ddod i'r unwethaf? Mae byr bicycle yn digwydd. I mean I go right back to the 1491 Common Good Act, it's three lines, literally it's three lines if I look at the Indian Independence Act which is in many ways quite complex provided for three referendums and you know quite a lot of things, essentially only 12 pages but it's very seldom a piece of legislation here is much less than 50 pages. I wonder if it's getting too complex and why that might be. The process is complex. The outcome as well. The consensus amongst journalists working in the media tower is that stage 3 is particularly complex and difficult to cover. I think there are consequences for the way in which reports are constructed and the way it is. I conducted a wee straw poll among colleagues and it was created by and large with blank looks. Worse in one case somebody said, well at least you're the right guy to be doing it because you know where the committee room is. I'll not drop Alan Cochran in it and say who said that. Now this is sort of generally the picture amongst print journalists. I have to say even the guys because the SPJA I should say represents not just print journalists but also the broadcasters and even talking to colleagues at BBC Democracy Live unit who are probably most closely wired into the minutiae, the workings of the parliament, they were saying things like and by the way they describe themselves as the geeks of parliamentary coverage with pride. They're saying that stage 3 is too quick, it's incoherent to the public, the martial amendments are meaningless and even journalists working in that unit find it difficult to pick out from the list of martial amendments, the newsworthy items, dense, opaque were a couple of words that were used and if that's the reaction of the people who know best how it works then it's very difficult even from the point of view of say a specialist reporter like a health reporter who might be trying to cover the passage of a health bill and from a journalistic point of view the great advantage is to bringing somebody in a reporter in with specialist knowledge of health to do that, the complexity of the parliamentary procedure kind of mitigates against it and I think we end up with a situation I think that difficulty impacts on the way that things are covered and what happens is that people tend to cut corners so the reporting procedure process if you like is actually to largely bypass the ins and outs of the stage 3 so what will happen is that mid-afternoon when it dawns on you that by 6 o'clock you're going to have to file a report on the passage of a particular bill, you will phone the Scottish Government press office to get a quick idiot's guide to the main provisions, you will tee up the people who are likely to react to it and you will have the story largely written but for the numbers in the final vote particularly as we're heading towards newspaper deadlines and so what happens is that a lot of quite important battles that take place during that stage 3 about last minute amendments are dismissed in a single sentence or they are underplayed and so there are consequences I think for the way that things are reported now it was interesting in Professor Reed's written submission to see the idea of splitting stage 3 which I see is an idea that's also received a little bit support from the law society and from I think the I think the Liberal Democrats now I think you know it's clearly up for the SPGA to take a view on whether that is a good or sensible thing to do but I do think that it would have a consequence for the way the workings of the parliament were reported and I'm well prepared I'll give you an example the early this year the the children's bill was passed and you know the the BBC coverage here you know says increased provision of free child care is part of a package of reforms which have been approved by MSPs you know that's the kind of story that you knew at 10 o'clock in the morning you were you were going to be writing the penultimate paragraph the penultimate paragraph is a conservative education spokeswoman Liz Smith tabled a last minute amendment on the plan that would have limited the named person which we'll know about to under 16s rather than under 18s the move was defeated that's the penultimate paragraph now if stage 3 was split that would have been that would have been the top of the story and there would be the the the process that I've just described would would happen at you know what's variously been called stage 3.2 or you know a new stage 4 so from you know a reporting point of view there would be another day of the story and there would be a thing greater focus on aspects which at the moment are underplayed and you know the committee might think that's valuable I don't know could I just play that back to you and just test something from that that in a sense what you seem to be suggesting is because of the difficulties in reporting what's going on the media doesn't connect to the general public in a way that would encourage them to be a bigger part of the process because ultimately you know we're doing it for the people out there. I think the aspects are underplayed and certainly you know if if the public reading the stories are interested in those aspects then they are they are not being as well served as they might be. I think that's the point I've hoped we might get to Richard. Yes good morning you may have heard the earlier question but basically what it comes down to is the timescales allowed between the stages one two and three do you think the time should be lengthened for some bills shortened for other bills dependent on the controversy aspect of any particular bill? Professor I haven't studied the internal workings on I'm very very well aware that you know from the outside it's very easy to say for lots of time to do everything that just creates problems with other things to what extent the from the outside it's not all together clear why the timescales are set the way they are and some bills seem to go through very leisurely process but others