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.

It is an interesting point and I picked up on that, but how many times have we seen a minister stand up in the Parliament and answer the question that they want to answer, not the one that has been asked? That is the crux—although not necessarily the depth—of the answer. Does Mr Whitfield agree that it would be useful for the Presiding Officer to instruct the minister to answer the question that they have been asked which, in most cases, has been through the chamber desk anyway?

I thank Mr Brown for that question. I am not suggesting that we have lots more commissioners; we probably have enough.

As far as the long-term situation in the Parliament and the diluting of accountability, I do not agree with Mr Brown, because, at the end of the day, the decision whether to incorporate what is decided at citizens panels comes down to MSPs. MSPs have to and should answer to those panels on why they are or are not taking an idea forward.

I am sorry that I cannot sway Mr Brown on the Presiding Officer. There are definitely different views on that around the chamber, and I suspect that a member’s views might also differ whether their party is in Government or not.

Another issue that was mentioned was the code of conduct. I absolutely believe that responsibility for that should reside with the current committee. Having sat on that committee, and seen members being judged by their peers and being answerable to their peers on their behaviour, I know that their peers are much harsher than perhaps anyone else would be. It is right that we answer to our peers.

One of the other issues that I picked up was a public register of interests, on which the public can indicate that they are interested in a subject and be notified by the Parliament that it is coming up. That is really important, and it will help people across Scotland to understand and feed into the process.

I absolutely agree with John Mason’s point about external visits. As members will know, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee held a committee meeting in Orkney and a subsequent meeting at Galashiels. Such meetings are important, because they are about the committee engaging with people. The committee can have a meeting at which people are allowed to contribute and participate, and then hold the more formal meeting afterwards. We should do more of that. I have not been to such meetings during the current session, but I was pleased to do so during session 5.

Finally, educating children on how the Parliament works is important. It is easy for schools in Edinburgh and Glasgow to pop across to the Parliament and make use of its excellent facilities, but when it comes to schools in the Highlands, it is more difficult. I have certainly struggled to get schools to come down from Skye, Wick and Caithness, because of the length of time that it takes to travel and the costs of doing so, which means that their children do not understand how the Parliament works. We have an excellent service here, but I do not know whether it travels out to schools, which might be an option, or whether we should make sure that how the Parliament works is part of the curriculum, but everyone needs to know about that.

I thank the committee for its excellent report.

Public participation in this Parliament is absolutely vital. As one goes further away from Edinburgh, where Parliament sits, one gets asked more and more questions. As one goes up to the very north of the Highlands, one finds that people know their local MSPs, but they know little about the other MSPs in Parliament, whom they feel outnumber their local MSPs. They also feel that people who do not have life experience in remote areas do not know as much about it as they should do. Therefore, highlanders and islanders need that participation, and they need it to be confirmed that there is not a bias towards what happens in the central belt when decisions are made.

They also need to know how to engage with Parliament. John Mason made the point that a lot of constituents come into our offices and ask us lots of questions, but they do not know how to engage with Parliament or the parliamentary committees. Some of them will know how to write to their MSPs, and we are usually the last port of call in very difficult circumstances, but they do not know how to engage, for example, on the issue of the power lines that go from north to south. They do not know how to get involved or which committee to get involved with, and we need to rectify that.

When it came to the citizens participation part of the report, I have to admit that I was slightly sceptical. I pored over the report and found it actually quite interesting to see the recommendations of the committee and of the people who had taken part in the citizens panels that the committee had set up. I became swayed by it. That is why, very briefly putting on my hat as the convener of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, I can say that we are delighted to have bid for and—I think—been accepted by the Conveners Group to be the first committee to have a citizens panel to carry out post-legislative scrutiny of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. That is really important, and it will be an important way for the committee to hear what people think about that crucial subject.

Taking that hat off, as I have made that announcement—which I will probably get in trouble for somewhere along the line—I think it is important that, when that panel is formed and it does its post-legislative scrutiny, it is made clear to it what its remit is and how far it can go with its recommendations. There is no point in asking panel members to do something and giving them the story that they can take part, but then not allowing them to fulfil that role. There is a careful balance to be set.

I heard what Jackson Carlaw said about MSPs taking part in citizens panels, but sometimes an MSP should be there just to be able to say, “There is an issue with what you are recommending”. That would allow the panel to report back knowing how MSPs can use their recommendations.

When we set up the panels, there is a real need, as the report made clear, to put on them the right balance of people with the right experience. As plenty of people have said, a panel should not be made up only of the same vociferous characters that we meet in our constituency when we talk about the subject that the panel is going to look at, because they do not always represent the views of every person in the constituency. I would like to see the other people brought in.

The people on the panels also need to see the outcomes of the reports that they produce. I like the idea that positive action needs to be reported within nine months. I fear that, after that amount of time, people will feel that nothing has happened. The earlier that we can get back to them once they have produced a report on what they have done, the better.

Turning to the point in the committee’s report about the powers of the Presiding Officer, I may, strangely, differ from Martin Whitfield. I am taken by the fact that, as a back bencher, it is very difficult to get an answer in this Parliament. I am also taken by the fact that Jackson Carlaw has suggested that having the power that is recommended in the report but not necessarily using it may be sufficient.

It is frustrating not just for us but for people who watch the events in this chamber. How many of us have been told, “Well, you never got an answer. They talked about something completely different to what you asked them about.”? That is unhelpful, because it gives the wrong message about Parliament. The message that Parliament should be giving is that we are considering every single option and that those that are discounted are being discounted for good reasons.

I believe that the Presiding Officers should have more power. The Presiding Officers have made a decision to reduce the length of answers to some questions. That is right, because if we cannot get an answer in a minute, we are not going to get an answer in five minutes. Long answers mean that back benchers do not get to ask their questions and people get frustrated that the MSPs that they have elected are not getting answers.

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.