Chamber and committees

Because of that last question, I will deal with my questions in a different way from what I intended. All my questions will be on the recommendations that are relevant to the committee.

I struggled with the recommendation on bullying and harassment, and I thought long and hard about the right way to address the matter. I understand why complaints relating to bullying and harassment might be investigated by an outside body, but, in my experience, the committee is fairly robust in how it deals with its colleagues who breach rules. In fact, it is probably more robust than some other people might be who are not directly involved, because committee members have bought into the Parliament and are part of it. Do the witnesses not think, therefore, that it might be better to give the investigation to the third party but allow the outcome of the investigation to be decided by a group of fellow MSPs—the peers of the person against whom the complaint has been made?

I have one follow-up question. Let us say, for example, that a party is going to elect two people to one of the committees. Let us make this interesting in the sense that I can relate to it and take the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee as an example. Let us say that it was my party and that there were two farmers who desperately wanted to be on that committee but they both happened to be male. Under the rules, one of them could be excluded, yet they would undoubtedly be the best person for the job.

I agree that, if you want to go back and change things to ensure that there are more women farmers—women in agriculture are really important—that is a good start, but that is not where we are at. Therefore, you would say to me, “Edward, you are a man. You can’t be on that committee although you have been farming for 40 years.” How would that make me feel, as an MSP in this Parliament? I think that it would make me feel undervalued. Do you not agree, Susan?

Thank you. I have heard the arguments, and I am sure that we will discuss them later.

I have been through a period when I was desperate for us to have proxy voting, because I could not vote in person. By the end of it, I was concerned that people would not know that I had not been in the Parliament or why I had not been voting, because not everyone reads through the voting lists.

The beauty of our current proxy voting system is that it requires a member to apply for such a vote for a period of time, which is important. I will not be on the committee when it makes this decision, but I think that it is important that a proxy vote be allocated for a certain period. Having a permissive system that would enable us to increase it for other things for a set period of time is, I think, right, because it would give parties and the Parliament a chance to ensure that the person who was proxy voting was being properly mentored—and not only by their party. I have always believed that the Presiding Officer has a role in mentoring members who use a proxy vote for a long period of time. We are a family even though we are divided on some issues.

I just wanted to make that observation, convener.

Douglas, I think that you have some further questions.

Thank you. Jim Fairlie, you wanted to come back with a follow-up.

I have a final question. The pricing of all this seems quite opaque to me. You have the costs that you put out, plus the contingency plan, plus what I call the Derek Mackay loan, then you have the extra money that has been given to the yard, and then you have some capital investment subsequent to that. That basically means that we are talking about £175 million to produce each of these ferries—that is roughly where I am at. That does not include any of the stuff that needs to be done in the harbours to make sure that they can take these boats. We know that Ardrossan cannot and there are no LNG tanks, so there is probably quite a lot of extra money in there that is not part of the contracts. If each of these boats, Glen Sannox and 802, has cost £175 million to build, what value will CMAL be putting them on its books at? That is the value that they will have to be insured at and that is their true worth, so what do you think the true worth of each of these boats is? It cannot be £175 million, surely.

You left that answer hanging. You said that you know about the relationships that you have had in the past 18 months. You had better tell us about them, because we do not know.

Item 2 is a decision on whether to take items 5, 6 and 7 in private. Item 5 is to consider the stakeholders’ views on “Scotland’s Guiding Principles On The Environment: Statutory Guidance” and the recent Scottish Government report on the effectiveness of environmental governance regulations, item 6 is to consider the evidence we will hear under agenda item 3, and item 7 is to consider whether to seek approval for the appointment of an adviser. Are we happy to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

There are a whole heap of questions, as you would expect. I will start off with an easy one.

Looking back, when you first took over the construction, was it clear that there were serious problems with the construction of the vessel at that stage? Were you clear from day 1, when you moved into the yard, that there were problems?