 Good morning and can I welcome everyone to this, the 17th meeting of the standards, procedures and public appointments committee in 2023. We've received apologies this morning from two committee members, Stephen Kerr MSP and Annie Wells MSP. Evelyn Tweed will be joining us but will be doing so remotely. So we are joined and can I welcome back, but in a slightly different role Edward Mountain MSP who is attending as the Scottish Conservative substitute. So before I turn to the first agenda item can I invite Edward firstly to grant his hello's back to us but also to put on record any declarations of registered interests. Thank you convener and I'm delighted to be back on this committee. It was always one I enjoyed immensely. I hope you will still be able to say that you enjoyed having me at the end of this meeting but I would say that I have no interest relevant to this meeting to declare but I would remind members that I have a declaration of interest in on my register which shows that I own property. I am part of a family farming partnership and also I have a wild fishery on the river spay. Thank you very much and welcome back Edward. Agender item 1 today is in regards to a parliament for all a report on the parliament's gender sensitive audit. Upon publication of the parliament for all report of the parliament's gender sensitive audit the presiding officer wrote to this committee on 2 March 2023 to highlight a number of the report's recommendations for the committee to consider. The committee has considered the recommendations in private discussion at meetings on 9 March 2023 and 1 June 2023 and the committee agreed that it would take oral evidence from external experts and officials on the report. A chamber debate on the report was held on 15 June 2023. Today's session is to take oral evidence from experts who we have. I welcome to the committee Professor Sarah Childs, Professor of Gender and Politics, Professor Merrill Kennedy, Professor of Gender and Politics at the University of Edinburgh and Susan Duffy, who is head of engagement and communications here at the Scottish Parliament. Can I welcome you all to this meeting? Can I also welcome Karen Adam, who is a member of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee and has an interest in this matter and is attending to listen and inquires should she need to about the evidence that she hears later on. Evelyn Tweed, as I said, is joining us remotely and is on. Susan, can I go to you first for an introduction and a sort of synopsis of what we are likely to explore today? Thank you very much, convener, and thank you for inviting us to come along and give evidence today. I am the official in the Parliament who has been leading on this work and Professor Childs and Kenny are not only acknowledged experts in the field, but they also provided invaluable advice as part of the cross-party board that Karen Adam also sat on that was chaired by the Presiding Officer, which put forward the recommendations arising from the gender sensitive audit. If I can just give a wee bit of context, the concept of a gender sensitive Parliament has been around since the early 2000s. It is now seen as an international democratic standard. It is most basic. It really means a Parliament where there is equality between men and women in representation and participation and where the needs of both men and women are mainstreamed throughout the organisation. The first step to seeing how gender sensitive a Parliament you are is to conduct an audit. This was carried out for us by Dr Fiona Mackay, then of Robert Gordon University now at the University of Strathclyde. She did this by gathering lots of quantitative data and gathering qualitative evidence by speaking to officials and to women MSPs past and present. The audit, as I said, was overseen by a board chaired by the Presiding Officer with representatives from each of the political parties and a number of external experts. Quickly, some of the main findings of the audit, there had been fluctuations over time of the number of women in leadership and decision making roles, that the balance of men and women on committees has not always reflected the balance across the Parliament and that there is a gendered aspect to membership. That goes back to 1999. Having more equal representation across all committees can help with mainstreaming gender sensitive scrutiny and that more work needs to be done to make sure that this kind of scrutiny is properly embedded. Other findings at women were less likely to intervene in chamber debates and not only that, but men were more likely to have their interventions accepted. Women MSPs said they still encountered sexism and what was said to them and how they were perceived. Finally, they were mixed attitudes to how family friendly or life friendly, if you want to use that term, the Parliament is and sitting times were particularly mentioned. The Presiding Officer, when she launched this report, was clear that she does not want this to be a report that just gathers dust on a shelf. She wants it and the recommendations to be a catalyst for lasting change. The report made a package of 34 recommendations that are all interlinked and, together, they are designed to bring about change. We have already taken forward a number of those recommendations, such as the PEO has set up a women's forum. The first meeting of the Gender Sensitive Audit Advisory Group, which will oversee the implementation of the recommendations, took place just before recess. The convener's group has agreed to include gender sensitive scrutiny in its strategic work on participation, diversity and inclusion, and officials are currently drafting guidance on that. Work has been taken forward to collect all the necessary data that we will need, and, obviously, the rule change recommendations that you are considering are an integral part of that work. Finally, there was something that the committee said in its report on the Parliament's procedures and processes post-pandemic that struck a chord with me. You said in that that we need to be mindful of the kind of institution we want to be in 10 years' time. I think that that is exactly what the Gender Sensitive Audit Work is trying to do. How have we lived up to the aspirations that were had of the Parliament 25 years on? In this session, we have the highest number of women elected. As the report says, that is definitely something to be celebrated, but it also notes that it wasn't until this election that any women of colour were elected to the Parliament and that we had our first permanent wheelchair user. The report is also clear that this isn't just about representation, it's about equal participation. Ultimately, why is this important? Because having a Gender Sensitive Parliament means that the Parliament looks more like the people that it represents, and having different perspectives enhances the decisions that are made. We're very happy to take questions. Very much, Susan Duffy. I'm going to come to Evelyn Tweed first, and she'll have a series of questions. As usual, conveners, please at this stage. Not everyone needs to answer all of the questions, but if you do have something to contribute, please feel free to do so. Evelyn, could I come to you, please? Yes, thank you very much, convener, and good morning to the panel. I very much welcome this work and Susan's comments there. I think that it's really important that, as a Parliament, we really get into this and we really make a difference