| THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much indeed
for coming, we are very grateful to you. We know it is
the end of a busy day, for all of us actually.
MR WALLACE: Indeed.
THE CHAIRMAN: Would you like to say one or two things
in opening rather than we launch into questions?
MR WALLACE: Yes. I mean just generally I am obviously
someone who campaigned long and hard for a Scottish
Parliament, I am delighted that it is now in existence.
Four years seems a very long time and I think we have
achieved much in that time, a lot of it which goes through,
I mean like the Bill we passed this afternoon, the Protection
of Children Bill, very important, it’s the sort
of last piece of the jigsaw following on from Lord Cullen’s
Inquiry into the Dunblane shooting. It was done, there
was a lot of difficult issues, for example balancing
the rights of a person who might be suspected of having
a record of, not of abusing children, but doubtful behaviour
in relation to children but were never found guilty
and how you weight that up against the protection of
children and I think the Parliament in its Committee
and the evidence it took, they have grappled with that
and it passed through today consensually.
Now I suspect we will not get much of a headline tomorrow
but I think it is a piece of legislation which will
have a long-term benefit for Scotland’s children.
I think there is sometimes a frustration amongst us
and that is only one example of a number of things which
have been done over the past four years where I think
the Parliament has made a real contribution and compared
to what we were ever likely to achieve in Westminster,
in a similar time, it is chalk and cheese.
One other example, one example for me which says a
lot and that’s the Adults with Incapacity Act,
one of the earlier Acts passed by the Scottish Parliament.
I remember as an opposition Member at Westminster the
alliance for the reform coming to lobby us, lobbying
Members of all Parties, the consensus among all Parties
that we wanted something done and it never was done
because there wasn’t time in the Westminster programme
to have it done.
THE CHAIRMAN: Was that a purely Scottish Bill?
MR WALLACE: It was a purely Scottish Bill, a Scottish
Law Commission report with a Bill attached but there
was a parallel, it was the result of the previous Scottish
Law Commission report which still waits to be implemented
and we have had I understand 100,000 Scottish householders
estimated with someone lacking capacity for home helps.
We have simplified the legal procedures which surround
that and I think that’s a very good example.
THE CHAIRMAN: We certainly got the impression listening
to today’s witnesses that there is a distinct consensual
element about the way the Parliament operates. I am
not quite sure why?
MR WALLACE: There is not always consent, I can assure
you.
THE CHAIRMAN: No, no.
MR WALLACE: I think one of the reasons is that we were
all very much involved in pre-devolution in the Consultative
Steering Group which was chaired by Henry McLeish who
was then Minister of State, it involved, represented
all parties. I represented the Liberal Democrats in
that group, it included the Conservatives albeit they
opposed the Parliament and the Referendum but they quite
willingly took part in the Consultative Steering Group,
it included a number of people from civic Scotland and
that Committee sat for the best part of a year looking
at the kind of procedures we would want to have, guiding
principles, accountability, accessibility, equal opportunities,
open-ness and these are principles which I think, which
the Parliament affirmed in its early sort of weeks and
I think, you know, we are still conscious of them and
they proceeded on the basis of a consensual committee
that worked very much to raise the consensus.
THE CHAIRMAN: Were you a corporate body?
MR WALLACE: What, the Parliament?
THE CHAIRMAN: The Parliament?
MR WALLACE: The Parliament has a corporate body, that
is for business.
THE CHAIRMAN: Not in the same way as the Welsh?
MR WALLACE: No, no, it is not, there is a corporate
body of the Parliament which deals with offices.
THE CHAIRMAN: Buildings and offices?
MR WALLACE: Buildings, yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Sorry about that?
MR WALLACE: It is quite okay, it has a corporate body.
