 I welcome members to the 10th meeting in 2014 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, as ever remind people both in the committee and otherwise to switch off mobile phones as they can affect the broadcasting system. Agenda item one is to consider taking items in private. Do we agree that consideration of a draft report in the interests of members of the Scottish Parliament Act 2006 and our work programme be taken in private at future meetings? Do members agree? Thank you very much. The next item is to consider items six and seven on cross-party groups and committees meeting at the same time in chamber, whether we shall take those items in private. Do members agree to take those items today in private? Agenda item three relates to our inquiry into procedures for considering legislation. Members will be aware that we had two public engagement events in Glasgow and in Stirling in the last couple of weeks, and I'd like to just get some on-the-record feedback from some of those who participated. Fiona McLeod, Cameron Buchanan, Margaret MacDougall and myself were at them. Who might want to kick off on Glasgow? Fiona or Cameron? Can I first start by saying that I was at the Glasgow one. I thought it was incredibly well organised, not just from our side but from ACVO. A lot of people there who came in and truly engaged with how the Parliament goes about legislation. Two of the things that I picked out from that day was that there was great concern about timings, especially about stage 2 and stage 3 amendments. Those were all policy officers, so they are quite well versed in this. What they were talking about was needing supporting documents at all stages of the process, particularly in terms of amendments, looking to see supporting documents from the lodgers of amendments with a clear policy intent about what the amendments are for and how it will affect the overall. If I can, having read the paper on Stirling, I was delighted to read that the people of Stirling thought that we should reinstate the Parliament's partnership libraries. I thought it was very interesting in Glasgow also that we had a couple of former MSPs there who were very useful and gave us Ian Smith and the guy from the Greens, Mark Bard, who was there. That was very useful because they gave us this little timetable and also gave us what they thought was wrong as well from an insider point of view. It was realistically, I think, that the timing was the thing that was wrong. The timing of the bills and everything that was going to be discussing. That's all I've really got to say on that. Okay, that's fine. Should we see Margaret, if you want to add anything that comes out of Stirling? I find it very interesting, particularly in that the people who were there were from volunteer sector, and they were there to support people as well. There were people there from a domestic violence support group. Their difficulty was around that communication and not everybody had access to the internet, literacy problems, so how do we get that information across to them? Also, the network group representative who was there said that it was very difficult to disseminate the information once they had found it. They all seemed to have difficulty in finding it, and also they didn't know actually how to go about getting a cause into the Parliament and what they did in the process of that, so I think they found it very useful themselves, and certainly I found it informative as well. Can I just add one thing? I thought it was very interesting. These were people who liked the informal sessions, who wouldn't normally be faced on these benches, some of these people like that. Was it children first and that women for women group who would never come to the Parliament, had never been and really had no intention of going? These informal sessions I thought were very useful because it did give us the basis and the sort of outreach thing of the Parliament, which I think is so important, and that's what was so good. I think it too was quite interesting to get as a group who are not so directly engaged in the process and see their views, and I think too, be fair to say, they went away having learned quite a lot as well as our having learned from them. Now colleagues, we will of course have a formal report that the clerks will prepare for us and we'll publish it at a later date that will come out of our two visits, but I think as a committee that's about the process of Parliament, it was quite an enlightening couple of events to go out and engage with the real public, because the public are often kept pretty distant from the processes and perhaps our views of the processes are often about what serves us best as those that involve the processes, and this was an opportunity to see what will serve the people we really have in the public better. So I think it was a very worthwhile initiative on our part that everybody who came and visited played a very helpful part in. Is there anything else that you wish to say on this subject before I move on to the next agenda item? Right, the next agenda item is again related to our procedures on considering legislation. We have a panel of witnesses before us today. Let me just go from left to right. On our left we have Stuart Faubyshire, divisional solicitor, director for legal services, and next to him we have Stephen McGregor, primary legislation programme manager, Cabinet, Parliament and Governance division, Scottish Government. Then of course we have the minister, Joe Fitzpatrick, the minister for parliamentary business, and on his left we have Willie Ferry, who's Scottish parliamentary council, office of the Scottish parliamentary council. Now it's not usually my habit to invite opening statements, but on this occasion I perhaps will give the minister the opportunity just to make any comments he wishes to make at this stage. Obviously my opening remark would be similar to the evidence that we gave, so just to very quickly emphasise that we do welcome the committee's inquiry. I think it's absolutely appropriate that the Parliament regularly reviews our systems and to make sure that they remain fit for purpose and to look at how we can continue to improve the Parliament's process. It has been very interesting for us to look at the evidence sessions that you have had both written and oral sessions and to hear just now about some of the public engagement that you have been doing as part of that process, which I think is one of the increasing strengths of our Parliament. I wonder if it might be possible for all of my colleagues to just introduce themselves in terms of just very quickly what they do as part of our team. That's helpful, minister. You have anticipated what I was doing. I'm very farry from the office of the Scottish Parliamentary Council. Our office is responsible for the drafting of the bills that form the Government's legislative programme, including the amendments to bills. I'm Stephen McGregor. I work in Cabinet, Parliament and Governance division. I lead the Scottish Government's legislation team, so I'm responsible for co-ordinating the Scottish Government's legislative programme. I work closely with individual teams to do that, as well as the minister. I'm Stuart Foubister from the Scottish Government legal directorate. I have a co-ordinating role in respect of SGLD's interests in primary legislation. SGLD is responsible for instructing all Government bills and associated legal work in taking them