Procedures Committee, 23 Apr 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 23, 2002

Official Report 270KB pdf

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Languages

I reconvene the meeting. We move to the second item on the agenda, which is the paper on the use in the Scottish Parliament of languages other than English. I welcome Stephen Hutchinson, the deputy editor of the official report, who is chairman of the group of officials that is examining the issue. Stephen will make some introductory remarks about the paper.

I hope that the committee found our progress report useful and helpful. I am most interested to learn what the committee feels about our report and whether members think that we are going in the right direction.

We have directly addressed two questions. The first is about limits—I think that we answered unhelpfully the question on that by saying that there are no limits. The second question is on the CSG principles, which is the basis of the committee's inquiry. In our view, the principles of the CSG remain valid in many respects. We also found that many of the services or provisions for which the CSG asked have been put in place and, as far as we are aware, they are working satisfactorily. However, we found some significant gaps, particularly in relation to public information, as members heard during the previous agenda item. Members will see from our progress report that we believe that we must focus on that.

The crucial point is that the group believes that we should retain a large measure of flexibility in any language policy. The policy has heretofore been applied quite flexibly, and the requirement to do so will remain. We have reached the stage of finding lots of questions; we are now embarking on trying to find some answers. During the discussion on the previous agenda item, it became clear to me that we are drifting more and more into the territory of equal opportunities. The issue is complex and involves judgments about how far we should go. Susan Deacon asked whether we should reach out only to groups or whether we should go beyond that to reach out to individuals. The answer must be the latter approach, but we must find a mechanism through which to achieve that. What we are after is a policy that works—we are not too fussed about producing a big shiny car that sits on the drive but will not go anywhere.

I am grateful for the opportunity to attend the meeting.

Members will ask questions about the paper. I will start with a question about paragraph 35, which deals with the response that the Parliament might give to the election of an MSP who was not fluent in English—I presume that you mean someone from an ethnic minority.

Your report talks about tailoring support to an individual and that therefore it would not be appropriate to spell out at this stage what you would do. In the previous discussion, Shona Simon made a strong pitch for a policy that takes entirely the opposite approach. She said that people who are considering putting themselves forward for election to the Scottish Parliament should know in advance what sort of support might be in place to assist them to cope effectively with their work in the Parliament as well as in the constituency, and with the public and civic society at large. I wonder whether you think that the group might like to extend its work on and consideration of that area.

I want to relate that previous question to paragraph 5 in the paper, which outlines the group's composition. Would the group consider co-opting representatives of one or two ethnic minority groups, who might be able to offer expertise or perspectives that the group does not currently have? Perhaps a little thinking outside the box would focus the group's minds on avenues or areas that its members had not considered but to which they might be receptive.

Absolutely. I wanted to get a feel that we were in the right football ground—

That is a much more difficult question in Scotland.

If it is felt that we are in the right territory, we will have to do exactly what you suggest. The question whether that will involve a formal membership arrangement or a series of discussions does not matter too much. I am extraordinarily happy that Levi Pay, who spoke very well this morning, is part of the group. He has been extremely helpful in the short time that he has been with us. He knows the territory well; I freely admit that I do not, and am grateful for all the help that I can get. As I said, I will be doing as you have suggested.

I want to concentrate my comments on the Scots language. Paragraph 20 of the report states that in relation to Scots the CSG

"noted ‘most MSPs can be expected to understand spoken and written Scots, and that many of us switch between Scots and standard English' and suggested ‘that no interpretation facilities will be necessary for MSPs wishing to use the Scots language'."

That statement is very positive, because it reflects my belief that the Scots language is living and that most of us know and use it. We do not need bells, whistles and drums to point out that we are speaking in Scots.

That said, the report then goes on to write Scots out of the script. Paragraph 34 says that

"legislation in any language other than English would be inaccessible to the vast majority of the population of Scotland/UK".

Furthermore, signage in the new Parliament building will be in Gaelic and English. Shona Simon talked earlier about how we could reach people whose first language is not English. My claim is that the majority of people who live in Scotland are Scots speakers first and foremost and English speakers second. At times, I have watched in disbelief someone from Africa, for example, speaking much better English than I do; however, they do so rather hesitantly because they are thinking in their own language and translating it into English in their heads. We see this phenomenon all the time, but do not recognise it as such in Scotland. I know that this seems like a long way to ask a question. We do not recognise that when Scots children and adults appear on television or in the media, they look as though, like an African or someone from another country, they do not understand clearly what they are saying. The reason is that they are thinking in Scots and are translating into English. The report does not take cognisance of that fact, although it really ought to have done so.

