Official Report 1067KB pdf
The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-19565, in the name of Graham Simpson, on the Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill at stage 1. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons. I call Graham Simpson, the member in charge of the bill, to speak to the motion.
14:56
It has taken a long time to reach today’s stage 1 debate on the Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill. I first suggested that we should do something in this area in the previous session of Parliament, following a number of conversations with my then party leader, Ruth Davidson. I got things formally moving on the bill at the start of this session, the end of which we are perilously near. The bill was introduced in December 2024 and has been at stage 1 for 11 months. It should not take this long for a member’s bill to be dealt with. In the past, we have seen bills fall due to lack of time.
I can now, at last, say that I am grateful to the non-Government bills unit for its work on the bill so far. We still have a lot of work to do in a very short space of time. I also thank the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee for its report, which I will come on to. I also thank the former Minister for Parliamentary Business, Jamie Hepburn, who is sitting in the chamber, for his positive engagement on the bill.
If the Parliament does not get the bill over the line in this session, Scotland will be left as the only part of the United Kingdom without a recall system. That would represent a failure of Parliament that I do not want to see. We must collectively rise to the challenge. The Welsh are now edging ahead of us, having taken evidence from me as they thought about how they might tackle the issue. Last week, their Government introduced a bill that includes a recall process for all members of their Parliament.
My bill would improve democratic accountability by ensuring that MSPs can be removed more easily if our conduct falls short of what our constituents could reasonably expect. The first part of my bill would introduce a recall system for the Scottish Parliament, drawing on the Recall of MPs Act 2015, but adapting those provisions to ensure that they work with our distinct electoral system.
The bill sets out that any member will be subject to a recall petition if one of two trigger conditions is met. The first trigger is if the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee recommends to Parliament a sanction of 14 days or 10 sitting days, and Parliament resolves to sanction the member for that period. The second trigger is if the member is sentenced to prison for a period of up to six months.
The Presiding Officer would then begin the recall petition process. That would be a four-week process for the electorate to indicate whether they consider that the member should be subject to recall. For a constituency member, if a threshold of 10 per cent of the electorate in that constituency signing the petition were met, the member would be removed from office. They would have the option of running in the resulting by-election to seek to regain their seat. For regional MSPs, my original proposal—the one in the bill that is before us—was to have a recall petition process across the region, which would require 10 per cent of the region’s electorate to sign a recall petition. In addition, at least three constituencies within that region would have to reach the 10 per cent threshold.
Opposing the suggestion that MSPs who change political parties should be recalled, Mr Simpson, who is now a Reform MSP, said:
“People switch parties for various reasons. They could have been mistreated by their current party. They might find coming into work a total nightmare and think that they cannot put up with it any longer. Would you punish somebody who was in that situation by subjecting them to a recall vote? I do not think that you would; it would not be fair.”—[Official Report, Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, 19 June 2025; c 11.]
I will not ask Graham Simpson whether he is working through some emotions with that comment. I just want you to know that I am always here if you need someone to talk to. However, surely if someone is elected in a closed ballot and that person switches party, they should not continue in the Parliament.
Always speak through the chair.
I am always happy to speak to Mr Gibson and to take up his offer of help.
What he otherwise suggests is not something that I agree with. I think that it is outwith the scope of the bill, but no doubt that will be tested at stage 2.
I am suggesting that a yes/no poll would be held across the region on a given day. That would allow the electorate to vote to keep or to remove the member by a simple majority. If the member were removed, they would be replaced by the next member on the party list to which they were elected—that would address Mr Gibson’s point. If the member is an independent, they would not be replaced.
Part 2 of my bill reduces the length of custodial sentence that results in the automatic removal of an MSP from more than 12 months to six months. It also provides that if an MSP does not attend parliamentary proceedings in person for a six-month period without a good reason, the SPPA Committee can recommend to Parliament that they are removed from office. The Parliament would then vote on whether to resolve to remove them.
Will the member take an intervention?
If I get the time back.
There is a wee bit of time at this point, if the member wishes to take the intervention.
I will take one more intervention.
What might you consider to be “a good reason”?
If you are perfectly fit and able to come in, you should come in. That is the position.
I turn to the committee report. I am grateful to the committee members—
Will the member take another intervention?
No, I will not take any more interventions—maybe I will do so later.
I am grateful to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee members for unanimously recommending that Parliament supports the general principles of the bill. The committee report comments on all areas of the bill, but it is fair to say that it does not make clear the committee’s collective position on a number of the provisions. For example, I am not sure whether the committee is for or against my potentially confusing and expensive proposal for the recall of regional members.
I assumed from the committee’s evidence and from its members’ questioning that it would be against that proposal, so I wrote to the committee on the day that its report was published to advise that I am now intending, if the bill passes stage 1, to amend that process to reflect the simpler approach that is proposed in the Welsh Government’s new bill. That would remove the recall petition process for regional MSPs and replace it with a straightforward poll on whether to retain or remove a member, which would be decided by a simple majority across the region. If the member lost that vote, they would be replaced by the next person on the party list, in the usual way.
That change would deal with many of the concerns that were raised in the committee’s report, and I would welcome comments from members across the Parliament on that proposal during the debate. What I am now proposing is a Scottish system that models its approach to the recall of constituency MSPs on the UK Parliament’s system and its approach to recall of regional MSPs on the Welsh Government’s system.
On the provisions on disqualification for a lack of physical attendance in the Parliament, my starting point for the bill was the fact that any MSP could, in theory, not attend the Parliament, either remotely or in person, for their entire term. That is the fact of the matter, and it is the law that councillors cannot get away with that, unless they have a good reason to be absent. I am of the view that it is not unreasonable to expect a fit and healthy MSP to come into the Parliament at least once every six months, and most people would agree with that.
Throughout the bill process, I have been clear that people’s personal circumstances should be dealt with in confidence, and I am not really sure why there has been confusion on that point. The committee had concerns about how the process would work in practice. It took issue with the role that the committee is being asked to perform and the lack of detail in the bill as to how the process would work and the criteria to inform its deliberations on what is or is not a reasonable excuse. The committee was dead against imposing a physical attendance requirement on MSPs.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am afraid not, Mr Cole-Hamilton—perhaps I will be able to give way during my closing speech.
It could be that that element of the bill will be removed during stage 2, which would be a shame.
I will support Kevin Stewart’s interesting amendment. I do not see it as a wrecking amendment, as some have suggested. I will listen with interest to Mr Stewart, as I always do, and I look forward to his contribution at stage 2—if we get there.
The most important element of the bill is recall, and I am absolutely determined to see a recall process being introduced during this parliamentary session. To that end, I also accept that introducing a change in the length of prison sentence that is required to lead to a member’s automatic removal from the Parliament might not carry the overall support of the Parliament. If those provisions were removed, the recall process would still kick in for members who received a prison sentence of less than 12 months.
I am interested to hear the views of members from across the chamber.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill.
15:07
I congratulate Graham Simpson on getting his member’s bill to this stage. I recognise that it takes a lot of effort to progress a member’s bill through the Parliament—in this case, as Mr Simpson said, it has taken some 11 months thus far. The Parliament needs to look at the resourcing of the non-Government bills unit, so that life is made easier for members, and I hope that that can be done.
Let me begin by saying that there is a place for many of the provisions in the bill, and I will support the general principles today, but that I have concerns about some aspects of Mr Simpson’s proposals. I strongly believe that a parliamentary complaints and sanctions process, backed by appropriate guidance, must be put in place in relation to section 2 of the bill. I have no skin in the game as I will not be returning to the Parliament after the next election, but I want to see a fair system in place for MSPs of all political colours.
On the removal provisions, I am sure that no one in the Parliament would disagree that a member who is imprisoned for a period should be removed, but I have some concerns about the proposal to remove someone who is unable to come to the Parliament for 128 days.
I could give lots of examples of such a scenario, but I will not go into them as we need to tease them out during stage 2. I was ill before the summer recess and unable to come to Edinburgh and to the Parliament. However, during most of my time away from the Parliament, I continued to do my job: I asked questions; I voted; I took part in stage 2 proceedings; and I continued to deal with correspondence and oversee my constituency casework. Not being in the Parliament physically does not necessarily mean that people are not doing their jobs. Also, does anyone have the right to pry into people’s health issues, their caring responsibilities and so on? I am glad that Mr Simpson said that such issues should be treated with confidentiality. There are arguments about what constitutes reasonableness and, again, those need to be teased out. In my opinion, the Parliament should be very careful in all its decisions on the proposal.
I turn to the recall provisions. Much has been made of the fact that those aspects of Mr Simpson’s bill are largely based on the system that is in place at Westminster. However, that is not necessarily the case. At Westminster, complaints that MPs have breached the code of conduct are investigated by the independent Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, whose independent report is considered by the Committee on Standards before conclusions and recommendations are made to the whole House of Commons, which decides whether to impose a sanction on the MP involved. That can involve an apology to the house or, in more serious cases, suspension or expulsion. There is also a right of appeal for members.
The Committee of Privileges can consider any matter concerning MPs that is referred to it by the Commons, and it has the same parliamentary members as the Committee on Standards. It can recommend that the MP apologises or is suspended or expelled, and that recommendation goes to the House of Commons for a vote. Again, there is a right of appeal. Complaints about expenses are dealt with by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority compliance officer, and, again, MPs can appeal against any suspension. If an MP is suspended for at least 10 sitting days under the Recall of MPs Act 2015, constituents can trigger a by-election as long as at least 10 per cent of eligible voters sign a recall petition. However, the whole situation is preceded by independent processes in the UK Parliament, where there is a right of appeal.
I believe that the introduction of a workable recall mechanism for the Scottish Parliament is possible, I believe that it is the right thing to do, and I believe that there is support across the Parliament for introducing it. However, it is clear to me—and I know that other members across the chamber share my view—that there must be a better, more independent process ahead of that recall with clear guidance on sanctions. That can happen only if a process is put in place in advance and if that process is independent and not open to abuse, bias or political motivation.