SIR MICHAEL WHEELER BOOTH: Talking of this report which
you wrote all those years ago, did you ever think that
it raised and indeed the original Convention report,
the Convention report even more than this Consultative
Steering Group, that they raised expectations of politicians
behaving in a super politician style of being consensual
and rational and everything that they should be in an
ideal world and that has led to a certain amount of
disappointment when the Parliament has been seen in
the newspapers or on television behaving slightly more
like the old Westminster which is described in the Convention
report. They actually say we do not want to go on being
like Westminster in the bad old ways, I can’t remember
the exact words but it does say that?
MR WALLACE: I would personally agree that there is
an element of truth in that observation. I wouldn’t
want to over state it, however. I mean, those of us
who wrote that report worked together on the Convention,
were certainly committed strongly and I still remain
committed.
SIR MICHAEL WHEELER BOOTH: Were you on the Convention?
MR WALLACE: I was a Member of the Convention, yes.
The Convention was substantially the Labour Party, the
Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the Unions, the Trade
Unions and the local authorities, churches and other
representatives of civic Scotland and it was certainly
genuine, I mean it operated by consent, the Convention
never took a vote, it proceed by consensus, the result
of the Steering Group Committee which you have referred
to, and when we fought the Referendum you know there
was a considerable consensual element in that and I
think, we are still willing to try and find a new form
of politics. We still have the theatre, the First Minister’s
questions where everyone I think feels they are obliged
to behave as they behave at Westminster, and that’s
the only way it is going to be exciting but I think
that is just a small part of it. There is a lot of the
work done in Committees which by their very nature they
are very small, certainly work on a cross Party basis.
Usually the Committees gang up against the Executive
but I think there is a lot of good work done and a lot
of consensus is there but clearly politics is politics
and there are issues which, you know, clearly divide
people and we wouldn’t be in politics unless there
were things in our respective Parties, things which
are divided. I am still hopeful that some of the good
things we have done can spill over, and even if there
are disputes they can be conducted in a more civilised
manner than other places.
SIR MICHAEL WHEELER BOOTH: The extraordinary thing
about the Convention, if you read it, it is the nearest
thing we have to 1776 Philadelphia and the pre-cursors
of the American Constitution and some of the language
in the Convention is completely unheard of in any English
Constitutional documents, it’s all....
MR WALLACE: Declamatory...
MR THOMAS: With all it’s, yes, it’s a bit
sort of idealistic.
MR WALLACE: Or declamatory. I couldn’t give you
the entire history behind it but the Convention itself
grew out of a claim of right for Scotland which was
published about 1988. I think in a long historic tradition
of claims of right which were part of Scottish history,
constitutional history and that was very much a part
of, I think that that set the tone for much that you
read in the Convention Report.
MR PRICE: If you were to analyse what are the factors
that have made the devolution settlement in Scotland
a success and what aspects of it if you were able to
make changes now, would you with retrospect make in
that devolution settlement?
MR WALLACE: I think what has contributed to its success
is substantially we have a good piece of legislation
in the Scotland Act. I think that is a good piece of
legislation. I think, and it is hard to quantify this,
but there is an important distinction, an important
change between the Convention Report and the Act, a
change which we have certainly argued for within the
Convention but couldn’t persuade our Labour partners
in the Convention but when it came to Government they
did it. The Scotland Act 1978 was based on everything
being reserved to Westminster except what is expressly
devolved. The change we got with the Scotland Act is
everything is devolved to the Scottish Parliament except
what is expressly reserved. I think that that different
approach gave us a very good foundation. I think it
probably has minimised the occasions when there has
been doubt or there has had to be some discussion, I
think if it had been specifically reserved, things specifically
reserved we would have no longer found ourselves having
a debate or a dispute is this devolved or not and I
think that has certainly been an important feature.
I think too that the fact that the financial settlement
is fixed by formula, and I know it is not without controversy,
but it is actually fixed by formula, we have not had
an annual haggle with Westminster as to how much money
we are going to get, there is a formula there and I
think in, certainly that in these early years of a devolved
administration, devolved Parliament, that was important
because it takes away a potential area of conflict or
friction and I suppose you would have to also accept
that albeit we are a coalition in Edinburgh and that
we are not identical to the Westminster Government but
nevertheless there is a strong overlap and a willingness
on the part of both Westminster, both the United Kingdom
Government and the Scottish Executive, to make it work.
