Seòmar agus comataidhean

So the basis of your understanding is entirely restricted to the quarry that you believe the birds are trying to hunt and does not include the natural landscape that allows them to fly.

I thought it was in response to a stage 3 amendment from a party that is not in Government that sought to include birds of prey and falconry in the amendment.

So when I asked a moment ago what the circumstances were that allowed for birds of prey to be included, there were not any.

You are not as young as you look, Mr Sweeney.

We can perhaps ask for a STAG assessment from Transport Scotland. Are there any other views?

Thank you very much, cabinet secretary, and thank you for your sympathy for, and the comments that you have expressed to, the petitioner. The petition was difficult to read. It was equally difficult to hear the real-time experience of the petitioner, and I know that the sentiments that you have expressed are shared by us all.

Perhaps you could, as we proceed, indicate when you would like to include your colleagues in responses to questions. I will leave that to your discretion. If they wish to intervene at any point, I ask them to do so. We try to keep proceedings relatively informal in order to have as productive a discussion as possible.

I have an introductory question. I am intrigued to know what factors you think were responsible for the fall in the number of suicides that we saw during the pandemic?

In addition, a series of our officials, who have met you at various stages along the way, are present. They hide anonymously from the public so, led by our clerk, Lynn Tullis, they will be working quietly in the background.

In this parliamentary session, the remit of the Public Petitions Committee was extended, to the consternation of my predecessor, Johann Lamont, who was the convener of that committee in the last parliamentary session, because public petitions are, essentially, the people’s business before Parliament. Almost uniquely in Parliaments across the world, a single individual’s signature is all that it takes for a petition to come before this committee, to be considered and, potentially, to be progressed. Some very important pieces of legislation have followed that process, such as the legislation on free care for the elderly, the extension of care for people with early onset dementia, and the way in which the Government has resolved the women’s mesh scandal. All those issues have come up through this committee in recent years.

My predecessor, Johann Lamont, was concerned that we would dilute the focus, but I think that we have managed not to do that so far. I think that our looking at the whole question of deliberative democracy has been a natural coupling with this committee’s work. Much of that work was initiated as an inquiry following the work of the commission on parliamentary reform in the previous parliamentary session. That commission, which was established by the previous Presiding Officer, Ken Macintosh, very much suggested that, in this parliamentary session—or earlier, although that was not possible because of the pandemic—we should explore ways in which deliberative democracy might be extended.

That is what initiated the committee’s inquiry into public participation. We wanted to consider how people’s voices are heard, and we wanted to know how people feel that they are affected when the Scottish Parliament is developing new laws and policies. We recognise that the Parliament does not hear from some groups or communities, so the inquiry is also about how we can ensure that everyone’s views and opinions are included in our work.

We started with a consultation with people throughout Scotland, and we heard from 460 people and organisations. They told us what improvements they would like to see to allow us to engage more effectively as a Parliament that is now into its third decade.

As part of the work, the citizens panel was established. Out of thousands of people who were contacted, we were able to have 19 people who broadly reflect the demographic make-up of Scotland. They met in Holyrood, then they met online several times, and then they came together again in Holyrood. In those sittings, they heard about democracy and public participation from some of my MSP colleagues, Scottish Parliament officials, third sector organisations, leading academics, and members of the media.

Having gone through all of that endeavour, the panel has come forward with a report, which we are here to discuss this morning. That report makes 17 recommendations on how Holyrood’s work might improve and how it might reflect and meet the needs of the full range of communities that we represent. There is a particular focus on communities that have been underrepresented in the Parliament’s deliberations. Those communities were identified through discussion, but I think that many of us understood, even if only subconsciously, that they were underrepresented. As a Parliament, we can keep ourselves very busy without noticing that there are voices that are not being heard.

The recommendations that the panel came up with are wide ranging. I have thoroughly enjoyed digesting them and reflecting on how some of them might, in practical terms, affect the work of the Parliament and how, if the Parliament found favour with them, they might move towards implementation. I hope that you will make a ringing clarion call for the Parliament to embrace your recommendations and for this committee to be empowered to take forward the report and present it to our colleagues in Parliament on your behalf. As part of this exercise, it is important that the recommendations lead to additional changes to the way in which we do business at Holyrood.

I understand that, individually, you might lead on different areas in our discussion. My colleagues and I will follow up with questions in as free-flowing a way as we can.

Ronnie Paterson is the only person who is joining us online this morning. If you raise a hand or something, I will see that and know that you want to come in.

The best place to start is on your general experience of being involved in the panel and how you feel about the process that you went through. I will go to Ronnie Paterson first, as he is joining us from his living room. Would you like to tell us about how you felt about the process?

That is excellent.

Let us go through those points in turn and we will see whether any of my colleagues want to pursue the discussion on them as we do. The first recommendation is on removing the barriers to participation. It also refers to following up previous research by researching different methods of engagement, but we will come to that. First, we will look at removing the barriers to participation and addressing the consequences for those who might try to participate, including lost income and the cost of coming to the Parliament or of any other arrangements that people might need to put in place. Do any of my colleagues have questions on that?

I attended one of the informal round-table sessions that took place during the process. I was interested to know where the experience of the scheme had come from.

The second recommendation is about hearing from people with lived experience. I think that the committee can all accept that. In Parliament—in the commission on parliamentary reform, which I was on, and in the discussions that we have had—the phrase that is used is “the usual suspects”, which is not always a kind thing. However, there are easy-to-reach organisations that have almost become professional witnesses across a range of issues, and it has perhaps been too easy a default and reserve for the Parliament to go to them for evidence and not necessarily seek the wider views of people with lived experience.

Did you find any examples in which the lack of lived experience had been an issue?