The Parliament is either a Scottish Parliament or it is not. At the very least, we should have words that say in Scots that it is the Scottish Parliament. Acknowledgement that Scots is alive and well is the one bell and whistle that I would look for. Frank McAveety said "jildy". He also said "stushie", quietly. I am not seeking to see indications of accent in documents, because accents occur throughout the world. I am talking about language—the words that we use every day. I hope for some action. Will you take some action as a result of what I have said?

I am not sure what action you want me to take. I can see no barrier to the use of Scots. I fully accept your point about paragraph 34, which deals with legislation. I will explore that with lawyers. I do not know about signage. That sounds as if I am passing the buck and I apologise for that. I will pursue signage, although that is being dealt with in the context of the new Parliament building—signage consultants have been employed. It is not appropriate for me to wade in on that, as I do not have expertise in that area, but I will pass your points on. The Holyrood progress group and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body might represent a better audience for that point.

In Europe, legislation is enacted in all sorts of languages and that practice will probably broaden. It might well be the case that some words that are used commonly in our language in Scotland could be incorporated in legislation. I will use a simple example, which is Frank McAveety's word, "stushie". We all understand that a stushie is not a fight; it has a somewhat different meaning. My great concern is that the institution plays up to the old myth that when people use Scots words, they do not speak properly. I am all in favour of people speaking properly, but how does one speak properly? The inference is that speaking properly means speaking English. I do not accept that assertion. I do not care what language one speaks; that definition of speaking properly does not apply.

I understand that point. I will put on my official report hat. Official report staff do not experience difficulty with Scots because we do not like Scots or because it is not recognised as a language. Rather, the difficulty is to do with perception. Scots can, when written, look rather more foreign than the reader would have expected when they heard it. We have received complaints when we have reported what we thought was Scots because the person who was speaking felt that they were speaking English. The idea that Scots is bad English represents a difficulty. Although most people realise that Scots is not bad English, the difficulty of that perception remains. The official report can do its bit to try to dispel that perception, but we cannot change the world.

You are being very patient with me, convener. I do not expect the official report to change the world, but it has a duty to report the words that we use if we all understand them. I made it clear that I have great difficulty in understanding written Scots, but I consider myself to be a Scots speaker. The simple reason for that applies not only in Scotland, but in other parts of the world. When a language has been oppressed, the people who retain it often forget how to write it because they have never been taught it. The language stays within families because it is passed down. That has happened to Scots. We have stopped educating people in the Scots language. That happened when we joined the English Parliament. No one has taught Scots in written form, but it would be a good idea to do so. If we start here some people might start to understand the words that they use when they are written down. I hope that you take all that on board. I am sorry to give you a hard time.

When words such as "stushie" have been used in committee meetings, or in meetings of the Parliament, they have appeared in the Official Report. I am not conscious that there is a problem with a word that is identifiably a Scottish word, whether it is stushie, which is still very much a Scottish word, or a word such as "dreich", which has been mainstreamed into the wider English language. The committee is anxious that Stephen Hutchinson should be alert to any sign that we are not fully respectful of the use of Scots expression and Scots idiom, as well as Scots vocabulary.

There are several issues. One is the anomaly that a member found in relation to being able to speak in Scots during a debate about Scots language, but not being able to lodge a question in Scots. I hope that that anomaly will be resolved.

That has been resolved.

Secondly, we could have endless linguistic debates about derivation and who has the dominant use of Scots or English. That has different historic resonance, depending on the period of history that you consider. There are discussions about whether we shared a common language and whether the English spoke Scots or vice versa. There could be endless pub discussions about those points.

It should be seen as appropriate and acceptable if folk use dialect words or Scots words that are appropriate words to use in the context of the discussion or debate. In the same way, the sports pages of the papers are now full of the word "stramash" after an incident at an old firm game, because it is convenient to use that word to describe an incident that was awkward to describe.

