 Rwy'n lawer i chi'n gwybod i'w dweud eich gwybelu yefnogi o'r 2016 oedd yr Yn Lyw、 Aeud Pfeiddiwrs Cymarthysgol Cyngor, a bywodwch am rhan o'r dd carbwyllus dim, sy'n mynd i ddagwm eich gwaith, wrth bynnag y systemi yw y brodcast. 1. Ryd yn ygyrchu i'r lleguas ynghylch, rwy'n gweithio'r gweithnodd, rwy'n rydyn nhw'n rydyn nhw i'n gweithio i'ch gydag i'r corfflaisio a chynnig i fynd i'r gaelol yw Felly byddai'n ddefnyddio'n amlaen i gyfunhau geocมาco, teblu i prescription affir hwnigen cwestiliau syr gywir. Calw가는 eu ddweud ei bμhawr, Cyf regional ni ddim i gfunhau gwasunol iöylei, knifer rwy'o eu dwylo i sportru, rhawer i honno ac yw'n ddechrau'r mwnigen? Rhawer i gwาม datblygu o thech y tablu gyfalsa, rydych beth fel iddo hubs. Mae'n dysgu heta wiredt hef o'u gw shout i mewn gyf worldsaid ac i ei ddamaur-ig stronger ymlaen i cyfrywyr. aglitangential is I have a part-time appointment as Professor of Scottish Culture and Governance in the University of Glasgow in which role I do on occasions teach issues connected with the proceedings of the Parliament. Thank you very much, your expertise and governance is much welcomed to our deliberations. Moving to agenda item 1, first item is for the committee to discuss whether to take items 3 and 4 in private. Agenda item 3 is for members to consider a draft report and draft standing order rule changes on the admissibility of petitions and some minor rule changes. Do members agree to take item 3 in private? We are agreed that 3 will be in private. Agenda item 4 is for the committee to consider its work programme. Given recent interest in matters covered by the work programme paper, I am minded to propose that we take this item in public. However, I would like to suspend the meeting at the appropriate point for a short time before taking this item to the committee so that we can receive briefing from officials on the sole convention and how it relates to our standing orders. We do that in private before we begin the public discussion. Do members agree to take item 4 in public with a short suspension to receive briefings from officials in private? We are so agreed. Thank you very much. That is very helpful. We now move to agenda item 2, which is the Scottish Elections Dates Bill. Let me welcome Joe Fitzpatrick, the Minister for Parliamentary Business, to the meeting. We have no amendments to deal with, but standing orders require us to consider each section and schedule of the bill and the long title and agree to each formally. I will move into the formal process. I will invite Joe Fitzpatrick, the minister, to very briefly put on the record the purpose of the bill. As colleagues know, the bill is a very short and straightforward bill, but to recap for the record, it will move the Scottish Parliament elections, which is currently scheduled for 7 May 2020 to 6 May 2021, and it will move the local government elections scheduled for 6 May 2021 to 5 May 2022. Thank you both for what you said and for the brevity with which you said it. We will now take the sections in order and the long title last. Standing orders allow us to put a single question where groups of sections are to be considered consecutively. Unless members disagree, that is what I have proposed to do. First, the question is that sections 1 to 4 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. Secondly, the question is that the long title be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. That ends stage 2 consideration of the bill. Thank you minister for your attendance. We will move into private public session later. The consideration of agenda item 4, which is our work programme. I am inviting the committee to consider correspondence from Mary Fee, MSP asking the committee to consider a change to standing orders regarding LCM procedures. I will inform the committee of what we understand to be the timetable for the trade union bill, which is underlying the request from Mary Fee. We understand that the bill starts its committee stage in the House of Lords on 8 February, and that that committee stage is expected to last until 25 February, although it could be longer. There then has to be a minimum gap of 14 days until the report stage, which is a further amending stage, which takes us to mid-march at the earliest. That is just provided to committee members to indicate a timeframe in which we might choose the way forward. I invite general comments from members on Mary Fee's letter. Perhaps I will put something into the mix myself. Clearly an amendment of this particular kind in the way that it is worded could be seen to have the effect of removing a power that the Presiding Officer has to interpret the standing orders and placing it before Parliament, which in effect delivers that power to the Government of the day. I think that it is probably not what Mary Fee intends. On that basis, I suspect that we should certainly be contemplating having a position paper brought to us for next week, where we can check the wider implications of both the process that Mary Fee is asking us to undertake and the specific wording of her amendment. Nobody is in any doubt that the trade union bill is a particularly obnoxious piece of legislation. Nobody is in any doubt that the Scottish Parliament opposes that. Nobody is in any doubt, as a result of this week's debate in the Scottish Parliament, that the majority opinion in the Parliament is against that. There is also a view that perhaps the Presiding Officer is not infallible. I do not wish to commit less majesty, but there are different opinions about the eligibility of an LCM. What would be very dangerous, however, is to take a single instance of a disagreement with a ruling and convert that into what would be quite, rather, as you put it, interesting precedent, where there was a unique category of activity in this Parliament. Legislative motions have no legislative function in terms of binding the Westminster Government and convert those into a means of proceeding in which there was basically a political decision as to whether they were competent or not. That is not true of any other legislation, of other legislation of great importance. I think that that would be, at the very least, problematic in future years. I think that we should be very careful about this. I