This Scottish Parliament, Holyrood, currently has a General Committee which has powers to consider, i.e. amend, Bills or seek further information on Bills. However, the General Committee rarely does so. One reason for this, in my view, is that currently there are only two members of said committee, myself and /u/zhuk236 from the Libertarians. This means that we both have to vote in favour of using either power for it to be relevant. Often we don't get around to coordinating with each other before just simply voting no, because we're from completely different political parties and how would I know whether he has worthwhile amendments that I'd actually consider? Furthermore, I often find myself thinking that I might as well wait for the third stage where I, as well as anyone else, may amend the Bill anyway and have the whole Parliament vote on them.

Instead I'd like to see the Committee abolished or heavily reformed if it is to work.

If we reform it, then we must include representatives from all parties, or at least all major parties including the Government party, regardless of real life tradition etc.

If we abolish it, then we should find some sort of replacement for it. I would suggest a Committee of the Whole Parliament where everyone can submit amendments (akin to the third stage right now) and then everyone votes on them. Then we could possibly get rid of the opportunity to submit amendments at the third stage if people are worried it'll slow down legislation too much. This way amendments become the main focus of a stage in itself where amendments can also more easily be discussed instead of being hidden under a pinned thread that is auto-collapsed (I generally would like it if they were posted as separate comment threads no matter what happens to the Committee). Then the third stage would be about discussing the new, updated Bill after the amendments have possibly passed or discussing what went wrong and why people won't support it even when they did at the second stage (amendments or not).

So I think we should definitely discuss the options (perhaps in the MHOCHolyrood server) and put it to some sort of vote. Or the Quad could just take a decision. Either way the current system is bad.