Chamber and committees

Are members content that they have asked everything that they wished to ask?

Members: Yes.

When you come into Parliament as a new MSP, you are presented with emails from people asking to be elected as DPO, and you have to undertake scrutiny of those individuals to know and understand them a bit better, which will, in turn, inform your decision as to whom to vote for. That gives a bit of an insight as to why it might be best for those who know the individuals better to make that decision.

Yes.

On the point about induction and training, and the experience that members can bring to committees, I think that there is a part for political parties to play prior to members being elected and coming to the Scottish Parliament. That education should begin at the vetting stage and continue when candidates are in place. The understanding of how our democratic institution works is beneficial to all of society anyway, but it is important that people have that basic knowledge in the first place, before they get to Parliament.

Induction, training and on-going professional development are very helpful. Often, we look at a bill for a good few weeks and then we step in to do a bit of post-legislative scrutiny, so the hat that we wear changes, and we have to shift focus. On-going skills development is helpful for everybody on committees.

Emotional intelligence is also important, as is knowing how to recognise the effectiveness of respectful scrutiny—that is how we get the best from the witnesses. A rounded approach to training and induction, both pre-election and on-going when members are here, is important to ensure that we have the most effective committees.

I must say that there is always plenty of work. There is a long list of things that we would love to work on. Although we found ourselves with an open work programme, it was great to be able to have that discussion. We regularly have work programme discussions. Having been on other committees, I can say that we seem to do more of that on the equalities committee. Topical issues often come up, and it is important to have the space for that.

It has also given us the opportunity to add in more post-legislative scrutiny—for example, I am excited to see that we will be doing an inquiry on the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 in June—and the space to have broader discussions on things. We had stage 2 of the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill, which involved—I think—600 amendments, and that took up quite a bit of time. So, we have found that timing and capacity can be equally challenging for a committee.

It has afforded us the ability to open up other streams of work.

I am just saying that it was a good example of cross-party working. We can look at the culture that was cultivated in that debate and carry that mindset through into the committees, knowing that we are all working towards a common purpose of creating the best outcomes and the best law and of scrutinising topics in the best way. We can think about practical things such as working together on work programmes and having away days, but it is important to look at pulling the topical politics out of that.

It is really hard to prioritise things that are all a priority. That is why the committees are set up. However, I would say that the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee is an exceptionally important committee, because its remit overarches and goes through each of those priorities. At the equalities committee, we have seen things on our desk that could sit with the education committee, the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee or the Criminal Justice Committee. Our work—particularly our scrutiny of human rights budgeting—overarches everything. When we really look at how that budgeting works, and people with lived experience come into the committee and give evidence on what it looks like for them, it is exceptionally powerful. It reaches through every part of their lives.

The rurality aspect has been a particular focus of our committee’s scrutiny over the past four years, including how that impedes a person’s access to any type of public service and their human rights. Although people might think that the subjects that the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee and the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee look at are very different, our remit overarches rurality as well.

I disagree about removing a system if doing so undermines the democratic representatives that the people have elected to represent them in the Parliament, which includes committees that are scrutinising legislation. It is important that we have proportional representation in our committees.

The point about continuity is absolutely helpful. It works when you have people who have been there for a long time. I have been on the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee since the beginning of the session—I am now the convener—and continuity has been really helpful in that regard. However, having a fresh pair of eyes is not harmful. People can come in with fresh perspectives, particularly if they have some lived experience or background that is relevant to an upcoming bill or piece of committee work. Allocation should be up to the party groups, because they know one another’s talents and backgrounds best, and that can be quite an intuitive process.

It is down to each individual member to choose how they work on a committee. The SNP has a very deep respect for the Scottish Parliament, and it really is in our interests to have robust scrutiny in order to make good law for the people of Scotland, because that ultimately makes for good, robust governance. For my party, it would be a case of training and supporting all individual members on committees so that they know how to do that robust scrutiny as effectively as possible.

I want to plug the fact that, on the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, we are doing a bit of post-legislative scrutiny of the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015, and we are also looking at the implementation of acts and the delayed implementation of the Female Genital Mutilation (Protection and Guidance) (Scotland) Act 2020. You have to work with other members on your work programme in order to see how you can work the scrutiny in.

What the committee covers is down to individual members and what is happening in the moment. Topical issues arise that you absolutely have to make space for. As time has gone on, social media has started to play a big part in how committees and the overall Parliament are run, compared with how committees were years ago. People sometimes want clips for social media, and the politicisation of certain topics might not help. In that regard, it is important that we have robust training for members who go on committees, so that they know and understand how important it is that they should be respectful when they scrutinise legislation.

For the SNP, we have always prioritised hearing from those with lived experience. It is vital to hear how policy affects those on the ground or on the front line. In committee, I have seen examples of that, such as when we were doing our human rights budgeting. People from various backgrounds came in and fed back on what the budget meant to them, what they knew about it, the transparency around it and whether they thought that they could scrutinise it. It was really valuable work.

Disabled people with lived experience gave evidence on the Disability Commissioner (Scotland) Bill, and autism groups came in to discuss the learning disabilities, autism and neurodivergence bill. It was really important to hear about that lived experience.