go through quickly and if you're not actually really focused on a particular bill and trying to follow it stage by stage it's quite easy to find you've you've missed things and I think that from the point of view of understanding what's going on you may know that after stage one people are talking about various amendments various things coming forward at stage two but knowing exactly what's coming forward and when you're going to have the chance to submit unless unless you're really making a priority job to follow it is very difficult and a bit more time I suspect would make that easier but I am conscious that there is a danger that you just stretch everything out forever and you're just creating different logjams at different stages. I just I wanted it sort of overlaps I think with one of the points that Professor Reid made earlier I think there would be some benefit to the timescale allowing for more briefing or policy background notes to be provided with the amendments at the amendments stage and that would make a difference in the public ability to understand what was going on and also in reporting in a number of the other things but it would also allow you know we just would allow a little bit more discussion about what the impact is of a particular amendment there should be more onus on a whatever way it's done but more onus on a member to or for it to be explained why the amendments come forward and that would allow a little bit of separating out of what are technical amendments and what substantially changed a policy aspect of the proposed bill and that for certainly for the STC's point of view would make much more sense would be able to then bring in probably maybe you'll find a way even in a condensed period of of bringing in some of the expertise from a particular workplace or profession that could then discuss why that amendment may or may not work you know I just I just feel it's too tight and not enough attention paid to the motivate public explanation of the motivation for amendments are you suggesting because in stage two it's the convener who ultimately will decide whether to accept an amendment for debate or not and at stage three the presiding officer that in selecting amendments the convener or presiding officer should perhaps make it conditional upon accepting amendments of that they judge to be of significance that a policy intention statement is associated with them and provided at the time I'm so I'm leading you perhaps further than you've gone but just test it if that's what you think I certainly think it should be looked at what what what I know from the early stages of the parliament and the discussions we had for example around equal opportunities and I'm not you may be coming to the senior lines of questions anyway and then as I know the committee in 2009 did some work about revisiting how equal opportunities could be more effectively mainstreamed in the legislative process where I don't I think we're we've not succeeded in doing that collectively and so I was certainly thinking that there there should be some stage in the amendment process where the equal opportunities implications and indeed the financial implications are given some regard and so so yes that links to possibly an issue around around some sort of policy memorandum but when you think about the consequences of some of the amendments that are lodged quite late in the day which have either could arguably have serious equal opportunities impacts financial impacts or just generally impact on another policy that somebody else was trying to progress and it cuts right across it there's very little time to have a proper discussion on that so so you would support the lodging of a policy explanation a note a memorandum whatever you choose to label it with the amendment where the amendment potentially has some wide-ranging effect I think the STC would find that helpful I mean obviously we haven't specifically adopted the deal but certainly I think in the that we that bring with it the other kind of context that policy memorandums require like due regard to equal opportunities certainly not currently forbidden that's for sure anyone else wish to come in I think if you know if longer timescales allowed for you know greater engagement in addition to you know greater understanding then that you know from our point of view there would be more to report on you know there will be more reactions so you know from I think beyond that I wouldn't really say that that would have a view Helen do you follow the public tend not to follow the arrangement sort of cut and paste amendments realistically do you think it should be a bigger explanation on those for the public's point of view for these amendments in stage three you know because they just followed very quickly stage one two three and four and they're not really followed by the public I've had a problem with all the problems that have been raised with me that the amendments are never really sort of explained well I think they're not really followed by reporters either you know I mean I can see that you mean it's quite possible that you know by necessity they are they are going to be complicated you know I mean this is the this is the passage of of legislation you know I think I think if stage three was split as I say you know there might be more time for reporters to get the head around you know the minutiae and report that separately you know before reporting a kind of an overall story but I mean yeah I mean I'd have to agree with you I think and and certainly sort of from conversations with with colleagues in in the media town you know there is there is sort of wide widespread you know ignorance of the you know the inner working certainly sorry because I had an MP up from Westminster an MP who couldn't follow stage three amendments at all and didn't have any explanations to what the heck was happening and that was presumably he's more knowledgeable than the general public or the journalists so therefore I would have thought it'd been better if there was some sort of