In its stage 1 report on the bill, the committee notes that
“the evidence provided that the provision for a parliamentary-sanction ground for recall could influence the Parliament’s consideration of applying a sanction to a Member, and that this process carries potential to be politicised.”
How can any MSP have confidence or feel secure in a justice process for any future Scottish Parliament MSP if we know that partisan politics might be put before the process and that prejudice might be put before Parliament?
Again, I reiterate that I strongly believe that a parliamentary complaints and sanctions process that is backed by appropriate guidance in relation to section 2 of the bill must be put in place by the Parliament. I urge members to support the amendment in my name. I assure Mr Simpson and others that I will work with any member to get the bill right. The Parliament must get it right.
I move amendment S6M-19565.1, to insert at end:
“, and, in so doing, believes that consideration should be given to agreeing a parliamentary complaints and sanctions process, backed by appropriate guidance, in relation to section 2 of the Bill.”
15:14
I thank Graham Simpson for his open and constructive engagement on the bill, and the non-Government bills unit for its work on it. I, too, thank the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee for its stage 1 report. The committee has carefully considered the strengths and weaknesses of the bill, and I note the committee’s conclusions and recommendations with interest.
I welcome what I believe to be the intent of Kevin Stewart’s reasoned amendment to the motion, which would enable us to address one of the key challenges that the bill presents: its interaction with the on-going review of this Parliament’s complaints and sanctions regime. However, I recognise that there might be other views, and I look forward to the debate.
We all want a Parliament in which the highest standards are upheld and in which the public can have confidence that those who represent them will be held to account when they do not meet those standards. We need to have in place robust, fair, transparent and efficient systems so that voters can hold their representatives to account. However, we need those systems to be workable for this Parliament and for the people who elect its members.
The Parliament in Westminster has in place a system for voters to recall MPs, as we have heard, and the Welsh Government has just introduced a bill to introduce recall provisions in the Senedd. Surely, we should be no different in our ambition, although I reiterate that we need a system that works for Scotland.
As the committee has concluded, there is broad support for the principle of recall and for the introduction of recall measures in the Scottish Parliament, and the Scottish Government supports the general principles of the bill. However, the committee has made a clear statement on the challenges that it presents. The committee’s report highlights
“some fundamental issues that would need to be addressed at Stage 2 for the Bill to be able to deliver its intended purpose.”
It also highlights issues of detail that would need further attention.
As we have heard, we await the outcome of the independent review into the parliamentary complaints process. It is important that the Parliament understands and agrees what the complaints and sanctions process would look like before it is finally asked to endorse a bill that will, in part, depend on that process and could result in an elected member being subject to the recall procedure.
At present, the Parliament’s standing orders note the available sanctions under the Interests of Members of the Scottish Parliament Act 2006. However, the 2006 act discusses sanctions only in relation to a breach of the register of members’ interests. There is no legislative basis for sanctions under the code of conduct, and there is no guidance. We would all want that to be addressed so that members of the Parliament now and in the future can trust and have confidence in the processes and procedures. That is why the Government is minded to support Kevin Stewart’s reasoned amendment.
The Scottish Government’s support for the general principles of the bill is conditional on changes to the bill at stage 2, reflecting the significant concerns that are raised in the committee’s report. To his credit, Mr Simpson has already begun that work, and we have discussed potential changes to the regional recall process in the light of the committee’s concerns. As we have heard, Mr Simpson has written to the committee outlining his thinking on a new single-stage approach. We would be happy to work with him and other members to develop amendments on that and other areas that strike the right balance between complexity and cost, as the committee recommended.
The committee’s concerns with the bill go beyond simply the processes for regional recall. The committee questions whether the threshold for the recall and removal of MSPs on the ground of criminal offence has been set at the right level. It calls for new provisions on campaigning rules and for a rethink of the provisions on physical non-attendance in the building as a ground for disqualification.
I will focus initially on the attendance provisions. I note that the committee is explicit on the issue, stating that it
“does not think a Member’s absence should be considered a misconduct issue”,
and that “requiring physical attendance” is not the correct basis on which to disqualify someone from membership of the Parliament. It is not for the Government to take the lead in matters that rightly belong to the Scottish Parliament to consider, but the Government has heard what the committee has to say and understands entirely its concerns.
The committee has taken issue with the process of managing non-attendance, should those provisions remain in the bill. We recognise those concerns. We should not create a system that requires a committee of the Parliament to seek, hold and make judgments on personal information about MSPs and their family members, including on what sort of excuses should be determined reasonable, with the prospect of the removal of an MSP as an outcome. Without a clear, objective and fair process for non-attendance issues to be investigated, we risk exposing members with caring responsibilities or health issues to possible disqualification, instead of those people who the bill seeks to capture.
The committee has raised concerns about the criminal offence triggers for recall and removal in the bill, and it has asked Mr Simpson
“to reflect on whether the bar for the recall and removal of MSPs on the grounds of criminal offence has been set at the right level.”
Laws are in place that disqualify an MSP if they receive a custodial sentence of more than 12 months and are imprisoned as a result. The bill proposes to lower that threshold for disqualification to sentences of six months and to introduce a separate trigger for recall if an MSP receives a custodial sentence of less than six months for a criminal offence.
Would it not be simpler and clearer to retain the 12-month threshold for removal and make a custodial sentence of 12 months or less a trigger for recall? Twelve months is the maximum sentence in non-jury trials and is a recognised threshold in our justice system. The Government would be willing to work with members on amendments to that effect.
Finally, the committee has asked Mr Simpson to consider—
Will the minister give way?
Absolutely.
This is the intervention that I wanted to make during Graham Simpson’s opening speech; I still intend to make an intervention when he is making his closing remarks. We are talking about figures for recall. One such trigger that I would like to explore—perhaps with the member in charge of the bill and with the Government—is when members of the Scottish Parliament are included on the list of people who are barred from working with children and vulnerable adults. In such cases, they should not be allowed to retain their seats in this Parliament because they can no longer hope to do their job. Would the minister be prepared to work with me on that?
I would certainly be prepared to explore that with the member. He gets to the nub of today’s activity: we should be exploring whether the proposals in front of us are as robust as they should be, whether they go too far or whether they need to be expanded on, so that we design a system that is fit for purpose. I am more than happy to commit to working with the member on that.
The committee has asked Mr Simpson to consider provisions to address campaigning rules during the recall petition signing period. We can all agree that we need transparency on expenditure and donations in relation to recall provisions, just as we do for electoral events.
We have heard that there is much work to be done to get the bill right and relatively little time in which to do it. If the Parliament agrees to it, we will work with Mr Simpson and colleagues across this chamber on elements of the bill, so that the support for the general principles that the Scottish Government offers today can lead to continued support in the stages ahead.
I call Martin Whitfield to speak on behalf of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee.
15:21
I thank everyone who contributed to the scrutiny of the Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) (Scotland) Bill; the respondents to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee’s call for views; the stakeholders and academics who gave evidence; the Scottish Government for its input; and, of course, Mr Simpson for introducing the bill.
The intention behind the bill is to improve the democratic accountability of MSPs during a parliamentary session. Mr Simpson has proposed a process by which members may be recalled on the grounds of their conduct. He has also sought to broaden the criteria for automatic disqualification of members.
I will set out the main conclusions and recommendations that the committee has reached on those issues. First, I will turn to the issue of recall. Our evidence indicated that there is broad support for allowing for the recall of members of the Scottish Parliament. We heard that recall would give the public greater say in holding members accountable for their conduct and that it could promote public confidence and trust in this institution. Mr Simpson has described recall as “a deterrent”, and we agree that issues of conduct should be the primary focus of any recall system introduced to the Parliament.
Of course, recall is not a new idea. In ancient Greece, the Athenians had a system of ostracism, whereby politicians could be exiled for up to 10 years. To quote Diadorus the Sicilian,
“The Athenians, it appears, pass such a law not for the purpose of punishing wrongdoing, but in order to lower through exile the presumption of men who had risen too high.”
Therefore, it is an ancient problem.
I digress. Mr Simpson has not gone that far. Instead, his proposal is inspired by the established process at Westminster for the recall of MPs. Although the committee agrees that that is a sensible approach, we stressed that any recall system must work with our electoral system of constituency and regional MSPs.
The bill proposes that a member may be subject to recall on the grounds either of receiving a parliamentary sanction of at least 10 sitting days or of being convicted of an offence and receiving a custodial sentence of less than six months.
Our witnesses were broadly in favour of keeping the grounds limited to those areas. The Electoral Reform Society noted that the parliamentary sanctions process can appear rather “opaque to the public”; we recognise that clarity would be essential when communicating the reasons as to why any recall-triggering sanction had been recommended.
During our evidence gathering, the question arose of whether a member who changes or leaves their political party should be subject to recall. Of course, members will have their own views on the matter. The committee notes simply that
“such an approach would be unique within the ... UK”.
We make a number of recommendations on the arrangements for recall petitions, with a view to ensuring that the process is as accessible as possible. We think that providing for a maximum number of 10 petition-signing places is a useful guide for the petition officers. Since those places are likely to be different from our normal election polling stations, their locations and opening times must be communicated clearly. The cut-off point for determining eligibility to sign a petition must also be made clear, and provision should be made for signing by post or by proxy, so that all with the right to sign a petition can do so.
On the 10 per cent threshold for determining a successful petition, some witnesses suggested that that might be relatively low, and we heard no clear views on an alternative figure. However, we recognise that the purpose of the threshold is to indicate whether there is public interest in moving to the next phase of a recall process. In addition, we think that there may be merit in closing a petition early if that threshold has been reached.
In relation to the proposed dual threshold for petitions to recall regional MSPs, the committee asks Mr Simpson to consider whether that could present a higher bar for recall of regional MSPs than for recall of their constituency counterparts.
In relation to successful petitions, the bill provides us with different processes for filling vacant constituency and regional seats. Although a constituency seat is to be filled through a normal by-election, in which the recalled member could stand, a regional seat could be filled through a regional poll, which would offer the recalled member an opportunity to retain their seat. If they were unsuccessful in the poll, the seat would be filled in the way that regional vacancies are usually filled. Stakeholders had significant concerns about the idea of a regional poll, and I welcome the proposals that have been made to seek to amend that.
