 However, I welcome members to the eighth meeting in 2015 to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, and I remind everybody to switch off their mobile phones as they can affect the broadcasting system. We've received apologies from Dave Thompson and Colin Keir who are attending today as a substitute. First item is for the committee to take evidence on its inquiry into the election of committee conveners. Today we have Sir Allenbyth, former GenerRegional, the Home and Public Affairs Committee's Chair of the Justices and Liaison committees at the House of Commons. I welcome Sir Allen to our meeting, and thank him very much for making himself available. It is worth saying that the presiding officer who has initiated this piece of work and who is keen we should look at this, the committee is perhaps more skeptical than she hoped. In dealing with the committee, we are quite happy if you i'n fawr i eich cyffredinol i'r tîm, os nhw, y ddechrau. Theft is important for us to cover that point but let me thank you once again for coming. I don't normally invite very much opening remarks—we normally go straight to questions, but I think that in these circumstances, with the appointment of opening remarks, we would be very happy for you to lay out your stall comparatively briefly if you wish to do so. I follow the same practice in the committee that I chaired. that I chair not encouraging opening statements, but in the light of your opening comment I think it would be perhaps sufficient for me to say it's not for me to say how the how a committee system in the in the Scottish Parliament should work and there are quite important differences. The most important being that you have a legislative role which we don't have in our committees. One of the reasons we don't have it is that if we imported the legislative role given the very strong whipping tradition in the House of Commons we think that it would undermine the ability of committees to act in a collegiate and consensual way. Whether that has implications for how you elect the chairs or the conveners or the members I'm not sure but it is it is a difference so these are very much your judgments. What I can say just very briefly is that it is my view and I think a very widely shared view that the election of chairs of committees in the House of Commons has significantly enhanced the authority both of the chairs and of their committees and has added to a number of things which have caused ministers, civil servants and outside bodies all to take committees more seriously than ever before and I'm quite confident that the election of chairs has been important in that respect and it has given committees a greater degree of independence from the executive. Thank you that's helpful. We'll move straight to questions. We have a list of pre-prepared questions but of course we may go off script if that's appropriate as you would expect. Margaret. Thank you convener and good morning Sir Beath. It was really in your remarks there that you said that the election of conveners had a razor profile of committees and there was more authority and independence for the conveners and for their committees. Why do you think that that is? It is quite clear that the person holding the chair does not hold it because they've been given that opportunity by the executive and by the whip system. It is also clear that that person has had to assemble the support, the mandate from a range of members of Parliament in order to achieve the position and perhaps to keep the position. That is quite clearly strengthening to the independence of the committees and if you observe the election process it's actually quite interesting to see that the House has not always done what might be expected in its choice of chairs. The more recent by-elections, if I can call them that for two chairs, have led to the point that not of the most senior people to those positions but to people who had a reputation in that field but were relatively junior as members of Parliament. I think that it all illustrates that nobody can say that it's been fixed by the whips. If I keep referring to this terminology it's because it is historically very important in the way the House of Commons operates. Thank you for that. Do you think that there's any other benefits in electing the conveners apart from just what you have laid out just now? I think that it is really all summed up in that independence and authority combination that I have described. To me, in our experience, that outweighs any disadvantages that you might find from it. That's how I would sum it up, independence and authority. Thank you. In your opening remarks you mentioned that the committee and the Scottish Parliament are different because we are dealing with legislation and they don't do that in the United Kingdom and Westminster. What do you think that difference would mean to electing conveners and the committees in the Scottish Parliament? I think that I know what difference it would make if we handled the kind of legislative process that goes on in our standing committees because in standing committees the executive and indeed the opposition feel it necessary to assert their management of their members and therefore there is great pressure to vote appropriately and not to vote too much and all of these things which are alien to the work that you do in a select committee. However, in the committees of this Parliament you must have achieved a way of combining these two functions which doesn't destroy your ability to operate as a scrutiny committee. The judgment that I make about what would work in our system is peculiar to the traditions of our system, powerful as I think they are. Almost all other parliaments have committee systems which combine the scrutiny and the legislative role and find a way of doing it. In some of them it means that the scrutiny function isn't carried out very effectively but I can't believe for a moment that that's true here and of course I've not made a study of it but it appears to me that you found ways of reconciling this challenge which would be difficult for us in the House of Commons. Do you think that there have been any disadvantages to electing conveners? The only disadvantages are probably from the standpoint of the executive which can't use the system as a way of rewarding people nor can it use removal from a committee as a way of threatening people. So there's a disadvantage there. I suppose you could say that creating a career structure for members is less easy when you hand over the decision to the House as a whole but set that against the principle that the House should be able to choose who it wants to chair its committees and that pales into insignificance. Can I just pick up a couple of points that have come out of your contribution so far, Seryl? First of all, on the matter of removal, just a technical question. Here, one may only leave a committee by the member choosing to resign. Is there a process by which an external initiative can remove somebody from committee at House of Commons? Forgive my ignorance. That used to be the case. Indeed, I can recall hearing a member—I'm going back my very long time in Parliament 20 or 30 years now—being told that his future on a particular select committee had been threatened by the rebellious position that he'd taken up on something, not in my own party at Haston to Anne. That's now—because now what happens is that the members are elected within the parties but by processes of secret ballot normally, then the threat of removal has been taken away. That's fine. The other one, just as an old cynic, as I would say I am, how have the whips adapted to the apparent loss of power that comes through the loss of their directly nominating and appointing, essentially appointing people? How do they now try to exercise their influence over the process? Or are you saying that they've suddenly taken a vow of abstinence and taken no part whatsoever? I think that they've largely given up trying to control the select committee process, realising that they can't. You get the occasional row about whether part of a report has been given to a minister or a PPS and have they tried to pressure committee members to get it changed. I can't think of a good recent example of that, but occasionally you get allegations of that, but they are relatively few. If you had a whip giving evidence, they would probably say that