Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am sorry for prolonging the conversation but, with regard to parental leave, we do not know members’ personal circumstances. Members could become foster carers or adoptive parents for the first time, so would “parental” be a catch-all term for that?

I apologise, convener. Perhaps I did not take my point articulately enough. You said “maternity” and “paternity”, so I wanted to make sure that eligibility covers all forms of family relationships—not just the birth of a child but a situation in which a member becomes a foster carer or adoptive parent for the first time.

In relation to the definition of “illness”, I am fine if the member feels that they have a serious illness; I am just conscious of members’ right to privacy in relation to their health. It could be that a member has a mental health issue or an underlying health condition that, for privacy and dignity reasons, no one else is aware of. It could be a life-threatening or life-shortening condition.

I am a little bit nervous about how we protect members. For example, a mental health condition would not mean that the member would have to stay at home and do nothing. They would still be allowed to try as best they could to get on with their life. There is a challenge with the public perception of how we support members who have a serious illness to get on with their lives as best they can, even if it is understandable that they will not be able to be at their work for a period.

I note that the correspondence that we have says:

“the Bureau was broadly agreed that mirroring statutory parental leave arrangements would be appropriate.”

We have to go beyond that. I could be wrong, but I think that statutory parental leave for fathers is two weeks. There is still a gender bias through inequality in society, but I hope that, in the Parliament, there would be an expectation that fathers should strive as much as possible to be equal partners in parenting their children. Two weeks might just not cut it. That is another example in which someone might want to use their proxy sparingly but, because of family circumstances, they might need to use it.

It is the same for mums. They are not ill; they are a new parent, and new parents are trying to balance everything out. There is a need for flexibility. However, if we are going to put a time period on parental leave, it should not be the statutory parental leave period—not for fathers, anyway.

That is a point well made.

It is worth noting that MSPs will also have that conversation with their parliamentary parties. Discussion has to take place within parliamentary groups, and agreement reached there. However, a proxy vote is different; it is an individual arrangement between an MSP and the Presiding Officer.

Perhaps I used the wrong expression when I spoke about “parental leave”. A lot of new parents—myself included—want that leave in order to devote themselves completely to their children. Others want a balance. There will be days on which they wish to make alternative arrangements to allow them to be more actively involved in the life of the Parliament. Sometimes, that will not be possible. I echo your comments about flexibility, convener. Every case is individual; everyone has their own home circumstances.

That draws attention to the responsibility on the person who casts a proxy vote. They will have a responsibility not only to cast it as directed. There are situations in which business in this place changes quite quickly as events change, and there will be times when the fact that someone has asked someone else to be their proxy puts time constraints and burdens on that person to keep the relationship with the person for whom they are voting going and to make sure that it is not a case of out of sight, out of mind, and that they do not assume, “I know how my colleague would have voted, so I’ll cast it that way.”

Therefore, when we draw up guidance or rules and regulations on the matter, perhaps we should say something about the responsibility of the person who casts a proxy vote, because it could be a burden on them time-wise to make sure that, on appropriate occasions, they check with the person for whom they are casting the proxy vote that they have accurately gathered their views on how they wish to vote.

I think that the issue of whether someone should be able to have a proxy vote for more than one person is also worth considering. Although nothing has been put in place to prevent it, ideally it would not happen, because we would not want there to be a perception of block voting. I do not think that that would be the perception, but although there might be nothing to preclude one person holding more than one proxy, it might not be ideal.

Yes, absolutely, convener. When I made my comment, it was not about trust—I hope that that is implied. However, yes, let us put something more formal about that in the guidance. My comment was more about reminding MSPs who hold the proxy vote about their responsibilities to stay in contact and have that on-going relationship with the person whose proxy they hold. Edward said that the Presiding Officer should make sure that people who are away from this place for a period of time do not feel forgotten and that on-going support is offered. The person who holds the proxy also has an important role to play in that.

Yes, absolutely.

During the chamber debate that we had last week, I spoke about further consultation with members on proxy voting. I am not sure that I made it clear in the chamber, but I mean that there should be further consultation following a review of how the temporary rule change has worked, rather than that there should be another period of consultation before we make that move. I think that that is the situation. I want to be clear about that in my own head.

If that is the case, I wonder whether we should offer members the opportunity to give feedback on how it is going. That need not quite be in real time, but a year is quite a long time before we start engaging with MSPs about how that has or has not worked. I think that we should start to do some consultation work after a period of time, almost as an interim review.

I am conscious that, during the debate in the chamber, I spoke about further consultation with members. I am sure that members are keen to see the change happen, but we must ensure that we are taking all members with us and doing that as clearly and openly as possible.