Let’s not kid ourselves, the real test would come
if some day - and in the broad sweep of history it must
happen some day - that there is a different regime in
Westminster from the Scottish Parliament. I mean we
are a coalition and occasionally that produces interesting
tensions but basically we have got two administrations
that work together and albeit I am a Liberal Democrat
I have good working relationships with Whitehall counterparts
and on occasions I have had to attend Whitehall Committees,
Ministerial Committees, you know, I have never been
conscious of any problem because I am with a different
Party.
MR PRICE: What about the changes aspect?
MR WALLACE: I think it is not so much a change in the
Act. I think where we have had some problems, a problem
might be over-stated, it probably was not wise to say
that the so-called Sewel motion would be a rare event.
I think experience has shown that they are required
far more often and because it was said at the outset
that they would be a rare event every time we would
have one it becomes an issue where in fact in the vast
majority of cases there shouldn’t be an issue and
I think if we were to wind the clock back I think we
would now see that Sewel motions were going to be more
of a feature of the landscape than was foreseen back
in 1998, 1999.
MR PRICE: How much of these Sewel motions contributed
to the success of the settlement.
MR WALLACE: I put Sewel motions into three categories
and I think they have been a very necessary part of
what we have done. There is the category where there
is substantive legislation passed at Westminster where
it has unequivocally devolved - the Proceeds of Crime
Act is perhaps the most obvious one but there has been
a number on Sex Offender Registers, very often the field
of my own Department for that, and the Justice Department,
the Home Office – where in fact it makes very good
sense to have a common regime north and south of the
Border. The last thing we wanted on the Proceeds of
Crime, I mean for a start drugs is reserved to Westminster
so there is always going to be an element drug crime
would have to be legislated at Westminster but as we
all know drug crime is only one part of it, it is interlinked.
I mean people trafficking, another serious crime which
was devolved. It would have been a criminals charter
if we had created loopholes in different regimes north
and south of the Border, they could have moved their
money around, depending what they were doing, it made
eminent good sense to have Westminster to legislate
for all of the United Kingdom.
There have been areas where there has been a bit of
grey area as to whether an issue is devolved or reserved,
for example, I am trying to think, the regulation of
investigatory powers, if a Scottish Force was pursuing
someone into England or if the English Police were pursuing
someone into Scotland we wouldn’t want again to
create a loophole and it should be beyond any doubt
that Westminster legislate. There are those which are
purely incidental.
There was one recently where the powers were being
taken in England with regard to reporting restrictions
on a certain category of criminal proceedings, it would
again not have made sense if the whole thing could have
been subverted by the front page of the Scotsman carrying
a story that the front page of the Daily Telegraph couldn’t
and we were asked by the Home Office did they mind if
we legislated for Scotland and again good sense suggested
it should and there is the category where in fact new
powers are being conferred to Scottish Ministers in
areas which were hitherto being reserved and some remain
reserved. Extradition legislation is reserved but Scottish
Ministers have executive powers in relation to extradition
and the Extradition Bill before Westminster at the moment
is an example of that. The Scottish National Party still
sometimes seems to have difficulties even although they
are giving Scottish Ministers additional powers but
I would hope you would recognise in each of these categories
the common sense view in my view is we go down the route
of the Sewel motion.
THE CHAIRMAN: What I don’t understand about Sewel
is the initiative always seems to come from Westminster.
If you look at the way in which the Assembly in Wales
piggy backs on top of English legislation, it is usually
Wales sending it up to Westminster, as I understand
here it is mainly Westminster approaches you?
