 Rwy'n fawr i'n gweithio i ddweud yma yng nghymru yn 2015 o'r Standars Procedures and Public Appointments Cymru. Wrth gwrs, mae hyn yn ddy荺 gymaelol fod ynch yn ei bod gymaelol yma, os ymgyrchol y brfordd cysexoedd. Rwy'n dweud o'n eğluniaid y gwahanol yma, Patricia Ferguson a Mark Griffin ar eu blyny a'i gynllun. Yn yw'n eich cychaf i ddiwedd i gydag 50 i'r cysylltu yn awr. consideration of the rules imprinted and published documents and item 6 consideration of the rules in the code of conduct and cross-party groups. Do members agree to take these items in private? Agree. Agenda item 2. Our next item is for members to consider whether it's consideration of standing order rule changes in relation to a report on published and printed documents and approach to an inquiry into law commission bills, the approach to changes resulting from the Smith commission and the consideration of confidentiality in the code of conduct should be taken in private at future meetings. Do members agree to take these items in private at future meetings? Thank you, we're agreed. Right. Agenda item 3 is for the committee to consider an update on cross-party groups. Members will note from the monitoring report the continued improvements in the overall level of compliance with the code, an update since the monitoring report was issued. The cross-party group on life sciences has scheduled two meetings, an ordinary meeting in the 11th of June and an AGM on the 16th of June. The cross-party group on Middle East and South Asia has now submitted its annual return. Does anyone wish to make any comments on the report that's before us? In particular, do we wish to take any action on non-compliant groups? I'm content, as convener, that that be dealt with by the clerks if that helps you to come to a conclusion. Yes, Dave Thompson. Yes, just one point of correction. The list of groups—we have the Surizes and Soriartic—is right to this group, but it has changed the skin and associated dramatic conditions, but that would have been maybe after the date of this report, so that's fine. Okay, that's a technical change, which we're quite happy with. Are we otherwise content then? We are. Right. Thank you very much. Agenda item 4, Gil Paterson, is on the rules to consider the rules on lobbying and access to MSPs. Gil, do you wish—? Yes, I would like to withdraw at this particular time. If I stayed here since you'll be making some decisions, then I think it may be conscured as a conflict of interest, so I would like to withdraw that the committee may get so in mind up without me and I'll come back in for the other items if I'm tapped in the shoulder. That's very helpful, Mr Paterson. Obviously, that's an individual decision for you and, in similar circumstances, it will be up to other members to make their own view. I don't regard it as setting a precedent one way or the other. Thank you very much. We'll resume when Gil leaves the room. Right. We have a paper in front of us, colleagues, yes they are, which I invite you to make any comment that you wish to make on. We have considered the matter before and, in particular, I think that there's helpful discussion of what it is to be a director. I must say that, for my part, even though having been one in the past, I didn't ever realise that it was less precise in law than perhaps I had thought it was. However, there are certainly clear cases where one is a director because of law. It's clear that one can be a director without necessarily having the word or having a formal appointment, which is perhaps a little nudge in a particular direction for us. Right. Members, Margaret. It's quite difficult to establish if a person has another position, another job, a directorship, or, as a member of another company, just how much time they actually spend on that secondary job and how do you measure that? Wearing a personal hat rather than a convener hat and others in the room who have been directors, I suspect that most directors don't keep time sheets. Any attempt to formally come to a conclusion would inevitably be an estimate and it would probably be capable of being demonstrated as not being accurate. I think probably the objective thing that we do have is what earnings somebody might derive from an outside activity and I think that it's quite clear that we have to declare that and it seems clear that we do that. Yes, Cameron. I don't think it's a question of time so much because often these directorships can be on a Saturday or in the evening. I do think it's a question of remuneration and involvement, but not time. I don't think that's in any way relevant. I'm a director of three companies, two of which are charities, so four companies, two of which are charities, and the time is variable depending if there's a crisis in the charity, benefits, etc. Sometimes I have to go down to London, sometimes I don't. But they're not really highly remunerated, just the travel expenses, one is, which is declared. So I'm not sure that time is relevant in this case because I try and fit in because I'm chairman. I try and fit the time in to suit. They suit me, if you like, rather than I suit them, and that often happens. So I would be against the banning of that sort of thing. But we're quite clear that any remuneration, which is an objective thing, has to be declared. You said it can be subjective. You don't record accurately how long a meeting takes particularly when it's decided, don't you? Paragraph 10, it says that the highest annual sum is £20,000. It doesn't give you any indication of the time again. I know you feel