through. Thank you very much. That's very helpful. I will, at the end, come back to the panel just to give you the opportunity if you think in our questioning we've missed something that you want to bring to our attention. As you're going along, you might care to be thinking about that. Right. Fiona. I've been pursuing very much the stage 1 of the legislative process, and what's come out of the evidence there is that most witnesses have said that the stage 1 process is good, fairly robust, doesn't need a lot of changes, but what people have been talking about is pre-stage 1, so pre-legislative consultation, draft bills, that sort of thing. So the committees began to hear some good statistics on what the Government already does, and I wondered if the Minister would want to talk about that pre-legislative part. Yeah, I mean, obviously, most of what we're looking at in terms of the committee's inquiry is about the actual Parliament's process from stage 1 to stage 3, but of course the whole process begins long before that and continues after that in implementation. So pre-a-bill being produced, there is a huge amount of engagement. One of the ways that we can do that is using a draft bill, and I think it's been pretty consistent that about 25% of bills through all the sessions of the Parliament have had a draft bill attached, and I think that's probably, when it's appropriate, is very, very helpful. I'm not sure it would be beneficial for every single bill to have a draft bill. That would be, for some bills, it just wouldn't be appropriate, so we already do that for about 25% of bills, and I think that is helpful. I wonder one of the areas that we were thinking when we'd been looking at this process is whether the Parliament could engage more in the stages prior to a bill being introduced and whether it could somehow take part in the work that the Government does in consultation before. Clearly not to form a final view, and committees would always want to protect their position and then scrutinising a bill that finally came forward, but it would offer an opportunity for members of specialist committees who've developed specialist knowledge in an area to feed into the Government's thinking in terms of developing a bill at an earlier stage, and I think that might be helpful. That's quite interesting, because in terms of that, because this committee always comes back to, do we need to change standing orders to make something happen? So if we want to get the committees to engage in that pre-legislative consultation process that the Government's already doing, do we need to have a standing order changer? Do we need to just highlight the fact that committees should be concerned about that? I don't think that there would be any need for a standing order change to allow committees to take part in pre-legislative scrutiny. In fact, a number of committees already do that. I think that the Education Committee did a fair bit of engagement prior to the Children and Young People's Bill coming forward. They knew it was coming, so they started doing some work. The Rural Affairs and Climate Change Committee are currently doing some scrutiny in terms of land reform in advance of a later bill. So it is possible, and it actually does happen. I think that when it happens, it means that the committee members are then able to engage in stage 1 from a much higher level of understanding of the Government's thinking and the thinking of stakeholders, but there might be an additional opportunity to engage with the Government's consultation process as well. That probably doesn't happen very much just now. None of that, I think, would need standing order changes that would simply, maybe we should highlight the fact that it's an opportunity to exist. I think that, because, for example, when I was on the Health and Sport Committee, we did that knowing that the integration agenda was coming, so they did a short inquiry before that, and it did help. Can I then go on to one of the other items that— Sorry, if we're moving on. Before we left that subject, if there was a view in the panel that that might be helpful to those who are contributing to consultations, in that presently they may have to contribute to the Government's consultation and then to the committee's consultation, and perhaps it might make it more simpler and straightforward, or would it carry the risk of denying them the opportunity of second thoughts when the committee came? Or is it a question of horses for courses? I think it probably is, to some extent, horses for courses, but I think any involvement of committee in pre-legislative scrutiny would never—it would have to not debar the committee from making decisions about how they would then scrutinise any bill that then came out of that, so I think that that would be a very important principle to maintain. The opportunity for this would be an additional opportunity, not taken away at all from the stage 1 scrutiny. One of the other areas that's come out is about the documents that accompany bills when they're introduced, and that's laid down what documents we have to introduce and in what format. Have you got any sort of thoughts on do we need to change the way we do that, to make them more accessible? In the main, I think the documents are very robust. We've had a look at the accompanying documents over the session of Parliament, and maybe Stephen will shortly talk about how they have grown in size and complexity since the first session to what we now have, but I think there may be an issue in terms of how accessible all the documents are to members of Parliament and members of the Republic, so that's certainly something that we should look at. For instance, the financial memorandum is hidden away almost, and so whether each of the documents should perhaps be individual documents more easily accessible, so if somebody wants to find a financial memorandum that should be relatively easy for them to find that as a document in its own right, and we should look at how we can better improve that. I think one of the ways forward for that is how we use the internet more. I know not everyone has access to the internet, but increasingly it is becoming the way that people access information, and it does give us opportunities to improve access and make it much simpler for people to find the information they want and access these documents. Company documents are, I think, very helpful to the Parliament and Government as well, and so we I think we should continue to try to improve them. One of the challenges we have is sometimes knowing exactly what the Parliament wants in an accompanying document, and that might be why over time documents have just got bigger and bigger, and yet sometimes we still hear that it's not doing what we want. I think there is a need for a discussion between the Parliament and Government to work out some sort of guidelines about what is expected to be within a financial memorandum, for instance, and what exists in terms of guidelines just now are very high level guidelines, and clearly sometimes that's what we produce exactly what a committee wants, and sometimes it's not what a committee wants, and I think we need to have a better understanding of what it is that Parliament wants from the documents, but maybe Stephen could talk about some of the documents and how they've changed over time. Very quick check back from 1999. I think the average size of financial memorandum in the first session was three