I listened very carefully to Kevin Stewart’s contribution regarding his amendment to the motion, but I am afraid that I remain unclear about what he envisages in relation to section 2, so I cannot support the amendment. If the issue had been raised with the committee at stage 1, we could have explored and reported on it and allowed the Parliament to take an informed view on Mr Stewart’s amendment. If the general principles are agreed to today, there will be an opportunity to explore the range of ideas that Mr Stewart raised, and I would welcome engagement in that process.
I turn to the provisions in part 2 of the bill for the removal of members for not physically attending the Parliament for 180 days without reasonable explanation. We understand that the public and members may hold expectations that MSPs should physically attend the Parliament. However, the committee must have regard to our standing orders, which enable members to take part in proceedings remotely on an equal basis and thereby represent our constituents fully without physically attending. The committee has concerns about the proposed process for deciding whether a member has a reasonable explanation for—
Will the member give way on that point?
I am more than happy to, Mr Carlaw.
Therein lies the problem, because, if we had passed this legislation in 2015, the hybrid arrangements that we now have would not have been reflected in it, and members could thereby have been recalled. Similarly, we do not know what the arrangements might be in a future session of Parliament, for which we might now set out criteria in the legislation. Therefore, it seems to me that we are trying to predict the future in ways that I think we cannot absolutely do.
I am grateful for that intervention. It is true that there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns. We do not know what the position would have been if history had chosen differently. We need to look at the position that we are in now. As a representative of the committee that has the responsibility for standing orders, I point out that we need to take account of what we do at the moment. It is right to say that a not insignificant number of members have been able to fully contribute to proceedings of this Parliament remotely, which would not have been possible without the hybrid arrangements that we now have.
The committee had concerns about the process for deciding what constituted a reasonable explanation for absence. The proposed process gives rise to serious questions about privacy. It would seem inappropriate to make the committee the vehicle for investigating, and for making a decision on, a member’s explanation. The committee is not persuaded by that proposal. We would invite Mr Simpson—
Will the member give way?
I am happy to.
I am recalling the committee’s discussion on the use of language and how we were careful not to use the word “excuse” in any of the recommendations in our report. Would the convener comment on that?
Absolutely, because looking at the data and the reasons for the excuse are challenging, because it presupposes a need to explain an absence. I welcome Mr Simpson’s offer to reconsider those elements in the bill.
To conclude, fundamental issues need to be addressed if the bill is to deliver its intended purpose. I welcome the Scottish Government’s confirmation that it will support members across the chamber in that regard. I also appreciate and understand that Mr Simpson has indicated that he will look at a number of those issues. For the purposes of stage 1, the committee recommends that the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the bill.
15:30
I start by saying that I fully support the principle that is at the heart of the bill, which is that members of Parliament must be accountable to the people who elect us. The proposal formed part of the Scottish Conservatives’ 2021 manifesto and it aims to allow the public to better hold politicians to account in Holyrood. Accountability sits at the core of public trust and, when standards fall or when the actions of members of the Scottish Parliament damage confidence in the institution, it is right that there should be a mechanism that enables the public to respond. The principle must, however, be underpinned by a system that is fair, workable and fit for the realities of modern public life, and perhaps that changes as things evolve.
The bill attempts to address two important issues: the removal and recall of members who have been convicted of crimes or sanctioned by the Parliament, and the introduction of a recall process such as the one that exists at Westminster. Those are serious matters and they deserve serious scrutiny.
I recognise the effort that has gone into the bill but, as it is drafted, I have several concerns, not about its intent, but about how it would work in practice and whether it would deliver true accountability without unintended consequences.
First, on recall and the principle of defection, our list system in Scotland is designed to reflect proportional representation. People vote for parties as much as they vote for individuals. That means that every MSP who is elected on a regional list owes their place in the chamber to the voters who supported that party’s platform. If a member chooses to defect from the party under which they were elected, they no longer represent those voters and they no longer have that mandate. That, to me, is a democratic betrayal.
In those circumstances, there should be a clear consequence. Either the individual should be subject to a recall process, or, more straightforwardly, they should just resign and allow the next candidate on the party’s list to take their place. That would make it clear that seats in the Parliament belong to the voters, not to politicians’ personal ambitions.
I have no strong opinion on that either way, but I reflect on Ms Webber’s colleague Mr Kerr, who has been a strident campaigner on loosening the grip of party whips on business in the Parliament. Does she not feel that removing or recalling an MSP who has changed party could strengthen party business managers’ grips on their own groups and therefore the business in Parliament?
Mr Kerr has been a whip in our party, and I am sure that he enjoyed every moment of it. As I said, I am giving my opinion and I feel passionately about the party that got me here. That is where we are.
Secondly, I return to the proposal that members should be removed for failing to physically attend Parliament for 180 days. We have heard a lot about that from Mr Stewart. I understand the desire to ensure engagement and accountability, but I have concerns about how that would work in practice. We have embraced hybrid working, not just in response to the pandemic but as a reflection of modern working life. I also take into consideration Mr Carlaw’s comments.
We know that being a good MSP is not just about sitting in the chamber. It is about being in our constituencies, meeting community groups, listening to businesses, visiting schools, representing local people and picking up the casework that Mr Stewart spoke about. We also know that things sometimes happen in our lives that are out of our control. Members might have long-term health conditions, caring responsibilities or other legitimate reasons for needing to work flexibly. To suggest that a member could lose their seat simply because they were not physically present for a period of time risks undermining the process and it could discourage people with caring duties, disabilities or whatever from standing for election, and we want this place to be inclusive. It is a goal to ensure that our MSPs are doing their jobs, but there are better and fairer ways to measure that than simply counting the days that they are in the building.
Thirdly, on recall itself, the overarching objective of a recall provision is to enhance the trust that citizens have in their elected politicians and to empower them to act if an elected member breaches the code of conduct or behaves in a way that does not befit the privilege of holding public office. If the recall process does not meet the public’s understanding of integrity and accountability, it will not meet the objective of enhancing trust in democracy, which we need right now. Done badly, it risks further undermining trust, so any recall system must be clear, consistent and credible and it must not become a political weapon or a tool for personal or partisan vendettas. It must also be proportionate, so we must ensure that the threshold for triggering a recall is high enough to maintain stability in this chamber without being so high that it becomes meaningless. That is a fine balance.
The system must be transparent and affordable, but it is estimated that the full cost of the bill’s proposals for the recall of a constituency MSP would be about £0.5 million and that the cost of recalling a regional MSP would be close to £2.7 million. I understand that there are moves to change that, but those costs are far too high to be acceptable either to Parliament or to the public. I recognise the challenges in the bill regarding the recall of regional members and I appreciate that amendments to simplify the process are being considered. That is sensible.
Ultimately, it is a matter of balance. We need a mechanism for accountability, but we cannot say that we want a Parliament that is representative and that welcomes working parents, carers and people with lived experience while passing rules that would penalise them for not being in the chamber every day and we cannot talk about democracy and integrity while allowing members to defect mid-term and still cling to seats that they won under a different party banner.
I turn briefly to what I will call Kevin Stewart’s wrecking amendment, which would undermine the entire purpose of the bill, because I want colleagues to be clear what the member is about. The amendment is about some in the Scottish National Party trying to settle scores over Michael Matheson rightfully being punished for wrongly claiming £11,000 from taxpayers. He was sanctioned by this Parliament for his actions, and rightfully so, but it seems that some in the SNP are still trying to ensure that such a sanction can never happen again. Scottish Conservative MSPs will not vote for that amendment, which would tear up a long-established process that has already seen misbehaving members being punished. SNP members might want to sneak that change through by the back door, but we will not give our backing to an amendment—
Will the member accept an intervention?
Ms Webber is concluding—I hope
I am closing, and in my final section.
I will not be backing the amendment because it would fundamentally change what Parliament is voting on today. I urge colleagues in all parties to see through that amendment and to reject it.
Conservative members support the general principles of the bill, but we will continue scrutinising it as it progresses through Parliament.
15:37
If ever a piece of legislation raised more questions than answers, it is this one, but I think there are a few principles that we need to consider. We need to defend the principle of equality and of equal treatment—of the equal application of rules and laws to list and constituency members of this Parliament alike. There should be a presumption of political equality.
The second principle is that this should not be cost driven or financially led. Before 1832, only 2 per cent of the population had the vote. Before 1928, women and men still did not have an equal right to vote. Had shallow arguments of money values above human values been applied then, we would never have achieved universal suffrage and the equal franchise.
I thank Mr Leonard very much because I realise that he is in full flow. I accept what you are saying about historical precedent, but you are surely not suggesting that we should not give cognisance to the cost in any way whatsoever. We have to, because we are a responsible Parliament.
Please always speak through the chair.
What I said was that we should not be cost driven or financially led.
The third principle is that there does need to be a credible equality impact assessment worthy of the name, because we know from bitter experience that women, for example, are much more likely to be targeted by vindictive campaigners and petitioners than men. So far, this has not been seriously addressed in the presentation of the bill at all.
We must also embrace the principle of compassion—principle number 4. Over the summer, I researched the life of Clarice McNab Shaw. She was a pioneer who, in 1913, became the first-ever woman Labour councillor in Scotland, on Leith Town Council. In 1945, she was elected as the MP for Kilmarnock. The election was in July. She was sworn in in August, but became so seriously ill that she was never able to return to Parliament to deliver her maiden speech or to take her seat. She continued to respond to constituency correspondence and continued to attend Ayr County Council meetings until February 1946, but on 2 October 1946 she was forced to resign her parliamentary seat. Days later, she died. The facts are that Clarice McNab Shaw did not attend Parliament for over a year and she did not attend the council for over six months, so we must be clear this afternoon that, in circumstances like this, a member of this Parliament should not be removed. We must show our common sense, our common humanity and our compassion.