MR WALLACE: Yes I think that’s the nature of the
beast when they are doing things but the Proceeds of
Crime was probably the other way round, probably us
saying, it was actually joint because it would have
been a guddle if we had tried extracting bits we would
have done and bits Westminster did and tried to put
the two together or make sure they were kept in step,
and in fact there was a joint agreement that Westminster
should legislate for us but it does tend to be that
Westminster are doing particular things and they may
show up, you know, the powers to be exercised by Scottish
Ministers.
Where on occasions we have gone to them it tends not
to be necessarily for legislation or Sewel motions but
for section 63 orders, one example which immediately
comes to mind is the shipping service for which we are
currently out to tender from Campbelton and Mull of
Kintyre to Ballycastle in Northern Ireland.
Now under the devolution settlement, because that was
a Scottish port to a non-Scottish port, it is a reserved
matter. There was an expectation that between ourselves
and the Northern Ireland administration we might put
some money into reviving the Shipping Service, there
was a certain reluctance on the part of Scottish Cabinet
to put money into something which we didn’t have
to the power or the responsibility and we went to Westminster
and they passed the relevant Order specifically for
that route to devolve responsibility to Scotland. So
legislation was not needed but an order was passed by
Westminster which gave us the devolved responsibility.
MR ROWLANDS: I wonder if we could explore a little
bit more your legislative experience because that directly
relates to our terms of reference and you, you as a
Justice Minister have had...
MR WALLACE: I have had the bulk, the majority.
MR ROWLANDS: I got the impression in the course of
the day a lot of this legislation was a sort of backlog
of imminent legislation it was to amend Acts that Westminster
just hadn’t got round to and they were being derived
essentially from the, put it in question form. Did a
large chunk of the 60 Acts in four years derive from
the fact you have legal institutions, your institutional
structures require these kinds of changes as opposed
to the couple of examples you have given us which are
greenfield legislation?
MR WALLACE: Yes I mean some very substantial Bills
which England got rid of in 1290 even the old Scottish
Parliament never got round to that one but there is
a very substantial piece of work, it is passed but not
even implemented yet, the abolition of the Feudal System.
There is a Bill dealing with the law of burdens in Scottish
Conveyancing which is currently before the Parliament
and should complete its Parliament passage later this
month and there is a third tier of that one which will
be a matter for the next Parliament reforming the law
of tenement property. Now all these have very peculiar
Scottish Law issues so that has been important and these
things are distinctively our law. The major Criminal
Justice Bill at the moment, we are doing new things,
but a lot of it is amending Scots Law, and one of the
other ones that has impacted on my own Department, and
it has certainly given rise to two pieces of legislation,
is the requirement under the Scotland Act that we are
wholly compliant in everything we do with the European
convention of Human Rights, unlike United Kingdom legislation
where there is a period of grace to get it right. If
we are found by the Courts to be in breach of our legislation
or an executive action to be in breach then it kicks
in immediately and in the early months it was held by
the Court, the Court of Session, or by the High Court
- I think it was the Appeal Court - that the system
of using temporary Sheriffs was contrary to Article
6 of the European Convention and I had to go to Parliament
in the afternoon and suspend 129 temporary Sheriffs,
many of whom were about to sit or were sitting the next
day.
THE CHAIRMAN: What did you do about that, how did you
resolve it?
MR WALLACE: Immediately it was resolved by full-time
Sheriffs working exceptionally hard, I am not saying
they didn’t before but even harder. The problem
that was identified by the Court, wasn’t the fact
that everyone had assumed it was going to be the appointment
by the Lord Advocate who is the prosecutor but rather
the fact that the renewal of a period of office as the
temporary Sheriff was done by the Executive and personally
by the Lord Advocate who appeared before the Court or
his Procurator Fiscal appeared as prosecutor and what
we did was we established a new post of part-time Sheriff
with proper safeguards for appointment and particularly
safeguards for security of tenure but that required
legislation and there were a number of other things
we picked up on that. Then we also had a very substantive
Bill dealing with a number of other human rights issues,
we did a trawl of all our responsibilities to see where
we might not be complying or whether there was a potential
of a threat and we had legislation to address that.
