Schedule 3 — Devolved Public Bodies

Part of Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3 – in the Scottish Parliament at 3:45 pm on 21 June 2000.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Donald Gorrie Donald Gorrie Liberal Democrat 3:45, 21 June 2000

The Executive, and especially Frank McAveety, deserves credit for some of the welcome concessions that have been made. Mr McAveety's amendment 22, to set up a new structure to bring more organisations within the ambit of the bill, is to be welcomed.

However, I have serious problems about the issue of excluding various quangos from the list. If Mr McAveety honours his commitment—as I am sure he will—to bring all such issues to the forefront as soon as possible, most of my colleagues will accept that; however, I am not at all happy with his argument.

It is not a personal issue, but the way in which we deal with bills needs serious examination. For example, when amendments are lodged at the last minute, nobody is able thoroughly to examine them, whether they are Executive or other amendments, and to discuss rationally whether it is sensible for a certain group to be included in the list.

The committee set out its stall quite early on this issue. However, the Executive did not really give ground and the committee, in a majority vote, went its dinger on the whole matter and included many organisations on the list, some of which should perhaps not have been included. That is not really a rational way of dealing with amendments, and we should improve the procedure.

I suggest that, with all due respect, Frank McAveety and his colleagues have received bad advice on this particular issue. As Kenny Gibson pointed out, we are told that the Scotland Act 1998 prevents us dealing with the matter, but the Scotland Act 1998 mentions only companies and business associations. We are talking about regulating the individual behaviour of individuals as directors of companies that dispose of public money. It seems only proper to allow that.

I am encouraged in this view by a briefing note that came from the Executive, or from the Scottish Parliament information centre or some other neutral source. The briefing note says that LECs

"discharge functions . . . through the provisions of an operating contract, renewed annually . . . The Operating Contract requires compliance with a range of measures that the parent organisation itself abides to by statute or by management control through the Scottish Executive . . . LEC Board Members already have to comply with either a Code of Corporate Governance . . . or . . . a policy of Accountability . . . both of which contain many of the features of the proposed code of conduct".

Those statements have been advanced as arguments for not needing the code of conduct. However, the fact that regulations similar to the code of conduct have already been imposed on these people totally demolishes the argument that we cannot impose our code of conduct on them as individuals. The Executive position is absolute rubbish on the issue.

Furthermore, if committees carefully study pieces of legislation and reach certain conclusions only to have the Executive not accept those conclusions and push the legislation through on a whipped vote, that raises a serious issue about why we are here at all. Why bother? As I said, the Executive did listen to the committee on other issues, which is very welcome; however, on the basis of duff advice, ministers are pushing through things that they should not be pushing through.

There are serious anomalies in the Executive's proposed list—the Scottish Arts Council, for example.