Chamber and committees

Is your thinking about grace periods for all those situations predominantly around the Holyrood election and council elections? Are you confident that the timings that you arrive at will also work in a by-election situation? Someone could end up with a dual mandate because of a parliamentary by-election.

Absolutely. The Scottish Government is suggesting things rather than saying, “This is our view,” but are you content for a bill to, in essence, try to hypothesise on unknown unknowns in the future?

The next natural question relates to a person’s rights and privileges during the grace period. You are unable to affect what happens in institutions outside Scotland, but what is the Scottish Government’s thinking on the rights and privileges of an MSP? Should we curtail those?

With the exception of a law official.

Which in itself can be a difficult task.

I thank the Government for sharing information and for the evidence that we have heard today. What has come through, not only in the evidence to the Government but subjectively—a lot of people think this—is that these are full-time roles and should be fulfilled as such. It is pertinent to address the dual mandate issue. Although the minutiae are not available to some people, it is useful to keep in mind the principle that an elected role is a full-time job and needs to be treated that way.

Minister, thank you for both your evidence sessions, and thank you to those who support you. We move into private and will reconvene in public, not before 1 pm.

Thank you very much. I am happy to start with the questions, but I am also happy to open up to the committee if anyone has any urgent ones.

I am not questioning the rights and wrongs; I am questioning the comparator and the change. It is the difference between saying that this is where we are at following a proposal and saying that this is where we were at the beginning of the previous review and this is how we have changed.

You have hinted at the challenge that we have had with the process, which is that the public’s understanding is far removed from the reality. People are frequently confronted with questions that come to them as individuals living in a town or village or on an island and cause them to say, “Don’t be ridiculous.” Then there is a big learning curve to find out what the four rules are for constituencies.

I wonder whether you have looked at something else in the responses. It is almost impossible for an individual to create an inquiry. They have to belong to a group that fits under a title. A church that represents X hundreds of the registered electorate stands a far greater chance of triggering an inquiry. Local authorities can trigger inquiries and have done. However, when individuals send responses in and ask, “What do I do now?”, although you think that the effect of the proposals that are being made would probably be best seen in an inquiry, you say that the individual cannot ask for one, because it has to be a pool that is looked at.

I understand why that came about, because otherwise you would be holding inquiries all over the place, all the time. However, is the balance right on what triggers an inquiry, given that local authorities can demand an inquiry but other groups—if they can show you that they have grouped themselves appropriately—also have to be considered when deciding on an inquiry?

In opening the discussion, you talked about the Venice commission’s strong suggestions that any variation from the electoral quota should be up to 15 per cent of the quota. In essence, that speaks to the weight of value of an individual vote in any area. That is why it exists—so that my vote has the same value as another’s. However, much of the Scotland Act 1998 talks about moving away from that approach when the circumstances of an area speak to it. Do you have enough flexibility to reflect the intention of the Scotland Act 1998?

That speaks to what Emma Roddick said about the association of those islands outside of the protected islands, while you have spoken about the distances that exist in some constituencies, Professor Henderson. Is there sufficient flexibility for you to reflect what you have to achieve and—this is the difficult bit—reflect what the people of Scotland expect to be achieved by creating constituencies and then grouping them into regions?

You anticipated my next question. Do you welcome your level of flexibility or, as an explainer, is the 10 or 5 per cent rule much easier for people to understand, even though they may not agree with it?

Good morning. I welcome everyone to the 10th meeting in 2025 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. I have received apologies from Ruth Maguire, and I welcome Rona Mackay who is attending as her substitute. I have also received apologies from Annie Wells.

Our first item of business is a decision on whether to take in private agenda items 4 and 6, which will be discussions of the evidence that we will hear today. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.