small explanations as to why they're grouped together and what they meet which is what I think we were saying and in the STC thing. Yeah just something something saying what's this doing why what's this amendment doing doesn't necessarily have to make the I can see there would be difficulties of this becoming slightly overblown into full policy memoranda with all the different elements and so on but just what's this doing what's the what's the point what does the effect of this amendment? Well let me just test what that means because of course doing the debate on an amendment that question can be answered I suppose the question is is that soon enough or should it be when it's lodged? If you're wanting outside people to have the opportunity to comment to try to influence things they need to know at the early stage because especially if you're dealing with organisations that often have internal processes or have you simply have other priorities their work is organised in different ways you need the ease of identifying there is something and having at least a few days to gather a response is important. It's worth just from memory I can recall in the land reform legislation we actually had a situation where we had something like 500 amendments but we had amendments to amendments to amendments so we had I've somehow got a memory we'd have an amendment 54 dc and I would see was an amendment to 54 dd was an amendment to 54 how anyone's supposed to follow that and no idea Fiona. I think it's quite interesting that this discussion about the stages and the length of time for stages is also beginning to bring in about policy documents around them as well and because I was going to ask about what you think about the rules and the actual supporting documents we bring it in at the introductory stage. Professor Rita know that you've talked about sustainable development and I do think this is so can you answer it in two halves one the initial introductory documents that we have to bring in but you're beginning to see that we actually maybe need to have second stage third stage of these documents as well am I correct? Having the documents at all is great although sometimes the explanatory notes are more just reordering the words rather than actually explaining what's what's happening and as my written submission says the the sustainable development elements this is a bit I've studied I find is very variable to say the best I suspect that those who've looked at the finance the equal opportunities and all our elements may equally be critical of some of those I can't comment on that but I think there is a a danger that when you you're looking at an act when it's finally in place and you're trying to understand it and you look back at the early documents you suddenly find well actually there's a big disjunction there it doesn't work there the policy there have been new policy elements added or things have been significantly changed and they don't the documents don't match up the question is is that actually a problem on the way through because to the extent that the memoranda are meant to be informing helping explaining people as part of the scrutiny process both inside this building and outside people knowing when to when to get involved if it's important for them to get involved that does possibly seem to be a gap there that if a bill does go off in a new direction as a new bit added on to it there's not the same support for the debate just I think that the policy the initial documents are helpful and and I agree they should be in a position where they're building on an earlier consultation or an initial statement about the intention to bring forward legislation absolutely what what I was thinking which before I came which overlaps with maybe with a number of questions is is the role that external organisations play in supplementing the briefings and the policy documents and I think because part of that is not just about what written evidence you get once a committee goes into stage one scrutiny it's kind of what the kind of general atmosphere is around a topic that is out there for discussion and I obviously the most one of the most recent pieces of legislation has been the children and young people's bill where there was a huge amount of interest in a whole number of aspects of that piece of legislation so although the policy memorandum that you know absolutely is important and that the procedure I think is quite good there and politicians will be exposed to rightly should be exposed to all the other lobbying and briefing and information and provision of meeting meeting people who work in the sector or whatever it is which then allows the development of additional questions when you're conducting your scrutiny and will pick up on points that people who haven't come in through written evidence because people have missed the deadline or whatever and and it also allows you as you know from your own constituencies to find a way of picking up what have become constituency issues and seeing if they fit with what's being discussed and has been flagged up in the proposed legislation so I think it's quite a lot broader and one of my things that I'd be quite interested at some point to just get a little bit more explored is how I mean I don't know how it looks from your side we we would put quite a bit of effort maybe into bring into doing some of that external trying to you know get an MSP to arrange a lunch or a briefing or a you know a writing to MSPs and I don't know how effective that is but I think it maybe that's another question it would be good if people understood that sometimes it had been effective then they might do it again but you know that kind of what that looks like and and I think all this the parliamentary timetables may or may not be on your agenda as well but I think it needs to be continually monitored because if it's the case that the new parliamentary timetable is in any way restricting the slots of time that were available for external groups to come in or is it increasing I don't know the