Hansard

I rise to speak not about the detail of the LCM but about the process, and I endorse everything that Jeremy Balfour said. Before I come to what the DPLR Committee discussed this week, it is right to make it clear that the Education, Children and Young People Committee had its first opportunity to discuss the LCM eight days ago—just one week away from the summer recess. People will be aware that this has been an extremely busy week for those in the Parliament with an education interest—I include the cabinet secretary and the minister in that. When we discussed what we could do in our final week, we had to take on board the fact that members were going to be in the chamber late on Tuesday and Wednesday to deal with stage 3 of the Education (Scotland) Bill.

This week alone, just in committee, we have sat for more than seven hours, taking evidence on the University of Dundee. Even if we had wanted more scrutiny of the LCM, which I believe that members would have wanted, there was literally no time to include that in our deliberations.

When I received the letter from the DPLR Committee convener yesterday, I was concerned about the note in the second paragraph that

“amendments and the UK Government’s supplementary delegated powers memorandum have been available since 14 May.”

We got that information on 16 June, well over a month after the UK Government had finished its consideration of the matter.

I echo everything that the DPLR Committee has said about the lack of opportunity to interrogate the matter further. I believe that my colleague Roz McCall will look into some of the details that members of the Education, Children and Young People Committee would have looked into, because we treat such matters very seriously. The minister and the cabinet secretary know that we go into in-depth detail with Scottish statutory instruments and other things, and we would have done so with the LCM had it not been for the timing of its coming here and the business that the committee already had.

I urge the minister to take back to his successor as Minister for Parliamentary Business the point that we need help as committees to do our job and to allow Parliament to do its job, and more time to discuss and prepare for these LCMs would be appreciated.

I will not detain the Parliament any longer other than to say—I think that I am still within the subject—that, because we were so busy as a committee this week, we could not look at the issue. Although it is right that MSPs on committees are busy—I am keen on that as a committee convener—I would like to thank the clerks and the official report and broadcasting staff, who have also sat through more than seven hours of evidence. They were long and thorough sessions and, although it is right that we, as MSPs, do our job, I believe that our clerks and others associated with the Education, Children and Young People Committee went above and beyond this week. On behalf of the committee, I offer my thanks to them.