think that it is quite right that we look at options to move forward, but I think that a single instance to create a new law essentially on the basis of a single instance of disagreement with the Presiding Officer's ruling is a worrying thing to do, and I think that we should proceed with great caution. In the last six weeks of a Parliament, to insist upon an urgent vote on a major change to standing orders, we would have to be very careful about that. I would just like to correct one thing that Mike Russell said. We are not proposing a change to the law, we are proposing a change to the standing orders of this Parliament. It is very important to remember that the letter that prompted our discussion today came from my colleague Mary Fee, who is unable to be here today because of ill health. However, in effect, we have the greater will of Parliament now pushing us to take some action on this issue, because Parliament agreed to an amendment just this week that gave effect and specifically quoted the paragraph of Mary Fee's letter where she talks about a specific rule change. I think that we can perhaps make that even better than it is as currently drafted and proposed, but I would hope that in our considerations next week that we have in our minds the fact that we are dealing with what is a completely and utterly bad bill—there is no other way to describe it—and that it is our duty to do everything that we can to protect people over whom we have the power to do so from the worst of its provisions. That is the intent of Mary's amendment. I would hope that we would bear both that in mind, the will of Parliament in mind and the fact that in order to be able to do that, we have to have regard to the timetable that is in place for this bill and we do have to act within that timeframe. That is not just my exhaustion, if you like, to this committee. That is what Parliament said when it debated it this week. Just for clarity, Parliament directed the words of Mary Fee's proposal to the political parties rather than to this committee. I do not think that that in any sense blocks us from consideration. Just for clarity. I would also add that it is the cross-party, as I understand it, with one exception view of the devolution for the powers committee who have looked at the issue in some detail, that an LCM should be carried. I think that we have to give due weight to their opinion too. The member's point is well made. Thank you, convener. I agree with the comments in relation to the trade union bill. It is an absolutely awful piece of legislation. Unfortunately, we do not have the power to prevent it from being implemented in this Parliament much as we would like to and much as a huge majority in this Parliament would want to. However, we need to be careful when we are looking at standing order changes so that we deal with them in a proper way. We have to make sure that we do not allow politics to get in the way of procedures. We need to look at those issues where we are proposing standing order changes to take proper evidence, proper consultation and give it proper consideration. It is not something that we should rush into. I think that it would be setting a very dangerous precedent to do so. The Parliament has already expressed its view in opposition to the trade union bill. It is very, very clear indeed. Maybe that is something that we all need to reflect on, the fact that we can actually do nothing about it. Patricia. Just reflecting on my colleague Dave Thompson's comments there, I would just say that it is important that we get this right. That does not necessarily mean that it has to take us a long time. I would just say to my colleagues that it is also very important to ensure that we do not allow process to get in the way of doing the right thing. Very briefly. That is precisely the point. There is a process that people are objecting to, which is the effect of a ruling by the Presiding Officer. We are attempting to change that process to another process, which would be unique in the Parliament. It is a political majority that would decide the eligibility of a piece of resolution coming in, not the view of the independent Presiding Officer. That is getting politics in a way of process in a way that will damage what is happening in this Parliament. We have to be very, very cautious indeed. I am as concerned as I was at the outset with the discussion that has been taking place. You should consider options, certainly urgently, but with caution. I think that that is inadequate to people who put their positions on the record. Are we agreed? We will invite the clerks to bring an options paper to us next week. We are so agreed. Thank you, that is helpful. Just a couple of other things in relation to the work programme before we conclude this meeting. We have a letter from the DPLR committee on statutory instrument procedures. I am going to invite comments from members, but given that I am on the DPLR committee and, essentially, I am the person who persuaded them to write to this committee, it might be just useful if I just flesh out what has happened. That is that, inadvertently, the Government laid an instrument using the negative procedure when the power they had only allowed them to lay it under the affirmative procedure. That laying appears in the business bullet. In the light of it appearing, thereafter that the order is legally incompetent, it is in law, it never existed. Therefore, the legal position is clear and closed. We are left with a situation that, in parliamentary terms, there has been no disposal of this particular instrument, which appears in our business bulletin, and nothing appears in our business bulletin to say that it is no longer before Parliament and that it will not come into operation, as it would in normal goes, after 40 days have elapsed. I think that this is a lacuna in our processes that we need to address. That is the point that I sought to have the DPLR bring to our attention. I think that the bottom line is, first of all, how do members feel about that issue? I am quite content with the recommendation that it goes into our forward work programme and we ask Clark to consider possible procedures, because I have actually got quite a few questions on it, but I think that I would need to