It has been a while since I have had as long as that to speak in the chamber; I will try to make the most of it.
First of all, I thank the Presiding Officer for establishing the commission, I thank my party for nominating me to be part of the group and I thank my fellow commission members, both party and non-party representatives, for the way in which they involved themselves in the work.
It is important that the Parliament recognises the level of work that went into the report. Many of the points that have been made in the chamber were thought about, and some were agreed to, and others were disagreed to. However, members should not imagine that the work was done lightly or easily, particularly by the non-party commissioners. It is important that we take the report exceptionally seriously.
Of all the members who have participated in the debate, I think that it is only the Presiding Officer and I who have served in Parliament all the way through, since year dot. I am privileged to be in that position and suggest that, in football parlance, I have played in virtually every part of the pitch—as leader of my party, a troublesome back bencher, a committee convener and an Opposition front and back bencher; I am working on grandee status as we speak. [Laughter.]
Along with my fellow members of the commission, I tried to understand, first of all, the importance of the job that we were being asked to do and, secondly, why it mattered.
It matters not because there is a major problem with the Parliament but because the people of Scotland now recognise it as being part of the institutions of this country. We do not ever want to be in a place in which we can be told, as happens in other Parliaments, “You can’t do that, because we’ve never done it that way.” It is precisely because we do not have a tradition of existence that it is all the more important that we are modern, forward looking and aware of the need not to stagnate and to have change.
I want to thank John McCormick, in particular, for his great patience, and my fellow commission members for testing every proposal that was put before them and for doing the heavy lifting of going out into the country and meeting a whole range of groups and organisations.
The non-party commissioners were keen to emphasise in the report that this is a Parliament that is working but could do better, as opposed to one that has major problems. We wanted to look at how the Parliament can strengthen its identity, deliver more effective scrutiny and engage better with the people of Scotland. We have delivered on that remit, with a report encompassing all areas of Parliament’s activities and containing 75 recommendations—there could have been many more.
I want to comment on a couple of points that have not been raised, before I attempt to respond to some of the comments that have been made.
A theme that kept emerging as we looked at the various aspects of the commission’s remit was diversity. It is important that all aspects of Parliament reflect the diversity of Scottish society. That applies to the MSPs who are elected and also to those whom the Parliament involves in its work. “You cannot be what you cannot see,” was a phrase that we heard more than once during the commission’s work.
While some progress has been made on gender, we consider that greater progress needs to be made. As a first step, we recommend that the Parliament reports more widely on key aspects of parliamentary business and MSPs by protected characteristic. The Parliament should then work with the political parties to agree benchmarks for diversity among candidates standing for election to the Scottish Parliament. The Parliament rules should also be reviewed to ensure that they are diversity sensitive and inclusive. We have also recommended extending the Parliament’s recognition of gender by ensuring that committees themselves reflect the gender balance in the Parliament. That will not be easy, as it will require parties to work together, but we think that it is important.
We have recommended a number of changes to how chamber time is used, including changes to portfolio and question times, to reduce the number of questions but increase the frequency with which portfolios are scrutinised. That is not to say that we should ask ministers fewer questions; it just means that we should stop the nonsense of selecting a whole lot of questions that people know we will never get to, and that we should have a bit of rigour around the questions that are asked.
We have also suggested that the Presiding Officer should have a greater role in ensuring more effective debates and scrutiny in the chamber—in terms of both conduct in the chamber and the accuracy and adequacy of oral and written questions. Those recommendations are aimed at increasing effective scrutiny in the chamber and reducing the number of point-scoring exchanges—none of which I have ever been involved in, of course. [Laughter.] People did tell us that they happen, so there we go. On a serious note, people outside Parliament said that they put them off Parliament and politics, which must be our concern.
Our recommendations also recognise the frustration that we heard from former and current MSPs, from across the chamber, about the sometimes poor quality of exchanges in the chamber. That is not new, but it is something that we must address. Where there are poor-quality oral and written answers, we are seeing people moving towards making freedom of information requests, which cannot be good for Parliament.
I welcome the positive comments that many members have made today. As the commission recognises throughout its report, the delivery of some of our recommendations will present challenges. An overriding message of our report is that Parliament has to loosen its stays on the d’Hondt system. We need to stop the arithmetical approach to parliamentary business. Is any individual party reduced in its influence by our ensuring that somebody who really cares about a particular issue is afforded the opportunity to ask a question or to make a speech? I believe that our being innovative in such ways and perhaps being a little more willing to take risks are important.
I will not be able to deal with all the specific points that have been made, but I will attempt to deal with some of them.
I heard what Kenny Gibson said and recognise his position, but I hope that, in general terms, we embrace the need to address what the commission has highlighted.
On First Minister’s question time, the issue was not so much that specific questions would not be asked, but that the questions do not need to be read out. That takes up time, which does not allow more members to come in. We have seen the effectiveness of back-bench questions—even if I was not called today. Members come in without a scripted question, and that has been helpful.
On committees, the most important point was the debate about the need for a second chamber. We need committees that are absolutely committed to the scrutiny role and that will, in their own heads, contemplate the possibility that what has been proposed might not work, because the evidence that has come from elsewhere tells us that. We all have a duty to do that and to ensure that pressure is not put on committee members to diminish their scrutiny role by suggesting that it is not in the party interest for them to reflect on the evidence.
Ruth Davidson and other members raised the role of the Presiding Officers and there is the issue of the Parliamentary Bureau taking ownership of parliamentary business. The commission’s view was that the Government of the day has too much influence in determining the debates in Parliament and then feels an obligation to fill up the space, so that we crush important debates into smaller periods of time. That cannot be a good use of our time. The Presiding Officer should have a role in that.
We know that debates can be chopped up into four-minute bits but I remember that, when I was the party leader, I was given 13 minutes, whether I wanted it or not, when Dr Richard Simpson, sitting at my back, could easily have made a really thoughtful, longer contribution if I could have lent him four or five of my minutes or whatever, or Margo MacDonald, for example, might have added something to the debate. It is about flexibility. We believe—this is very important—that if a debate is going to be living and breathing, we all need to get away from those times when we are asked to make a speech on behalf of our party because the time needs to be filled. We will all have done that. Rather than filling the time, we need to use it effectively to raise issues that are of concern to people.
I will make a couple of final little points.
One of the problems with members’ business debates is that there are not enough slots. A party such as mine will get X number of slots and a member will be lucky to get a chance to speak. More flexibility should be allowed. That is not a threat to anybody; there should be more such opportunities.
I welcome the comments from Andy Wightman and the Liberal Democrats. We should see the report as a package and work on the assumption that we will find a way of delivering on that package, because the report was presented as such. That does not mean that our interpretation of it cannot be flexible, but I urge all members, in recognising the work that has been done, not to look to the bits that will be difficult to deliver but to work on the assumption that we will deliver things, because they came from a consultation that went way beyond us. If, as people, we want to refresh and energise, we should all have a shared commitment to making the recommendations work.
I thank the Presiding Officer for establishing the commission, all the back-bench and front-bench members who contributed, my colleagues in the commission and the people of Scotland, who have shown great faith in this institution and want it to do well. We should build on that good will to ensure that we serve the people of Scotland as well as possible.