I know that there are different views on the matter, depending on whether someone is an advocate for Scots. As someone who has taught Scots in the classroom in the English curriculum and has actively identified the use of Scots writers right through that curriculum, I am broadly sympathetic. However, we must also accept that synthetic and synthesised Scots has been developed by some of our major writers to try to create the concept that there is a common Scots language. A variety of dialects and a variety of forms of Scots language are spoken, but I do not think that there is a commonality. However, people use words when they are appropriate—I deliberately chose words today to create a response. It is not inappropriate to use such words in the proper context. That should be seen as right and proper.

It would be helpful to keep the dialogue on the matter going with, for example, some of those involved in schools who are trying to encourage indigenous Scots speakers to maintain their use of Scots. There was a period in Scottish education when Scots was being driven out of folk. Many folk have written about how Scots was discouraged because it was seen as not being the proper way to speak. That was unacceptable and has now gone from many Scottish schools. I hope that it is not repeated in isolated examples. It might be helpful to talk to some folk who are involved in development of the curriculum about ways in which we could encourage use of Scots without going to the extremes that some advocates of Scots want, whereby everything would be translated into Scots at every opportunity. We should get the balance right. That is the measure that we should use in the discussion today.

I want to talk about what we are trying to achieve in this discussion, what the recommendations are on the use of languages and where the process is. The report on the use of languages other than English is obviously a prelude to a draft languages policy. If there are implications for the standing orders, that will come back to the committee automatically. I think that we are being asked to take a view on whether we want to have a continued watching brief on the issue. As some decisions are still to be made—not necessarily by this committee but by others—I recommend that we keep that watching brief. I have concerns about some aspects of the report, which might be resolved as the policy develops. I will ask about some of my concerns.

I refer to paragraph 22 of the report, about interpretation. The use of correct—and perhaps incorrect—Scots has been mentioned. That might be related to the point that Stephen Hutchinson made about how people feel when they read Scots. It is essential that Scots and Gaelic are included in the Official Report so that we can show people that their languages are being spoken in the Scottish Parliament. That is a practical example of use of those languages.

There would be implications for other languages if a member from an ethnic minority were elected. In relation to paragraph 22 of the paper, it would be absolutely essential that the Official Report contained not only an English interpretation, but the language that was used. That issue might arise if someone from an ethnic minority were elected. We need an advance signal about what will happen.

I want to ask about what happens when other languages are spoken. On European day, which was an odd example, it was flagged up in advance that a number of languages were to be used in the debate in the chamber. If a member wants to use another language, as long as that is flagged up in advance, we should make efforts to ensure that the speech appears in the Official Report in that language. Most members will know in advance whether they want to make a speech in another language. It would be more difficult to include spontaneous speeches.

The matter is a practical one. I know about the work load that the official report must get through to publish reports the next day but, increasingly, people use the web version. If somebody uses another language, is it reasonable to expect that, although that part might not be available in the hard copy for the next day, it should go on the web at the earliest opportunity at which it can be translated? My understanding is that the Official Report of a meeting is kept for alteration for a month, after which—for hundreds of years hence—it remains as the Official Report of the meeting. Is it practically possible to ensure that any language could be in the web version of the Official Report for time immemorial, even though it does not appear the day after the meeting?

I think that the answer is yes. You are absolutely right that the difficulty with incorporating other languages in the overnight production is that that must be resourced. If the languages came from many different directions, that would start to become a big problem. Certainly, the CSG envisaged translations of the Official Report being made available. So far, that has happened only once, but there is no impediment to it. The matter is purely one of cost and time. For example, the Official Report of the Justice 2 Committee that is mentioned in the paper, which I think was from 6 March, was delivered last week.

Obviously, there are resource implications, but the issue is about what we can do, which is quite a bit. The web is a useful tool.

My other question is about motions and questions. I think that members can lodge a motion in another language as long as advance notice is given. I want to check the procedure. Can motions be lodged in other languages, or only in Scots and Gaelic?

Latin has been used.

Technically, motions must be in English, but they can have an accompanying translation. The point is that that accommodates any language.

So any language can be used, including, for example, Urdu.

Yes. There are two points. In principle, any language can be used. The difficulty of lodging motions that are exclusively in any other language, but not in English—I have not explained that terribly well—is that we would end up with a multilingual Parliament, which is not likely to be workable in the foreseeable future because there are not many languages that all members understand. As yet, I have not been able to get to the bottom of the technical problem with non-standard scripts. I am sure that the problem is soluble, but I am not sure in what time scale or at what cost. The obvious problem is with scripts that are written in the opposite direction from the direction in which most European languages are written. We do not even have a facility to key in Russian. Because the application that we use is Microsoft Word, inserting Russian text requires a long and tedious process of using the symbol facility to extract from a menu the Cyrillic letter that is required.