MR ROWLANDS: The conclusion one can draw from that,
from your alleged legislation experience, isn’t
necessarily applicable or essentially wholly relevant
to whether or not the Welsh Assembly collects such powers?
MR WALLACE: Yes. I don’t know in terms of Executive
Acts whether the EHCR Welsh Assembly has the same bite
as it has for us but it would be relevant for any legislative
powers the Welsh Assembly would have. You have to legislate
for things that are not necessarily in the original
programme but events happen and you have to legislate
to correct them.
MS McALLISTER: Another part of our terms of reference
is the terms of our tax varying powers. We have witnesses
come before us in Cardiff, particularly from the Ministerial
end, who have said because the powers are held in reserve
in Scotland and because there has been no use of them
it is a decent argument for not pursuing tax varying
powers. I wonder what your opinion is on that in the
relationship?
MR WALLACE: I certainly campaigned to have the tax
varying powers and I am pleased they are there. I think
it is important that the Parliament can have resort
to them. I fought an election in 1999 on the possibility
of using them, there wasn’t a majority of Members
in the Parliament for them and it is part of our coalition
agreement that they wouldn’t be used and that was
a political judgement. There wasn’t a majority
in the Parliament for them and if we are frank the kind
of, the size by which the Scottish block has increased
since 1999 is considerably more than if we had even
used the full 1p, so in that sense at the time when
there was a growing budget, growing block, the pressure
for us or the expectation we might use, it has been
a non-issue over the last four years. Who is to say
at some time in the future if things got tight that
there wouldn’t be a clamour to use the powers so
I certainly would not dismiss the powers at all and
I think it was an important part of the devolution settlement.
If I may use this without being pejorative, I think
it is the difference between a Parliament and an Assembly
because a Parliament has taxation powers, it is a function
of a Parliament and I think it adds ultimately, it has
not arisen because of the funding that there has been
but I think it does add an element of accountability,
it is very difficult if things are tight to say you
can’t have X because you can’t afford it but
someone said we could have afforded it, you could have
put the taxes up, that’s part of the political
debate.
MR VALERIO: Both your instances have been putting taxes
up, you don’t see using it as an incentive for
lowering taxes to entice development?
MR WALLACE: Well that power is there.
MR VALERIO: You don’t use it?
MR WALLACE: Well tax varying. That would be immediately
be knocked off our block, it’s a possibility but
I don’t think anyone has come forward with a proposal
to reduce. There may be circumstances in which we would
want to, as long as everyone understood what the consequences
were.
MR THOMAS: Can I turn to the issue about the size of
Parliament. One of the issues we are having to consider
is if primary legislation powers for Wales was granted,
can a body of 60 people manage that legislation, there
has been some debate recently about whether or not you
ratchet down the member of MSPs and in your view is
there if you like a minimum size which you would need
as a Parliament to actually carry the legislation through?
MR WALLACE: I think a lot of it depends on what you
are used to. Four years isn’t very long to get
used to something but you set up your Committees, I
think the Committees are the key to this, there is a
big responsibility on the Committees in terms of legislation,
we don’t have a second chamber, we have got to
get it right first time and the work that is done, the
pre-legislative work once the Bill has been published
and the Committee takes its evidence before it goes
to the Parliament for a stage 1 debate, that is vitally
important and obviously you do need a certain number
of people to be able to sustain that kind of workload.
I mean unlike Westminster as you are aware, our Subject
Committees are also our legislation Committees and when
we were debating whether in fact the numbers should
be reduced there was a very strong view we would have
found it difficult, given the volume of legislation
that we have put through, to get by with much less.
Such was the volume in my own folio we had to get a
second Justice Committee because one just couldn’t
keep apace. I think it might depend what kind of volume
of legislation you were looking at, what the expectations
were, but it is quite demanding.