pages, and the second session was nine pages, the third session was 15 pages, and the current session is 21 pages, so we're definitely providing more information about whether it's the right information or not. We have been engaging with the Parliament on this, we've invited the Parliament to contribute to training, we've provided for bill teams, and we're quite keen to continue that, but also develop some guidance lying behind that, so we can understand as far as we can what information the Parliament would like to see, and then we're able to try and provide that for you. I think that's your question, so the Librarian just finds that really interesting, because it's not a bit of access to the quantity of information, it's the quality. Are we putting out the stuff that actually supports the bill and helps all stakeholders to understand what it's about, so it's interesting to hear that we're working on that? One of the things in terms of discussion, we're always trying to do things by discussion with Parliament and with committees, and DPLR for instance have raised concerns about the DPM not including guidance and direction making powers, and standing orders don't require that. There's probably not a good reason for it not to do so, so if that was something that you might want to look at then. I think it might be surprising if we were not to agree with DPLR on that particular subject. Perhaps another one, which has arisen in other contexts, is in relation to financial memoranda and other supporting documents, but particularly financial memorandum, which of course is required to be passed by Parliament at stage one, and is required to be updated if it's updated, but is not required to be re-endorsed by Parliament. If we were to consider that when the financial memorandum changes it requires to be re-endorsed by Parliament do you have a view on what the implications of that might be? I think we need to be, clearly, we want to give Parliament as much information and as much time to consider documents that are produced as possible, and normally we get that right. We do need to be careful that we're not putting barriers in the way that would make it very difficult for legislation to proceed. Clearly, Minister, if an updated financial memorandum is underpinning what's now happening, it's part of what Parliament receives when it decides what it's going to do at stage two and stage three, so I can see an argument on both sides that it will be considered as part of the input. It doesn't seem unreasonable that Parliament in some way is able to express a view on that. Cameron. Sorry. How do you respond to the concerns setting an end point when the bill must complete its passage through Parliament? How do you respond to that? We've had criticism of the stage, the time between stages two and three, or Chris's comment, I should say. Often the timings for a bill are maybe driven by a desire to implement the bill and what the bill does, it's something we want to be implemented in a timescale, so that is sometimes a driver for the end timescale, but normally we look at timescales in collaboration with the lead committee and to try and work out what time is required for the different stages. Obviously there are occasions when we don't get that quite right and we're always keen to listen and if representations are made to us that the end timescales aren't right and aren't allowing proper scrutiny, then we would look to be flexible. I think the example of the Government being flexible in such a case was the children and young people's bill, where there was expressions of concern that the time wasn't available between the stages for stakeholders and the DPLR committee to look at those elements and we extended that period to allow for that. Government would always listen to representations, but sometimes there is a driver that at the end we want to get bills passed for a reason. There's a purpose behind the legislation that the Parliament is taking forward and we have a pretty good record over the four sessions of Parliament of taking forward legislation, which I think in the main we all agree is designed to improve the lives of people in Scotland. There is a fixed time then between the stages that's set down, but it can't be extended, is that what you're saying? I mean the fixed time between stages one, two and three. There are minimum timescales in the standing orders and perhaps sometimes we work to those minimums a bit more than we should and I think as an outcome of the evidence that you have already taken, we will be looking more carefully at why there's a need to work to minimum timescales. Sometimes there will be and I think we would want to maintain the flexibility so that where it's appropriate that that can, that timescales could be set to those minimums, but we would, we will try not to work to minimum timescales and that's kind of a general thrust that we have out across government in terms of the bill teams that they shouldn't be expecting to work to the minimum timescales. I think we heard from people like Shelter that they said there was a deadline for lodging amendments was very difficult and they wanted should that be extended for lodging amendments they found it quite difficult to, I think it was Shelter that said that, I can't remember it was, that said that the dead, these professional, the people who come in all the time, sometimes there wasn't enough time to lodge the amendments. I guess what we need to be careful of is on one hand the issue, on one hand if you give more time for lodging amendment then does that take away from the time to then consider the amendments and particularly with stage 2s it's a big complex bill and each amendment stage in the committee would have consequences for the next stage so there are implications but I think it's reasonable for the committee and we would be happy to engage the committee to look at whether guidance can be produced which ensures that wherever possible there is more time as is appropriate depending on the bill. Thank you very much. Moving on to stage 3, during our evidence sessions there has been general consensus that stage 3 doesn't need to be reformed in some way so do you think that stage 3 should be structured differently and should it be given more time and how do you feel about perhaps splitting stage 3 so that amendments are considered on a separate day to the actual debate of the bill? Stage 3 is obviously the final consideration of this Parliament setting legislation so I think it's a very, very important part of our processes. Standing orders already allows for us to split stage 3 into do the amendments on one day and the debate on another day either the next day or the following week where it is deemed to be appropriate but I guess we've not particularly looked at using that option very much in recent times and again from here in the evidence from this committee that's certainly something that we will look more actively at for future bills so for bills which are currently in session and ones coming down the line we'll certainly look more carefully at whether it would be appropriate for the amendment stage to be on one day and then the debate stage to be on another day. One thing I feel very strongly about is that there should be time to debate stage 3 of amendments and on the debate section of the stage 3. The process that we go through is the bill team and the Parliament look at the amendments that come forward and they make a best