So you believe that there are benefits and protections with the current system.

On public trust, we heard earlier about the evasive techniques that those who respond to FOI requests can deploy. We heard that the bill would prevent that from happening. What are your thoughts on that? There will be organisations that are not as open and timeous as your organisations in responding and which might use such techniques.

That is a helpful example. Is the public sector ready to implement that proactive duty to publish? What support might it need?

That is helpful.

Fiona, do you want to respond to those questions?

In your view, then, do you think that the public sector in Scotland is ready to implement a proactive duty to publish? You have talked about resource and support challenges and certain technical, financial and cultural issues, but what do you think might be needed to make that sort of approach effective?

Okay. Gordon—

My next question is for Gordon Martin. If there were proactive publication, what opportunities would that provide to you, as someone who requests information? How would that benefit you?

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 give way?

Will the member take an intervention?