MR THOMAS: Did the pressure, the key of the Committees
has been mentioned by several witnesses, yet the Committee
has to do a range of activities, not just legislation,
is there a bit too much expectation of the Committees
to discharge, is it right to carry on with your current
combination of Subject and legislation?
MR WALLACE: I think it would be very difficult not
to. If you were not to do that, if you were to split
them up, I think that would be an even bigger burden
on the individual MSP because inevitably they would
have to serve on a number of Committees, if you had
the same ad hoc Standing Committees, that would be an
addition to the Subject Committees and scheduling and
time-tabling is a nightmare. As a group when we were
allocating people to Committees – because there
was a change half way through to reduce the number of
people on Committees – and we had a very difficult
job to allocate people to Committees when you take into
account what their interests were and what the schedule
of meetings were and you would find you had just solved
the picture and got the jigsaw complete and you would
find out X couldn’t do that, sit on that Committee
and that Committee because that Committee was an alternate
Wednesday that met in the morning. To increase the number
of Committees I think would be very difficult and there
is a lot, it is one of the issues, not least on the
Justice side, the Justice Committee felt it was being
over-loaded and thought this was an Executive ploy to
keep them occupied doing that and not lifting the stone
to see what may come out from under.
MR ROWLANDS: Were they right?
MR WALLACE: Not at all, what you usually find is that
these are the ones clamouring for the legislation and
they complain when they have to do it, but the answer
to your question, I think is that it would be very difficult
to split up. It is a purely personal view, but I think
it may be useful if we had more ad hoc Committees to
deal with the Private Members Bills. To give you an
answer to an earlier question, what haven’t we
got right, it is a bit of a disappointment that it is
even more difficult to get a Members Bill through in
this Parliament than it is in the Westminster Parliament
because it has got to take its turn along with everything
else.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are most MSPs full-time?
MR WALLACE: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: There is not a tradition growing in Scotland...?
MR WALLACE: Some have got businesses but they are mostly
always here, they are self-employed.
MR ROWLANDS: Can I ask you, you have given quite a
lot of evidence in the House of Lords Inquiry about
your role as a European Minister. I just want to confirm
in that respect your responsibility, powers and your
position, the position of Ministers in the context as
you describe it, as basically a constructive relationship
between the United Kingdom and Europe. Welsh Assembly
Ministers are in a totally different position from yourself,
there is not an issue of power, responsibility, you
don’t carry any greater responsibility in European,
than the Welsh Assembly Ministers?
MR WALLACE: No.
MR ROWLANDS: What you describe here is applicable to
the Welsh?
MR WALLACE: In time, I have been at meetings of the
Joint Ministerial Committee in Europe, there has been
no discernible difference between the position I am
in and the position of my Welsh colleagues. There has
been not one that has any legislative role. I have got
overall responsibility for trying to ensure the transposition
of directives is kept up to scratch, I am just not sure
as to the extent to which the Welsh Assembly has similar
responsibilities or if they are as extensive. Certainly
it was quite a burden on the administration, transposing
EU directives.
THE CHAIRMAN: Do you go to Council meetings?
MR WALLACE: I have, yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Have you led in a Council meeting?
MR WALLACE: I have sat in a Council meeting where on
a particular issue with the UK Minister sitting by my
side I spoke, yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have been the spokesman?
MR WALLACE: I spoke, I don’t necessarily count
that as leading. There have been three occasions where
the Scottish Executive Minister has been the only Minister
from the United Kingdom present.
THE CHAIRMAN: Really.
MR JONES: Which were?
MR WALLACE: Nicol Steven I think once, maybe once when
he was the Deputy Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Minister
and once when he was the Deputy Education Minister and
Susan Deacon when she was the Health Minister. We can
clarify that, I think it is fair to say on at least
one of these occasions Whitehall had all their Ministers
tied up.
THE CHAIRMAN: What sort of issues?
MR WALLACE: Higher education was certainly one of them,
one of their Education Councils and Susan Deacon, it
must have been the Health Council.
