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Where the Edinburgh Parliament encourages MSPs to focus on politics, and party politics in particular, constituency work is far more liberated and reflects far better on MSPs as public representatives."
For example, in relation to the Edinburgh tramline projects, many MSPs indicated during the preliminary stage that they supported the proposal to shift the route of one of the lines.
On reflection, however, I felt that simply laying the report before Parliament did not really give MSPs, whether in plenary or committee meetings, any part in the process.
However, in a face-to-face encounter with many of the people in the public gallery today, I would be struggling. As MSPs, all of us must take that on board.
Non-committee members are also present today to contribute to the debate and perhaps to move amendments: I welcome Helen Eadie MSP, Elaine Smith MSP and Bill Aitken MSP.
I suggest that a substantially higher threshold should be set—it would probably have to be as high as 10 per cent of an MSP's salary. I will illustrate why I say that.