estimate as to the time that it will take to go through amendments. I then share that best estimate with business managers across the Parliament and they would generally then speak to their spokespeople to say look is this right or do we want to speak more and on some occasions a business manager will come back saying no we think that we're going to want to speak more in this section of amendments and so we would extend the time based on that information. However it's still going to be an estimate until you actually sit in the chamber and the debate happens and you hear the contribution is that you can't actually know how much time they need in order not to curtail the debate. Obviously the Presiding Officer has flexibility within standing orders to move a rule to extend a session but then that only happens once and then you have this kind of slightly clunky situation of moving a motion without notice and I just wonder whether the PO should have more flexibility in order to make sure that the debate is not curtailed throughout the amendment stage and of course the PO has always got the flexibility to delay decision time to ensure further contributions are enabled at stage 3 so I think it's a very important part of the process and I think the keyiest is that maybe the PO doesn't have quite the flexibility written in clear standing orders that might ensure that that can happen all the time and sometimes it does feel a little bit rushed. Just as a follow up to that some of the stakeholders that we've had in front of us would think I've said that they think it would be valuable to have the stage 3 debate in advance of the amendments so how do you feel about that? Certainly particularly heard the comments of Mr Adam and Mr Buchanan around this area and I understand the concerns about you going to stage 3 and all of a sudden you can be discussing what might be very technical amendments on a bill and you've got perhaps people in the audience who came to hear this important debate on a subject and we're hearing people talking about things which they don't seem to fit in however the debate is the minister or the member in charge moving the motion that we accept the bill as amended so clearly that can't start until after the amendments has happened however I do understand that it just seems a bit strange that there isn't anything to put the amendment stage in context and without particularly pushing a government line I wondered whether there was a missing stage in terms of a handover from the committee which has dealt with stage 2 and handing over to the plenary session at stage 3 and whether there might be an opportunity for the convener of that committee to in a neutral way as conveners often manage to do to basically talk to what happened at stage 2 you know the bill was in the plenary session in the parliament at stage 1 it went to committee at stage 2 and it's coming back to the parliament at stage 3 so whether there's an opportunity for the convener to talk to what happened in stage 2 and that might then set the stage 3 debate in some context rather than starting straight in with amendments but I do think that the debate stage has to happen after the amendments because the member in charge or the minister are moving the motion and that is that the bill is accepted as amended. I'm thinking on my feet you're sort of leading me to this whether the model that we occasionally use in relation to statements, ministerial statements where we have the statement without interruption and then a debate on the statement you know you can do things and I wonder whether what you're saying leads us to think that one might start the stage 3 amendment process with a statement from the member in charge, from the committee convener and perhaps one other to just set a context for that amendment stage, would that be something that I'm not necessarily looking for a definitive answer? I think perhaps there's a potential here to look at whether there's options to then set the debate in context but it does seem that there's something missing in terms of reporting back from the committee to the parliament as a whole in terms of what happened and the right person to do that and the only person that probably could do that in an entirely neutral way would be the convener of the committee. It's the public also that don't understand what happens and people just disappear if you notice out of the chamber and the gallery at that end and that's the problem I think it looks bad for the parliamentary point of view. I didn't understand as a relative new member why we debate is not at the end either. So I think something needs to change but I can't exactly see what it is but I don't think it's quite right as we find that set at the time. I think that set at something that we'd be happy to discuss with. Before we move off just perhaps seek Stephen McGregor's view on some of the mechanics that might be around and then this if he's the right person to respond to the question I have in my mind. At the moment it does seem that the publication, republication of the bill after amendment at stage 3 takes place on the day after. Is that a practical normal timetable so that if we were to separate the stage 3 debate on the bill from the stage 3 amendment consideration, I would imagine one would wish to do so in the context of having the amended bill in front of you. What are the practicalities associated with that? Or I'm choosing Stephen that maybe I see Willie Ferri nodding suggesting perhaps it's his question. No, I think maybe I can answer that because our office would be involved in preparing as amended print in conjunction with the clerks that normally would be produced overnight. Certainly they were always aimed to produce an as amended print overnight but sometimes the long bills are very big bills that have been heavily amended. It may take a couple of days in order to have an as amended print available but normally they would aim to have the bill available and published on the Parliament's website by the following day. So the as amended print should be available if the debate section were separated from the amended. Very precise, when you say on the following day, what time on the following day? Normally they would aim to publish bills by 8 o'clock on the Parliament's website. We would normally get an advanced draft of the bill as amended on the assumption that certain amendments are going to be voted in so we would have a chance to check it in advance and then we'd have to just check it against how the votes actually went on today. So just looking at the mechanical side of this, if we were to have the debate on the bill on the day following, we would in general terms have the morning as members to consider that amended bill and incorporate that in the remarks we might make in the debate but we would be unwise on the basis of what you said to mandate that that would be the following day. I would just caution because sometimes with big bills, it can be a couple of days to consider that. I think that points quite clearly understood. I just wanted to make sure we got the mechanical bit of it. I think the only thing I would want to say in those terms about separating the amendment stage and the debate stages that we wouldn't want that to be laid down in firm because I'm not sure it would be appropriate for every bill but it's certainly something that we appreciate based on evidence that your committee has received that it would be appropriate for