THE CHAIRMAN: And you were putting a specifically Scottish
view?
MR WALLACE: No, I mean the concordat is that the line
you put forward is as the UK, an agreed UK line and
certainly one occasion where I have spoken it was the
UK line which the Scottish Executive had a hand in devising.
There was one occasion Mr Blunkett and I shared the
platform if only to make the point that, to remind people
we had a different jurisdiction, there were certain
issues around and he thought it useful to remind....
THE CHAIRMAN: Do you have something of a code there?
MR WALLACE: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Do you have anybody on the main...?
MR WALLACE: Certainly no more, it would probably be
by invitation that they can attend, like we are there
by invitation, we have no right to be there.
THE CHAIRMAN: But I mean, is there a Scottish Civil
Servant in...?
MR WALLACE: No. Well we have Scotland House in Brussels
which is headed up by a Civil Servant who has a very
good relationship at work and it works very well for
us, the relationship is very good and we get a lot of
information fed through us.
THE CHAIRMAN: What about fisheries, you had a row about
that in Europe?
MR WALLACE: The last Council meeting, the one at the
end of December was not a model of how the European
Union should work but in terms of Elliot Morley and
Ross Finnie working collaboratively, yes. Agriculture
and Fisheries is probably the area where there is the
most formal structure in terms of working out the UK
line, probably because it is the one that is most needed
and I think I am right in saying before each Council
we have an Agricultural council representative of the
four administrations, Northern Ireland which is slightly
different now, but certainly when Northern Ireland,
when it had its Secretary it was still running, they
meet to thrash out the line and that works. It is probably
a model, not least given all the different interests
that are around.
MS SUGAR: We were told earlier that the Executive’s
priorities and proposals for the legislative programme
are announced in the First Minister’s speeches
but I wasn’t clear whether there is then a debate
on the speech or whether it is simply because bits and
pieces are read. Can you explain?
MR WALLACE: You probably make it up as you go along,
that’s what we did the first time Donald Dewar
did it, he made a statement, I think we took a few questions
on it and we launched straight into a debate and that
has been the pattern ever since. That was done in June,
I think we had two in September for the year ahead and
of course one of the features is we can carry legislation
through from one year to the next and the present legislative
programme which we are about to complete was announced
by the First Minister sitting in Aberdeen.
MS SUGAR: That would have been scheduled by the Business
Committee and everybody would have known in advance?
MR WALLACE: Yes that’s it and the format is the
First Minister makes a statement, answers one or two
questions and we launch straight into a debate which,
again by tradition, I have always found to be...
MS SUGAR: Does the Labour and Liberal Democrats concordat
in effect determine the priorities for legislation so
there isn’t argument at the last moment?
MR WALLACE: There was a Programme for Government that
was agreed between the two Parties at the very outset
of the Parliament in May 1999 that was subsequently
worked into a Programme for Government which is more
than legislation of course and there was the actual
Legislative Programme as agreed by the Cabinet and reflects
those issues which have been agreed from the outset
plus the others which events forced upon us.
MR ROWLANDS: The Sub Committee on legislation, that
was implemented later was it?
MR WALLACE: That was probably in the last year, eighteen
months. It involves the First Minister, myself, the
Minister for Parliamentary Business, the Lord Advocate.
THE CHAIRMAN: That is to decide priorities?
MR WALLACE: It decides priorities and also, if in the
course of a Bill there is a material change, that Committee
would first be asked to clear any changes and also very
important just for monitoring to make sure the Departments
are keeping up to date and identify any sticking points
that are emerging.
THE CHAIRMAN: Can I change the subject and ask you
about scrutiny very briefly. One of the functions of
a Parliament is to scrutinise the Executive. We have
had a lot about that in Wales recently. Are you satisfied
with the scrutiny record?
MR WALLACE: Yes I think....
THE CHAIRMAN: You are not speaking just as a Minister?
