Thank you very much.

My first question, which is a very easy one, is for Alex Plant. What do you see as the key challenges that Scottish Water faces, and what are your priorities now that you are in the role?

I have listened with interest. Having been one of the people who were caught in those delays—two hours and 30 minutes coming down and two hours and 23 minutes going north—I know how much those road works are strangling the Highlands. The sign says that it will take 18 weeks—there will be 18 weeks of this. The minister suggested that there will be a pause in the middle. Will the minister confirm that delays of two and a half hours are not acceptable and that she will not accept them because of the economic impact that they are having on the Highlands—in fact, on the whole of Scotland?

That was for committees with a much bigger structure. In such cases, it might be possible to achieve that with the gender balance that we have in the Parliament, as members are available for that.

On quotas, you might be drifting away from that approach. As a Parliament, we cannot direct how parties select their candidates—that is outwith parliamentary control. It might be that a party’s selection and then election process—even if there was a 50:50 candidate split—could result in a party having one more male than female, or the other way round. You cannot direct quotas, because you cannot direct the election. Therefore, I do not understand how you feel that you can implement a quota system. How do you implement it?

I totally agree with that. However, if, despite my preference, I am excluded because of quotas, that is wrong.

As a committee convener, I do a huge amount of work with clerks to ensure that I do not have an all-male panel or an all-female panel. I ensure that there is balance. Setting quotas prevents that, and it worries me that the best person for the job would be prevented from doing it. I do not care whether they are male or female; I want the best person for the job.

Thank you, convener. I am delighted to be back on the committee, which is one that I have always enjoyed immensely. I hope that, at the end of this meeting, you will still be able to say that you enjoyed having me.

I have no interests that are relevant to the meeting to declare, but I remind members that I have in the register of members’ interests an entry that says that I own property, am part of a family farming partnership and have a wild fishery on the river Spey.

The only comment that I would make is that I was on this committee at the start of the session and I am now back as a substitute—I am in the fourth group of people from my party who have been on this committee. The membership will constantly change, and I cannot see how you can force it—that is my problem.

I have a small question on committee membership. If, during a session, somebody is asked to step down from a committee to try to get a balance, they can, of course, refuse to do so. I do not have to resign from a committee just because my party wants me to; I have to write to the Presiding Officer and say that I want to resign. You might not be able to achieve this aim without a lot more significant rule changes, and you might be ordering somebody to leave a committee when they have expressed a preference to attend it. Would you feel comfortable with doing that?

Okay. What you have put forward has not convinced me that that is the right way to go, as you have said that the recommendation is there just as a matter for discussion.

Convener, you know my views on proxy voting, because I was on the committee when it was discussed. It is the most excellent thing that we have brought in, and it is important that we continue it. I will just comment that it is important to increase access to it for parental leave, bereavement and illness. I struggle to imagine an MSP voting against that, because we never know what is around the corner.

I agree on the data collection point.

I will turn to the issue of quotas, which is where I have some issues. Susan Duffy, do you agree that, when you select somebody to do a job, it does not matter where they come from or whether they are male or female and that the most important thing is to get the best person to do that job?

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?