some bills and there are a couple of bills that I'm actively considering whether it is appropriate for those bills. I think minister given that standing orders permit this and it is occasionally done, the committee might limit itself to making a recommendation but I'm anticipating what my colleagues might come up with and perhaps we might change the debate stage, actually call it the decision stage rather than stage 3 so that the public understood. I wouldn't be aware that stage 3 could be split either. I don't know if everybody else is aware of that. It has happened. It has. I mean relatively never wasn't aware of it. I think that's useful to say that. It's also fair to say of course that for big bills the stage 3 amendment part can straddle more than one day because sometimes you can't even fit it in a single day. So the Parliament rules are more flexible than we sometimes imagine they are when we look at the practice of Parliament. Anything else Cara? Finally, I think it was possibly the law society that mentioned the idea of maybe having some sort of sense check after amendments have been passed at stage 3 before proceeding any further with the bill becoming a formal decision. What are your views on that? Again there is the opportunity for a sense check that does exist within the standing orders. The member and Charger, the Minister, can effectively call a halt to proceedings and go back to make some correcting amendments. I think that's happened on one occasion in 2006. Yep, in 2006 where that did happen. And it might be a reason for why from a bill with a lot of very complex amendments that you would want to have that separated decision time between the amendment stage and the decision because it would then give time for that sense check to be done. And then such a motion to be moved to allow for amendments. But Stephen, do you want to? No, I think that's just it. On a big bill we split the stage 3 and the two parts and have the amendments on one day and the stage 3 debate the following week or even later than that and it provides the opportunity to have that final look at the technical correctness of the bill and to be tidied up. It is possible, I understand, for corrections to be made to the text as long as they don't affect the effect already. Would you speak to that? I mean, when I took climate change through, for example, because the huge number of amendments and the fact that in this particular case we had to vote on a consequential before we voted in the substantial, none of us twigged that we voted in a consequential and then voted down the substantial. So we had a reference to something that wasn't in the bill and that was simply corrected by essentially taking out the reference. Well, there's two processes. There's one, there's the formal process that we should have discussed that if you have to split you can bring forward actual amendments to correct the errors and that might have helped in that case and might have helped in a few other occasions when there have been slip-ups. There is some limited scope to make what are known as printing changes which is something that we would discuss with the clerk whereas there's an obvious error or usually for printing errors and typographical errors where we can correct it with a clear sense of what Parliament had intended to achieve was perhaps not made clear and could be made clear simply by a printing error. And certainly at the last stage, if you're at stage three and you're beyond the point when you can amend again, then it's to do printing changes and they're not things obviously that are put before members or they're not things that are necessarily scrutinised so we'd only use them very, very rarely but if there was the opportunity to have the split then you could also take the opportunity to do a formal clarificatory amendment. So the scope for doing those printing changes can be quite limited, that's all I would say. So the printing changes can be used and have been used to affect technical errors in the draft that now has resulted from the parliamentary process as long as it doesn't change the intent of the vote. Is that capturing what happens? I don't want to bounce you into a description, I'm giving you if you are uncomfortable with it. I mean there are limits, clearly we can't, if Parliament has voted on a particular amendment we can't undo that vote in many respects but if in that instance there's a cross-reference to something that is wrong or just doesn't exist then clearly you can address that particular issue as a printing change but we certainly can't use printing changes to undo something that Parliament has clearly agreed to. That's a more adequate description perhaps than the one that I chose to give. Margaret. Thank you convener, we're moving on to amendments and basically people's understanding of them and why they have been submitted. Do you have any suggestions on how the consideration of amendments in committee and the chamber could be made more transparent? I think one of the big challenges is for particularly members in the public to understand where an amendment fits into the bill and in order to do that you'd have to have the amendment there which says delete part of something and itself it tends, often doesn't mean anything at all and you'd have to have then the bill beside it and somehow be able to score out the bit that it's taken out and then work out how that bit fits in. That's all quite difficult for anyone to do. So my view is that this is where technology should be ultimately able to help us where you would be able to go to a website where you could click on the amendment and it would show up in the bill where that would fit in and how that would change the bill and I know there is a degree of work on going in terms of the digitisation of the bill making process and we would obviously be content to continue working with the Parliament to see how we could improve that so that there is a clearer understanding of how amendments interact with the bills. There is a fair bit of work on going in terms of an IT project and we might be able to talk about the work that's already on-going. Do you favour an idea of publishing the amendment with a short explanation of the policy and thinking behind it? That would be a different matter which perhaps we could come on. Do you want to quickly talk about the technology first? Just on the technological developments, as the minister has said, there's work on going at the moment to refresh our bill drafting software and we at OSPC are working in conjunction with the clerks and the legislation team in the Parliament to develop a new software for the drafting of bills including amendments and software we currently use dates from 1999 and it's a bit creaky and we need something that's more fit for the digital age. As far as amendments are concerned, we want to move away from the system as the minister has described whereby you draft each individual amendment as a separate document separate from the bill and the two have to be looked at separately. What we hope that the software will achieve is that the drafter, when doing the amendment, will just call up the bill on screen and just type the desired changes straight into the bill so we can see how the amendments look in the context of the bill and then just press a button and the software will produce the list of amendments. I don't think they can move away from having a list of amendments like the marshaled list because