answer to that but I think that that's an aspect of the way the whole parliament operates because the external engagement does mean people coming in here and having a chance to speak to you not just working off the policy memorandums I suspect with parliament sitting in session three days a week there probably are more MSPs here more of the time if it was a committee day and only a committee day as we used to have and you didn't have committee as well you wouldn't be here but that's only a personal view not necessarily Fiona any more no George and are there any changes to rules that we can make with regards to amendments I'll tell you why I'm asking because you mentioned the Children and Young People's Bill and I'm on the committee and the only way I could keep track as MSP was to physically a very analog system get posted notes and physically put it on well actually I have to say my wife is a volunteer for me actually physically tested her love for me by putting it on where it physically fit in the actual bill now there was no other way I could see myself doing that so I can understand from Magnus's point of view how do you report in that whole process and I can see how difficult it is for organisations in the public to engage with that because that's time consuming it's difficult for us to do that to it's our job so is there anything we could do between stage two and three that would make that easier or better I think stage you know from the point of view of reporting what's going on I think stage two is you know it is less of an issue for us you know committees take evidence issues come up one by one and that you know that they can be sort of reported you know discreetly Dave you know day by day it's it's really stage three where everything everything comes together and and there's also you know a need to you know report the kind of you know the fact that a bill has been passed where where problems come in I'm not sure whether you know I'd have any thoughts on on how it how it could be streamlined from from your point of view I mean from from the reporting point of view I think as as it you know as as legislation moves through the you know it's scrutinised by the committee that I think works works quite well from a reporting point of view can I just say since we mentioned the children and young people's bill that that the handling of stage three and the changes to the sitting time in parliament I think are problematic in terms of both public perception and external just following what on earth is going on it also makes reporting difficult of course because the final vote was not 8 30 at night you've missed all the the kind of deadlines but it there's there's a kind of you could ask the question really how you get into a position where a piece of legislation requires 400 or 500 amendments and was it is it possibly indicative that it was trying to cover too many topics in the first place or had not been drafted as well as it could have been and that a different approach through doing a draft bill first or whatever as I was saying earlier might have led to a more efficient and easier to follow stage two because you wouldn't be trying to manage that degree of amendments that I don't I'm not in you know I'm not sitting in your chair as a verse I don't know the answer to that and I'm not a lawyer but certainly in terms of how any chance of any of us following it the kind of headline that this badly drafted piece of legislation was rushed through with 400 amendments that there wasn't time to consider properly isn't helpful for anybody really isn't it's not helpful for the parliament and it's not helpful for those those working people and families who are going to be affected by the legislation so I think that needs to look down. That brings me on to stage three which I understood I've read Professor Reid's ideas of a possible tidy up committee or effectively a stage three split in the two which I can understand from Magnus's point of view would probably make it a lot better as well because I still as a relatively new MSP don't see the point of the debate after we've gone through the the actual process at stage three as well directly after it maybe a later day once everybody's got a chance to look at some of the information but I have I find it it just feels if we're going through the process for the sake of going through the process purely personal view on that one so I was just wondering what for particularly yourself Professor Reid what do you think is there a you know I know you've got your your ideas you put in the comment I had was based purely on the sort of the technical side of things because I think there is a danger and that's been some experience that because you're doing the amendments and then nobody's sitting down and checking on the tidy up mean already that the numbering has to be done afterwards before that the bills before the act where the bill becomes the act that the numbering gets gets changed if there have been amendments at that doesn't it they're at one stage at one stage maybe I've been looking at older versions there's a chance just to do a purely technical side your concern is one about more of the substantive opportunities to comment and debate and so on and I think that's very much for the parliament to decide how it wants the process to to go together I having heard the end of the previous session the idea that carrying on the you know the passion the interest of the debate may have some advantages I think that you need to be an element of self-discipline you don't want all a multiplication of stages could just mean a multiplication of the same argument all all the time and it's partly the sort of internal culture of what you're expecting at different stages will determine how the process should go it's worth just making the observation that one of the reasons you don't remember even though logically it makes sense is because then it would make it even more difficult to make sense of the previous debates where you're referring to the numbers if the numbers in the