Committee News Release
01/2003
Thursday 12 June 2003
FIRST MINISTER’S QUESTION TIME – DURATION AND TIMING
Background
1. The Procedures Committee is seeking the views of MSPs, the media and members of the public on two specific proposals – about the duration and timing of First Minister’s Question Time – that it has been asked to consider by the Presiding Officer.
2. The Presiding Officer wrote to the Committee on 5 June asking it to treat these two proposals as priority issues. The Committee considered this letter at its 1st meeting today, together with earlier correspondence between the Presiding Officer and the First Minister. The Committee agreed to conduct a short inquiry on these two issues with a view to reporting to the Parliament by the end of the summer recess. That would enable any Standing Order changes to be put to the Parliament in the first week after the summer, so that any altered format for First Minister’s Questions could be in place by the following week.
3. Because of this tight timescale, the Committee can offer only a week for consultation. But it has agreed that it wants to hear as many views as possible within that timescale, and is therefore:
- emailing all MSPs asking for their views;
- writing to a range of media interests inviting their views; and
- issuing a general press notice on the Parliament’s website.
How to respond
The deadline for all responses has passed, thank you for your submissions
Please note that the Committee is seeking responses only on the two
specific proposals described above for the time being. However, a number
of other issues about FMQT and about the questioning process more generally
have been raised in the correspondence between the Presiding Officer
and First Minister. It is expected that the Committee will conduct an
inquiry into these wider issues in due course, and there are therefore
likely to be further opportunities for other views on those issues to
be submitted to the Committee.
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