their job has been made a great deal more difficult because they have far fewer means now of telling members that if they are helpful, whips will be helpful in return by giving them the opportunity to get on to the committee they want to be on or whatever it may be. I think that whips feel that their armory has been raided. Most of the weapons that they have traditionally used have been taken from them, and they have had to live with that. However, there has been some talk that there might be pressure in the next Parliament to pull back from those reforms. Some of the members of the liaison committee brought that to the attention of the liaison committee, so we made it quite clear in our report. This is a committee of over 30 chairs from all different parties. We made it absolutely clear that there must be no going back on what we know as the right reforms, which brought in this system of election. The significant differences between the Scottish Parliament and the Westminster Parliament are the numbers between the two parliaments. I understand that part of the drivers for elected conveners in Westminster in the first place is because of that high number. So many people are not having any influence, and people may be on the back benches not having any influence. However, since the numbers are so different—do you see that workable here as against Westminster—the actual numbers and the fact that so many people here in one party are involved in running the Government in itself, so the numbers diminish as you go along. We have in the House of Commons, of course, a very large executive component within the House. I have not checked the proportions as to how the size of the executive drawn from the legislature compares with that in the Scottish Parliament. The number of chairs did not change as a result of the election system. A number of chairs is determined by the structure of government. If the Government reduces the number of departments, then the number of select committees will reduce. If they increase the number of departments, it will increase. We are exactly parallel with the Governmental structure. There are other issues around numbers. Even though we have quite large numbers in the Parliament, we have quite a large legislative body, there is a core of people who are very committed to select committee work, but others who find themselves engaged in various other activities which conflict with their select committee work. We also have this double structure, because we have the committees dealing with bills and many pressures on members to be attending standing committee hearings, even at the same time as select committee hearings. Even with our larger numbers, we have quite a lot of management problems, but I cannot conceive of a way in which the system of election would be made more difficult simply because you are in a smaller Parliament. Sticking to the numbers, I wonder what your views are on the fact that, just because this is a 129 MSPs and if you remove the executive from that, and again with its small numbers, and where most of us are in two committees at the present time, some are in three, so we become very familiar with each other and each other's attributes. I wonder what your views were on that. Is that a benefit or is that something that we should consider? In the House of Commons situation, with the numbers larger, it is within the committee process itself very often that you become more familiar with colleagues and their attributes. I have to say that, as someone who has spent a lot of years chairing parliamentary committees, I find it a very valuable and constructive process. People start to learn that those with whom they fundamentally disagree on some major principles nevertheless have merits and have something useful to contribute. I have been very struck at the way in my time. I have been able to work with people of radically different views, but if you focus their attention on a particular problem, they will apply their minds and come up with a common solution. I am sorry to digress slightly, but I think that that is a valuable process. Perhaps they are more so in a large Parliament like ours, with fewer opportunities for people to get to know each other well. I may have missed part of your earlier question. If it is a strength in fact, the fact that we are a small Parliament here, or if it is a disadvantage in that regard. There is quite a strong view among committee chairs in the House of Commons that committees in our system are too large, too large to work effectively, a feeling among many chairs that if you can have a committee of six to nine members, all of whom are fully engaged, that is a much better size of committee to question people, to undertake visits, to be in fairly constant communication with each other. If you have a committee of 12, 13 or even 16 members and there are various pressures that have led us to make committees bigger than the right recommendations were suggested, then you start to lose some of those cohesive qualities. So the liaison committee has itself recommended that committees should be smaller than they are. Just on the back of that once again, Sir Allan, roughly how many committee places are there per backbench member? My understanding, which is informal, is that there are fewer committee places available than members who might be available to fill them. That is arithmetically the case, but if you take out, going on for 100 people, who are in the Executive in our parliamentary private secretaries, if you take out those who are carrying out other important responsibilities, chairing standing committees, for example, you take out those who choose to make the focus of their activity something completely different, you reach a point when the number of places as a whole does not exceed the number of members who prepared to commit themselves to select committee work. Obviously, there are some committees that are particularly popular and there will always be more places for them, more candidates for the places. Committees like foreign affairs, defence, treasury, especially popular. The latter part of the Parliament, when vacancies arose, it did actually become quite difficult to fill some of the vacancies. Ironically, I found myself turning to the whips sometimes and saying that your party does not seem to have produced a nominee for this place. Why is this? Have you got any suggestions? That is not really how we intended the system to work, but that is partly a product of having these larger committees. It appears to be the case, given the nature of Westminster politics, that the number of places available is more than sufficient for the willingness of members to commit themselves to committee work. Okay, Cameron. Do you think that the election of conveners will work well in different political environments, for example independent members? How will independent members get on the schedule, if you like? It is not something that we really face because we have hardly any independent members other than people who perhaps left their party subsequent to election in the House of Commons. However, it would be perfectly possible for the election system to cater for this. The problem that they would face is the allocation of committees to parties at the beginning of a Parliament. The way in which our system works is that, essentially, the arithmetic of party representation in the House determines the allocation of chairmanship between parties. So, is that the Dohan system that you are using? Well, it is not exactly the Dohan system. My former clerk and I have been discussing precisely how you describe the system that is used. It is one of the strange mysteries. We never ask the clerks whom we trust implicitly to advise the Speaker, and the Speaker tells us what the allocation then is. Then the parties between themselves discuss how the numerical allocation will be reflected in the actual committees. There are some things that you are well established. For example, the Public Accounts Committee is always chaired by an opposition member. The Government will probably want to have the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Then you do get inevitably a process of negotiation. There is not a role for the independent in that. The only circumstances in which I can envisage it working is quite difficult to imagine. If there was one independent member of the House of