Is that what you did when George Reid spoke?

Yes.

When George Reid spoke French during a debate on post offices, did you report that use of French in the Official Report?

Yes.

It is obvious that there is a spectrum of choice. We can either do nothing or—as we are doing just now—very little, or we can try to translate all languages. However, there is a big spectrum and we must consider where we can fit on it. The previous evidence has made me aware that we should not necessarily presume what people from ethnic minorities want. However, we might be able to achieve a balance. Some debates might have a particular relevance for ethnic minorities. We could access racial equality councils throughout Scotland and tell them about debates in which they might be interested. We could be proactive by translating such debates in the Official Report into particular languages and broadcasting them. Is that feasible within the context of the draft languages policy?

Yes, it is feasible. What I would like to do is discuss with such groups what they think would be most useful. I am also conscious of the paper's entirely fair point about assuming that speakers of particular languages are interested only in specific issues. We need possibly to think outside the box a little bit about the information that we provide and how we provide it. There is a horrible silence about ethnic minority languages. It is very hard to get figures and information that can be used. We have much more work to do on that front.

For this inquiry, we were at a public meeting in Ullapool on Friday. A strong case was made there for the Gaelic language to be used in Parliament, particularly in documents. That case arose partly from the fact that there is a Gaelic-medium school in Ullapool. People at the meeting questioned how one could encourage pupils to believe that the Parliament is their Parliament if they do not have access to basic parliamentary materials in their language.

In fact, the point was not about access. It was understood that the people who could speak Gaelic could also speak English. The point was about status and respect for the Gaelic language. Those people speak two languages, but all parliamentary documentation and the Parliament website is in one language only. Therefore, what is Parliament saying about one language compared with the other? I suppose that a huge resource question is involved, particularly once one starts to extend that language point from the Parliament into the Executive and to non-departmental public bodies. It might be a question of how far one can go. However, the question should be addressed and appropriate recommendations and options should be given.

I will add something on that point. I said to Fiona Hyslop that there was a deafening silence regarding ethnic minority languages. The only noise that Levi Pay seems to be picking up about those languages is that if we push harder for Gaelic provision—there is no reason why we should not do so—while the ethnic minority provision is so poor, the ethnic minority voice will be unhappy. I think that we must do an awful lot more levelling up in the first instance. There is a sense almost of competition.

I understand. Public information leaflets are currently available in English and Gaelic. It seems to be a huge anomaly that the same basic information is not available in other commonly used minority languages. The paper makes the point that Parliament could choose to accept petitions in a range of languages. Why do we not do so? Is it necessary to have a policy before somebody can write the basic petitions brief in, for example, Gujarati, and put it on the web or make it available in offices? It strikes me that we could have been more proactive in particular areas—in obvious ways—right from the beginning.

Those are separate issues. There is an assumption that the basic guts of how the Parliament works should be available in all the appropriate languages. In that case, if there is an official policy to promote Gaelic as a language that is equal in status in public policy with English, how far should we go to promote and resource that in everything that we do?

That is a critical point. Can I come in on that?

Susan Deacon is very patient.

I am sorry, Susan. I would be concerned if the Parliament's approach to its languages policy did not recognise the current and future status of Gaelic. That is different from the issue of accessibility and from ensuring that people can access the Parliament in whatever language they require. However, I would be very worried if the Parliament treated Gaelic as an ethnic minority language and did not recognise its status.

I am sorry. I saw you jump. I am sorry if I gave the wrong message. The Parliament has not taken on a formal role of promoting Gaelic. The committee may wish to consider that.

It is clear that the two issues are different. I am keen to unravel them. We are talking about horses for courses. The Parliament may have a policy towards Gaelic or Scots that would be specific to those languages, and it may have a quite different policy towards the other languages that are spoken in Scotland. As far as I can tell, differences exist even amongst those languages. Some of them are the languages of communities that are quite well established and other languages are spoken by more recent arrivals. I am interested to try to track down the information needs of each of those groups, as their needs may vary.

Thank you.