for the future. I suppose my first question is, how do the recommendations made by this audit compare to those in other nations and do you think we're going far enough and to anyone that would want to come in? Who would like to come in? I'm going to pass over the international comparators to my members' companions. Thank you for the question. I think this is increasingly an area that is gaining international attention, and in particular, and my colleague Professor Childs can speak to, the Inter-Parliamentary Union has signalled in its recent Cagali declaration the importance of formal rule change, because if you depend on informal practice and ways of working, that hasn't resulted in the kinds of changes in terms of representation around committees and committee leadership, which are crucial in parliamentary work, and certainly there are examples from around the world where recommendations around committee membership and leadership have both been considered and in some cases implemented already in terms of, for example, countries like Andorra, Belgium, Montenegro, Canada, there's been recommendations made in Canada, but also international organisations like the Inter-Parliamentary Union have implemented mechanisms and rules like this in terms of their own composition, as well as other devolved parliaments, so for example in Spain and elsewhere, who've implemented gender action plans based on gender sensitive audits like this one. We also see comparatively what happens when you don't have rules in place, and one really notable example in comparator is Sweden, which has always had a informal norm of gender equality and a gender balance of kind of 40, 60 parity in most committees. But with recent changes in government, for example, the vulnerability of this kind of informal approach is really clear, and women's share of leadership posts and committees has dropped significantly to less than 30% overall. There's only one woman out of the 16 kind of posts appointed by the governing majority, and that's the lowest number since the 1990s. So again, I think pointing to the increasing shift towards formal rule change in many parliaments. Thank you for that, Professor Cuney. Apologies, Evelyn. I think Professor Childs would like to come in as well. Sorry, I was just going to add to that that it's really quite interesting over the last 20 years or so as different international organisations, whether that is the IPU or the Commonwealth Parliamentarians Association or the OSCE, there really is an increased emphasis that if parliaments don't take an institutional responsibility to bring about changes that really deliver a quality of participation and leadership within a parliament, that changes that rely on cultural change are much more vulnerable, as Professor Cuney said, but also just not delivering enough. So I think if you compare where the international standard was back in 2001 with the CPA, with where the Kigali declaration, which identifies 10 acts for the next 10 years, the Kigali declaration was 2022, that we really see an emphasis on institutional responsibility to really think through and to programme interventions that will deliver outcomes and not just aspirations. So I think that change of emphasis is also very important as we see more and more parliaments undergoing the audits and then identifying recommendations and then action plans to deliver on them. Thank you. Evelyn, can I come back to you? Yes, thanks, convener. To what extent can an institution designed without gender sensitivity embedded be sufficiently changed by reform rather than a more radical redesign? How easy is this going to be? I can see I've asked an interesting question. I think what I would say first off is the fact that, as an institution that we carried out this gender sensitive audit and that that was taken forward and led by the Presiding Officer and that we had a board that was made up of all of the party representatives showed that there was a willingness across the institution to look at this and to see if we can do something. But I think that, as I've heard the Presiding Officer say, we've delivered the report, but the hard bit now is to implement all of these changes. You were asking about what happens where changes are not made. Just one example that comes to mind is that, at the beginning of session 5, the SPCB and the bureau were all male. As a result of that, the then Presiding Officer wrote to the predecessor SPPA committee looking to have some kind of rule change to stop that from happening again. Just echoing what Professor Kenny and Childs said, that if you have an informal approach, sometimes you can slip back just through it not being something that people have thought about. I don't know if there's anything you want to add. I could add a few points. I think it's quite clear that where parliaments have undertaken audits, you need to monitor and you need to hold people to account. I think institutional leadership is really important. I think that's both political and administrative. So where speakers or presiding officers have played a key role where they can bring resources, that matters. I think the other interesting aspect of parliaments is rarely is there a single person or a single switch that can just be flicked and change comes about. That's why the institution, as an institution, needs to take ownership. So different bodies, different actors will be held to account for different recommendations. That's why it's really important that the parliament holds those individual actors such as yourself to account for recommendations. So it is about having cross-party support. It's about very importantly critical male allies that do some of the work on this that need to step up to the plate, as they say, to use a masculinised metaphor. But really and truly, it's about commitment and delivery. One of the, again, overriding recommendations of Kigali is that you need to audit more than once. You don't do an audit, put the report on the shelf and say we've done gender sensitive parliaments. It really is a process that requires monitoring accountability. And then the redevelopment, refinement of reform. So it's not just a single opportunity to effect change, but it's a process that can become stronger over time as well. Thanks, convener. Now, in terms of implementation, obviously women are in a slightly different situation. They tend to have caring responsibilities, other things they need to do. How are we going to support them if we're going to ask them, you know, to join committees, take on these more, some of these bigger roles that we've talked about? And how can their needs be identified? What would start by saying is that I think that that's why the report made a package of recommendations and that they're all interlinked, because the points that you have made are very relevant and very valid, that we can't just have one set of rule changes without having other sets of rule changes. And there was quite a lot within the report about the impact of, particularly women, but also men as well, of caring responsibilities and the pressures that are put on MSPs with the sitting patterns that you have, but also all of the events and other things that you have to deal with, with parliamentary business. That's why there are recommendations in there as well about looking, for example, at the impact of sitting times, to see what that impact has been on men and women and on staff as well. The other thing that I would say in relation