Commons who was widely thought to be a suitable person to chair Committee X, the committee would have to be allocated to independence, and then the House would have to vote that that person became its chair. It is not terribly well catered for. If there was a group of 25 non-aligned members, that might change that situation, but that is not something that we have experienced. Excuse me, but if you have a single independent member, he could not lobby really to be chairman of committee this or chairman of committee that? Well, he would have to lobby at the very beginning stage of the Parliament that a committee should be allocated to independent members. I think that his case would not be heard with very enthusiastically if he was a sole independent member. And in minority government it is a similar sort of thing then, because if there is a minority government, not an independent but minority government, who would be deciding the make-up of the committees then? It would not change things very much. The clerks would advise the speaker on the arithmetical calculation. The parties would then negotiate between themselves. What does tend to happen in the Westminster system is that the formation of the government delays the appointment of committees and parties agreement on committees, which we find very frustrating. The liaison committee expressed its concern about this, because you can have a situation where not because of the system of election, but because of the allocation arrangements waiting for the government to be formed, and whether there are any new committees or committees being abolished waiting for structure of government to be determined, it can set back the beginning of the election of committees and result in a situation where committees cannot really get going before the summer recess in August. I am always interested without necessarily being relevant, and this may be one of those questions, but to what extent do joint committees of the two houses play into this agenda and affected by it or affected? They play very badly with this agenda, and I will explain why. There is many a matter of concern to the liaison committee. Joint committees still work on the old system. If a decision is made, it is by the executive to propose the creation of a joint committee. It usually arises, perhaps to add for our development, over draft bills, rather than the creation of a new subject committee. I have said in its very much shorthand that we do not do legislation, but we do actually extensively consider draft bills, and we also do a lot of post-legislative scrutiny, and we sometimes make comments during the passage of a bill, but we do not do the formal process of bills. Governments will sometimes say that, partly because they are under pressure from the House of Lords, where there are lots of people who are very interested in some key topics, the Government is under pressure to create a joint committee on a particular draft bill, but the result of that is that the committee is appointed on a motion of the house, and that brings you right back into the whips territory. There may be a process of discussion, there may be an applied commitment to make sure that somebody from the select committee is on the joint committee, perhaps several people from the select committee, but at the end of the day, the election process, both of chairs and of members, does not apply to a joint committee. That has been a matter of concern to the liaison committee and has led to the committee being perhaps a little more hostile to draft bills being considered by joint committees than they might otherwise be. That is interesting. I am not sure how it will inform us. You have not got the issues of a two-chamber legislature. No, and I suspect that there might be a majority in favour of a, if one has to have one, one that is structured rather more with a different balance, that is what we are saying. That is for another day. Let us not bring raw politics to an objective analysis of where we are going and where we are. Those that favour elected chairs would say that under our current system, not always the best candidate becomes the convener of a committee. Do you have any evidence of the changes in Westminster that the best candidate has been selected for the chair of committees? We certainly have very good chairs of committees. I have had the interesting task of chairing the committee consisting of all of them, so you get to know them pretty well. We have managed to achieve quite a lot working together, which you might think surprising, because they are all strong personalities, as you could imagine. I cannot really answer the question, because it is a valued judgment about the people who have been elected chairs and who might otherwise have got the jobs. If you look at the example of the two people who were elected as chairs of committees during the Parliament—that is, not in the original selection but because vacancies arose—they were health and defence. What was striking about those elections is that they led to the election of relatively junior members in terms of time in the house, and therefore not the people that the old system would tend to promote, but each of whom had a reputation in the field that the committee covered. In the case of the health committee, it was Sarah Wallaston, who was a general practitioner. In the case of the defence committee, it was Rory Stewart, who had extensive experience in defence and foreign affairs. It meant that the post did not go, for example, to the most senior member of the existing members of the committee, but the house did decide that those particular individuals had qualities and experience that made them a good choice to be chair. We have heard that from a number of sources during the evidence that we have taken, but could there be an argument made as well that all that has really changed is that there has been a couple of wild cards put into the mix in? If you are thinking of those as a couple of wild cards, they were both by-elections. They both happened not at the beginning of a Parliament. I cannot imagine that the same two people would have been as likely to have been elected or to have put their names forward at the beginning of the Parliament because there would be completely new members at that stage. I think that there is a difference that, under the old system, the executive and the party leaderships, and I should recognise that it would not just be the Government party but the opposition parties as well, did have the opportunity to say, well, it so-and-so deserves a turn in this position. That did not stop some very good people and some very independent-minded people from becoming chairs. On occasions some years ago, when the executive tried to remove independent-minded chairs, the House resisted that. I think that, for example, of Gwyneth Dunwoody. I would not want to make a value judgment that said that the old system produced bad chairs. I would simply say that those of us who have occupied the positions under the new system have felt an enhanced independence and authority because we have been elected. One of the other things that you mentioned, Sir Allan, is that it probably takes away some of the control from party whips of the selection process. More than my colleagues have already brought up that, obviously, this has been a smaller number of members here. Wouldn't it just be the case that it may be slightly more difficult but would not really affect the end outcome in the end-up? I think that that is a judgment only that you can make. I cannot make a judgment as to how an election system would work in the dynamics of the Scottish Parliament. I can say that, in almost any system, having to win the confidence of your colleagues across the chamber has the potential to enhance your independence and authority. There will be particular dynamics within the Scottish Parliament, which are better judged by yourselves. Sir Allan, you used the phrase and you used it several times in different forms, enhance independence and authority. Can you give us examples of how that has happened? The easy words to say, but perhaps more difficult to demonstrate—it would be helpful if you could—or to indicate the limitations? Committees inevitably face a bit of a running battle with the executive to get the information that they want and to get it in a timely fashion, to get a satisfactory response to matters