that's not an issue, but it's hard for anyone just to gauge £20,000. What are you doing for that? You know, compared with an MSP's income? I suppose maybe the test for us is whether outside interests diminish the ability of people to do the job that they've been elected to do. If you like, perhaps the first test. The second test is, of course, whether the outside interest engages, puts people at risk of being seen to be influenced by their involvement in the outside interests. My current position is that we have both of those covered in our existing roles. That doesn't mean that we should be careful to consider whether that statement that I've just made is sustainable or not. That's entirely proper. Paragraph 16 has just been drawn to my attention. The highest declared time commitment to that moment is 40 days per year. I suspect, without having any knowledge of the matter, that where people have declared a time commitment, they're probably more generous than the reality, just to make sure that they're not caught out. However, it isn't required to declare the time, is it? But they do, but people do. I mean, we could—yes, David? No, no. Let's just have a free-flowing discussion to work out where we're going to go with this. I haven't read the papers here today. What struck me quite forcibly—I'm not against driving forward and pioneering and doing things that others don't do if it's the right thing to do—but what struck me, looking at what happens in other jurisdictions, none of them require what we are looking at here. Now, that doesn't mean to say they're all right and they don't need to change, but it just struck me that I would need to be convinced that there's a real need for a problem here to be fixed. I'd have to be convinced, first of all, that there's a problem that we need to fix, because if there's no problem, why are we trying to fix something that doesn't exist? And I worry, having looked at the definitions of directors and the various different things in here, if by trying to fix a problem that isn't apparent to me anyway—and I could be wrong—how do you do that without potentially causing more problems? As soon as you start to try to define an issue in terms of resolving a problem that may or may not be real, we could get ourselves into a real moras, because you then get bogged down in all sorts of detail about definitions and everything else. So, just that broad general point, I felt. At the moment, if people are involved if they're getting paid, they have to declare these things anyway. It's out there, it's in public, so folk know that they're doing it. If someone's spending far too much time on an issue, that would become a political issue for them, because their opponents would soon point it out to their constituents that that person is spending all their time working and earning cash and not doing the job as an MSP. So, I actually think that where we are just now isn't at a bad position. As I say, all these other—you know, the Parliament of the UK, Canada, Welsh Assembly in Northern Ireland, the House of Lords, the European Parliament—none of them do this. Now, you might all be wrong, but I just worry that we're going down a road here that isn't necessary, so that's... I don't think we should be scared of setting higher standards than anyone else does in any way. But, of course, we already do that. As far as I'm aware, there is no other jurisdiction that has the prejudice test, which is actually the key catch-all. Of course, we have in lots of our rules could be thought to. It's about perception, not just simply the objective what you do. And I suspect we're probably pretty tight. Right. I'm in your hands, colleagues, as to what we wish to do with this. Nothing, I think, is yet emerged that we want to take forward. Margaret? What happens if—I know it hasn't, or probably hasn't happened—if there was a case where an MSP wasn't declaring, you know, there was a conflict or he didn't feel or she didn't feel there was conflict with, you know, their secondary post, but others did, you know, within Parliament? Well, that's... I mean, I'll take advice. But, of course, that can be referred by anyone who feels that the rules, including the prejudice test, and the could-thought-to-be tests, and would then be objectively considered. So, you know, we have a process for dealing with that. I mean, I don't want to name names because it's invidious to do so. We certainly, in session 1 and 2, we had one member who spent a great deal of his time working as a QC. You know, and at the end of the day, I suspect that may or may not have played a part in the fact that they didn't get re-elected at the end of session 2, but I suspect there were other more important factors related to that. And at the end of the day, it was very much public, there was no, you know, he would be properly behaved, properly reported. And I think Dave Thompson was correct, it did become a matter of some political comment from time to time. And that was probably as far as reasonably it could interact with what went on. But I think that's the only one who I think had what might be thought to be a full-time job outside his MSP, or at least a halftime job, you know, very significant, with significant earnings as well. Colleagues, I think it's been a useful exercise to look at this. I think where we currently are is that we're not identifying any actions we wish to take out of this. I'm putting that to you, is that the view of the committee? It is, right, okay? Right, thank you very much. I now move this meeting into private session.