to looking at the issue of women and not wanting to have the unintended consequence of women having more work to do because we're looking to make sure that women are represented across all committees, that's why the report gave a number of options to be looked at, because the report recognised that whilst the aspiration might be 50-50, we don't have 50-50 split within the Parliament at the moment. What the report said was that you could look at either aligning minimum percentages with the percentage of women within the Parliament, you could have that at 40 per cent, or you could align it with the percentage of women who are what we called available to be on committees, so that means that you take out party leaders, cabinet secretaries, ministers, presiding officers and deputy presiding officers, and that percentage at the moment is about 24 per cent. Evelyn, can I come back to you? Yes, thanks convener, and to move on slightly but still under implementation, when Karen Adam MSP spoke in the Parliament about the audit, she talked very eloquently about being on an all-women shortlist and this in her words led many to dismiss her as having skipped the queue. What work do you think we need to do around the area of quotas or whatever terminology you want to use to dispel such views? I'll pass that over to my colleagues, but just to say that one of the things that we did recognise in the report is the role that obviously parties play, but as a parliamentary report there's only so much that we could do in relation to making recommendations regarding parties, but there is a recommendation in there that if it so chooses that the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee take evidence from parties and those who are in charge of selection procedures so that they would come along and account for their selection processes. Yes, certainly as Susan outlines the report makes the links between recruitment to Parliament and what happens when people are here and understanding those links and being able to track some of that evidence. Certainly in terms of some of the wider studies around quotas etc, both that there is established precedent, as Susan's already outlined, in terms of considering gender and various bodies in parties, in cabinet etc, around here and around the world, but also that the research on gender quotas certainly indicates that there is no difference in the quality of candidates and indeed women candidates are often more qualified than some of their male counterparts given the obstacles they have had to go through in order to be selected and elected. So some of this is also around some of the material in the report and recommendations around public communication, around who is an MSP, what the job is around etc, but also I think busting some of those myths based on robust evidence and some of these assumptions that where male politicians may be naturally assumed to possess merit and women continually or other underrepresented groups continually need to prove theirs. Evelyn, come back to you, anything else? Just one more question can be used on the recommendations. Recommendation 26 says that the SPPPA committee will consider whether complaints against MSPs relating to bullying and harassment should be referred to an independent panel rather than to SPPA committee. What is the reasoning for this? The reason that we put this in and I would like to say up front this is not because there was any comment whatsoever on the SPPA committee, it was just that when we were looking at what is being done internationally that there is more of a move away towards those types of complaints being dealt with independently. I suppose even within the UK, if I am writing remembering that the Scottish Government now does that in relation to behaviour of complaints against ministers, House of Commons and House of Lords do that as well, and we've obviously got the Standards Commission for Scotland, which is an independent body that looks at complaints against councillors. It was really just put out there for the committee to consider. Thank you Evelyn. Edward, can I come to you if you have any further questions? Thank you convener, and because of that last question I'm going to deal with my questions in a different way around as it were, and start off by looking, well I want to, all my questions will be on the ones relevant to the committee, so the first one on bullying and harassment. I struggled with this and I thought long and hard what the right way of doing it is. I can understand why it might be investigated by a body outside, but this committee here is fairly robust in my experience on how they deal with their colleagues who breached rules. So probably more robust than perhaps some other people might be who aren't directly involved because they brought into the Parliament and a part of it. So do you not think it might be better to give the investigation to the third party but allow the outcome of that investigation to be decided by a group of fellow MSPs, their peers? I suppose just on that, I suppose, with the types of complaints they're already investigated independently by the Ethical Standards Commissioner. As I say, this was something that basically was put into the report for the committee to consider rather than it being the subject of a great deal of debate within the board. I know that the Scottish Government went through this and also the House of Commons and the House of Lords because their journey down in Westminster was that their Standards Committee would look at these complaints. Their Standards Committee used to be made up differently anyway because it had independent members within the committee, but then that was changed and it's now an independent panel that will, which are made up of relevantly qualified people, I think, whether they are cases, whether they are employment experts who determine those. It's obviously something for the committee to debate and I know that the committee last session, when the Parliament was bringing in new rules around sexual harassment, the committee had a discussion last session and decided at that point to not go down that route, so it really is just put on the table again to stimulate that discussion. Okay, Susan, and from what you've put forward, you haven't convinced me that it's the right way to go. You've said it's just in a matter of discussion. As far as convener, the proxy voting is concerned. I think you know my views on proxy voting because I was on the committee when it was discussed and I think it's the most excellent thing that we bought in. I think it's really important that we continue it and I just made the comment that increasing it for parental leave and bereavement and illness actually is really, really important and I would struggle to see an MSP voting against that because they never know what's round the corner. As far as the data collection is concerned, I agree with that. I want to turn to quotas, which is where I have some issues. Susan, do you agree that when you're selecting somebody to do a job, it doesn't matter where they come from, whether they're male or female, that the most important thing is to get the best person to do that job? Yes, I agree with that. Okay, so on quotas, you might be drifting away from that. So say you, as a parliament, we cannot direct how parties select their candidates. That's out with the parliamentary control. So it might well be that the party selection process and then election process, even if you