The points that I want to raise flow from the last part of the discussion, in particular the points that the convener and Stephen Hutchinson made about the balance of attention and action vis-à-vis Gaelic and Scots on the one hand and, on the other hand, what I guess we are badging as ethnic minority languages. It worries me that the balance of the discussion is disproportionate. It could be argued that we have spent too long having a stushie about a stushie when a wider bundle of issues is involved.

The convener made a factual statement about how it was self-evident that the Parliament's public information should be available in other languages. However, I have to return to my normal preoccupation about finite time and resources. I would be concerned if a disproportionate amount of time, energy and resources were to be spent on considering a number of internal documents and translations of Official Reports and other documents of that nature.

Those issues are valid, but I would be concerned if a lot of energy, time and resources were directed towards doing that when we are barely at the starting post of ensuring that our main access points for the public—be it the home page of the Parliament's website, basic information about the Petitions Committee or whatever—are available in a range of different languages. It is crucial that those languages include Urdu, Cantonese and so on, as they are languages that are spoken widely across Scotland.

It is not an either/or situation. I do not want to juxtapose the two issues, but I suggest that we try to get the balance right. We have made good progress on Gaelic. The issues around Scots are different, partly because of the status issue, about which we could have a very long discussion. Progress has been made in that respect, but our progress on the other languages that are spoken in Scotland is pretty poor and the Parliament has a real job to do to catch up.

The issue involves relative priorities. I would like a high priority to be given to the access points for the public. That would ensure that as many people as possible across Scotland can enter through those first points of access. It is important that we take those steps as a matter of urgency, particularly as we are still an all-white Parliament.

I will stop there, as I am repeating the same point, although I hope that you will take that point on board. I am not saying that you should not attend to the issues that members have spoken about today. However, I ask that we strike the right balance and ensure that we are not overly inward looking but that we turn outwards and think about all the groups that we need to reach out to.

I was holding back because I expected questions to be asked, but there has been a lot of discussion.

The most intelligent point in the paper is that we should talk to groups that can speak authoritatively for the various ethnic minority groups to find out what they want. We should be reactive. It would be a gross waste of resources if we were to devote a lot of energy to putting in place a policy to ensure that an MSP who could not speak English was okay. The chances of that happening are as near nil as makes no odds.

There are far more white Scots who cannot read than there are ethnic minority Scots. I am in the middle of a series of visits to jails and that fact is bearing down on me. I am not arguing that we should neglect one group, but we must keep things in proportion. We should set up a group that is representative of ethnic minorities and find out what would be helpful. If people make a reasonable demand for a translation of a specific document or speech, we should respond to it. Just as local authorities do, we could supply basic documents in a number of relevant languages. However, it is stupid to spend a huge amount of resources on producing policies for reasons of political correctness when those policies will get little use.

I do not think that anyone has suggested that we should put in a huge amount of resources, Donald. However, Shona Simon suggested that we should be clear about what we could do in the event that someone who was elected to the Parliament was more comfortable speaking Gujarati or Hindi than English. It would not be unrealistic for that situation to develop and it would be helpful if we were to make clear what we could do and what should be done in certain circumstances. Otherwise, we would be saying to ethnic minorities that they were entitled to send to the Parliament only people who were very fluent in English. You might expect that that would be the case frequently, ordinarily or even overwhelmingly, but you are not entitled to say that it must be the case.

I took it that we were to spend a lot of time and energy on the putative, non-English speaking MSP. I am against that approach. If people want to have a contingency plan that would come into play if a non-English speaking MSP were elected, that would be fine. The issue of resources is fundamental. The paper says that translating one document would cost £2,000 or £3,000. The sort of actions that we are discussing could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds that could be better spent in other ways.

As Susan Deacon said, we must recognise the distinct difference between ethnic minority languages that have not been discriminated against and two other languages that come to mind—I almost walked into the trap that I have been writing about.

The first example is that of the Kurdish language. The language of people in Kurdistan has been subjugated—the pressure on Kurdish is enormous—and, in Scotland, there are children who do not recognise or want to learn their own language because of the political pressure that has been put on them. It would be good if we could look at that problem.

The second language is Gaelic, which has been under immense pressure from Government. For example, children had sticks put around their necks and were beaten if they spoke Gaelic. My grandmother told me that Gaelic was a tinkers' language and that people in Glasgow did not dare to speak it. That type of treatment of a language still echoes in society. Millions and billions of pounds were spent to undermine that language. It would not be a bad thing to spend a wee bit on redressing that.