that they raise, although, of course, Governments are formally required to respond to the recommendations of committees. It is a judgment, really, and I have found in my experience that senior officials in the department and ministers, including ministers whom I have disagreed quite a lot, seem to me to feel more obliged to appear to respect the position of select committees and their chairs than previously. In addition, they have an increasing outside interest in the role of select committee chairs. Select committee chairs get invited to address conferences constantly, to meet the organisations in the field with which they deal, and, clearly, are now seen to have more status in those fields. Some of the strengthening of committees might want to ascribe to other factors as well, but I still think that it is a major factor. It is quite often cited by others, to me. We know that you people are the elected chairs put by the House into this position, and we have to take account of that. That is a rather nebulous answer, but it is one about which I have quite genuine convictions. I can talk about the way in which, in my own committee, the Justice Committee, a very significant change in the Government's approach to things has been achieved. However, you have to decide how far you think that is because the committee did an effective job and how far it is because chairs and members are elected. That is quite a difficult decision to make. Thank you for that, because you made a specific point. We could, perhaps, measure it by more invitations to go and speak externally as an example of the change. You specifically mentioned officials and ministers. Is there a difference in the way that those two have responded to the changes? In particular, in relation to officials, there would be both officials that are Parliament's officials and officials that are the Government's officials. There are perhaps three categories of people. Are there the responses to the changes and the effects on those people differential for those different categories? Parliament's officials served the committees and served them very well. They did so before the elections took place and they do so now. In a sense, there is not so much of a change for them except to the extent that the committees that they are serving attract more authority. Ministers and senior officials—well, the one affects the other, of course—if the minister makes it clear that he does not want the officials to engage too much more than they have to, more than they are obliged to do with the committee, that can influence the attitude of officials. Not always. I have sometimes found that officials are able to say, well, I have to bring this before the committee, or there are plenty of stories of officials who say, well, minister, if this option was put in front of the select committee, I think they would take it apart. I think they would have some very serious reservations about it. You will get ministers' memoirs, which will tell you things like that. I think that some ministers naturally deal well with select committees. Others think that they are a bit of a nuisance to them, which perhaps we should be. The main problems that I have experienced with officials are officials not ensuring that, down the chain, everybody deals with the select committee in a timely and efficient manner, and suddenly some announcement gets rushed out, of which the committee has not had proper notice and ought to have. However, this is also a continuing process, not just affected by elections. We are digging away at this all the time and trying to establish a better working relationship, not one in which we become part of the executive, but one in which we know what the executive is doing all the time. Yes, that very much echoed some of my experience when I was first minister. I do not mean capital F when I was first A minister. The committee that shadowed me had two members of my party out of seven and did not have the convenership. The relationship between ministers and their committees can be quite interesting. I saw Patricia, who is also a former minister, nodded at the same time. Are you trying to catch my eye, Cameron? No, you are not. That ministers will sometimes shodily recognise that the select committee is interested in developing policy in the direction that they want to develop it when they are meeting resistance either from other ministers or within the department and that the committee is potentially an ally for something that they care about. I think that the two former ministers in this committee recognise the strength of what you are saying there. Colin. Thank you, convener, and good morning, sir. I am really interested to see if you are setting this up. Are there any procedural safeguards that you would consider in terms of, perhaps, the nominations be from the parties who wish the convenership or what type of voting system would you recommend? The right committee went into some detail about the procedures precisely in order to protect them and ensure that they were genuinely independent. In our context, I think that what we have got works pretty well. The alternative vote system of election works well for when you are choosing one person, as opposed to when you have a multiplicity of people and the STV in my view is the better system. However, if it is one place, it is effective with the alternative vote system. The nomination system is a completely open one. It does not depend on the party as an organisation sanctioning your nomination and the ballot is secret. All that seems to me to work well. The ballot process for chairs is conducted by the staff of the house, by the clerks of the house. The system for election of members is still done within the parties. That caused the decision to do it that way, which was partly born of a decision to try and get the system for chairs firmly in place and then see how we got on with the development of the system for parties. People were a little bit anxious about that. Reformers were a bit anxious about that, but it seems to have worked satisfactorily. On paper, it would look better if the election of members within the parties was more formally provided for than it is at the moment. Should parties continue to have conveners allocated proportionate to the amount of seats that they have in Parliament? My answer would be yes, because I cannot think of a better principle on which to decide it. Is there any other rules that you would add into that to strengthen that policy? As far as we are concerned, it works. The allocation system has existed before the system of election, so we used to work over a number of years. The next Parliament might be interesting. The House of Commons, despite being quite traditional in some ways, does adapt its procedures. Time goes on to recognise new situations, but the basic principle that the distribution of places should reflect the composition of the House seems to me to be the only obvious one by which to do it. You might have answered it in some of your previous questions, but are there any other changes to committees in the House of Commons that supported the introduction of elected conveners? The election of the members of the committees from within their parties was simultaneous with that, and that certainly was relevant. Initially, it was quite competitive for many committees. As I was saying earlier, towards the end of the Parliament, it became difficult to fill casual vacancies on some committees, because most members had committed themselves to other kinds of activity by that stage in the Parliament. I am thinking of particularly of the past 12 or 18 months of this Parliament. That is perhaps the main simultaneous change, but the liaison committees also work pretty hard with Government on a range of issues. For example, the Government has something that I want to go into detail today about. It has rules for how its officials engage with committees, which it calls the Osmotherly rules. Those are not rules of Parliament. They are the Government's own rules. We have had quite a frank and free discussion with the Government over a period of time about to what extent we recognise the principles of those rules and to what extent we do not, in particular, feel very strongly about ensuring that truthful and complete evidence is given to committees by officials. That is various things that are part of a continuing process. The