the standing orders require that as part of the consideration and the voting on amendments but what the new software will produce hopefully because the drafters are writing as the draft amendments are effectively writing the amendments into the bill it should make it more easy to produce a version of the bill with the amendments marked up in them and that version of the bill could be made available to members and indeed to the public which might help in making the process more transparent and more easy to understand what amendments are doing in the context of the particular bill. We're hoping that the software will be available for use by the end of 2015 that's the current time frame for the project. On the explanation of why the amendment has come about and the policy thinking behind it do you think that there is the opportunity to actually produce that so that it gives better understanding for members who are maybe not so closely involved with that particular bill or the public? I think that it is important that members in particular have an understanding of what the intention behind an amendment is in particular groups of amendments. We already produce some information around the intention some supporting information around amendments which we share with clerks obviously that works done for government and that's then shared with the clerks of the relevant committee whether that could be shared wider is something we need to look at. One concern I would have about publishing effect notes might be that the reliance that courts might then place on such notes and that might then have a big implication for the time in terms of producing those notes because you would have to be making absolutely sure that you were legally sounding in terms of everything that you were saying in the notes because they might be used in court if they were then published. I think it's a different thing producing an information for members and to something that might end up being used in court because you've published it but we do already produce that information and whether that might be able to look at how that could be shared more widely with members that's probably something that we need to consider and maybe Stuart do you want to? As the minister says we would require to just consider some of the implications of material like this being used in court the general approach of the courts just now is that the bill means what it says the first point to look at is simply the text of the bill and trying a certain parliamentary intention from that they'd only really go behind that and look at extraneous materials like debates in Parliament policy memoranda explanatory notes if there's ambiguity in the text of the bill but it is possible if a new element comes in explanatory material offered as a matter of course with amendments that the courts would have a look at that so there are issues to consider there I don't think there's anything insurmountable I think one of the other things I would want to add is if we were looking to improve the information that's available to members that we continue with the current practice which would be to produce information based on groups of amendments I think it would be very onerous on on government and on on Parliament if we were saying that you'd have to have an explanatory note for each individual amendment and actually it might not be terribly helpful when you've got a group of amendments that do something what we currently produce would be notes to explain the purpose and effect of that group of amendments and we do currently share that I don't know if all members have perhaps seen the sort of detail of notes that we produce and I could share with the committee the notes that we've produced for the it's changed its name but the defective buildings they've switched defective buildings so maybe I could share the explanatory notes that we produced for that and we shared with Mr Stewart and the relevant committee on that occasion I think that on the record or for background briefing I think I would share it with members for background reading if that would be okay Thank you Can I Sorry Fiona One of the things that's come up when we've been talking about all the accompanying documents is the spice briefing Now the spice briefing is not part of the suite of documents that has to be produced but all this is because it's not part of the suite that has to be produced it has no legal standing would that be the case Yes generally I don't can't think of particular instances where the courts have had regard to spice briefing it's a kind of it's a growing area I mean that the courts for instance are having much more regard to policy memoranda than they have in the past mainly in things like ECHR considerations thinking about the policy justification why Parliament has done something like that so the fact that spice briefing comes not if you like from a member or the member in charge of the bill may not mean in the long term that it's something that's considered completely irrelevant So we should but we should leave it the way it is as a known statutory document that accompanies I think that's probably for the Parliament but given that all the other documentation that's required is produced effectively by the member in charge, by the Government, it was a Government bill then the spice briefing is I think in a slightly different category I just wanted to pick up on amendments where the interaction between consequentials and the substantive amendment and wonder whether it would be useful if the Presiding Officer had the power to designate that a group of amendments that clearly stood together should be voted on together as a single vote or alternatively whether the drafting rules which essentially mean that they have to be broken down into separate amendments because they affect different parts of the bill rather than submitted as a single amendment which could be voted and I just have a memory that where we're making amendments to a bill which in turn are amending pre-existing legislation we actually can in those amendments have scattergun effect so I wonder if I think I certainly think that the current situation where we debate a group of amendments and then vote on them in different times, sometimes weeks later is very confusing for just about everyone concerned and I'm pretty sure that there are times when members vote on amendments that they actually have little recollection of the debate that took place obviously we have the challenge of the rule of progression in terms of moving through the bill but I just wonder whether we could find a way that if we've debated a suite of amendments of a grouping then whether you vote on them as one group but even if you vote on them all together then there would be more clarity from anyone watching and from members who have taken part in the stage 2 or stage 3 that might improve things but obviously we have to be careful that we're not, there isn't unintended consequences so it would be something we need to work with Parliament in order to achieve Are there any legal issues around our changing approach then? I'm not sure there are any legal issues it's really just an issue of how you handle the business I mean there's always the risk if you're voting through a whole block of amendments in one go that there may be potential for clashes with conflicting amendments that are coming later but hopefully that's something that can be worked out in the context in