My fifth principle is the principle that any ballot must be secret. The Scottish reformers, the Chartists and the trade unionists fought hard for the Ballot Act 1872. It was introduced as the franchise was being extended to stop undue pressure being applied by landowners and employers to their tenants and to their workers. It was introduced to stop them checking up on how those they had power, ownership and control over had voted, by making the ballot secret. This principle, to me, is sacred. It should be defended. Someone going into a designated petition signing place if the only option is to vote for recall is, in my view, a breach of that principle and a corruption of that hard-fought-for inheritance.
My sixth principle is around the removal of an MP due to incarceration. There is a certain note of irony here. Thomas Muir was tried for treason, for sedition, in 1793 for calling for more equal representation and parliamentary reform, and he was sentenced to 14 years’ transportation. We need to be careful about what we are saying about the litmus test of incarceration.
For my next principle, let me turn to Aneurin Bevan, who said that the job of a Labour parliamentarian is not
“to plead mercy for the poor”
but to get
“political power for the masses.”
So, my sixth principle rests on the question: does this bill extend democracy or does it curtail it?
I do not disagree with the member’s point about incarceration. I do not think that we should remove members who have been put in prison for a stance that they have taken on a moral issue. However, does he recognise that they would have the right to fight their corner in an open recall by-election among the membership or indeed a poll, as the member in charge of the bill has said, in the case of regional lists?
I am simply making the point that I think that we need to explore some of these ideas—the reduction from 12 months to six months and all the things associated with it—with our eyes open, and with our eye on history as well.
I would like to see democracy extended in other, even more meaningful areas, like in the workplace, in industry and in the economy, to alter the balance of power there. There are other things that we can and should explore, which are not, in my view, revolutionary ideas but basic tenets of democracy.
Finally, let me say that it is a privilege to serve in this Parliament. We are representatives and should be representative. Like in any walk of life, that means that not all of us can be or will be saints, but for that, there must be accountability. If we are to recognise that the power to govern resides with the people, then we need to act, and it is the view of the Scottish Labour Party that we should back this bill in principle at stage 1 this afternoon.
15:44
Richard Leonard began his speech by saying that the bill raises more questions than answers. I fear that I am about to spend six minutes saying nothing more than that, whereas he said it with admirable simplicity.
I have long supported the argument that there needs to be some measure of the ultimate disciplinary sanction for MSPs whose behaviour in any other workplace would be deemed gross misconduct and who would lose their jobs—for example, for sexual harassment or something similar.
There is not currently a mechanism for members to lose our jobs if we act in a way that, in any other place, would be considered gross misconduct. I think that there should be. However, I have also long argued that any specific attempt to design such a mechanism will inevitably encounter significant problems.
Perhaps this is a paradoxical argument, but, in my view, Kevin Stewart’s amendment mentions factors that would be more helpful than what the bill would provide. It includes things that should happen regardless of what happens to the bill, and which would be more effective in addressing the issues that we are concerned about.
If we develop any such system, we need to avoid the recall petition or the removal process becoming politicised. There is a real risk that any system that is based on a petition fails in that approach. In fact, in the early days of campaigning on the issue, the member in charge attempted to have the bill named—in an informal sense, at least—“the Derek Mackay bill”, which is the sort of term that the media might use. I think that his behaviour around that indicates that the intention was partisan from the outset.
There is a real risk that a petitions process would be used in a similar way. How could we prevent that? Have we even discussed whether political parties should be barred from campaigning or organising during the petitions process, so that it is led by the members of the public who are concerned rather than by political partisans?
Does Patrick Harvie recognise that we are not pioneers on recall, particularly in relation to the petitions process? The system of recall has been successfully in place at Westminster for several years. Those petitions have not proven to be partisan activities; in fact, they have rid us of some unsavoury parliamentarians.
I recognise that the situation is not fully unique, but my usual instinct is not to look to Westminster for a political system that we should copy.
The issue of anonymous campaigning has been raised. I will not repeat what I have seen in Glasgow, but it has included anonymous smear graffiti that makes very serious allegations against a sitting MSP, not based on any conviction or charge. That kind of campaigning in conspiratorial terms happens already and could be weaponised in this process.
We should also recognise the social media context. Extremely powerful social media platforms currently do nothing to police lies, conspiracy theories, racism and other forms of prejudice. Again, I fear that a petitions process would be vulnerable to that.
Several members have talked about issues around the disparity that relates to regional members. I will not go over that ground again, because it has been discussed, but it seems to me to be only one aspect of the issues that need to be addressed. The system for regional members, however, appears to accept the principle that the voters determine party balance, so I question the absence of a trigger in relation to somebody switching parties.
It might be that this is an issue where there is no absolutely right or wrong answer. It might be arguable that there should not be an absolute trigger, in all circumstances, for someone changing political affiliation. However, for a member who joins an openly racist, far-right party that promotes climate change conspiracy and whose former high-profile leaders have taken bribes to shill for Vladimir Putin’s regime, voters’ legitimate disgust at that behaviour might be seen as grounds for recall.
On physical non-attendance, I can see an argument for non-participation in the business of Parliament—
I understand where Patrick Harvie is coming from, but should the systems that we put in place not be based on principle rather than on the type of belief that somebody has?
The question suggests what I am implying, which is that there is no clear and easy way to set out rules that do not give rise to contradiction and mixed expectations.
I was about to say that we make remote participation available to members. If we choose to do so—and I think that we should—it is surely for the Presiding Officer rather than anyone else to determine whether a member is using that facility appropriately; it should not be for the law to say what the consequences are.
Finally, on criminal offences being a trigger, I note that the bill includes criminal convictions anywhere in the UK, but not anywhere else. I am baffled as to why that is a consistent position. In relation to the comments that have been made about historical examples of criminal offences that are ethical, principled acts, that is not just a matter of ancient history. In the UK, people are regularly subjected to long prison sentences for legitimate, peaceful protest. For example, climate campaigners have been subject to substantial prison terms, even simply for the act of taking part in a Zoom call to discuss political protest. I do not think that we should invite a situation in which a recall would be triggered by such acts or, for example, by someone holding up a sign saying, “I support Palestine Action.”
I am not convinced that the bill is fixable, although I am willing for it to go through the parliamentary scrutiny process. The Green Party will abstain on the motion on the bill’s general principles at decision time. I am not convinced that it will be in a fit state to pass by the time that it reaches stage 3.
15:51
It is a privilege to serve in chambers such as this, and it is also a massive responsibility. Members should take a moment to think about the tens of thousands of people whom they represent if they are a constituency MSP, or the hundreds of thousands of constituents whom they represent as a regional MSP. Our constituents send us to the Parliament with our instructions but, often, they also seek our help. They do so sometimes at times of extreme frailty or fragility, when they are at their most vulnerable. If people are found guilty of heinous offences—we know of recent examples of such offences that are currently being investigated—we cannot expect parliamentary staff to serve alongside them. Neither can we expect our constituents to want to seek their help, and we cannot believe anything other than the reality that their presence would diminish the standing of the building and the institution that it represents.
We know that, in Scotland, sometimes the wheels of justice turn very slowly. What should happen to MSPs who have been charged but await trial? We have that situation in the Parliament at the precise moment.
I do not think that the Parliament can presume to trump the justice system. The principle of being innocent until proven guilty is significant. As such, I do not think that someone should be subject to expulsion from the Parliament until the justice process is complete. Although there might be grounds for a member’s suspension or the removal of their pass, they should be able to participate in other ways. That is worthy of further discussion.
There is a democratic imperative that we follow the example that has been shown by Westminster and, latterly, the Welsh Parliament in their efforts to afford constituents the right to remove or recall parliamentarians. It is long overdue. If our Parliament was simply made up of constituencies, with members elected by either the first-past-the-post system or a single transferable vote, the process would be much easier. I congratulate the member in charge of the bill for the work that he has done to get to this point. His argument that we should follow Wales on a regional poll for the removal of a member on the additional member system list is compelling, because it answers the challenge of giving the member the right to submit themselves to their electorate and stand for re-election in that capacity, while still answering the need to give the final decision back to the region’s constituents.
I have listened with great interest to the discussion about members who switch parties. I cannot accept that doing so should be a trigger for a recall, not least because we know—[Interruption.] I might be speaking with as much self-interest as the Conservatives in their proposal for such an amendment.
Patrick Harvie rose—
I need to make some progress.
Fundamentally, as we have had recent cause to recognise, parties can change their stripes mid-term. To create a trigger mechanism whereby a member who defects to another political party from a regional list would be automatically recalled would have the effect of shackling them to that party from the first day that the Parliament convenes. No constituency member would be encumbered in such a way, so it would not be fair. It would almost create two tiers of MSP, and Liberal Democrats cannot support that.
We will not support the Government’s reasoned amendment tonight. That said, should the amendment be agreed to we will vote in favour of the amended motion, because we feel that the bill must go forward.
I was going to be nice to the member in my summing-up speech, but I will rethink that now. It is not a Government reasoned amendment; it is my reasoned amendment.
My apologies; I correct the record on that point.
We have only 10 weeks left in this session after the Christmas recess, and 19 late-sitting evenings have already been slated. I am anxious about our capacity to deal with the bill and the possibility that it will slide off the schedule as we run out of parliamentary time.
Recently we have had cause to understand why we need to clean up our politics. A mechanism for recall is a very important aspect of that. However, we have been talking about thresholds and triggers and, in my intervention on the minister, I talked a little about my intention to explore amendments in that regard. I believe that one threshold or trigger for a recall petition should be whether a member becomes barred from working with children or vulnerable adults. We will only know that an MSP has been barred from working with vulnerable adults if we include Scottish parliamentarians in the protection of vulnerable groups scheme.
Every time that I talk about that, people in the media and the watching public are astonished that we are not included in that scheme already. I put it to members that, given a lot of the work that we do, our role could be considered to be a regulated childcare position. The very nature of our constituency casework puts us in close proximity to some of the most vulnerable adults in our society, some of whom will explicitly ask to see us in private because of sensitivities around the issues that we are dealing with. It is no longer tenable for this Parliament to say that we are exempt from what we ask of scout leaders, other youth workers and people who work with other vulnerable individuals.
