MSPs ‘have no time to look at new laws’

Committee convener blames spiralling workload

THE head of a Scottish parliament committee has admitted scrutinising new laws is ‘virtually impossible’ because of spiralling workloads.

Tory MSP Margaret Mitchell, convener of the justice committee, said the number of Bills it had to examine was ‘really oppressive’.

She said that ‘rather than just reacting, it would be excellent if the committees could operate as they were intended to and could look at issues that they deem to be important’.

Mrs Mitchell’s comments will fuel concern that the parliament is failing to ensure that legislation is properly vetted.

The committee structure at Holyrood was supposed to ensure that laws would be carefully checked because of the lack of a second revising chamber.

Former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars has suggested that the legislation behind the controversial Named Person scheme was shoddily drafted partly because of poor scrutiny, though it was not examined by the justice committee.

Central Scotland MSP Mrs Mitchell said: ‘There is no doubt that the previous justice committee was really a legislative machine.

‘Our workload of 17 bills was really oppressive, inquiries were squeezed and it was virtually impossible for us to carry out post-legislative scrutiny.

‘One of the pluses or strong points of the committees was supposed to be their ability to hold the Government to account in order to improve legislation.

‘There really was not any opportunity to do that in the previous session, and there has been no emphasis on that in any session of parliament.’

Last year the architect of the devolution deal suggested that Holyrood committees packed with backbench Nationalist MSPs were failing to hold the Scottish Government to account. Lord Smith of Kelvin said Holyrood should learn from Westminster, where ministers receive tough scrutiny from MPs.

Nationalist MSP John Mason also broke ranks last year to warn that too many backbench committee members from the party in office can make them ‘subservient to government’.

In one example, a committee refused to take further evidence from Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop about her decision to award a £150,000 taxpayerfunded grant to T in the Park, even though the Audit Scotland watchdog had decided to investigate the hand-out.

Lord Smith, who chaired the cross-party commission that led to the tax and welfare proposals in the new Scotland Bill, said: ‘You watch the way the scrutiny works in Westminster. It is vicious sometimes. I’ve appeared before a couple of select committees. They are unafraid to challenge. They are knowledgeable. We don’t have that at Holyrood.’

The SNP’s stranglehold of committees has been weakened by its failure to win a majority at last month’s Holyrood election.

But Mrs Mitchell’s comments, at a meeting of the justice committee on Tuesday, suggest there are still concerns among MSPs over their ability to scrutinise legislation effectively.

The Scottish parliament website says Holyrood is a ‘unicameral, committee-based legislature’ and states that a ‘conscious decision’ had been taken not to follow Westminster’s committee system, which it says was criticised as weak and ineffective.

Committees usually have between seven and 11 MSPs and they are selected so that the balance of the political parties in parliament is retained.

Last night a Scottish parliament spokesman said: ‘It is expected that Holyrood’s public audit committee will shortly take on additional responsibility for post-legislation scrutiny.’

‘Subservient to government’