On a point of order, Presiding Officer. In less than 22 hours’ time, Parliament will have its stage 1 debate on the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. Paragraph 3A of rule 9.6 of standing orders states:
“The lead committee shall report to the Parliament in time to allow the report to be published not later than the fifth sitting day before any date allocated in a business programme for the Parliament to consider the general principles of the Bill under paragraph 4.”
The Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee published a report on the bill as introduced on 19 March. Based on my calculations, that does not meet the timescale that is set out in paragraph 3A of rule 9.6.
Furthermore, there has, as yet, been no Government response to the committee’s report. In rule 41 of the protocol on the handling of committee business, in the section entitled “Responses to committee reports”, it is stated:
“The Scottish Government should normally respond to any committee report not later than:
a. two months after publication of the report; or
b. where exceptionally the debate is to be within the 2 months of publication, a week before the Chamber debate the report.”
The committee gave the Government advance sight of its report to try to avoid the situation that we now find ourselves in.
Presiding Officer, I am sure that you will agree that those rules and protocols are in place to ensure that we can have meaningful debate and that members will have had time to read both a committee’s views and the Government’s response. In the light of the fact that rule 9.6 of standing orders has not been met, and of the fact that there has been no response from the Government in line with rule 41 of the protocol on the handling of committee business, can you confirm whether the debate that is scheduled for tomorrow can indeed take place?
I thank Mr Lumsden for his point of order. I will look into the issues that he has raised and will respond as quickly as possible.
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