I make the point that some people are not able to work with certain categories of individuals not necessarily because of any malicious or criminal circumstance but because of, for example, reasons relating to their own mental wellbeing. Is the member suggesting that people in that category should also be disbarred from standing or being allowed to be members of this Parliament?
Jackson Carlaw makes a good point, and that is one of the aspects that I would like to explore. Nevertheless, if any member of this Parliament were to be barred from working with a child or a vulnerable adult, it would make it fundamentally impossible for them to do their job, given the nature of our role.
I will, therefore, work with the member in charge and, indeed, with the Government, if it will give me the time to explore amendments relating to that issue, because I believe that the case for inclusion of members of this Parliament in the protection of vulnerable groups scheme is now unanswerable.
We move to the open debate. I advise members that we have no time in hand. Any interventions, therefore, should be absorbed within the relevant member’s agreed speaking time, which is up to six minutes.
15:58
First, I will make a few remarks to remind us why we are debating this issue today. Members will know of my interest in ethics. It is for others to judge, but, as a member of this institution, I try hard to balance complex and competing issues using an ethical frame. I know that many other members do that, too, and I believe that we are here today with a shared interest in protecting the reputation of this place. It is good that we have many of the recommended institutional measures in place, such as a code of conduct, registers for openness and accountability, the Lobbying (Scotland) Act 2016 and so on. In my opinion, the bill marks a strengthening of enforcement and is, therefore, to be welcomed.
However, before I talk about the bill per se, I want to reflect a little on something else that encourages and supports ethical behaviour, which is culture. During my time in corporate companies leading up to the crash of 2008, and in my time in Westminster during the Brexit vote and in this place during some interesting periods, I have seen how culture can greatly impact behaviour.
The Presiding Officer and her office have provided strong leadership during this session, but I believe that mandatory ethical training should be in place for the next session to ensure that all members who have the privilege to be here understand that the buck stops with them and that their choices about how they behave potentially have a direct impact not only on their careers but on trust in this institution.
Moving on to the bill, I note that Elect Her suggested that
“women politicians are more likely to face politically motivated action, and we suggest that an extreme version of that could end up being a recall or a removal attempt.”—[Official Report, Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, 22 May 2025; c 28.]
I believe that women in politics are treated differently—for which read “worse”. I support Richard Leonard’s comments. I went through the stage 1 report to find out how many times women were mentioned. The quote that I read was from the Elect Her evidence, but I am not clear what specific consideration has been given to women in the bill’s development.
In addition to the Elect Her comments, I highlight the extent to which women are judged by different standards, which are often unrelated to their ability. For example, strong women are considered to be nippy sweeties—or worse. We also cannot forget about structural inequalities in party support, of course, and the challenges of mobilising funding. It is important that we consider those issues.
I also noted the statement from the committee, which considers that
“making provision for a direct right to recall on the grounds of disagreement with an MSP’s political views or voting record would run counter to the intended purpose of the Bill.”
That seems to be quite the understatement, and I would be strongly against any provision that would lead to that possibility. There will be many members who have no truck with some of the language that we hear in our political narrative, but we have to accept that people are entitled to their views, as much as we violently disagree with them. Perhaps that was the wrong choice of words by the committee.
Surely there is a distinction between someone who was elected on the basis of their controversial stance on issues that some people find offensive and someone who was elected on the basis of supporting basic climate science, for example, but who then moves to a political party that openly promotes climate change denial. Surely there is a distinction between the former and someone who switches from representing the views of the people who put them into Parliament to representing the polar opposite.
With respect, I think that the member is conflating two different issues. I will go on to comment on people who switch parties. The important point that I am making is that, much as we dislike some people’s views—they could be considered completely slanderous—I do not think that we should get the two issues mixed up. For example, we do not need to go far back in time to hear outrageous views about women.
I said that I was going to mention the consideration that a recall motion should be triggered if a member changes their political party. I consider that to be very dangerous ground. It goes back to the big picture that I tried to frame at the start of my speech. What is the behaviour that we are trying to reward? If somebody changes party because of a compelling conscientious objection that was held to be just and well-meaning by most people, would we not consider that exactly the sort of ethical behaviour that we want from our politicians? I accept that people vote for their party preference, but, equally, parties change, people’s views change and the sentiment in the world changes. I would be very nervous about such a move.
There is lot of discussion to be had on signing places. That is a very complex issue, particularly when it comes to regional MSPs. I appreciate what the bill is trying to do with regard to accessibility, but, ironically, the debate shows how far behind our digital processes are when it comes to the effective use of technology. I understand that that issue is entirely distinct from those that we are considering in the bill, but we will have to look at it at some point.
On a minor point that was in the stage 1 report, I agree that, despite the drive to maintain parity between constituency and regional members, they are not elected on the basis of parity. There is further thinking to be done about that, and I appreciate that it is a difficult area to address.
Although the Law Society gave evidence, I think that there will be an on-going requirement for legal tests as we go through stage 2 and beyond. I listened to Alex Cole-Hamilton’s speech, and I think that we have to be very careful—for example, that whatever measures we pass cannot be subjected to judicial review. The principle that somebody is innocent until proven guilty under the law is absolutely vital. In that area in particular, we need to be extremely careful.
16:05
I have not come with a prepared speech, because I wanted to contribute to the evolving argument in the chamber.
As I start, I reflect that we hope that, were any of the provisions to make their way into legislation, they would not have to be used, even decades from now. We should be anticipating that we are making legislation on the basis that we will not want to use it at a later date.
We might consider ourselves reasonable. I started out in life as a thrusting, hard-line Thatcherite and I am now a mellow, cuddly Thatcherite—if that is not an oxymoron. However, I ask members to consider that, years from now, this might not be a Parliament of the reasonable, and whatever we put in place ought to be something that cannot be abused or manipulated in a party-political way.
There have been some excellent speeches. I was amused at Mr Cole-Hamilton’s line that members should not be disbarred for switching parties. If that had been the case historically, his would have been the only party that abolished itself—when the Liberal Party merged with the Social Democratic Party, every Liberal would have had to resign from elected office everywhere in the country. Therefore, I can understand why he would be nervous about such a provision in particular.
I very much enjoyed the principles outlined by Richard Leonard. I thought that they really were magnificent tests by which anything should be judged.
I know that this will cause him great offence and disharmony, but I enjoyed and agreed with a great deal of what Patrick Harvie had to say as well, particularly in relation to prison sentences. He is absolutely right that crimes can be fashionable. Much longer sentences can be given for breaches of the law that I might think are relatively minor, and shorter sentences can be given for breaches that I think are considerably more important. Therefore, moving the test around is quite a dangerous principle.
I am grateful to Jackson Carlaw for giving way, and I am not at all uncomfortable with his comments. Does he think that the bill ought to specify particular types of criminal offence that should be a trigger, rather than there being a threshold that is based on the length of sentence?
The reality of my position is such that my welcome of the bill is, in the end, superficial. Like Mr Harvie, I have reservations about whether we can frame legislation that, understanding the narrow issue that it seeks to address, does not bring with it unforeseen consequences.
I want to talk about the variation in equality between regional and first-past-the-post members. I have always understood the principle to be that, by whichever means someone is elected, once they become a member of this Parliament, their status is no different from that of any other member. We are all equal members of the Scottish Parliament.
However, the recall proposal is quite different. Through the recall of a constituency member, the political complexion of this chamber could be changed. Through the recall of a regional member, the political complexion of this chamber could not be changed, except that, as I understand it, if a regional member defected to another party, the political complexion of the chamber would be reinstated to how the electorate originally intended it.
My point is that, through the recall mechanism, a Government could fall on the basis of the recall of a constituency member, but not on the basis of the recall of a regional member. If we had a Parliament of the unreasonable, or an external campaign—
Will the member take an intervention?
I will in a moment. If there was a campaign outwith this Parliament, we could find that there was pressure, within whatever protocols we had established, to push for a finding that the sanction threshold of 14 days or 10 sitting days had been breached, because people would see the political advantage that could accrue from a recall potentially changing the complexion of the Parliament in one circumstance, but not in the other.
Moreover, I do not think that a lot of money would be spent on the recall of a regional member. On the idea of there being a yes or no vote in the regional context, it is very difficult to see how anybody would survive in that environment, and then we would just reset by resorting to the original list.
All of that does not seem to me to be fair, principled or reasonable, and I think that it is open to manipulation. In 2015, people had only had iPads for two or three years—the whole way that people operate through digital and social media was in its infancy. Now, it is quite easy to see how someone could mobilise a malicious campaign across a constituency or a region that is designed to politically unsettle an individual for a calculated outcome. I think that we should be very wary of that.
Does the member recognise that, in effect, the disparity that he describes already exists? If a regional member were, sadly, to pass away, they would be replaced by the next person on the list, whereas, were a constituency MSP to die, a by-election would ensue. Exactly the scenario that he describes would take place in that eventuality.
I recognise that, but no social media campaign or campaign in this chamber can kill one of our members of Parliament. I think that those distinct cases are quite different. In one case, somebody has lost their life—through natural causes, one hopes. In the other, somebody could lose their seat as a result of a campaign.
I will finish by saying that, not so long ago, Parliament agreed to a motion requiring the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body to put in place a process that will result in an investigation of the regime that might apply in a future Parliament. We have invited Rosemary Agnew, who is a highly respected individual, to undertake that inquiry. It seems to me that, through that method and through discussion of the outcomes and recommendations that arise from it, Parliament could find a solution to the issues that have been raised without recourse to recall legislation and all the confusions and unforeseen consequences—now and in the future—that it might bring about.
16:11
I thank Graham Simpson for bringing forward this piece of legislation. I appreciate the work that it takes for a back-bench member to get their bill to this point. I will focus on the principles of the legislation for most of my speech, and I will perhaps touch on one detail from personal experience, as this is a stage 1 debate on general principles.
We are all human, we all make mistakes and there is absolutely no doubt that political scandal grabs attention. However, there is a real difference between political scandal and its fallout and conduct that fundamentally betrays the standards that Parliament expects of its members. When one of us fails to meet those standards, it erodes public confidence in all of us.