liaison committee sees as part of its role supporting committees when they feel they need to challenge the way that the executive has interpreted its own rules. On other issues, too, we quite often come in in support of a committee that we feel has a strong case to be granted something that is being denied. Your comments about a single transferable vote are something that I am interested in, but all systems of flaws in the 1945 election, two members were elected by a single transferable vote while losing their deposits. I am not entirely certain. The university seat is one of the most in Scotland, where the first two members were elected 44 per cent and 42 per cent, and the third one had 4.16 per cent of the first preference votes and the hurdle was 4.17. There was one in England as well. Let me just ask a couple of questions that perhaps come out of your contribution again. In terms of support for conveners, particularly in environments in which there is a majority for the Government party, is it absolutely necessary that there is demonstrable support from more than one party before a convener can be put forward or elected? I will check that, but I cannot remember whether the nomination rules require that, but I am confirmed in my recollection that they do not. Interestingly, a motion to remove a chair requires support from more than one political party. A process that we have never had to test, by the way, requires support from at least two members of the majority party and at least one member of another party. That process for removing a chair from the chair does not require the consent of the house as a whole. It is a process in which the committee can carry out, but it is subject to that proviso that more than one party has to be involved. There are some other rules as well. You cannot do it repeatedly until a period of time has elapsed after the original election of the chair. It is quite a guarded process and it has not been used. Perhaps the other one is that there are other administrations around the world in which the committee chairs have to be all from opposition. Have you a view on the merits or otherwise of that? Personally, I would not want our system to go that way. I can see that in some political contexts it might help, but in our system it would bring more harm than good because it would take away that element where a committee's authority is quite enhanced by the fact that a chair from the Government Party is making a criticism of Government policy with support across the committee because of some important problem that they have discovered with that policy. It would lead to a tendency in our system to dismiss the committees as vehicles for their chairs if they are all opposition. The mix and the fact that we support each other is much more helpful in presenting the committees as a different kind of activity in which it is possible to reach quite critical views but which do not engage the party battle in the same way. I think that we can probably recognise that. Our convener of our finance committee, who is a member of the Government Party, has on two occasions in the last six months been quite robust, shall we say, with the Government. The Government has quite properly accepted that the committee convener was correct and the Government was not performing to the required standard. I was interested in the point that you made about the two recent by-elections to committee chairs and the appointment of Dr Willis Tim, Mr Stewart. I understand the point that you made was that both those individuals had experience in the topic of the committee to which they were being appointed or elected. I wonder whether you think that that is an overriding qualification or whether the ability to effectively manage and control, if you like, a committee would not actually be better attributes for a candidate. Those are judgments that the House has to make, which members have to make when they cast their votes. If somebody was being put forward on the basis that they knew a lot about something and others felt very strongly that they could not manage a group of people effectively and productively or were very divisive, that would become an issue in the election process and would be taken into account by members. It is entirely a relevant consideration. If I am casting a vote as to who should chair a committee, I would certainly have it in mind. Can this person work with a group of people? Sometimes chairs develop that ability when they might not think that they had it to start with. One of the issues that the convener referred at the beginning of the meeting to the fact that the committee was not perhaps as yet convinced of the need to change our process or at least to change it in that way. Many of us are convinced that there is a need for greater scrutiny in our committees. They do have the dual function, but we are not convinced, some of us at least, that it operates particularly well. If you had a blank sheet of paper and you were asked to design a committee system, what would be your priority in the sense of the organisation of that committee to make sure that it had the best possible chance of being an effective body for scrutiny of the Government? I think that I would want a process of creating its membership which was not heavily influenced either by Government or indeed by formal opposition either, because that is not in either of their interests. They want to get business through or to stop business getting through or make it very embarrassing for the Government to get it business through. That is a different process. I would want to bring together people by a process that brought together people who are prepared to engage in something quite different. I would want to give them resources sufficient to enable them to do that. In that sense, I am not a big spender, but I am having a good core committee staff who understand this role and can research and support this role and draw in the necessary research from elsewhere as well to enable it to be carried out effectively. I would want to ensure that there was a process by which Government had to respond, as our Government does, to things that the committee put forward, and that the house had adequate opportunity to draw on the work of committees, sometimes by the way it debates reports, sometimes by the way it simply uses reports, perhaps in the legislative process, to draw on what the committee has said about some aspect of a bill when considering amendments in more detail in the legislative process. Off the cuff, those are three of the things that I would want to be certain of, and that is in addition to having a chair who has a feel for doing things in this way. One of the things that has not come up so far, which I might just probe for a minute or two, if I may, is where the people we serve fit in all this. We have made no reference whatsoever to that. Do you think that the changes that have been made have created more opportunities for those who elect us to interact directly with committees, influence committees, be informed about what committees are doing, or is it broadly neutral? The question is really for a different domain of interest. Insofar as the election of chairs and the election of committee members has enhanced the role of committees and the recognition that they are independent bodies, they are not arms of government or opposition, it has helped the public at large and specialist groups within the public to see that these committees matter. I think that the committees themselves, at the same time, to some extent emboldened by the status that they have now got, have gone to considerable lengths to engage the public more. My own view is that public engagement with Parliament is probably greater in the world of select committees than in any other aspect of the life of Parliament. Every week, our committee corridors are filled with witnesses who are engaged in enormous variety of activity, whether in the health service, whether in the judicial system, who are coming to give evidence to committees, including those who are affected by the system. We talk a lot, for example, in the Justice Committee to victims of crime, to ex-offenders. That is a very large engagement. In addition, new technology has meant that committees have carried out e-consultations. We did a very big one on prison officers, for example, which informed our report their role. The