final bill are different after it's been passed I think remember some examples all those after it had been passed before it gets printed as the act it gets well but even so after it's when it goes to the queen's printer not not within the parliament but afterwards there is there are there will be manifest errors corrected so for example in the climate change bill we managed to pass an amendment among the hundreds of amendments we considered that ended up referring to a bit of the bill that wasn't there so that was tidied up I mean there's no legal effect that mattered but but the wording was tidied up but the numbering certainly wasn't changed because then the debates if you went back and read them you wouldn't be able to relate to the final act so it's attractive but not price fee sorry I'm intervening and perhaps going beyond my role perhaps I was just going to say with example of the children's young people's bill that we used was we effectively had a situation there where we always had stage two twice and it wasn't I don't believe it was because of the the actual legislation itself I think there's a little bit of politics involved at that stage and I think when you look at it you know we could have done without that because it effectively made stage three a bit messier than where it should have been but my whole experience and I just want in general I think there must be a better way we can do stage three because I think that to me timescales and actual stage three itself is where things seem to just in my own limited views since 2011 we just seem to rush it through at that stage I think you're I think you're right about you know some stage three amendments being politically motivated you know it is it can be quite a dramatic way to make a point obviously from a reporting point of view that's brilliant you know that gives us a that gives us a good story and you know as I said before you know by by splitting stage three you know we'd have a day of focusing on that and then having a day of focusing on the you know the bill in its entirety I think it's my duty to give you an honest and in the round appraisal of what might happen just some references being made to things like the marshaled list of amendments groupings and so on and so forth and I wonder if the panel has any further observations or help they might provide us as to how we could improve the quality and content of these documents so it's more intelligible not just to us but to others how you'd improve it but certainly the glazed expressions that I was greeted with the media tower over the past couple of days talking about this suggests that you know something might wish to be considered right camom my question's not relative in this case thank you okay maybe maybe the one thing that we haven't covered and of course we're looking at legislation in general is whether secondary legislation and any of the processes around that you know Scottish secondary instruments and so on whether any observations on the processes around that it's not compulsory if I was involved in some of the evidence sessions well one two parliaments ago on this and the tidy up of the procedures there are now fewer variations I think is definitely beneficial again it comes back to the point made earlier that the actual legislative stage is often only part of a process and where you have good consultation before and good public engagement on the policy often on draft statute instruments and so on there are the opportunities to for people to get involved sometimes though they do seem to appear for various reasons rather more unexpectedly there is also this issue of the connection between primary legislation and secondary that the often for very good reasons a bill is very much a skeleton enabling act and it's very hard to see what's what's actually going to happen and thinking about the processes for perhaps the first set of regulations under bill may be more important may have more policy issues to consider rather than subsequent tidying up take the example just now of the regulatory reform where basically all of environmental law is going to be rewritten the sort of process and scrutiny you're going to want for the first set of regulations will be rather different from in 10 years time tidying up this little bit that little bit and so on. I was think the STUC and a number of different organisations were quite involved in the the statute instruments around and didn't get the language right but around the specific duties on the equality act and when the committee referred it back to the government for further discussion and we didn't there was no problem I wouldn't say we ran into any problems with the process but I think that the point that that that was being made about the wider agenda the wider kind of agenda and discussion is important because we followed and were very involved in the equality act the tragedy movement in the widest sense along with a whole range of equality organisations in 2010 with the UK governments the quality act that set that you know then working out what was going to be devolved and what were the responsibilities lay in the specific duties that were being discussed in Scotland and in Wales so it was an informed discussion and quite uncomfortable to have been contributing to that but it was in the context of a much wider debate where we brought in a whole lot of knowledge already so there wasn't a need to you know the process wasn't a problem okay let me just give you all the opportunity if you wish to take it just to make any concluding remarks and draw attention to anything you think we haven't covered that we might sensibly have thought about in this session is perhaps starting with Magnus um the only the only thing that was with uh not touched on um really or one thing one thing that that's not been touched on is um is the issue draft bills that I was I was reminded uh in the the uh law societies submission that not every bill is preceded by a a draft bill and certainly from a reporting point of view you know a draft bill is is is