which you agree the groupings you make sure that only the amendments are all related to the same topic are grouped together so I don't know that there's necessarily any particular Justing provisions and what the Presiding Officer or convener might say in relation to preemption which already is would simply become perhaps a little more complex Well let's take a careful consideration to just exactly what the consequences could be for the managing of the proceedings in relation to other amendments or other groups if we decide to take a group of amendments on one vote I mean there won't be issues to consider like revisions for example and issues around alternative and competing amendments at the same place where they might be taking on different days you know what happens if you've voted in a group on one day but then there's a competing amendment a later day which is in the same place so these issues would have to be thought through carefully I don't think we can say at this stage that it isn't doable but we just need to make sure we think through these technical issues in relation to the handling of the amendments So the bottom line is that the committee wanted to consider and make comment on this subject you are not strongly advocating we desist from so doing That's helpful, thank you very much George Thank you Gavina Adlitz Minister I quite like the idea of the software for the bill team when the bill is going through because my own system I currently use after doing children and young people in post 16 reform which were quite large bills was very analog I could have done it in the 1970s so that will be good because I think that makes a big difference it's been able to see how it fits and I don't know if it's me being a control freak but I'd rather know exactly where it fits in the bill myself much to my wife's disappointment she had to put the post-it notes into the bill herself but one of the things I'd like to ask is your views Minister on secondary committees and the Finance Committee and the Delegated Pills and Law Reform Committee and their input into all of this there was obviously an incident earlier on in the year where the Finance Committee actually saw a revised financial memorandum on the day on the morning of the stage 3 so I was just wondering about your ideas on that Sometimes these committees cause us a bit of trouble but they are invaluable in terms of the Parliament's process and particularly finance and DPLRC have a hugely important role to play Minister if you might care to rephrase that as the government and the bill's sponsors occasionally cause some trouble but it is to be welcomed because ultimately we all have an interest in getting robust legislation passed through the Parliament so it is absolutely correct that these committees have the role and they continue to have the role and it's incumbent on us to try and do our best to accommodate and facilitate their investigations and the work that they do as part of the bill process and to try within the process to give as much time to these committees as we can perhaps it's a degree of flagging that up to the subject committees as well to make sure that when they are working out their work programme around a bill that they are taking into account with those committees who have a hugely valuable role the very specialist roles which are really, really important Right, I think that is the conclusion of our questions is there anything that any member of the panel wishes to add to our consideration at this stage? No, I think, as I say we're continuing to watch your proceedings with interest and we're very keen to work with the committee in any way that we can to help take forward some of the thinking that comes out of the inquiry Right, may I thank you very much for what I think has been a pretty helpful set of inputs we will leave it to you to judge what we do with them and make your own comments in due course Thank you very much I now suspend this meeting until 10.30 We'll resume agenda item 5 is to take oral evidence from Rob Gibson MSP on the activities of the cross-party groups on Russia and the Scots language I welcome Rob Gibson to our meeting Thank you very much for coming What we'll do is we'll just go straight to questions if I may, at the end of the questions, if there's anything that you feel we should know that hasn't otherwise emerged then you'll have the opportunity to do so Right, colleagues, Fiona are you going to kick off? Morning Rob and thank you for coming We've just had a few concerns about the two cross-party groups, Russia and Scots language and I wondered if you would like to give us a background to it but specifically what I would like to ask and ask you to address is the fact that the cross-party group on Russia only has four members and it has to have five MSPs to be established and the cross-party group in Scots language does have five members but they're all of one party so could you talk to us about maybe how the situation has arisen and if you've got any plans of how to address it Thank you very much for the invite First of all we'll take the longest standing one which has been in existence since early in the Parliament, the cross-party group for the Scots language and indeed at an earlier stage there were active members from various parties indeed Cathie Petey was a long standing convener or vice-convener of that which gave it a breadth The nominal support of enough members to allow the cross-party group to continue since 2007 has been extremely nominal indeed the circumstances are that it's become less and less of a cross-party group and that in terms of attendance the only people who attended it were members of the Scottish National Party or the Green Party and that has made the rules in contrast to their original founding principle put at variance with the reality and there are reasons why the reality has reached that stage which I can go into later With regard to the cross-party group for Russia it was founded by in the previous Parliament briefly and I resurrected it I think you could say that the secretary and the convener of these groups should take a closer look at the rules under which we are supposed to run and Mea Kopa in terms of making the cross-party group for Russia fit the rules in terms of members we had them across three parties but we didn't have them in terms of numbers and when this was drawn to our attention forcibly by this committee earlier this year if I can put it mildly it wasn't the best climate in which to recruit MSPs the cross-party group for Russia in the light of the international situation so the potential for asking other people to join perhaps on a nominal basis is there but we haven't done that for the reasons that the actual group has not met during the last six months Sorry to write the things down so from what you said in the cross-party group in Russia do you think you're not going to be successful in recruiting an extra member to make it five? Well I think it's entirely possible that we could be we have a good engagement with the Russian community in this country and with issues related to Russia and it is certainly possible to do so I have not attempted to do so during this period in order to allow the international situation to play out however we did accept an invitation to attend the Russian national day organised by the consulate general last week and I noticed that of the 200 people there there were from many different strands of Scottish life so