As MSPs, we are rightly held to a higher standard. We are here to serve—to speak on behalf of our constituencies and regions and to champion people who need our help when life is at its hardest. There are 700,000 people across the Central Scotland region, any one of whom might need my help at some point, whether it involves celebrating the achievements of a particular school or organisation or advocating on someone’s behalf in a moment of crisis, such as for the parents of children in the Wishaw neonatal intensive care unit.
All those people must be able to trust me. Our job is to be our constituents’ voice, and, to be that, we must earn and protect their trust. However, too often, we hear that trust in politics and politicians is collapsing. The Scottish household survey has shown clearly that trust in politicians and public institutions has fallen significantly in recent years.
Rebuilding that trust will take time and action. There has been lots of discussion and debate today about the detail in the bill and about whether it is even possible to get it right. However, if we do get it right, the bill can be part of the process that rebuilds that trust.
I acknowledge that we, as politicians, have been part of the problem, but through our actions, comments and deeds, we can also be part of the solution.
I absolutely recognise that. The burden falls on us more than on anyone. In fact, it falls almost exclusively on us to rebuild the falling trust in politicians and political standards, but I was going to say that that trust comes from two sources: honesty, showing that we uphold the high standards that are expected of us as public servants; and accountability, demonstrating that there are consequences when we fail to live up to those standards.
We already have strong codes of conduct and a robust process via the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, but this bill will give the public the final say when that bond of trust is broken beyond repair. The principle is simple: if we ask the public to trust us, we must also have a mechanism to hold us to account when that trust is broken. People in the wider UK have that ability through the Recall of MPs Act 2015, and it is right that the Scottish Parliament has a similar power adapted for our system.
Does the member agree—I suspect that he will—that the optics of the Parliament rejecting the bill at stage 1 would be terrible and would send the signal that we do not believe that we require to be held to the same level of accountability as colleagues at Westminster and the Senedd?
Yes, and that is exactly the point that I just made. I do not think that it would be acceptable, and I do not think that the public would find it acceptable, if some parliamentarians were subject to recall but we at least seemed to be voting down the principle of being able to be held to account by the public in the same way. I absolutely agree with the minister’s comments.
I have been a member of the Parliament since 2011, and I know that the vast majority of colleagues across every party understand that serving here is both a privilege and a responsibility, but we cannot ignore the fact that a very small minority have not lived up to those standards. Some have caused harm to the very people they were elected to serve. When that happens, the public deserve far more than an apology or an internal sanction. It is not right that our constituents have fewer means of removing a representative who has broken their trust than are available in other Parliaments. Therefore, I absolutely support the principle of the bill and I look forward to working through the detail at stage 2 to ensure that it is clear, proportionate, legally sound and not open to political misuse.
As I said in my opening remarks, I want to touch on one detail, namely the requirement for attendance, with non-attendance seeming to be a ground for removal from office. Many members will know that my daughter was born very prematurely. I have not added up the time, but I might well have spent more than six months away from the Parliament. At the time, I was supported by colleagues, staff and business managers to be where I needed to be, with my newborn baby. I am comfortable talking about it, but there are circumstances that should not be open for public debate and discussion. I appreciate that that provision mirrors a council mechanism, but that is also not a hard and fast rule in councils, where there is also the ability to have extenuating circumstances understood and appreciated. Why should a member of a council have to divulge private circumstances that they do not feel they should have to just to continue in their role?
I wanted to touch on that small detail, but we will support the general principles of the bill.
16:18
I begin by acknowledging the work of the member in charge of the bill and of the non-Government bills unit. I also thank the committee for its work. That might sound strange, as I am the deputy convener, but, at the time when the evidence was being taken, I was myself absent for reasons that are in the public domain. I thank Rona Mackay, who substituted for me on the committee, and I echo Mark Griffin’s view that it should be down to members to choose whether they disclose the reason for their absence and when they talk about it. I have concerns about the notion of excuses that Sue Webber spoke about earlier, and I will say a bit more about that later.
The outcome of the report that was issued after the excellent detailed scrutiny work of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee was that fundamental issues with the bill need to be addressed at stages 2 and 3. I will be clear from the outset that I, like the committee, fully support the aim of the Scottish Parliament (Recall and Removal of Members) Bill, which is to improve the democratic accountability of MSPs during the course of a parliamentary session by introducing a process by which an MSP could lose their seat in the Parliament through a recall. It is because of my belief in that aim, in principle, that I will vote for the bill this evening.
I recognise that at the heart of the bill is the integrity of the democratic process and the aim of improving accountability. I do not think that anyone in the chamber would disagree with that. However, it is clear from the committee’s work that fundamental changes are required to achieve that aim. Its report sets out a number of areas for reconsideration, to ensure that the process works within the Scottish Parliament’s electoral system. Those include consideration of the
“complexity and costs associated with any mechanism for recall of regional members.”
Like Richard Leonard, I do not think that we should be driven by cost. However, we have to consider the cost of such measures. Other things that require consideration are the practical arrangements around holding recall petitions, to ensure that all those who are eligible to sign them can do so.
The bill also proposes new grounds for the automatic removal of MSPs when there has been a criminal offence or when a member has not attended the Parliament in person for 180 days without a reasonable explanation. The committee was not persuaded that MSPs should be removed for not physically attending the Parliament, and we invited Mr Simpson to reconsider that element of the bill.
The Scottish Parliament has hybrid working, and we probably should have introduced it sooner than we did. Covid drove those changes quickly, and they are in place now. I agree with Sue Webber’s point that judging folk on their attendance—that is, by their very presence—is probably not a good way to judge their effectiveness. Furthermore, hybrid working will enable a more varied cohort to do the job of MSP. It is possible to do that job by the varied means that we now have—not just by standing here in a half-empty chamber on a Thursday afternoon. Some might argue that, on occasion, that is a better way to do it and a better use of our time, but other members have spoken about other requirements, such as the need to be in their constituency in the morning, perhaps for an engagement, before attending the Parliament remotely.
I will not speak too much about myself, but I will make one more personal point. Were it not for the hybrid nature of the Parliament, I would not have been able to return to work as quickly as I did after my treatment, because hybrid working enabled a phased return. I am sure that all members are delighted that I was here as quickly as I could be.
I want to speak briefly about the issue of members changing political parties. That was raised by a constituent of mine whose thoughts I would like to put on the record. Ms Matthews wrote to me a message that was triggered by an MSP moving party:
“Though it may happen less in Scotland, I feel very strongly that politicians who have changed party or have been put out of a party should not be allowed to continue to sit without a by-election. Such people stood on a party manifesto and have used its resources to campaign. The electorate should have their chance to react to their position. Could you pass on my concern to the appropriate authority?”
I have put Ms Matthews’s thoughts on the record, and I understand the feelings around that issue. There is deep anger when a party loses someone, but there can also be joy when a party gains a member. My personal position is that it is not reasonable to tie MSPs to political parties. Policy changes, which are sometimes quite fundamental, can cause good people to resign or shift parties, and a party can change direction slowly, over a period of time. It is for individual members to decide which party they should be in.
The recall process that is suggested in the bill builds on the established process at Westminster. I agree that that is a good starting point, but any system that is established in the Scottish Parliament cannot be a direct replication of the 2015 act; it has to be a system for the Scottish Parliament that accommodates the recall of both constituency and regional MSPs. I acknowledge that the member and the Government have said that they are working on that.
There is a balance to be struck between issues of parity among all MSPs who are elected to the Scottish Parliament, recognition of the different routes for election and questions of voter choice and clarity. I do not think that we have that balance yet.
I see that the Presiding Officer would like me to conclude, so I will do so.
16:25
We have had a fairly substantial debate today, with a number of good contributions. In those contributions, we have probably come up with a lot more questions than answers, to be fair.
The reason why I lodged my amendment to the motion for debate is that I want any system that is put in place to be as depoliticised as possible. It has to be fair. I really believe, as the committee says, that the
“process carries potential to be politicised.”
I agree with the committee on that, and we can help to depoliticise it by agreeing to a parliamentary complaints and sanctions process that is backed by the appropriate guidance.
By dint of his lodging his amendment, it could be perceived that Kevin Stewart has politicised the debate. If the motion could otherwise be agreed to tonight unanimously, would he consider not pressing his amendment and arguing his corner as the bill progresses?
No, I will press my amendment tonight—I have moved it. There is a job of work to be done to get this right. Jackson Carlaw talked about the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body review that Rosemary Agnew is leading and, like him, I think that that can play a part in all this, too. It is essential that we get it right.
We have heard members across the chamber say that they are willing to work together to make sure that it is right. Folk have said that they will work with Mr Simpson—I have already said that I would do so—and folk have said that they would work with Mr Dey as the responsible Government minister. However, amendments in this regard should be Parliament amendments and not Government amendments, or else there will be criticism, I am quite sure, in the future.
The Parliament itself needs to put much more resource into scoping all this out. I come back to the point that I made earlier about the fact that it has taken Mr Simpson 11 months to get to this stage because, quite possibly, the non-Government bills unit is not adequately resourced. This is the Parliament’s job and not necessarily the Government’s job.
We have heard from a lot of members on various issues, some of which I really agree with. The proposal that Mr Cole-Hamilton put forward has to be explored. Equally, I understand Mr Carlaw’s argument that, if such a proposal was put in place, certain folk might get excluded from the Parliament who we would not want to be excluded. However, there are always balances to be struck.
We all seem to agree on the general principles, but it will take a lot of work from all members, as well as the parliamentary authorities, to get it right. I wish the member in charge, Mr Simpson, all the very best as he moves forward with his bill—he has taken on a pretty onerous task. We must all work together to ensure that we get it absolutely right.
16:29
It would be rude of me not to start by returning the kind remarks that Jackson Carlaw made earlier. There are probably very few issues—aside from 60-year-old sci-fi—that Jackson Carlaw and I agree on; indeed, there is a great deal that we profoundly disagree on. However, his speech exposed accurately some of the real concerns that exist about what might be unintended consequences of the bill, and we need to give careful thought to such scenarios before making decisions on the shape of the bill before it reaches stage 3 or on how we vote on the bill at that stage.
