Seòmar agus comataidhean

But you are not saying no.

For our second agenda item, I welcome Ian Bruce, the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland, and Angela Glen, the senior investigating officer in the commissioner’s office. I formally recognise Ian Bruce’s appointment as commissioner—he was acting commissioner during the process of the annual report that we will consider today. Would you like to make opening comments before we move to questions?

Bob Doris has a follow-up question.

Yes, we can come back to that.

We will move on to questions from Alexander Stewart. As we have raised the question of complaints about MSPs, let us have a look at the report from that point of view.

Good morning, and welcome to the third meeting in 2023 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee.

Our first agenda item is a decision on taking business in private. Does the committee agree to take in private items 2, 3, 4 and 5; future consideration of procedures on consent in relation to United Kingdom Parliament bills; and future consideration of parliamentary privilege? Item 2 is procedures on consent in relation to UK Parliament bills; item 3 is consideration of a paper on parliamentary privilege; item 4 is consideration of correspondence that we have received from the Presiding Officer; and item 5 is for the committee to review its work programme. Are members in agreement to take those matters in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I am grateful. With that, I move the meeting into private session.

That is helpful. Do members have any other comments? It seems not.

Given that we are talking about the procedures, it seems sensible, if we are to arrive at something, for us to know what wants to be arrived at. That would be helpful for the committee. Therefore, does the committee agree to the suggestion that we correspond formally with the Conveners Group—and, if necessary, the Scottish Government—to get access to all the correspondence? Does the committee also agree to write to the requisite committee to ask what its views and asks are?

Members indicated agreement.

Agenda item 3 is consideration of correspondence that we have received from the Presiding Officer on a request to vary the proxy voting scheme—which, as we know, came in only this year but, as we have all seen, has been successfully used in the chamber on a number of occasions. Do members have any comments on that correspondence? Are we in agreement with the Presiding Officer’s proposal to vary the scheme?

That is helpful. Bob, do you want to comment?

I will bring together some of the threads. We need to remember that we empowered the Presiding Officer to come up with the scheme so that it would work for her—well, not for the Presiding Officer but for the chamber. We empowered the Presiding Officer to have that flexibility, and rightly so. The scheme that has been created rests with the Presiding Officer, and the obligation on the Presiding Officer is to come back and consult with us, which speaks volumes about the evaluation of this pilot project.

I think that the committee always considered that it would be an iterative process. I certainly feel that the confidence that the chamber has shown in the Presiding Officer in creating the scheme should probably be echoed in the committee with regard to requests that she makes to us.

However, notwithstanding the request that has been made, that does not mean that we do not look at the consequences of the scheme. That relates to Bob Doris’s point with regard to starting to reach out to find out what the situation is more widely. It would be valuable to capture the experiences of those who have been offered and exercised proxies.

As to how the Presiding Officer would make a determination on next of kin, you will recall the substantial evidence that we heard around people’s caring situations. Those are not necessarily defined by a family link; it might be a circumstance of fact. We entrusted the Presiding Officer with that.

As the PO is seeking clarification in the light of events, I would hope that we can support her proposed change. We can also use this exchange as the start of the evaluation process. We are in the second month of the proxy voting pilot and its use has certainly exceeded my expectations. I think that it would be useful to ask the clerks to start capturing the evidence of how the pilot is working, so that we can review it in due course.