committee system offers massive opportunities for people to engage with Parliament because it is looking at the kind of things that they deal with in their everyday lives. The enhanced status has emboldened committees to do more of that. Do committees meet outside the Westminster campus? Yes, they do. My committee has been here in Edinburgh. It has met in Cardiff. We do a lot of visits, as well as formal hearings elsewhere. Sometimes there is merit in having a formal hearing somewhere else, and various committees, including the Scottish First Committee, do that. There is also a lot of merit in simply getting into an institution and to throw one other example to you, which is a slightly broadening of the discussion. My committee decided quite early in this Parliament that it wanted a better understanding of how its department worked. We said to the department that we want to go all over the department and all we want with us is somebody who has got the keys to every door. We just want to talk to anybody who we meet and find out what they do, no particular agenda, just to get the feel for how the department is working. Initial horror was replaced by realisation that the department probably benefited from us having that level of understanding. Perhaps even the more junior officials benefited from the opportunity to make their views known directly to those who made decisions on the bar. Gil Venkammam. You mentioned status. I wonder if the fact that conveners, chairpersons and Westminster are paid for that job. If, to recognise, does it enhance status or is it just a mere fact that they do the jobs enough? I think that it does. One of those difficult things to judge, but my feeling is that it does. Part of the motivation for it in the first place was a slightly different one, which is, although that in turn benefits the committee system, was to suggest that there is an alternative career structure. You do not have to spend your entire time in Parliament helping to be a minister and conducting yourself in the manner you think most likely to lead to your being a minister, which of course people say that. There is more than one route, but nevertheless the feeling was that for there to be a recognised career structure in which becoming a committee chair was financially recognised at least as much as a junior minister would enhance the committee system. I think that it has. To what extent chairman think, when they get up in the morning, that I am paid to do this, so I better get on and do it to the best of my ability, where you must make your own judgment on that? In the private sector, the way that people recognise us through the wallet, is not it? I wonder whether the mere fact that you would consider, we already see it here, that conveners definitely do more than committee members, I think that that is a fact. Is that part of the consideration in Westminster also? I think it is. The fact that there is more work apart and not just the status. The burden is very large, particularly the number of organisations that want to engage with it, and you feel an obligation to engage with on behalf of your committee is very large. The number of opportunities you have to explain what the committee's work and its proposals, conferences and so forth, they all add to the considerable burden on chairs. I think that it probably is helpful to say that we are paid to do this job, so we must get on and do it, even though it is very time consuming. I think that Sir Humphrey might have described that contribution as courageous, but there we are. Cameron and then Margaret. Achilles has partly answered my question about conveners being remunerated, but I was going to ask whether they are always remunerated, even before the right commission? The payment of chairs started before the election of chairs. Of course, there is a downside to that. You can say that that is another job that the executive can offer to somebody because it is remunerated and might add to its attractions. Most of us think that the election of chairs and their remuneration fit better together than the old system. Our inquiry is on the election of conveners. Am I right in thinking that the right committee reforms were, I think that you said, that there were simultaneous the election of conveners and the actual membership of the committees? That has been achieved, but by an internal process, the parties are responsible for conducting their own elections of members of committees. As far as I am aware, there has been no challenge or criticism that they are not doing it in a proper manner. Certainly, my own party, although it is not conducted by the clerks in the way that the convener, the chair election, is, we go along and put pieces of paper into a ballot box in much the same way. It happened at the same time that the actual change. Yes. The chairs were elected first. There was a rather curious delay followed that before the election of members by the parties. The sequence of delays that I mentioned earlier. It was all part of the same reform. Perhaps I should add, just for explanation, that one of the two jobs that I had, I was chairing the Justice Committee, but I was chairing the Liaison Committee as well, which was the committee of all chairmen. That had not been provided for. That was not an elected post. The previous practice was that somebody was appointed on a motion to the Liaison Committee. He was not the chair of the committee on the basis that the committee would then be kind enough to elect them chair. The elected chairs who would become the Liaison Committee when it was formally set up, but had already been elected to chair their own committees, got together informally, for a number of meetings, to prepare for this changed system and came to the conclusion that they wanted to elect their own chair. I got landed with the job as a result of that process. Thank you. The other question that I wanted to ask was on resources. We touched on that a little, but has there been an increase then on the amount of resources? The Liaison Committee began an initiative about two years ago, just over halfway through this Parliament, to enhance the resources available to select committees. As a result of that, the House has made a commitment of just short of £1 million of expenditure from within the total house budget. That is not additional money, but within the house budget to enhance the resources of committees in a variety of ways. Some of it is to offer better support to chairs of committees, to conveners. Some of it is to improve our use of technology of social media and things like that as a means of disseminating the committee's work. Some of it in strengthening the press assistance that is available to committees. In the course of the new Parliament, the members will have access to increased resources as a result of the work that the committees have done in this Parliament. I do not see anyone else bursting to come in with further questions, Sir Allen. Is there anything that you think we might usefully be informed about that we have not questioned you about? Do you wish to make any concluding remarks fairly briefly? I think that you have covered the ground pretty thoroughly. From the top of my head, I cannot think of anything that you have missed. Obviously, you have to make a judgment based on your own Parliament, but I suppose that you have to answer the question initially. Would the election of conveners strengthen the ability of committees to do their particularly their scrutiny role and would it strengthen the legislature in relation to the executive in ways that would benefit Scotland? That is a judgment not for me but for you. May I conclude the session by thanking you very much for your contribution? I found it both interesting and informative. I am entitled to say that on behalf of the entire committee. I am now going to suspend the meeting for five minutes before we move to the next item. Right, thank you colleagues. Agenda item 2 is for the committee to consider the rules on lobbying and access to MSPs. During the course of the lobbying inquiry, the committee agreed to review the terms of section 5 of the code of conduct. The committee later agreed to give consideration to the proposals put forward by Jim Murphy relating to consultancy roles and directorships as part of the review. Indeed, there was a brief reference to it in our debate yesterday. In initiating the work, it