In particular, Jackson Carlaw mentioned aspects of today’s political, social and media context that would not have occurred to us, had the matter been debated here or elsewhere 10, 15 or 20 years ago. We are seeing the genuine threat of an explicitly far-right Government in the UK. We are looking across to the US, a country that is now in the grip of post-reality politics, with a Government that still works with the mantra to “flood the zone with”—I will not complete the quotation, but we all know how it ends. Essentially, it involves taking an approach to politics that is about undermining anybody’s ability to believe in such a thing as objective truth.
We are seeing figures such as Elon Musk, who is in control of a powerful social media platform, explicitly advocating for political violence in this country, and we are seeing large parts of the media and prominent politicians clearly trying to normalise the idea that black and brown people cannot be British—or English or Scottish. They are not only advocating that those people should have no place in the Government or the Parliament, but arguing for mass deportations. That is a context in which the mechanisms that we are debating are at far more risk of being weaponised—not only politicised, but weaponised—and I am very concerned about that.
Forgive me if I am paraphrasing too much: Ruth Maguire seemed to argue that, if we are to have a recall system, we should be designing it for the Scottish context, rather than copying and pasting one from elsewhere. I agree strongly with that. I am not wholly convinced that the bill offers the route to a system that, ultimately, I will support, but if there is to be a system, we should be looking at our context rather than doing a copy-and-paste job.
In his speech, Mark Griffin frequently used the word “trust”. His speech gave much more emphasis to the question of trust in politics than any other speech did. Trust is important and he clearly expressed that. It matters that we acknowledge that trust is not easily earned. There has never been a moment in my time in politics when people thought that trust in politics was at a high point. We have always gone through cycles of recognising that a great many people have a low degree of trust in politics and in the political process. However, when there are fundamental issues of trust and of whether people trust their politicians in a general sense, if people judge us poorly in those general terms, the election is the means of holding us to account.
What is missing at the moment is an objective test for identifying when an individual’s behaviour has sunk so low that they have reached the point when, in any other workplace, they would be subject to a disciplinary process and could lose their job. That is missing from the arrangements that we currently work within. That is not really about trust; it is about an objective assessment of someone’s behaviour.
That goes back to the points raised in relation to Kevin Stewart’s amendment about a sanctions process and how complaints can be made and should be handled. That is where the objective tests of behaviour would come in—as opposed to in a petitions process that is open to politicisation.
I have a couple of comments on switching parties, which is an issue that many members have talked about. I emphasise again that many different circumstances can give rise to somebody switching party and can affect the way in which people might judge a member who has switched party. Of course, some people do that because they feel that the party has changed around them, or they do it in reaction to new circumstances. It also happens in situations where the motivation is transparently about self-interest or a betrayal of the fundamental values. It is understandable that there may be no single, simple rule for whether people will feel that it is appropriate or acceptable for someone to continue to be a member in such circumstances.
Finally, I want to come back to one of the most important—well, important to me—points in my opening speech: the role of legitimate peaceful protest, which can often meet a criminal sanction and often receives disproportionate sentences in the UK. If there is to be any criminal trigger for a process of the kind that the bill proposes, surely it must relate to the nature of the offence that is committed, not simply to the length of a sentence that is passed. If there is to be any criminal trigger, it must be about what the person has done and the circumstances and nature of that offence.
I will finish by saying again that I remain unconvinced that the bill can be repaired or fixed to the point at which those concerns are all addressed. I and my party will engage in that process. We will abstain tonight on the amended motion, but we remain unconvinced that the bill will be supportable at stage 3.
16:35
What we are voting for tonight is not a blanket acceptance of everything in this bill. This is not a ready-made solution. We will need more exchanges, more debate, more amendments and more scrutiny to find the answers we seek, and we shall have to be creative, but the Scottish Labour Party is prepared to vote for this bill at decision time tonight.
Much of this debate is, in the end, about the exercise of rights—of equal rights—of freedoms and of democracy. It is about being radical, but we must also be rational. It is about an extension of democratic principles into an area where they do not currently exist, and it is about trusting in an intelligent democracy of citizens—not consumers, not subjects even, but active citizens.
In this debate, not surprisingly, something has been made about holding to account or recalling MSPs who switch their party allegiance during a term of office. I am not unsympathetic to that argument, and I do not know at what stage Graham Simpson’s conversion to Reform took place, but, before he had announced a move, he was on the record as saying in Parliament on 19 June:
“I do not think that it is a crime to switch parties.”—[Official Report, Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, 19 June 2025; c 10.]
Perhaps he knew then, or perhaps he did not know—there is only one person who can answer that question.
To Michelle Thomson and Sue Webber, I gently say that we are not a business or a corporation here to maximise profits. We are a Parliament here to serve the people, so money making and money saving should not come first.
In relation to Patrick Harvie’s point, corruption of the system by dark money, digital disinformation and dirty politics is more of a threat to our democracy than individual dissent and protest or even civil disobedience, which could lead to someone being banned from this Parliament for 10 days or more or to imprisonment.
To Jackson Carlaw, who made the point that, if this became law, it could cause the downfall of a Government, I say that that is also a function of the electoral system that this Parliament is run by. So, there are some questions that are raised by that—we will need to take account of the idea of political conspiracies and so on, because let me say again that democracy should not be a spectator sport in which we limit its exercise to a cross on a ballot paper periodically.
And let me say again that I am quite clear that to be an MSP is a privilege that brings with it duties, responsibilities and standards. On that, personally, I have always been struck by something that Clement Attlee said after the 1945 general election. He came to Musselburgh in October 1945 to address the Scottish Labour Party conference, and he said this:
“The deciding factor ... will not be the leadership of the exact theory which is held to orthodox socialism. It will not be the brilliance of particular individuals. The thing which will secure the triumph of Labour will be the demonstration by Socialists in their lives that they have a high ideal and live up to it.”
So, whatever our party, whatever our ideology or values, we should all have high ideals. We should all have high standards, and we should all live up to them.
If we are forging a way forward to deal with bad conduct, low standards or even serious crime, we have to work, as Mark Griffin said, honestly. We need to vote for legislation that is fair, robust and enduring.
For all of us, our place in this Parliament rests on consent—the consent of the people. History is often the story of action and reaction, and rather than react in the future, I think that we should act now to guard against the corrosion of trust. Legislation is built on those principles—a presumption of political equality, of human values over money values, of compassion, of extending democracy and of safeguarding hard-won democratic rights. As we consider this bill, let us embrace those principles, let us be bold in vision and let us be resolute in action.
16:40
Today’s stage 1 debate on the bill shows that there is a general consensus on the need for the Parliament to have a recall mechanism, but there is a difference of opinion about how it should operate and be constructed.
As we move forward, there is a risk that two things could happen. The bill could grow arms and legs for reasons that might or might not be political, or fundamental limbs could be removed from it because it could be overreaching.
The debate has been wide ranging and relatively good humoured. I commend Sue Webber for being clear and passionate about where our party stands. I repeat that, had it not been for Kevin Stewart’s amendment, we would have supported the bill at stage 1. However, if Mr Stewart’s amendment is agreed to, we will abstain on the bill and watch with interest to see what happens next. I hear what Patrick Harvie says about the fact that this might not be the bill that finally delivers what is needed, which is a recall mechanism that enjoys the confidence and trust of the people who send us to the Parliament.
Patrick Harvie said about those who might campaign to have someone removed that he would perhaps consider political parties not being permitted to play any part in that. There might be some merit in that, but there is also the risk that proxies would be found in order to do that. It might be better if the label at the top of the leaflet illustrates who is driving the campaign, rather than political parties operating in the shadows.
Michelle Thomson made the significant point that we come here via different electoral systems and that the office arrangements for list MSPs are different from those for constituency MSPs, for example. However, I fully accept what Jackson Carlaw said in respect of the conundrums that will be created if we try to operate two parallel recall systems.
I always enjoy Richard Leonard’s contributions. As I have said in the past, I do not always agree with them, but I think that putting the fundamental principle of equality at the heart of the system is correct. However, although cost should not be the principal consideration, for us to set it aside and say that it is not a material consideration would not be to serve the public purse or our constituents particularly well.
I agree with what Patrick Harvie said with respect to Mark Griffin’s speech. It is a privilege and a responsibility to serve in the Parliament, and we should do so with the trust of the people. However, if we lose that trust, the logical opportunity for us to be removed is at election time, unless the individual has done something so egregious that they would fall under the remit of the scheme.
Mr Cole-Hamilton was right in many respects. I agree with his call for the protection of vulnerable groups to be material in relation to the proposed legislation. Some of my constituents are shocked that we do not have to go through that process. That would be something for members of the next Parliament to consider, regardless of what happens with the bill.
Ruth Maguire made some valid points, and I welcome her frankness about her journey back to work. She said that she is not convinced that a member changing party should necessarily be a trigger for recall. That might well be the case, because people have different reasons for moving from one party to another. There is rank opportunism in those who seek to save their bacon—we have had examples of that in this session of Parliament—but there are also people who, on a principled position, can no longer sit with a party. I think of Mr Ewing in that respect.
Will Craig Hoy take an intervention?
I do not think that I will get the time back, will I, Presiding Officer?
We have very little time.
I will take a brief intervention.
Does the point that Craig Hoy made about the different reasons for people leaving—I will not repeat the one that he gave—show that it is just so difficult to legislate for an MSP who changes party, because of all the different reasons and views that people have on it?
Absolutely. A person might choose to sit as an independent, but would that therefore prevent them from continuing to sit? The same principle would apply.
I will pick up on a couple of issues that Mr Simpson raised. I accept his legitimate point that we currently hold councillors to a higher standard in many respects, but we must recognise that there are many reasons why members of this Parliament might not be in the chamber. I believe that Mr Simpson has encountered that issue in the past, so he might have some sympathy with that position. In researching for today’s debate, I came across a May 2016 Daily Record article that I think is material to the debate, because its headline reads:
“East Kilbride councillor under fire for keeping council pay on top of MSP salary”.