MR WALLACE: No, I think they are very effective not
least going back to what I have said about the Committee
system but even in individual areas the level of Parliamentary
questions is phenomenal compared to the questions asked
of the old Scottish Office.
THE CHAIRMAN: In the number or the scope or detail?
MR WALLACE: We answer 1,000 a month.
MR MILLER: A thousand a month at the moment and that
is compared to 1,700 a year in the last year before
devolution so 12,000 as against 1700.
THE CHAIRMAN: What about, oral?
MR WALLACE: What we don’t have is Departmental
orals, our one oral session a week is forty minutes,
what comes up in the Ballot and the Party, and it could
be anybody, any Minister. I mean, you get days when
you have got a round and other days when you don’t
have any and you have twenty minutes of First Minister’s
questions but that compares again to fifty minutes every
fourth week at Westminster. The sort of more traditional
way of accountability of questions but I think the Committees
are very effective in their scrutiny.
THE CHAIRMAN: How often do you go to Committee, how
often would you go as a Minister?
MR WALLACE: It is a bit like London buses, I haven’t
been for several weeks but I think I have got two appearances
in the next week or fortnight. There are obviously ones
which relate to legislation when they are examining
the principle of a Bill, what tends to happen is at
the outset the relevant officials will go to the Committee
on an informal or formal basis and the last Hearing
will be the Minister and then they will prepare their
report for Stage 1 and then obviously when they are
going through it all Clause by Clause then either myself
or the Deputy Minister will be there.
MR ROWLANDS: So officials are cross-examined first
on a draft bill?
MR WALLACE: Absolutely.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is that right?
MR WALLACE: Yes, that tends to be...
THE CHAIRMAN: It starts off almost with a Select Committee?
MR WALLACE: And it reverts into a legislative Committee
and there are subject issues, Ministers will appear
and I have got one in the next week or the week after
on alternatives to custody but my colleague, my Deputy
Minister, will be appearing on Legal Aid just as one
Committee produced a report on Legal Aid eighteen months
ago they want to hear what we have done, we had a debate
on it in the Parliament, they want to hear what we have
done subsequently.
THE CHAIRMAN: But the Committees have got the power
to pick their subjects?
MR WALLACE: Yes. If the effectiveness of scrutiny is
that Ministers change their mind. One of my earlier
experiences was over the census, we had responsibility
for implementing the census in Scotland and there was
legislation in the Westminster Parliament to introduce
the religion question for England and Wales. The Cabinet
took the view on a finely balanced argument that we
probably did not want that question in Scotland, and
weren’t going to amend the 1920 Act to do so. I
got a pretty rough ride before the Equal Opportunities
Committee and I was left in no uncertain terms as to
what the view of the Committee was and what the view
of the Parliament was. There was a debate and we legislated
for it and they actually put forward good arguments
in terms of getting some base line data.
THE CHAIRMAN: They are developing their own sort of
support back up?
MR WALLACE: Yes. Well, they are well fed by interest
groups and they have their own clerking.
MR ROWLANDS: Has it turned out hugely more expensive
than the original estimates?
MR WALLACE: In terms of administration?
MR MILLER: In terms of the core staff we will get the
precise numbers for you tomorrow but I think there has
been a 15% increase in core staff. We were discussing
lawyers earlier and the Office of Scottish Secretary
is quite considerably larger, but that’s on the
basis of small absolute numbers.
MR WALLACE: And Draftsmen.
MR VALERIO: Do you happen to know much an MSP costs
with support staff and research staff?
MR WALLACE: No, but all our expenses are detailed and
made public. I mean what that production shows is how
wide variations there are so I wouldn’t want to
hazard a guess.
MR VALERIO: I was going to compare MSPs, and Assembly
Members.
MR WALLACE: We can get you that, that information must
be there.
THE CHAIRMAN: The cheapest is the House of Lords. Can
I thank you very much indeed, it has been good of you
to come at the end of a busy day. Thank you very much
indeed.
MR WALLACE: Best wishes with your enquiry.
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