had 50-50 candidates split, that they ended up with one more male than female, could be the other way round. But you can't direct quotas because you can't direct the election. So I don't understand how that quota system you feel you can implement it. That's my question. How do you implement it? In terms of the recommendations that we put forward regarding committee membership, that's how we put forward a number of options. We could either link the percentage of women on committees to the percentage of women who have been elected because you have to take account of the numbers that you have actually got within the Parliament, or you could set it at a percentage such as 40 per cent, or you could set it at a percentage of the women who would be available for committee, but all of those recognising the number of women who are already within the Parliament, because, for example, if you aligned it with either the percentage of women who have been elected or the percentage of women who are available for committees, that will always be linked to who has been elected. I absolutely agree that we always have to have the best person for the job, but that always assumes that there are no structural inequalities with which people have to deal. Often, we have seen that women are underrepresented in whether that's in Parliament or whether it's within other walks of life, and it's not necessarily because they're not the best person for the job, it's just that there are structural inequalities with which they've had to contend. Okay, so Camino, just one follow-up on that. Just say, for example, a party is going to elect two people to one of the committees. Let's take the Ray committee, let's make this interesting in the sense that I can relate to it, and say that that was my party, and there were two farmers who desperately wanted to get in there. They both happened to be male, and therefore, under the rules, and one of them could be excluded, and they would undoubtedly be the best person for the job. I agree if you want to go back and change it to make sure that there are more women farmers and women in agriculture, it's really important, and it's a good start, but that's not where we're at. So you're going to turn around to me and say, Edward, you're a man, you can't go on that committee, although you've been farming for 40 years. How does that make me feel as an MSP in this Parliament? Because it might me feel undervalued, I think. Do you not agree, Susan? In terms of what I would say, obviously, when we were putting the report forward, we recognised that there are going to be difficulties within this. It's within standing orders already that, when the bureau is putting forward membership for committees, they'll take into account people's individual preferences, and that is definitely an issue. As you say, Edward, there may be some sectors that are gendered, we can't go back and reverse engineer that, but I suppose the way that I would then put that back is that, if we think that it's unacceptable to have all male committees and we do still have an all male committee, what do we do to address that? My comment to you is that I would totally agree with that, but if my preference means that I'm excluded because of quotas, that's wrong. As a committee convener, I do a huge amount of things with the clerks to make sure that I don't have an all-male panel or an all-female panel. I make sure that it's balanced, and what you're doing by setting quotas is preventing that, and that really worries me that you're stopping the best person for the job. I don't care whether it's male or female, I want the best person for the job. Just to follow up on that, when we look at the findings of the gender-sensitive audit, there have been persistent patterns across all sessions with men overrepresented, for example, in mandatory committees, and women concentrated in committees like the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. Are you arguing that, over 25 years, women have been less qualified to be on all of those committees? That is the reverse of that argument, and I think that we should always reverse those arguments. Tying back to, as Susan mentioned earlier, the discussions with the conveners group around gender-sensitive scrutiny, the argument is that every policy area affects men and women and different groups of men and women within that in different ways because of their different needs of experiences. Committees are really important representative sites in Parliament, so representative committees are really important to ensure that gender is considered in the design and implementation of laws, policies, programmes, budgets, etc., and what's changed as a result. In terms of the wider representative role of Parliament, the research evidence indicates that ordinary citizens, both men and women, strongly prefer gender-balanced decision-making bodies. They view decision-making as more legitimate when women are present, and that is not just as witnesses, etc., but also in the composition of committees themselves. I would add to that, and I would rather not really also want to bring this back to the bullying and harassment and the independent panel, because I think questions of legitimacy and accountability and audience perception and what the people think of this Parliament also matters. So you were giving a very individual account of you as somebody going through a process, but I think it's also about those outside looking in and seeing a committee that may be all men making a decision. Very recently there was an example in the Australian capital territory where there was an all-male health committee, realised they were suddenly doing an inquiry on women's health and reproduction and had to co-opt women. So I think the points are about both scrutiny, but also how the legitimacy and accountability of the parliamentary committees are received, not just by members, but also by those you represent. I think that's also true in terms of the account for bullying and harassment, because both staff need confidence in the process and it doesn't need to be a question of the capabilities or otherwise of any committee doing the hearing, but what kind of institutional reputation will be associated with certain kinds of processes and practices? Staff need confidence and the public need confidence that the parliamentary committees are doing the best work that they can. That is compelling when you have a diversity of perspectives in a room and not just a very homogenous grouping discussing issues. Thank you, convener. I've heard the arguments and we will discuss later in the show. As we will, thank you very much, Edward. Ivan, can I come to you? Yeah, thank you very much, convener, and thanks for coming in this morning and thanks very much for the report. Very interesting. Particularly I like the focus on data, which is so it's good to see the analysis that's been done in there and the recommendations for future work on data to continue that, to give us visibility of what happens in reality, because it's often difficult to get a sense of that when you're in the thick of it. I thought the data interventions was particularly interesting, because if you drill down into that, not only does it show that men are more likely to have their interventions accepted, it actually shows, and I'm not quite sure what to make of this, that women are more likely to accept interventions from men than men are, which is really interesting. I don't know if you want to comment on that, but I think that there's probably quite a bit in that that would need to be dug through. But the area that I really wanted to focus on was round about the implementation in some of the aspects around that. I think there's some complexities in there, and I just wanted to get a sense from you of reflections on the way the Parliament actually operates, rather than the way we might think, theory operates or the way other Parliaments more generically tend to operate. The issue about the Parliament and parties has been raised. I think that there's perhaps a fundamental there that we need to be a bit careful about, because it will restrain the territory of the Parliament telling parties how to operate. You're button up against some fundamental democratic principles. It's not necessarily our own we want to go down, so we need to be very conscious of that. If you look at the numbers and you cover a wide range of aspects, including committee membership, we've talked about PO, the Deputy Poseidon Officer, and some other functions, the parliamentary bodies, etc. Of course, all of those are, the membership was decided through different processes. Some of it's an election, some of it the party decides. You're comment about the bureau deciding the best member, and in reality it's the party that sits on the committee, it's not the bureau, and we need to be aware of that. There's a number of things in there, and we just need to how unpick it. I'll give an example of some unintended coincidences. You've talked about committee membership and where that number should be. You've mentioned the overwork aspect to that, but that's absolutely correct, because you don't have the right number of percentage of women in the Parliament as a whole. You've also got, as we have at the moment, I'm right to say, certainly in cabinet, I think, in junior ministerial roles, more women than men. That percentage is even more skewed in terms of the remaining workload. Now, we're at a position at the moment where I think 43 per cent of committee places are occupied by women, which is actually more than you would have if it was representative of the Parliament membership excluding members that were in a role that excluded them from that. If you take a scenario on the Poseidon officer, the deputy Poseidon officer, he envisages a scenario and follows that through if you said you were mandating a gender and not 100 per cent of one gender across those three roles. If the Poseidon officer is female and you've got three candidates for deputy Poseidon officer, two female and one male, the male candidate goes in automatically without an election process. That is an unintended consequence. It may be that you were comfortable with that, but I think that we just need to understand what that eight takes away from Parliament having the ability to elect who they want, which is obviously not helpful. On committee membership, we're kind of talking about this as though this is some—I need to be careful to phrase this—something that you aspire to. The reality is that there are 140 odd committee places. There's less than 100 eligible members. Everybody's on a committee. Many are on two committees and, frankly, it depends on which party you're in, because, clearly, the governing party's got a lot less people to spread around those committees. The point there is much more about not that people are getting on to committees. There's a lot of committee spaces that need to be filled rather than the other way around. I'm sorry to cover all of this at this point, convener, but my final point is on the proposal for holding your committee or other place for you when you come back. That kind of butts up against reality, because committee membership changes very quickly. I was told yesterday that I'm getting moved on to a different committee next week, not this one, but a different one, but I'm still sitting on this one as far as I know it today. That thing changes extremely fast. The idea that you could know what the scenario is going to look like in six months' time, frankly, isn't realistic, given the way that the reality of the Parliament, the committee and the party's work. I'll leave it there, but there are a lot of issues around implementation. I suppose the question is, have you thought about all of these, or are you just going to thrown out what you think would be nice in an ideal world and expecting us and others to kind of unpick the reality of how it would actually work in practice? Yes, we've thought a lot about this. I think we're an awful lot, probably, more than is healthy for me. Just picking up a few of the points that you made and a lot of those points we have discussed and we discussed within the board. I've just taken that final point you made about committee membership changing really quite quickly. The thinking behind the recommendation is that, if you were to go on some period of parental leave, any position that you held, whether that was within the Parliament or within your party, and that obviously has to be discussed with party leaders, you would retain that. The underlying principle with that is that MSPs obviously are not employees, but we were trying throughout to replicate what an employee would have and what rights an employee would have if they took a period of parental leave. If you go off on maternity leave, for example, you are under law, you have the right to come back to a similar role. I totally take the point about committee membership and the fact that committee membership can change rapidly. The reason why we also mentioned the SPCB in the bureau is that that membership tends to be a bit more static. It was also following on from the rule change that was made in the last session, in relation to conveners. Previously, when you were a convener and if you went off on maternity or parental leave, you had to resign and you lost your position as convener, and the rule change was brought in to recognise that just because you were going on that period of leave, you shouldn't lose your position as convener, so someone would come in to be acting convener but you still retained your position as convener. I do appreciate that it can be slightly more difficult with committee membership and that would have to be done through the bureau. That was referred specifically to the SPPA committee because if we were to do that, for example, for the SPCB, that would need a rule change. I was going to look to my two colleagues as I am trying to remember all of the other points that had been made in relation to committee membership. The point that I actually did want to pick up, you are absolutely right, and the report was very cognisant of the fact that the Parliament cannot tell parties what to do. That is why we did not make recommendations in relation to what parties should do for that very reason. I also recognise that there are so many different actors within this and so many different decision making bodies because you have this committee that could recommend rule changes but in terms of who gets put on to committees—yes, it is the bureau but it is the parties—and that is done through informal discussion. What I have observed over the years is that when things have been discussed and brought to the fore, then it is something that people recognise. For example, in the fourth session of Parliament, I think that ultimately at the end of the session there was about 16 committees and only three of those committees were convened by women. That had been remarked upon. At the start of the following session, when there were discussions around this, that was very much taken on board. The parties had discussions and you will notice that, in terms of the figures, the number of women as conveners increased markedly and that has stayed constant. I am happy to talk a little bit about parties. I think that perhaps in your account there is a suggestion that parties are anti-gender sensitive and that parties can change and can aspire to support an institutional commitment to be a better Parliament. The relationship can be one where parties might begin to think and behave differently when both you have formal rules for some positions but also a culture around that that would make them think before they fill their slots that they need to take care. The patterns of horizontal segregation in committees that Merrill alluded to are precisely the kind of thing that parties should be looking at and determining what is going on. The presumption of the return is significant in reassuring members that they have the equal opportunity if they take leave to come back to where they were. I think that a wording can be found that there may be circumstances when X is not possible but I think that to work with that presumption would be the way that I would suggest. That is just the final thing that I would say in relation to the rule change regarding committee membership. That is why, although we did not come up with the answers and we wanted to give this committee space to discuss it, that is why we put in a number of options to look at recognising that it is difficult and recognising that some change might need to be incremental. Just a couple of reflections on that, thank you very much. I am absolutely not saying or hinting that there is an issue with parties in terms of their understanding of this issue, quite the opposite, in fact. I think that it comes back to some of the points that you made earlier about how you are better to have a cultural change or a rules-based change in what is the interplay between those, because on some of those areas you are going to have to need a cultural change, you are not going to be able to drive it through a rules change because of the things that we have talked about. I suppose that is a point that I am making. That stuff is not static in other aspects, which means that we need to be careful where we go in the specific example of gender balance on committee conveners if we decide, and that is something that the committee is thinking about, and it will not be our final decision, obviously, to move to elected conveners, then run a different space, and then throw it another layer of complexity on this. We need to be thinking also about what may happen going forward. Thank you. I know that I would want to come in on a small point. It is just a small point on the committee membership. If through a session to try and get a balance that somebody has asked to step down, they can refuse, cannot they? I do not have to resign from the committee because my party wants me to. I have to write to the Presiding Officer and say that I want to resign from that committee. You might not be able to achieve it without a lot more significant rule changes, and then you are ordering somebody from a committee in which they may have set a preference that they wanted to attend. Do you feel comfortable with doing that? There are issues when membership changes over the course of time, and you are quite right that the rule says that it is for a member to resign from the committee. I think that it is very difficult to reverse engineer anything like that when the parties come together at the beginning of a session, because that is when the biggest discussion takes place as to who is going to sit on which committee is to be cognisant of all of these issues. It can be difficult, because when you have changes to committee membership throughout the session, most of the time, that will not be all changing their membership at once. Different parties through reshuffles will then change their membership at different times. The only comment that I would make is that, having been on this committee at the start, I think that there is now back as a substitute. I am in my fourth group of people from my party who have been on the committee, so it is going to be a constant changing thing. I cannot see you can force it. That is my problem. Can I just come back with just one thing on this? It was something that I mentioned earlier on that there was a rule change back in 2017 to prevent there being an all-male corporate body in an all-male SPCB. The way that that rule was phrased was that when the parties were discussing who should be on the bureau and when members were nominating people for the SPCB, they should have regard to gender balance. We do not even have the should have regard to gender balance in relation to committee membership. That was the three committees of a much bigger committee structure where it might be possible to achieve that with the gender balance that we have in the Parliament, with those that are available to match it. I am sorry, convener. Thank you, Edward. I will do a line. We are joined today by Karen Haran on MSP. Is there anything that you would like to have? Having indeed been quoted by Evelyn earlier, it would seem only right to give you rebuttal or further questions. I really appreciate that, convener, and having sat here thinking what questions I can ask, I have only been feeling the need to come in and answer quite a lot of the questions because I myself sat on the board. Something that I would like to address and speak to is—thank you, Evelyn, for giving me a shout out there. The reason I mentioned that was because I think that it is possible to have cultural change, but I think that we need to lead and be an example as a Parliament and enforcing some rules does help to shift the cultural change in the direction that it needs to go. When I was a potential candidate and going through selection process, I was asked several times how I was going to juggle my home life and my caring responsibilities. It was an all-female shortlist, so there was no men there to be asked that question. However, in other areas, I could see that they were never asked that question. I was also told by several people that my lived experience, being a single parent with a few children with additional sport needs, being an interpreter for my deaf father, all those things really endeared them to want to vote for me to be a candidate. They thought that that would be a fantastic life experience to bring to the role, but at the same time it was a juxtaposition where they were concerned that that might hinder me time-wise for my role. I think that we have to look deep and see that there are still some internal biases there in regards to how we feel women can perform in roles. I think that that is something that we should always bear in mind. Not only women, but taking an intersectional approach is incredibly important and always having that in the forefront of our minds. Having conversations within our own parties and keeping it as an active conversation is extremely important. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, Karen. I do not know whether Professor Kenny would like to respond to anything that Karen Adams has said. Just to echo the importance of the relationship between both rule change and cultural change and that they can help to shape each other, but that changes in formal rules and procedures are often necessary to bring out attitudinal behavioural change. Also, as the report notes, the importance of the data collection and monitoring is also how you track changes in culture over time and can identify ways in which you might want to monitor, maintain or adjust some of those kinds of rule changes or reforms over time. Excellent. I have some nerdy questions, I am afraid. I am going to plonk on one because, at the minute, this committee is obviously reviewing the proxy voting situation that has been brought in. One of the recommendations is that a proxy vote—I am asking this not so much on the gender audit but to allow you to contribute to the evidence that we will consider in due course. One of the suggestions you make is that proxy voting should be extended on the same grounds as remote voting. I wonder whether you would like to talk to that because that is a big step from the trial that we have run. One of the discussions that we had early on was the fact that, to pick up a comment that you made about this iterative parliament, we do have the ability to remote vote and it should be a choice for the individual. I wonder whether there was a reason for that, which, if I am honest, I am not aware of in a sense why it should be extended to the same grounds as remote voting, which is a choice by the individual MSP? I worked on the introduction of proxy voting down at Westminster, which was pre-Covid, but which obviously enabled Westminster to manage when the pandemic arrived. I think that one of the lessons that I do not think that Westminster has learned is the question of being as permissive as possible and leaving it up to individual members. With the idea that members are not employees and do not have precise job descriptions, there is a lot of flexibility in how one does the job. The principle that those who have looked internationally at the post-Covid context is the idea of permitting individual members to organise their work that best suits their way of life and their responsibilities or their conditions and needs. In a sense, it is being permissive and therefore opening up opportunities for members in a work environment where that is often valued, the ability to work in a particular kind of way. It is almost pushing the question the other way round. Why would you not wish to be permissive in how a member would work? That would be the principle way that that question would be posed. To which, if the response was, there is a permissive allowance to remotely vote, that would answer the requirement. It might be that remote voting requires you to take a more significant interest or follow a particular debate or particular paperwork that, if for one or other reason, you might not be at that period of time able to commit to certain participation. For example, when members are taking proxy voting for baby leave, it might be that they are not able every day to watch and follow debates and therefore make decisions. You are entrusting your vote to somebody who is engaged with the parliamentary debate listening and making a decision where it might be a medical condition, where you are having some treatment and you are able to follow, you might wish to remote vote because you can then listen to the debate and make your decisions. I think that it is about how individuals determine whether they are taking an absence that enables them to continue to participate in some way or whether it is actually more of a leave an absence where they are not engaging on a day to day basis. Who would you have a reassurance that a proxy vote exists for those events where an individual has to step away from being an MSP for a period of time, maybe short, long or indifferent, and that the remote voting exists for a time when they still want to be able to participate and represent their constituents, even though it may not necessarily be in this place at that time? Under both processes they are still representing their constituents, they are just doing it in a different way. I think I would still rely on the idea that it should be permissive and I don't think I would want such strong rules because then you are going to be inquiring into people how well are you today or how well are you tomorrow. I think the idea being as long as the process is clear that you are choosing one or the other I think is my position. That's fine, I'm grateful for that. Evelin would like to come back in. Interesting point because I do feel that we should be permissible for this. I suppose my worry is that a lot of the flow of power and how you go about your daily business is like over a coffee, being around, being in Parliament, and how could we take that into account if people were using proxy voting quite a lot? How could we make sure that women were still in the room, if you like? I think that the importance of the informal and the hanging about spaces in Parliament is absolutely critical and I wouldn't want to undermine any view on that. However, ultimately the electorate decide the capacities, the quality of the representation that any individual member delivers for them. So whilst you may miss this individual or the individual may miss out on some of the socialisation and the informal, that again is a decision that might for a period of their time as an MSP be something that is necessary for them to continue in their work. I think that it's one of those outcomes that you might not prefer. You might not want someone to be almost always absent, but ultimately it seems to me that that is the decision for their electorate. If their electorate do not think they're fulfilling their responsibilities then that would be up to them to use the ballot box, but that's the same for any MSP, so I'm not creating a new criteria here, it's just an extension in the same way. I would suggest that perhaps there is a difference in Scotland between the constituency MSP where that individual choice could be made in the list where it's a political party vote that's extended. Edward, you wanted to... Having been through a period where I was desperate for proxy voting because I couldn't vote, I was absolutely slightly concerned at the end of it that some people didn't know that I hadn't been in the Parliament and hadn't been voting because not everyone goes through the voting list. The beauty of the proxy voting system that we have is that it requires a member to apply for a proxy vote for a period of time. I think that's important and I won't be on the committee when they make that decision, but it is important that it's for a time which the proxy vote is allocated for, so increasing it permissively for other things for a set period of time I think is right and I think that would then give parties and the Parliament a chance to make sure that the person who is proxy voting is properly being mentored not only by their party and I've always believed that the Presiding Officer has a role in mentoring people who are using a proxy vote for a long period of time because we are a family even though we're divided on some issues, so I'll just make that observation. I'm together for Parliament. I'm going to move on slightly, sorry unless anyone wants to comment my apologies now. I'm just slightly conscious of time, the usual human cry from the convener. One of the aspects that we've explored and I think we've highlighted the challenge is that the Parliament is just one element in what sits here and what we call democracy. We have party politics, we are all members of a political party and the influence that can be extended by Parliament into political parties is always challenging and I think that as Ivan pointed out is something that should be very cautiously done. Political parties play a much more important role in the number of members they return and the relationships that exist within this Parliament and we also have the Government that draws its members from almost exclusively from elected MSPs and Ivan's hinted at the challenge that the Government has, the larger the Government you have, the fewer back benches you have, the harder it is. Now there is a myriad of questions that we've already looked at is where these interact and I think I would like your comments particularly to a question that Ivan raised that I didn't think we quite got to the bottom of which is do we look at the reality of how committees are created here now using the word committees in its widest sense so the formal roles that exist within Parliament do we look at how it actually happens or do we look at how people perceive it happens and which way do we want the rules to go do we want the rules to go towards influencing how it actually happens which I think is more a cultural reference the way that Karen made it or do we create rules that actually the first thing we do not we do the first thing that may happen is that there's a way of circumventing it to get the decision that works for the Parliament how do we reconcile that tension with regard to what we're being asked to look at here in this committee I mean I think Meryl made a very good point in terms of how rule change can influence culture and it was one of the things that we discussed in the the board when we looked at the findings of the audit and it was that looking at the and it's going back to something that was said that yeah we have 43% of women have committee places it's that gendered aspect of some of the individual committees which is the the issue and the fact that that has gone back all the way to 1999 is that for the board they said well actually we've tried to do something about this on an informal on a cultural basis we haven't been able to do that so this is why we're going to look to recommend rule change to try and push that that cultural change if you like because you're absolutely right we have to take into account the reality of of what we're dealing with and for example when I talked earlier on about the work that was done looking at conveners now that was done without a rule change but that was done by a recognition that there was an issue that had to be resolved and whether there are ways in which things can be written that it highlights that this is an issue that people have to take account of there might be some rules that you want to be very firm about for example not having single sex committees because I would say we've never had an all-women committee but we've had over time and we still do have an all-male committee I don't know if there's anything either Merrill or Sarah wanted to come in with there I think what I would say and I hope I'm speaking for Merrill and I don't hold you to this but I think what we try and do when we're involved with parliaments and doing gender sensitive orders is try to offer both minimal and maximalist perspectives so there could be a rule change that just says we're going to have 50-50 and we're going to ignore the percentage of women in a parliament but I think what we try to do is also offer options that over time might get to the aspirations that you were talking about so I think something as simple as a no single sex gender committee should be something that a parliament would want to embrace from an academic perspective we think there's a very good reasons empirical reasons data led reasons but we would also want to put more progressive or more testing aspirations and possibilities before you as well to get you to think about what might be if not immediately but also in the future so I think what we're trying to do is to put in front of you options that at least some formal rule change that rules out the worst case scenario I think would be really the minimal that I would would would want to to advocate for and I think just picking up on as Sarah answers in comments is is not doing anything enough and looking at the patterns over time in terms of horizontal segregation looking at that this is the most representative parliament in Hollywood's history looking at we're coming up to 25 years what will this parliament look like for the next 25 years I mean what are the options in terms of not doing anything at the at the current moment yeah sorry so to pick up on what Evelyn said about there is absolutely a need for substantial change there is still incredible value in shifting the culture by shifting the smaller rules of the jigsaw without having to rebuild the entire jigsaw at the same time and actually in that iterative nature of parliament these steps going forward although they may seem small and insignificant in their own right they are on a pathway to something which I think you know on a significant number of occasions the whole chamber and through the presiding officers has indicated the goal that we want to want to get to that's very useful I'm now buying myself oh yes that's what I was going to ask about sorry the other was about the you've mentioned on a number of times the the examples that you've given about how we can calculate if we want to call it quotas or we want to call it is there a value in having different ways of assessing success for different elements of the proposals in the gender audit so I am acutely aware and we've had the discussion about the changes in committees which are frequently driven by understandable government change the government has worked extremely hard to always have a gender balance across it and and when we talk about how people view things from the outside agenda balanced government it must be incredibly important so is there value in accepting that change is needed which I think we do but then having different elements of how we achieve that depending on the question that sits in front of us so the idea of you know a 40% a 50 50 or whatever is and I don't use this in a derogatory is slightly arbitrary when actually what we need to do is look at the problem that's in front of us the gender balance on committees the gender balance of conveners the the gender balance of various committees and actually our solution to it might be different for each of those so long as they are moving us iteratively down the road that would be obviously subject to what we actually come up with welcomed as a step in the right direction for the gender audit yep that's good there we are you may be glad to know that I've come to my at the end of my slightly nerdy questions would any of you like to make a sort of short final comment before I close this part of the committee well can I thank you very much for coming along I think it's been incredibly interesting dialogue and discussion I hope you would be open should the committee have other questions to write to you so you could submit that for our thoughts and things like that and as always I know the clerks are open to discussions in in a two-way format to make sure that the committees have in front of them the evidence they need to make the very best decisions but can I thank you on behalf of the committee for your attendance this morning and can I close this public part of the committee