The piece, which is still available online, reads:
“Newly elected Tory list MSP Graham Simpson misses council meeting for Holyrood despite saying he would have ‘no difficulty’ in combining two roles.”
The piece goes on to explain that Mr Simpson, who took both his MSP salary and his councillor salary
“did not attend South Lanarkshire Council’s executive committee meeting because of commitments at Holyrood”.
Rather than sanctioning himself for not turning up, Mr Simpson took two salaries, setting aside the long-standing convention that double-jobbing elected representatives donate one salary to charity.
I am therefore a little confused about Mr Simpson’s position in relation to those who do not fully discharge their duties: is that a matter for sanction or for reward? Mr Simpson might have changed his opinion since then and might wish to confirm that, with hindsight, he made an error of judgment. He might even now, retrospectively, want to donate the £17,000 that he received as a councillor, given that, as the Daily Record confirmed, he did not always turn up for meetings. I would be happy to give way to Mr Simpson if he wants to comment on that, but it seems that he is not going to intervene or admit to what was probably an error of judgment.
We are, basically, not opposed to the general principles of the bill, although we have some areas of concern. If Mr Stewart does not have any ulterior motives, we will find that out further down the line, but I fear that his attempt to widen the bill’s scope could allow it to be hijacked for purposes that might, in the end, undermine the rationale for introducing such a bill in the Parliament. Fundamentally, we must do far more to tease out the arguments around the bill, and we will have the opportunity to do so. Sadly, Scottish Conservatives will abstain, should Mr Stewart’s amendment be agreed to, because things would be much clearer if we were to stick to the bill as it stands, as was proposed by Mr Simpson at stage 1.
16:47
The committee’s stage 1 report concluded that
“There are some fundamental issues that would need to be addressed at Stage 2 for the Bill to be able to deliver its intended purpose.”
and it is clear from today’s debate that members pretty much unanimously agree with that. The question is how we address those issues.
I very much welcome Patrick Harvie’s commitment to engage in that process despite his party’s strong reservations about what sits before us presently, because we will need that approach if we are to come to a satisfactory conclusion.
There are a number of steps that the Government could take, in conjunction with members, to address the concerns that have been highlighted by members and by the committee and to bring the bill closer to workability. Some other issues cannot, and should not, be resolved by the Government and should be addressed by the Parliament, but the Parliament is not resourced to do that—hence my offer to deploy Government resources to support colleagues. I hope that that offer is seen to be as genuine as I intend it to be.
One clear example of that is the need to future proof the bill, at least to the degree that we can, to accommodate the findings of the independent review of the parliamentary complaints system. That is clearly necessary if the bill is to be feasible and if the Parliament is to have a way of understanding and agreeing what that complaints and sanctions process would look like before the final implementation of the legislative provisions that would trigger recall on the grounds of parliamentary sanction. Kevin Stewart’s reasoned amendment is a possible solution to that problem, which is why the Government will support it tonight. I do not accept Sue Webber’s assertions about Mr Stewart’s amendment and, in speaking for the Government, reiterate that our motives come from an utter commitment to making the process fair and workable.
Other issues have been raised in the debate and I am willing to explore them further with Mr Simpson, the committee and members ahead of stage 2 and to consider whether we can find a way forward. However, let me be clear that, if we are to provide that support and engagement, we will need adequate time to do so. The committee, which has done a sterling job to date, and the Parliament will need a realistic stage 2 deadline to work to. It will also need the constructive and thoughtful participation of the wider membership of the Parliament because, in addition to all the points in the report that have been explored today, we have heard brand new ones, including from Alex Cole-Hamilton and Sue Webber, and those different angles will require to be taken on board as we go through stages 2 and 3. We will need time to consider them and ensure that we can implement the measures, if Parliament decides that we should do that, in an appropriate way.
A lot of that work will have to be done by the Parliament. I know that this is not in the minister’s gift, but can we all come together to ensure that the Parliament gets the resource that is required to do all that work, and not just the Government? It is a job for the Parliament.
Mr Stewart will recognise that I cannot answer that question. I observe that it is unrealistic to expect that we will magically find the resource in the next few weeks or couple of months in order to do that. However, I agree with him about the Parliament coming together and working constructively to try to ensure that, at the end of the process, we have something that is capable of being implemented.
I will comment on some of the changes that are proposed in the bill, although I am conscious of time. We have explored the threshold of six months rather than 12 months for sentences. On the need to remove the provisions on non-attendance as a trigger for disqualification, I agree with much of what I heard from members in the debate. If the bill were to proceed as it is currently drafted, we would need Parliament to introduce new mechanisms for monitoring, recording and reporting on the physical attendance of MSPs on the parliamentary estate. However, it is pretty clear from the contributions to the debate that members do not believe that that would be workable or appropriate.
The committee asked for more detail on campaigning rules during the petition signing period. Its report states:
“Unless these matters are addressed, we consider that there is potential for the purpose of recall to be undermined to the detriment of the accountability and transparency that must form part of any democratic event.”
We should explore including in the bill additional provisions to cover campaign finance and campaigning rules.
The proposed changes that I and others have outlined today are numerous and complex. They would need to be supported by a range of technical amendments to ensure that the bill would fit with the existing electoral legislation in Scotland, including the relevant administrative process, the roles and responsibilities of electoral bodies, and offences arising from all aspects of the recall process.
As I said earlier, and as the debate has indicated, there is much to do—much of it complex—and relatively little time in which to do it. We will need clarity of thought and a clear eye on the principles that underpin the bill to ensure that it meets its intended purpose, which is
“to improve the democratic accountability of MSPs during the course of a parliamentary session.”
If Parliament agrees to the general principles of the bill today, we will work with colleagues across the chamber to do what we can to help to reshape some of the bill at stage 2 to reflect the committee’s and members’ clearly expressed concerns. I strongly encourage Mr Simpson to do the same in conjunction with the non-Government bills unit.
Although the Scottish Government will support the bill today, I make it clear that our support at stage 3 will depend on whether we believe that, at that stage, the Parliament has feasible, workable proposals before it that can ultimately be implemented by the institution.
Like Kevin Stewart, Ruth Maguire and Richard Leonard, I have no skin in the game. As someone noted earlier, I will not be here in the next session of Parliament. However, I believe that it is incumbent on all of us who have the privilege to sit here to help to furnish future iterations of the Parliament with a workable recall system. I hope that colleagues will join me in committing today to do all that we can in the coming weeks and months to ensure that that is the case.
16:54
I start by welcoming Ruth Maguire back. It is wonderful that she is back, and she gave a very reasoned speech, which I thought was excellent. I fully understand that she was not on the committee for most of the evidence, and we know why. The provision in the bill, as it stands, on non-attendance was certainly not aimed at people such as Ruth Maguire—definitely not.
I have enjoyed the debate, and have not intervened on members, because I have been listening. There have been excellent contributions that show how the process could work effectively. I know that I have not presented a perfect bill, and there are serious questions to be answered about it. The committee has done a great job in raising concerns about it.
My reflection on the debate is that members want a recall system that works—perhaps not the system that I originally proposed but one along the lines that I now propose, which is a much simpler and less expensive system for the regional element of the poll. I get the clear message from members that they do not like the non-attendance element of the bill at all, so perhaps we should just be pragmatic about that and get rid of it.
Members do not seem to like the suggestion that we reduce the jail term, if I can call it that, from more than 12 months to six months. If that is members’ position, why do we not get rid of that? Why do we not make this a recall bill and get it right? [Interruption.]
I hope that the minister is okay—I see that he is coughing.
If we concentrate on recall, the job becomes much simpler. We could do as I suggest and base the constituency element on the Westminster system and simplify my proposal for the regional element, because we have to have a regional element—there is no getting around that. One of the difficulties that I had was wrestling with our electoral system. I do not like our electoral system, and I think that it should change, but we are stuck with it. If we are going to have a recall system, we have to come up with a system to deal with regional members.
Graeme Dey and I are both former newspaper journalists, so we both know about the process by which pieces of work are honed, shaped and checked. That is the process that we are now going through with the bill. I am not going to be precious about that, but it would be a very bad look indeed if the bill does not pass in some form and we end up not having a recall system in Scotland.
I hope to engage in the process that Graham Simpson describes as we seek to scrutinise and make better the pages of the bill. Will he offer his views on my suggestion that we should include an element of PVG checks for parliamentarians as a trigger for barring from parliamentary service those who are seen to be ineligible to work with children or vulnerable adults? That is a big part of what we do. If our constituents knew that we were members of the PVG scheme, they would be reassured when seeking our help.
I thank Alex Cole-Hamilton for making that interesting point again. I do not know whether he intends to lodge an amendment to that effect at stage 2, but the issue should certainly be considered. I was just recalling that, when I was a councillor, I had to have those checks done, but we do not have to have them as MSPs. That seems to be an oversight that should certainly be addressed.
Martin Whitfield, the convener of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, gave, as he always does, a very good speech, and he referenced the ancient Greeks. I cannot remember what he said about the ancient Greeks, but there it was. It was a bit of a history lesson, as was Richard Leonard’s contribution.
I am just pleased that we have got this far. There will be big changes to the bill, and there should be, which is part of the process. I will work with anyone who has sensible ideas and who wants a recall system in Scotland. I have always worked that way, and I hope that members will be constructive.
I do not wish to embarrass the minister, but I have enjoyed a friendship with him for a number of years. It is an enduring friendship, and I hope that he can work with me on that basis. I have also worked with Kevin Stewart and will work with him at stage 2. His amendment is cheeky and he has given the Scottish Conservatives a reason to abstain, which is regrettable. Perhaps he will reconsider, because I would rather members did not have a reason to abstain. The public will expect us to work together on the bill, which is what we should do. We cannot be left as the only part of the United Kingdom without a recall process.
In closing, when Jamie Hepburn appeared before the committee, I asked him whether he agreed with me that we can have the best system of recall in the UK, which he did. Let us rise to the challenge, support the general principles of the bill, and work together to get it into a shape that all members of the Parliament can agree on.
Next
Decision Time