have more of an understanding to ensure that my questions are sensible ones. Yes. As far as we are aware, it is the first time that this has happened since 1999, so there may not be urgency. It just occurred to me in reading it, and one does get astonished that it can happen, but in reading it, there might be a way in which a standard clause within such legislation is that, if it was found subsequently to have been laid under wrong procedure, it would automatically be revoked. That would actually deal with it. It is only one possible solution, so we would better look at several solutions, but I do not think that it is a matter that will cause a sleepless night in the next few weeks. The DPLR committee sought to persuade the Government to formally revoke it. You have to bring a motion that nothing further be done. They argued that, given that it did not in law exist in the first place, it was impossible to revoke. What I am suggesting is that that position might be added in words to subordinate legislation, which would then have the effect of revoking one that was laid under the wrong procedure. The proposal from Fiona essentially is that we should incorporate this issue into our work programme. Is that everyone's view, Patricia? Yes, but I do not want to prejudge this in any way, but I hope that the Government is looking at ways in which it might find a way to affect a change, because it seems to me untidy at best to leave that lying in the current situation. Even if the business manager could stand up and say something in Parliament or just put something into the business bulletin, surely that would at least explain what has happened. Can I say that the DPLR has had a number of interchanges with the Government making suggestions of that character without a positive response, which is why it has ended up before us. Patricia is 100 per cent correct on that. I think that that has been a statement of some sort. Fiona. The reason why I propose that it comes forward in our work programme with a detailed paper is that we are beginning to get suggestions, but I would like to see a paper so that I can work out if my suggestions make sense. My point, Presiding Officer, is that, while we might look at a process and put that into our legacy paper as a recommendation for a future committee, there is nothing to stop the Government doing something meanwhile. I think that it should, to be honest, just in the sense of making everything tidy. I can only report, and it is not my duty directly to report from DPLR, but I think that DPLR has had a number of exchanges with the Government. They are sticking rigidly to the line that they have legally disposed of this. The issue for us is not, I think, the legal issue, because DPLR accepted it's legally disposed of. It's whether in parliamentary terms it's been properly disposed of, and I think DPLR is firmly overview it has not been, and we need to address that issue. But DPLR is not recommending how that be done, and I think the point is that we should not make decisions on that matter on the hoof here and now. We just can't do that. The point that Patricia raises is a significant one. I don't think that it's incompetent for this committee to be able to say that that is a significant issue. If there is a statutory instrument floating about out there, which has no validity or whatever, some people might think that. It's also an area of some importance. I think that there's at least a might strengthen DPLR's hand to know that this committee believes the same. As we're now having a conversation about it, and I raised one of my questions, so maybe the clerks can bring that back in the paper. It says that to DPLR, the committee that there's some confusion may still arise, because stakeholders may read about the instrument in the Parliament's official report if it's consideration, but surely the official report of the Parliament's consideration says that this was laid under the incorrect procedure. Did DPLR not say that? Yes. Therefore it's in the official report that it doesn't exist? Yes, but if I may just lead you to a slight complication that in essence the DPL report records that the Government of said that it's laid under the wrong procedure, under negative rather than affirmative, that has not actually been tested by parliamentary process as such. Therefore it's a unilateral decision by the Government that they've used their own procedure, which I think nobody's debating, but at the end of the day you are left with the legal position almost certainly clear, but the parliamentary one remains open, because it isn't in the gift of the DPLR committee that it would only be for Parliament, not the DPLR committee, to take it off the business bulletin. Presiding Officer, I've done that again, convener. Maybe I'm seeing into the future, who knows. Convener, it's always struck me that the Minister for Parliamentary Business has a very interesting role, not least because he or she has a toe in both camps, the part parliamentary and the part obviously political and governmental, and it seems to me the kind of thing where a simple statement on the record by the Minister for Parliamentary Business would at least mean that there was something read into the record that made the situation clear. I don't even think that it needs us to discuss that. Is happening once? I say to you that proposition has already been put to the Government and has been rejected. I also proposed in DPLR to the Government that they simply lay a motion saying, noting the error had been made and that they are for, and they were not willing to do that. I pursued it. Any mechanism? At the end of the day, I think that the three or four interchanges will not be used without getting any resolution. Could that change be drawn to the attention of the Minister for Parliamentary Business? We could do that if we thought that was... I don't know whether it would tip anything. Although I think it would be fair to say that the Minister of Parliament, this will not be used to the Minister for Parliamentary Business. I'm sure. But if this committee wishes, without closing the issue, to do that as their immediate step. We'll see where that takes us. Right. Yes, that concludes today's meeting. Thank you very much for your support. Let's go.