New Petitions

Our next petition is PE761, from Hugh Sinclair. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to ensure that members of the Public Petitions Committee and clerks to the committee are required to declare membership of the freemasons and other secret societies. The petition is prompted by the petitioner's concerns that the previous two petitions on the subject of freemasonry—PE731 and PE739—have, in his view, been dismissed by the committee. He argues that it is an offence to natural justice if there are undisclosed masonic attachments within the committee. The committee agreed to take no further action on PE731 and PE739 earlier this year on the basis that the general issues raised had been addressed within the context of the Justice 2 Committee's recent and full consideration of the matter. The procedural mechanism for implementing the petitioner's request in relation to members would be for the Parliament to amend the code of conduct following a recommendation from the Standards Committee. The Standards Committee is consulting on proposals for legislation to replace the rules on the registration and declaration of MSPs' interests. Responses are requested to the consultation paper regarding those proposals, which includes a section on non-pecuniary interests, by 30 September 2004. It would be open to the Parliament to require that officials advising the Public Petitions Committee who are connected with freemasons or other secret societies register or disclose that connection, perhaps through amending the terms and conditions of their employment.

Given that that consultation is taking place, perhaps we could write to Hugh Sinclair and suggest that he might like to make a submission to the Standards Committee clerk and ask for the matter to be taken into consideration in the work that the committee is doing.

You could be a member of the order of the eastern star.

Does everyone agree that what Helen Eadie suggested is the best course of action for us to take on the petition?Members indicated agreement.

Once we have done as Helen Eadie suggested, the petition would in effect be closed, because we have considered it and decided a course of action from which there is no comeback. Once the matter goes to the Standards Committee, there would be nothing for it to feed back to us.

There is a wider principle in the petition, which it is appropriate that the Standards Committee considers. I recommend that we pass the petition to the Standards Committee because it is not just about the Public Petitions Committee; it goes wider than that. Members of the Standards Committee are the best people to deal with the petition. I propose that we close the petition now.

Do members agree with that?Members indicated agreement.

I suggest that we take a five-minute break before we consider our current petitions.