Chamber and committees

Thank you. We move to questions from the committee. I will start us off and get right to the basics. Why is it important to have equal representation of women and men in the Scottish Parliament?

Thank you all. We will now move on to questions from the committee, and I will start off.

I asked the stakeholders on the previous panel why it was important to have equality between men and women in the Scottish Parliament. How important is it to your party that we have that equality? I ask James Tweedie to respond first.

We move to questions from Tess White.

We also have a supplementary from Pam Gosal.

We move to questions from Pam Gosal.

That brings us to the close of this session. If members are content that they have asked everything that they wished to, and witnesses are content that they have said everything that they would like to say, I thank you for coming along.

We move into private session to consider the rest of the business on our agenda.

Welcome back. We move to our second panel of witnesses. I welcome James Tweedie, director, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party; Ann McGuinness, co-convener, women’s network, Scottish Green Party; Sarah Boyack MSP, who is attending on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party; and Cailyn McMahon, local government officer, Scottish National Party.

We will start with Ann McGuinness.

Thank you—that is quite a lot to absorb, but it is important that we get to the bones of the issue.

As members are content that they have asked all the questions that they wanted to ask, I will ask the witnesses whether there is anything that they want to add before I bring the session to a conclusion.

As no one wants to add anything, I will suspend the meeting briefly to allow for a changeover of witnesses.