would be useful to get the committee's initial views on the issue. I propose that we work our way through the paper that we have in front of us, and indeed it will be an opportunity for contributing in any way that members feel is appropriate. In particular, there are a number of questions in our paper relating to section 5. I will go straight to those questions and invite comments. The first one on page 1 in section 4 is to do members want to apply section 5 to in-house and commercial lobbyists whenever possible? Does the committee have a view on that matter? Indeed, there are members who want to move away from the term lobbyist at all. We have certainly, in our deliberations so far, focused on the activity rather than the job title or the perceived role that people have. Gil? I think that it would be confusing to change the word lobbyist because I think that the public know what it is, and the public know what they do, by and large, by and large, I have got to say, and certainly we know what we are talking about when we talk about lobbyists and what their role is. To change it, to do something that we never want to do here is to make something that confuses the public, or the public think that we are trying to hide something. A lobbyist is a lobbyist, and I think that we have just sticked by that. I totally agree. Policy advocates are just fodder words. We all understand what a lobbyist is. Even if it has bad connotations in some circumstances, I think that we should keep it as a lobbyist. Right. I think that we are quite clear about that. Moving to the subject about activities that are undertaken by members. Oh, I beg a pardon. Tone and content of volume 2 and 3 on lobbying reflect the nature of our experiences with lobbyists. Should we change the tone to reflect current lobbying landscape? Sorry for being decided on our position about in-house lobbyists. I simply noted what was being said, but I am happy to continue that discussion. Well, I thought that the question that was answered was whether we wanted to continue to use the word lobbyist. I presume that by in-house lobbyist we are talking about organisations that happen to have a function that could seem to be lobbying. Rather than people who are commercial lobbyists. I wonder whether we should just take out the word commercial at 5.14 rather than only talking about commercial lobbyists. I think that it is important that anyone who lobbies is, from whatever motivation, covered by this. Rather than making it a big thing, I would just take out the word commercial. Yep. Everybody okay with that? I certainly am. Yep, that's fine. Good. And, as I said at the top of page 2, tone and content. Does anybody want to address that issue? We don't have to. I mean, the questions are merely what they are. Right. Okay. Well, let me move on to activities that are taken by members. And the Presiding Officer's reference to us of the letter from Mr Murphy, which relates to consultancy and to directors. Patricia, do you want to say anything on that? I think that my position is quite clean on that one. Right. Anyone else? Speaking not as convener but as a member of the committee, I have difficulties with the use of descriptive terms. No difficulty whatsoever making sure that we capture a wide range of behaviours that might be important, that we understand how people are influenced and who might potentially benefit. And in particular, where directors are concerned, I think that there are many directors who are directors of charities and so on and so forth. I think that we would find it difficult to find a definition that caught commercial directors remunerated for, perhaps relatively large sums of money, and directors who serve in the public interest for no reward other than personal satisfaction, you might say, for charities and so on and so forth. I personally think that we should look at the activities of people but not get hung up in considering that particular job titles carry with them particular difficulties. In particular, I have no clue in my mind whatsoever as for what consultancy is. It seems to me a lot of the time that it is simply a title that people append to their own activities to apparently enhance the value of what they do, rather than being a description that we could come up with any sort of formal definition of. I would be against it because I think that providing it is declared, paid consultancy and paid directives should be allowable, but I think that providing it is declared in the register should be all right. I am also not sure what, as you were saying, the fact of consultancy. I mean that consultancy is often, in case when somebody has been made redundant and had from a job and hasn't really got any other title to put to his name or her name, I found in my experience in business. And you are currently a director according to your register of interest? Absolutely, absolutely. But it's on the register of interest whether it's paid or unpaid, and that's why I think I don't, I think this is a step too far. Gil? Yeah, just strictly on the question of directors, I've got a copy of my register of interest here, and I don't need to change it because I was a board member of the crisis, and I'm no longer am. In that role, there's no expenses, nothing, it's all voluntary. So I, like yourself, I'd be extremely worried about the term, just using the term director. So if at all, if I thought it was advisable, and in some regard I don't, but if we're going along the line to say director, we need to be qualified very heavily in regard to those who participate, give the time, and find themselves on boards of charities and other places. And some of these charities, I may say, not a rape crisis, unfortunately. Some of these charities are bringing enormous amounts of money, but nevertheless, some people give the time of it freely and no expenses. So the word thing's got, you know, if we proceed in that regard, then we need to be very, very careful. I might have something else to say, and declare an interest. I would like to say that I have declared an interest being a past member or a board member of the rape crisis. I, I, oh, Margaret, sorry. It's really just around paid directorship, because, okay, if you declare that interest and, you know, you've registered it, right, but then who's to say that you are not being influenced by that position? Because, mean, by the very act of being a director, you've got, you know, you have got responsibilities as a director. Can you completely put them to one side? I suppose, Margaret, that the question is why just your directors, we have in the past, for example, have the very active Queen's Council who continue to operate, and, you know, the same could apply, and I could make the case for many other things. It's merely the focus on the director. I think isn't at the core of the debate, which Jim Murphy has properly put into the debate, that we need to make it absolutely clear that the primary responsibility of those of us who privileged to be elected to this Parliament is to our electors, and that all our other activities, particularly where we are remunerated, have to take second place. Isn't that really the core of what it's about, Patricia? For me it's that my responsibilities to my constituents are my only responsibility, and should be my only responsibility. I don't have a concern about using the words directorship and consultancy for the very reason that members put forward for the use of the word lobbying, and lobbyist. It's what people outside understand those terms to mean, and I think that people are quite clear about that. I think that I accept that people do voluntary work and it might be called a directorship, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about paid directorships and paid consultancy. That's what Jim Murphy's letter describes. If a director of a commercial company ceases to take reward during their period as an MSP, but otherwise continues to work in the same way, that is acceptable. It still must be registered? That's a different issue. We're talking about whether to ban people from doing that, and equally directors of charities may, but not necessarily, directors in terms of the Companies Act, in some circumstances, but not all. Gil? Maybe it's appropriate for me to say that there is a flaw in that argument, and so now I need to declare an interest, because I'm going to talk about my own business alone