very handy it's a hard concrete clear statements of intent um you know more so than you know a consultation and a set of aspirations so you know if if from a reporting point of view that would be useful if if that's an issue that you are considering as as part of your inquiry so your view would be that would be another way in in which we can draw people outside the Parliament to the process I think so because I think you know I think I think I think you'd be you'd be able to write stronger stories based on you know a draft bill that is there and exists you know um so yeah potentially so definitely. I think I agree with that as part of the way of flagging up starting the wider debate and discussion and it may be helpful in flagging up some problems that might mean that the actual bill that's introduced some of the amendments are done between the draft and the the bill is introduced rather than having to be done during the parliamentary stages. Yeah a couple a couple of things I think that we've we're quite keen that post-legislative scrutiny is given more attention and I think that that definitely has a role where the expertise of wider society can be can be brought to bear. There isn't I mentioned earlier that I really don't think there's any consistency in how the equal opportunities requirement is covered in the even in the policy memorandum and I quickly looked through all the all the ones covering the current legislative programme and there's just no consistency in what attention is given to that sentence and quite often it feels like a sort of tick box approach which which in the past and certainly in the 2009 report from this committee that was kind of quest challenged because that obviously isn't doing the job so because it's approached as one sentence around equal opportunities it doesn't allow us to really discuss any differential impact on on BME communities or on people with disabilities on women in society when we know other statistics will tell us there are different things going on sometimes in those communities so we're not linking those properly together. The other thing that I wanted to just mention was on this issue about late running debates and I think that again I know it's it's the parliamentary timetable question is kind of it's we're still testing out the new arrangements but I think some consideration needs to be given to whether the committee's whether one of the unintended consequences has been to restrict the available chamber sitting time and the available committee time to examine some issues in depth it may not it felt like that that week of the children and young people's bill and that may not be but I just think it needs to be looked at because some of the discussion we've been having is leads us to a position where sometimes more detailed scrutiny or longer consideration will be required now you can do that obviously by splitting a debate over three days you don't have to decide you will do it from two o'clock to late o'clock at night but I just think we would be concerned about that and I think that because because when the stage three debates it becomes clear they are going to run late it's maybe only two or three weeks notice people are getting of that and there are other events arranged in the parliament civic engagement events where where that have been arranged a year in advance possibly months in advance and we got caught up in that because trade union week was running during that now we had made arrangements for that we were given the dates a year in advance and to then be basically faced with a week's notice when arrangements are in place for something that should have started at 6 15 to start at 8 30 and when everybody was exhausted it was by no means a deal and we had tremendous support from the MSPs but it's that it just really brought home to us when we brought people from all over Scotland that which is part of that external engagement that the parliament is proud to then the impact of a kind of crammed period to complete the legislation led a piece of very important legislation hadn't it the two things just didn't work well together so the other the other I think probably this is linked to post-legislative scrutiny I was looking at a piece of work that the STUC did in the early days of the parliament on the first housing Scotland bill in 2001 and we did a lot of work individually speaking with MSPs and then going through committee and the social justice committee and we had discussion around incorporating provisions on the face of the legislation around the responsibilities a local authority should have to regard of the supply of construction and maintenance labour now I'm being specific because I was trying to find something where the STUC had actually really engaged with the process early and we were successful from our point of view and getting that on the face of the bill and it's quite an important requirement when you think what's happening in the labour market now about local authorities having due regard to their work in their areas and we I would say that the post-legislative scrutiny is such that we've not really looked back into that even though there is another piece of housing legislation going through the parliament just now so there's a bit of an issue there for me about where legislation is passed and there's been good engagement how do we make sure that it doesn't just appear that the next government or the next parliament has just decided it's time for another bit of legislation you know without incorporating all the work that went in internally and externally to drop that earlier piece so let's appreciate the time right can I thank our panelists for their time and the value of their contribution I shall as others I'm sure read the report of the session in tomorrow's papers with particular interest and in view of the reference to him I shall be reading the daily telegraph with a special interest to see what Alan Cochran had to make of Magnus Gardam's reference to him thank you very much indeed we now move into private session