Page 3754 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 October 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, members!
MR JENSEN: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The only role that members are unable to participate in, under the standing orders, is the deliberative stage of the committee. However, I have no doubt, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the members opposite who have attended some aspects of the committee's deliberations will ensure that any points they wish to raise will be taken by their colleagues into the committee deliberations if that is their wish.
I also have no doubt, Mr Deputy Speaker, that if they desire to bring forward a minority report they will do so. I do not propose to go down the track at this stage and attempt to pre-empt what might or might not be in the report, other than to say that, clearly, that is a possibility. It happened last year and I suspect that it may happen this year, but time will tell.
On the other issue, it was clearly my view that the proposal put forward in my name on the notice paper today would go through without any problems. It is not difficult to see, I would suggest, that when a member of the committee is unable to attend the only way that that member can be replaced on that committee, particularly at this stage of the process, is for him or her to be formally discharged and replaced.
Mr Deputy Speaker, in this particular case a member of a particular grouping within the Assembly is to be replaced by a member of that same grouping. I mean the Alliance grouping as opposed to particular parties or groups within the Assembly. Mr Deputy Speaker, it is clearly not inappropriate, I would suggest, for that particular person who is unable to participate further at this stage to be replaced by a member of the same grouping. I do not believe that is a problem and it is clearly something that in fact happens in the other place. In fact, when members are replaced in some cases in the other house, they are replaced on the nomination of the party Whip of that particular organisation. Clearly, in our standing orders we have a situation where there is a requirement for the member to be formally discharged and replaced on the committee.
As I said before, it was my clear understanding that this matter would not be a problem. I did discuss briefly with the Clerk, the Chief Minister and Mrs Nolan the possibility that because I was the chairman of the committee it may be more appropriate for someone else to move the motion, but it was suggested to me at the time that in fact there would not be a problem. On that basis I decided that I would proceed with the motion that I originally had intended to move.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .