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Good morning. What is the Government’s thinking on those councils that, using the 2024 act, have done the consultation and are now going through the 18-month wait period? Is the Government giving any consideration to waiving the consultation requirement or shortening that 18-month period for councils that decide to move away from a percentage-rate approach and use any new powers that might be available to go for a flat rate?

It is good to hear that the Government is open to that. However, can I push you on one of the scenarios that you set out? If a local authority adopts a flat rate and it needs to go through a regular process of updating it for inflation, should that be exempt from a more detailed consultation process?

Good morning. The amendments that I have lodged in this group and the later group intend to encapsulate the broad consensus on particular issues that we achieved in the stage 1 debate, and they reflect some of the recommendations that the committee made in its stage 1 report. I am grateful to the member in charge and the minister for taking the time to discuss these issues in advance of this morning’s committee meeting.

I ask members to support amendment 9 and the other amendments in my name in this group. Rather than the direction of travel that Sue Webber has proposed that would, in the first instance, remove the criminal offence ground as a trigger for recall, amendment 9 would retain the criminal offence ground as a trigger for recall but would revise the threshold. Amendment 9 would remove the limitation that the criminal offence ground would apply only when a member receives a sentence of imprisonment of less than six months.

Individually, amendment 9 would solve a small but significant technical problem. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, it is possible for a sentence to be suspended, such that a member who is given it would not be imprisoned immediately. If a member received a suspended sentence of seven months, they would not be imprisoned, so removal under the bill could not bite, but the sentence would not be grounds for recall because recall on its own is limited to sentences of under six months. Amendment 9 would remove that oddity so that a member who was given a suspended sentence of any length would still face recall.

Taken in combination with amendment 84, which would remove section 25, on removal for offending, that would mean that recall would be triggered by all sentences of imprisonment, except those that would disqualify the member under existing legislation. As MSPs, we are already subject to provisions in the Scotland Act 1998 that would remove us from Parliament if we receive a sentence of imprisonment of more than 12 months and are imprisoned as a result of it. The Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Act 2025 already disqualifies anyone who is subject to relevant notification requirements or a relevant sexual harm or risk order from being or becoming a member of the Parliament.

As I said earlier, my amendments respond to the question raised in the committee’s stage 1 report about whether the bar for recall and removal on the grounds of criminal offence has been set at the right level. My amendments, if they are agreed to, would mean that recall would be triggered if an MSP receives a sentence or an order of imprisonment that does not result in disqualification. Given the earlier debate, it is crucial that only someone who has been tried and found guilty can be recalled. It is important that there should be no question of recall being triggered for anyone who is on remand.

09:45

In his concluding remarks in the stage 1 debate, Mr Simpson said:

“Members do not seem to like the suggestion that we reduce the jail term, if I can call it that, from more than 12 months to six months. If that is members’ position, why do we not get rid of that? Why do we not make this a recall bill and get it right?”—[Official Report, 13 November 2025; c 109.]

I have other amendments that address the removal of the rest of part 2 of the bill, on the removal of members of the Scottish Parliament, which, in concert with the amendments that I have just described, would render the bill a recall bill only. I think that that would be in line with the views and the general consensus of members in the stage 1 debate, but we will reach those amendments at a later stage. For now, I invite members to support the amendments in my name in this group.

I move amendment 9.

I will briefly conclude by saying that my amendments in this group are an attempt to articulate in legislation the views that were expressed in the stage 1 debate. On that basis, I press amendment 9.

Thank you, convener, for giving me the chance to speak to this group of amendments. I appreciate the support that Sue Webber has provided for the amendments in my name, including verbally in the committee. In conjunction with my previously considered amendments, amendments 85 and 86 would take out the provisions relating to the removal of members on the grounds of non-attendance. The stage 1 report and the stage 1 debate raised concerns about the bill’s provision on the removal of MSPs on the grounds of parliamentary non-attendance, and the committee was not persuaded that a requirement for physical attendance was the correct basis for removal of MSPs.

Sue Webber’s amendments in the group propose that the attendance provisions are retained and that virtual attendance will be considered sufficient. To my mind, that does not address the concerns that have been raised around monitoring, privacy and having a committee of MSPs making judgments on what does and does not constitute a reasonable explanation for non-attendance. My own experience, which I referred to in the stage 1 debate, is that I took off a substantial period of time to be with my daughter when she was born prematurely. I chose to share that publicly, but there may have been a reason that I would not have wanted to share it. My daughter is healthy, happy, thriving and at school now, but if the worst had happened and my wife and I had been in a period of desperate grief, I am not sure that we would have wanted to share that with the world at that point in order to justify my non-attendance, whether that was virtual or physical.

That would apply across the chamber. There are members who, for their own reasons, wish to share their personal experience—perhaps to raise awareness of particular issues—but, similarly, some MSPs choose not to share their deeply private circumstances. Although I agree that members of the public expect MSPs to be at work, there will be situations that prevent that from happening. I have a real concern that, as it stands, the bill would force members to disclose personal circumstances or, perhaps, the circumstances of family members for whom they act in a caring capacity. That is where my concerns stem from, which provides my motivation behind lodging the amendments.

Amendment 87 seeks to remove the minor inconsequential provision in chapter 2, which would no longer be relevant once the substantive provisions were removed. To reassure Ms Webber, amendment 90 would change the long title of the bill to read, “An Act of the Scottish Parliament to make provisions about the recall of members of the Scottish Parliament.” That is purely because, if the amendments that we have previously accepted and agreed to alongside the four amendments in the group in my name—amendments 85, 86, 87 and 90—it would remove the removal functions of the bill, so the bill would become entirely a recall bill, which the long title should reflect. That is what amendment 90 proposes.

Good morning. I want to quickly go around the witnesses to ask for their views on whether the new legislation should set a maximum amount to be charged per night.

Marc Crothall, my question to you is about the options that would be open to councils that have already approved and announced their schemes. I know that the STA proposed that those councils should be allowed to hold a shorter consultation but, having spoken to witnesses on the previous panel, their contention was not necessarily that the consultation period was the biggest issue; the 18-month implementation window was a bigger concern. What are your views on the options for those councils and the previous witnesses’ comments about that?

I will stick to council tax. The Government has proposed new council tax bands for properties that are worth more than £1 million and it estimates that the costs of a targeted revaluation are around £10 million. Will the cabinet secretary set out what that targeted revaluation will look like and how it will work in practice?

12:00

Thanks for that.

This has kind of been covered, but, given that the consultation ends this week, will the Government be in a position to give even interim findings from it before we break up?