We have identified that there has to be a discussion and decisions about the extent to which Gaelic can be supported or promoted. We have seen that Gaelic is different from an ethnic language that has arrived in our country where the issue is allowing people to become involved in mainstream society. What we do about Gaelic is a bigger thing than something for the committee. The views that we have expressed can be part of the wider debate.

I have two brief points to table while they are still in my head. One is to pick up on something that Shona Simon said earlier, although I am sure that those who are dealing with the issue will be thinking of practical ways that translation and interpretation services can piggyback on existing services. Shona made some interesting points about the City of Edinburgh Council and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service having done a lot of work on that. That is a practical thing. Let us not reinvent it if we do not need to.

I hope my other point is not too tangential. I am thinking again of the big picture of Parliament talking to the world. It is a wee bit disappointing when you go on to the Parliament website and there is no European dimension there in the way that there is increasingly on a lot of organisations' websites and other forms of communication. I am thinking about French, German and Spanish.

I am not suggesting that we want a massive translation. I am just talking about four or five pages of basic information. There is a huge amount of international interest in what the Parliament does. To see even a fairly minimal level of information available in a range of international languages would be a good thing for those wider reasons. I do not know if that is germane to the current exercise.

So long as any information that we provide in that way is mediated through a native language speaker and we do not produce the equivalent of many of the tourist information leaflets and brochures that we see abroad. They have been written by someone who is not fluent in our language and we laugh at the solecisms. If we are going to do that, let us do it with proper expertise and respect.

It is interesting that there is a tourist information point on the corner of the street outside where people can get access to information about the Parliament in different languages, but when we attract people to the Parliament, they might not be able to access that information through the website.

There are fact files in European languages that are aimed specifically at visitors to the Parliament.

So the issue is about finding them and advertising them.

Are they on the web?

No, they are in hard copy, as far as I know.

If you take anything from this discussion, it is the conclusion, which mentions the

"distinction drawn between participation by members in the proceedings of the Parliament …"

which the committee deals with—the Official Report, lodging questions, the mechanics and internal focus—and

"the Parliament's interaction with the public."

In this and the previous meeting of the committee, perhaps the committee is looking at more than just the internal workings of the Parliament. The issue is more to do with how the Parliament engages in civic participation and how languages and other issues allow equality of opportunity than it has to do with procedures and standing orders of the Parliament. The emphasis is on how the Parliament interacts with the public, full stop, and its languages and accessibility. That is the point we gained from our inquiry.

Perhaps we have to go back to the development of the draft languages policy and to the correct group in the corporate body and say that the emphasis should not be only on the languages but on the Parliament's civic participation strategy and how it allows interaction with the public in whatever language and whatever form they want.

It is equal opportunities time, David.

I hate to sound like an academic, but I will have to. The problem is the use of the word "English". It is now recognised, at least in the trade, that there is no form of standard English; there is American English, Scots English, Australian English and so on. There is no solution to the problem because English is deemed to be too many different things. However, it is clear from idiom, grammar and syntax, never mind vocabulary, that Scots English is being used.

I am not suggesting that we should convert all references to "English" to "Scots English". I am sure that a very different idiom of English is used in the Australian equivalent of the Official Report, but it would still be called English. We simply have to do that. As for symbolism, I share Gil Paterson's view about the importance of Scots, which is actually Scots English. There we go—the lesson is over.

That was Professor McCrone's bawbee's worth.

I look forward to reading that in the Official Report.

I very much welcome the steps that have been taken and the development of a language policy. The matter does have implications for resources. For example, the expectations that have been placed on the Gaelic officer far exceed his ability to carry them out, and we need to put more resources and staff into that area if the Parliament is to be serious about its commitment to Gaelic.

Obviously, the SPCB will address those issues, but the question is whether we have committed ourselves to Gaelic or whether we have simply made a token gesture in that direction. We have to think through what we expect the Gaelic officer to deliver, because he or she cannot single-handedly emulate every service that the Parliament offers. It is unrealistic to think that they could do so.

I thank the witnesses and hope that our comments help them. We look forward to further developments in the policy. As Fiona Hyslop put it, we will maintain a watching brief on the matter.