there's no reason to think that we can't ask MSPs on that and to maintain the discussions that we can have at the cross-party group which have been fruitful in the past Cymru, would it be appropriate then for me to make a suggestion that perhaps if our committee gave you a date or a deadline of perhaps after the October recess to see if you can attract and recruit enough cross-party membership for your two groups and we could reconsider it again perhaps at a meeting in November Before inviting Rob Gibson to respond to that just take a sense from the committee whether that's a suggestion I'm getting that sense by the nodding heads In that case I think we would try to do that but my suggestion would be to try and hold an early meeting if possible in August in order to start that process so thank you very much for that agreement It's helpful indeed What do you think your intentions might be in relation to the other group? Well the cross-party group for Scots Sorry I beg your pardon I've cut across Fiona You meant for both groups Right I beg your pardon Well in that case let's be clear My response would be in terms of the cross-party group for Scots that there was a discussion at the end of 2012 about the aims and the future work of such a cross-party group and it has to be said that in the period leading up to 2007 there were a lot of issues that had to be campaigned about there are many more still in general terms which were laid out in a statement of principles which was drawn up in 2003 in that cross-party group However since the accession of the minority and then the majority SNP Governments some of the key campaigning issues have actually been addressed for example the Scots Language Learning Centre which is mainly online and the Scots Language Dictionaries have been funded directly by the Government now whereas before they were at the mercy of the Scottish Arts Council and doubts about whether they fitted into an arts portfolio were laid aside by that so these important bodies are now directly funded Secondly the census in 2011 which asked for the very first time a question about the use of Scots Language was something over which we campaigned for many years and indeed I was a member of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee that dealt with the orders in Parliament to create the questions in the census along with other items and at that time there was hostility to having a question asked about Scots from some members of the committee but it was passed by the majority and indeed that took place very successfully and it establishes a precedent to establish the role of Scots in our country's life it should also be said that the ministerial working group on areas to do with the Scots language has set out a number of aims which are starting to be achieved so in this Parliament the work of a cross-party group is truncated by the fact that we actually have a Government responding to many of the issues that we campaigned for but we are not actually achieved until after 2007 so I think it reaches a point where the original ideas of a cross-party group have in fact at this time become less relevant because people have taken a view that there are issues being applied by the Government at the campaigning zeal of the cross-party group is less important at the moment and an actual role for any future campaigning is unclear so that's why the cross-party group got more support from members of the governing party in particular and less from opposition parties who didn't give it any priority in the way that the governing party did so the nature of a cross-party group has been ended and that's why it concerns me that we've attempted to try with outside help to service such a group but we haven't as yet asked people again whether they're prepared to support it partly because we're not clear just exactly what should be done at the moment but also we're quite clear that there has been little support from other parties to make it a cross-party group in effect I think that's very clear can I just say a couple of things just a tiny wee reference of personal interest to my second cousin Jim Stevenson was the editor of the Scots dictionary for a while he has however been dead for 20 years so well he I think he did something like L to P, if I recall correctly, something like that there've been editors over a very long period of time however just the technical point it's as well perhaps to put into the mix of your consideration it may well be that it's actually necessary to have additional members in any group that's meeting otherwise the meeting is unlikely to be in conformance of your role so I just invite that to be part of your consideration Mr Gibson-Cammam You think we should disband this group on Scots language or it can't be suspended, it's got to be either disbanded or functioning Well I'm saying that the rules at the present time make it difficult to meet the practical circumstances here, we have a circumstance where a lot of people who are campaigning for many things are seeing them being applied and therefore you might say that their job is done well it's not entirely done far from it because Scots doesn't have the status in our country that it could have however the practical issues are that in terms of the rules we can't suspend it during this period we have to end it and we haven't ended it because we wanted to make sure that we continued to keep a watching brief and I have done that as the convener in my role as an MSP in asking questions of ministers about particular aspects of development so the two things overlap but the rules are in conflict with this and I agree with you that in terms of the rules that we have abandoned at the moment it should be ended and if we were to follow them strictly that's what we would do we hadn't up to this stage but if we're instructed to either find cross-party support or to abandon it then we'll do those Can I as a convener we had a suggestion which we've all signed up to that we're extending the period in which you can look at the matter in the October recess however if you as convener come to an earlier conclusion that it won't be possible to proceed it would be very helpful if perhaps wearing that role you wrote to the clerks to notify in a formal sense that it will not be possible to proceed I'm thinking of the Scots language one where I think your comments are substantially less encouraging as to a successful outcome On the Russian one I think speaking for myself I think in times of difficulty that there may be with a country like Russia which is a very important country in the world the need perhaps for having these links may even be enhanced and I would certainly personally encourage as much work as possible to regularise the position particularly as I heard the indication of a very substantial community engagement across Scotland in Russia's national day and indeed in my constituency responsibilities I'm working with Russian interests at the moment to see a statue to Michael Barclay de Tolly who was the Field Marshal who defeated Napoleon when he invaded Russia who came from Banff in my constituency so we're looking to have a statue erected and later this year in the grounds of Aberdeen University so I speak with a personal interest in the matter as well Anything else anyone wishes to say? Right, thank you very much indeed Mr Gibson for your attendance and your very helpful remarks Thank you I'm in private We now move into private session please