Seòmar agus comataidhean

Malcolm, do you want to add anything?

I understand that there is a policy dimension to this question, but I want to talk about the practicalities. Would automatic voter registration cause you any administration problems? I know that it would be a different landscape. Quite apart from than the policy decision about whether there should or should not be automatic voter registration, does anything about it concern you?

That is fine. I am interested in it from the administrative point of view, so that we could have that on the record.

My other question is on an aspect that seems to be omitted from the bill, which is the emergency proxy vote, particularly for carers. I will come to you first, Andy Hunter, on the practical matters, and then to you, Malcolm Burr. What are your views on that situation? From my experience of running around on election day, that is the one question that keeps coming up, but no one seems to know the answer to it.

From an administrative point of view, is the existing system fine? Could it take other applicants’ names being added to it without too much challenge?

I thank the committee and the convener for allowing me to make this statement. It will be very short.

With the greatest respect, I suggest that a lot of the discussion is mixing two elements. One is whether the survivors who lodged the petition can enter the redress scheme. The second is whether, if they do enter the redress scheme, they can produce the evidence that is required. I think it would be helpful to separate those things.

I understand, from the Deputy First Minister’s answer to Foysol Choudhury, that it sits within her power to change the regulations and allow entry to the redress scheme. As, I think, Oliver Mundell pointed out, once the petitioners were in the redress scheme, it would be for the evidence to be balanced.

The First Minister gave the figure of 79 per cent for all those across Scotland who were in agreement with the remit of the redress scheme. Does the Deputy First Minister think that, if the people of Scotland understood this petition in the way that this committee does and in the way that the people who have attended today do, those 79 per cent would say they do not deserve redress?

Good morning, and welcome to the fifth meeting in 2024 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. This is only the second time that the committee—or its predecessors—has sat on a leap day. I have received no apologies.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on whether to take in private item 3, which is consideration of the evidence that we are about to hear from our witnesses. Is the committee content to take item 3 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I have.

I am going to do that marvellous convener’s thing of referring to the pre-printed bit at the top of the script and say that I am conscious of the time.

We did an interesting iterative report about chamber procedures, and it is a journey—I will say no more than that at the moment.

I thank you both for a very interesting and thought-provoking morning. I know that we have an offer to contact you if we have any additional questions.

I will use the convener’s privilege to say, particularly with regard to the last point that Adam Tomkins raised, that the three criteria that the Parliamentary Bureau should use in recommending committee members to the chamber are, as we have already discussed, the party balance, the interest of a member in serving on a committee, and the member’s qualification and experience, as indicated by that member, to serve on a committee.

You have both raised a lot of questions, and I thank you very much for your contributions this morning. I am sure that you will follow our inquiry with interest, which is good, because it means that we will be held to account by those who were formerly in Parliament and are now outside it, but whose views and opinions are most welcome.