Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you. I am sorry to cut you off—did you want to continue?

Good morning. To give you a bit of insight, I was newly elected in May last year. Prior to that I was—I still am—a councillor in South Lanarkshire. The reason why I mention that is because of my own experience of hybrid and virtual working here. It is all that I had known—it was like the Mary Celeste, which is a shame, because this is a public building, so there should be people in here. It is lovely to have people back in. Having had the experience of being a councillor was great, because I did not have the same peer support when I first came here. Being able to draw on my experience of being a councillor was great. I do not know what it would have been like for other newly elected members who did not have that experience.

I want to explore the challenges and the opportunities of having a digital Parliament and how successful the Scottish Parliament’s transition to hybrid and virtual working methods has been. You might also touch on how we measure that success and any mitigating factors that have presented themselves. You could include examples of the limits of the technology and perhaps of people’s ability to grasp that technology.

You answered my next question, to a degree, which was about what other legislatures are doing, what lessons we can pick up from that and maybe what mistakes we have made.

In thinking about a digital Parliament that means more proceedings being held in hybrid form, what related issues should the Scottish Parliament consider for the future? You mentioned looking forward 10 years, and we have talked about spontaneity. I am very big on tone as well. At the Engender event that we had in person last night, I talked about—I am sorry, but I will be quite controversial here—misogyny in the tone particularly of men, especially in the chamber, and how we can tone that down. It can be quite intimidating for a lot of women MSPs.

Good morning. You touched on equality being a key principle of politics. The make-up and logistics of Westminster are such that there are 650 members of Parliament and only 427 seats in the Commons chamber. From an equality point of view, that does not seem very equitable. Do you want to comment on that?

On Covid recovery and prisons, we asked for a detailed plan for the reinstatement of purposeful activity in prisons. I know that a paper came forward previously that extended the approach in light of Covid and the fact that there were a lot of staff absences due to it. However, I would like to get more meat on the bones and maybe even have HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland come back in, if possible, as it inspects and monitors purposeful activity in the prisons. We would not get a full picture from the Scottish Prison Service. It would be good to bring the inspectorate back in, to see the stats and maybe where there are pitfalls in different prisons in the estate.

It is really important that purposeful activity and the rehabilitation programmes are brought back in. That is crucial.

When we visited the High Court, I asked the Lord President about why sentencing statements are on the website. It is not clear what the survivor is asking for. Is she asking for transcripts or for everything that relates to the case? I looked at the Crown Office website. I might be wrong or I might not have looked in the right place, but there seems to be a lot of information there to do with criminal appeal cases and very little about other cases. How and why is that information published? Is there an issue with confidentiality? There is no rhyme or reason. I would like more information about what is in the public domain.

Sorry—I am just wondering whether we gave the Government the table in the form that it is presented to us. Did we give it the table to populate the responses?

Referring to what Pauline McNeill has been saying, the instrument before us is the first of two pieces of subordinate legislation that are coming through. It might be worth pursuing the matter to get answers to some of the questions that she has raised. There are two aspects to it, but the heart of it relates to the McCloud judgment and the need for levelling up, given the discrimination that came about.

I have a suggestion, based on Jamie Greene’s points. David Strang, who is heading up the Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce, was previously chief inspector of prisons. If the committee is so minded, we could get him in to provide an update, particularly on throughcare. Having worked with him in the past, I know that he is particularly keen on throughcare and transition for prisoners. I would be really keen to hear what progress has been made by the task force, particularly in the area of justice.

I have been a substitute member on the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. That was excellent, especially during the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties. However, obviously, I am a member of this committee, and I am also a member of the Criminal Justice Committee. If I were then to substitute on a Tuesday, that would be challenging from a planning perspective. I would need to weigh that up and consider whether it was going to be long term. If a member were to be substituting in the long term and would be a member of three committees while trying to balance constituency work, they would have to weigh that up and have a good conversation with their whip or business manager.

It would be good to get feedback from the clerks on how often substitutes are used and the amount of work that the clerks do in scrambling about trying to find substitutes.