that my son runs. There's ways to circumvent that in my own case. For instance, I've recorded what in my member's interests exactly what the position is, and if some mechanism came in to say that how it actually works, because we're a private company, when the chartered accountant does the books and does profit in the business, then it's allocated to me. There's nothing I can do about it unless I sell my business. It's a private business, a family business, so I need to give my business up, which I don't intend to do. However, the money can still sit in the business, but it will be taxed to the business in any case. I can get round that simply by moving that to my family, so there's ways round that. However, my main concern is that here I am in Parliament. I spend almost all my time in Parliament, I focus more on here early and leave late. I do visit my business from time to time, that's for sure, but nothing like the 20 days that I've put down. I know a person that's an MP and he's a crofter. So that he can't—there comes a lambing time and times like that, but you need to spend your time on your cough. It's a family thing, so people like me have got—I think—I'm not just talking for myself, I'm talking for—if we're going to have a Parliament with a broad range of experience and expertise, then you'll lot folk that are in private business like me out of the equation. I would worry about that, not just for myself, but for this Parliament. Anyone else wish to contribute? The question that we have on the paper that's before us is the merit in expanding the definition of the activities that members undertake in section 5 of the code. The question of course is activities rather than roles that people play, but I think that's a fine distinction perhaps. That's the question that we have to consider today, whether we wish to take that forward. I'm just thinking—using Gil, for example, if you don't mind—if you were to become a minister, for example, in enterprise, which is related to your company, what would your position be then? Just for information, of course that's not a matter for Parliament, it's a matter for the ministerial code. I'm not saying that it wouldn't touch on Parliament, but primarily the ministerial code would operate first. That's a good point, given that the minister of parliamentary business couldn't answer the question yesterday about whether there was a separate register of interests for members. There is, of course. There is, according to Spice. If there isn't, then the minister is affected only by the member's code and the register of interests. Just to be absolutely clear, because I did subsequent debate go and remind myself of the situation, ministers—you will recall, because I think that it was the same from the outset, broadly—have to advise the permanent secretary of their interests, and indeed the interests of their spouse or partner, but it isn't a register, notwithstanding what Spice may say on the matter. Whatever kind of document it may be described as, it isn't published, but it isn't published, and therefore the only register of interests that ministers have is this one. Margaret's point is entirely valid, I would argue. Yes, but in terms of Parliament, we all serve equally as members, so I'm a little uncertain. Being a minister is a parliamentary appointment, that's correct, that's for sure, albeit on the recommendation of the First Minister. At the end of the day, I'm in the committee's hands on where we go with this, but coming back to the core issue that has been raised by the Scottish Government here is consultants and directors. I'm quite happy if members want to include other categories in there, if we want to have a debate about that. I don't know what some of those categories mean, the two even before us. I don't know what they mean. I don't know what a consultant is. Well, we shouldn't use the word at all then anyway when our code of conduct or our members' interests, but I presume that we use it because there is a generally accepted definition. Well actually we don't, it's only Jim Murphy who's using it. Well no, it's mentioned in here, it's mentioned in the code, I believe. The code allows for a member to be a director of consultancy, for example, but not to undertake paid employment as a consultant specifically advising on parliamentary matters. Yes, but that's focusing on the activity and not the role. I'm sorry I'm being very picky. I'm speaking here in a personal capacity, I'm not attempting to speak as convener. I just think that one of the things that came out of our work on lobbying was the difficulties that Westminster appeared to have created for themselves by using a role, you know, the definition consultant lobbyist or was it something like that? Rather than the activity, and I think that if we focus on the activity and it's perfectly proper we consider extending the range of prohibited activities, it's even perfectly proper that we consider what people should earn from other activities. But I'm very uncomfortable about the labels, because the moment you go for labels, you simply invite those who wish to do so to use other labels. Well we've already done it with lobbyists. Well we haven't actually, we're lobbying. Well I think that it's actually correct. I'm just meaning commercial lobbyists. Yes but we haven't made any particular distinction, it's the lobbying that we've focused on I think. I think that we're dancing on the head of a pen over this but if we want to have a discussion going forward about the activities that might be covered by these terms, then I'm happy to do that but I do think that we have to have the discussion. Oh sorry, I don't wish to be seen through attempting to say that we should not have the discussion, I'm just perhaps. Just when I'm in considerable doubt as to what definition could ever say what a consultant is, I would prefer to focus on activity not roles. Once you have a definition like that, it's open for people to circumvent it and use another word like we find with lobbying and other activities. I don't think that we should have a definition but I'm also, I'm just going to say I'm against this, putting this in. At the moment the question we have is, is the merit in expanding the definition of activities? In other words, should we look further at the subject? I think broadly there's no reason why we should not, George. Are you? No? Right? What other view will carry that forward to look at it further? Right. The general point is that the section is sufficiently clear, can we make the language simpler? I think that that can be all part of looking at that, or do we think that it is sufficiently clear in its present form? Right. Patricia does not. Do you have specific comments that you want to put on the record at the moment bearing why we are on the record? Well, not specific comments about how we would change it because I think that that is something we would have to have a wider debate about, particularly as we are not sure what it is that we're going to change as yet, if you see what I mean. But I do think in general terms that it is an area where members of the public must find it very hard to understand what we are talking about, and if we can do anything at all to make that simpler, then I think that we should. So one of the things, if not necessarily all of the things that we should do, is look at our language. Indeed. Right. I think that that's helpful. Yeah, the next one is quite an interesting one. More of the information in one place, and I think that that's been a theme that we've promoted. In particular, for example, there have been issues around the charities policy of the parliamentary bureau, drawing that into the same place, so that one can see exactly what's going on. Quite comfy with that suggestion that we pursue that. Right. Anything more on what we should include or exclude? All right. And at the end, we've got a recommendation discussed the terms of rules on lobbying that we're invited to do that. I think clearly we have. And decide whether a consultation be useful in advance of proposed changes to the code. I think in particular, since Patricia, you've raised the issue of the public, I think we should at least give people the opportunity via consultation, if that's the view of the committee's all girls nodding, others are nodding. Yep. Okay. Right. Okay. That's agenda item two, and we now move into private session.