Page 888 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 March 1990
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seven even in the High Court. Evidence is given and then the members of the bench deliberate, and often deliberate between themselves. They deliberate and, as is traditional, they deliberate in private without other persons necessarily being there.
I think that perhaps has something to do with the logic behind 234. It may not really be appropriate for other members of the Assembly who are not part of the committee to be there when that committee, which has been set up to sift through the volume of evidence placed before it and to look at other ancillary matters, is making its deliberation. Perhaps that standing order may not need to be amended as Mr Moore suggests.
Mr Moore and Ms Follett also mentioned the problems, as they perceive them, in relation to Executive Deputies. I can see the logic behind their argument, but I think perhaps they also miss the point, especially in relation to this particular Assembly. As the Chief Minister has said, and as we now probably all certainly realise - including the members opposite - Executive Deputies have no executive functions. As Mr Moore quite ably put it, they advise.
This is an Assembly of only some 17 people. Since its inception in May and since the inception of both standing committees and also select committees there have been a number of members who have sat on committees - and indeed on occasion sat as chairman or chairwoman of committees - who have certainly had particular areas of expertise. Indeed, it might be said that they had particular vested interests or certainly interests in relation to the matters under deliberation. On one of the current committees several members have made their views quite clearly known in relation to, for example, the question of fluoride. I chaired the committee on the Police Offences (Amendment) Bill which was a Bill initiated by myself, and I ended up as chairman of that committee.
These instances have occurred in the past, they will occur again because we are only 17 members. There is the committee of which Mr Moore is the chairman - he has expertise in a certain area; he was very keen to be chairman. I do not think that to date there have been any occasions in this Assembly where anyone could say that the members of the committees, including those as chairman and those members who did have particular interests, have not discharged their duties as members of the committees and as members of the Assembly otherwise than quite properly. They discharge their duties well. It is just a fact of life that in a small Assembly of 17 people there will always be instances where people with particular expertise or particular interests in subjects will be on particular committees. I think that is something that has to be taken into account when this Assembly considers the composition of these new committees.
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