Chamber and committees

I can take you through what we are doing in the regulations, but I will first bring Ailsa McKeever in to explain the rationale, if that is helpful.

Convener, I was just suggesting that that option is open, if the committee feels the need to reinforce that or to seek further reassurance from the parliamentary authorities.

We would be dealing with a very limited period. Going back to Ailsa McKeever’s point, the approach is about consistency, which is why it is focused on the base salary. A further complication arises in the context of additional remuneration and special responsibility allowances, which can be variable. Therefore, in a practical sense, it would have been quite difficult to manage that. What we have come up with is a pragmatic set of proposals that are easily understood and easy to implement. To address your point about expectation, it is a matter for the individual to decide what they will do with regard to the additional salary.

Yes, it is, but it is also what the public would expect. It is the public’s expectation that people are focused on the job to which they have been elected. As I said earlier, it also helps to protect colleagues from criticism in some instances.

Ultimately, there will always be an element of that being up to the individual. There is only so much that we can control. It is possible that, despite our best efforts, we could have a resignation in the MP-MSP space in that summer period. People will want to sort their lives out and get organised. Most people are cognisant of the reason for the 49 days and, therefore, we would expect common sense to prevail. I recognise the risk that you allude to, convener, but my perspective is that there is a limit to how much we can manage it. I would expect it to be monitored going forward, to see whether the issue that you allude to arises, and we still have a plethora of by-elections.

Yes—it is up to us to do that.

I am indeed. I was smiling just now because I was thinking about the number of times that the Government is criticised for being insufficiently clear. In this instance, we have sought to provide the maximum clarity, recognising that people would like that, as we are in unprecedented territory.

Thank you for inviting me to give evidence on these three sets of regulations. The regulations that the committee is scrutinising are the culmination of an intense period of consultation and policy development since the passing of the Scottish Elections (Representation Reform) Act 2025. Part 2 of the act, which was passed unanimously by the Scottish Parliament in December 2024, requires that the Scottish ministers lay draft regulations before the Parliament prohibiting MSPs from holding dual mandates as MSPs and peers. It includes a discretionary power in relation to MSPs who are also councillors.

The public consultation exercise ran in early 2025, to ensure that members of the public, interested stakeholders and political parties had an opportunity to share their views on the issue of dual mandates in the Scottish Parliament. The consultation sought views on the practical steps required to create a workable policy for the institution.

There are three sets of regulations before us, one for each category of dual mandate. The first set of regulations will disqualify MSPs who also hold an MP role if they do not resolve their dual mandate within 49 days of being returned as an MSP or an MP, whichever comes second. That period is intended to limit vacancies that arise before the end of June, thereby seeking to ensure that by-elections do not fall during the typical Scottish school summer holiday period of July and August.

The second set of regulations will disqualify MSPs who also hold a role as a member of the House of Lords if they do not resolve their dual mandate within 14 days of being returned as an MSP or of taking the oath as a member of the House of Lords, whichever comes second. This period is shorter than the other periods proposed, in order to reflect the unelected nature of the Lords and therefore the lack of constituents and the lack of by-elections that would be expected in the other categories.

The final set of regulations will disqualify MSPs who also hold a role as a councillor in a Scottish local authority if they do not resolve their dual mandate before the end of one of the periods of exception. The first exception applies if there are fewer than 372 days between the day on which the person is returned as an MSP and the day that the next ordinary election of councillors is due to be held. The exception allows councillors who become MSPs at an election that falls in the year before the local elections to complete their term as councillors. That is intended to prevent a large number of vacancies and by-elections within a year of a local government election.

The second exemption applies when there are more than 372 days between a councillor being returned as an MSP and the date of the next ordinary election of councillors. In these circumstances, they must resolve their dual mandate within 49 days of being elected to their second role. As is the case with the first set of regulations, this seven-week period is intended to limit by-elections over the summer period.

Although all the regulations will come into force on the day after they are signed, they do not disqualify any MSP until the day of the poll at the next Scottish Parliament election, which ensures that no current MSPs face disqualification, providing around six months’ notice of the change in position and preventing any disruption to the last year of the current parliamentary session.

Again, I was not in post when the matter was initially progressed, so Ailsa McKeever could perhaps explain the rationale.

That was part of our thinking.