Meeting of the Parliament 22 April 2015
This has been a good and consensual debate that has reflected the approach that the committee has taken to moving forward on the issue. There has been general support for what the committee proposes for the members’ interests framework. I repeat that the Government sees the proposals as sensible and clear and believes that a relevant approach has been adopted that will benefit not only members of the Parliament but members of the public, as it will enable them to understand the process better.
John Pentland made good points about gifts and the benefit of doing away with dual reporting in that regard. What he said was important.
I should have started by concurring with Gil Paterson’s comments and associating myself with his expression of condolences to Tom McCabe’s family. Mr McCabe was the first minister with responsibility for parliamentary business—the post was called Minister for Parliament then—and he did us a great service in laying the groundwork for that role. I knew him as a member of the Finance Committee, and I think that he is one of the members of the Parliament who have commanded respect across the political spectrum. He was a really honest guy and a person who folk could trust and go to for advice, irrespective of what party they were in. He will be sadly missed by everyone in the chamber and by those who are no longer here.
Cameron Buchanan made a useful suggestion about new members. Although it is important that we have good, robust procedures in place, it is also important that we all understand them. As one of our newest members of the Parliament, he will most acutely remember what it was like to come into this fantastic chamber and these fantastic buildings and work out for himself how he was going to get on. At the start of a session, there is a more orchestrated induction process for MSPs, but we should always listen to suggestions about how such things can be improved. Perhaps involving the Electoral Commission in that in the future would be a good thing.
Mr Bibby made points about ministers. To be clear, ministers are required to register interests in the same way as any other member is. He also asked about our situation with lobbying. Although those are two different aspects, particularly when we are talking about paid advocacy, there is clearly a crossover, and the Government is grateful to the committee for the work that it put into considering how we might introduce a lobbying register.
I put it on the record that the Government is committed to introducing a lobbying transparency bill before the end of the parliamentary session. That commitment has been reiterated several times—most recently in our programme for government and the debate in the chamber.
Our bill will continue the process of consultation and trying to pull everyone on side. There will therefore be a consultation and dialogue with all interested parties. We are speaking to political parties to ensure that, when we move to consult, we have the broadest consensus possible in the chamber and across the political parties. However, members should rest absolutely assured that we will introduce the bill in this parliamentary session.