 Good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to this, the 10th meeting of the standards, procedures and public appointments committee in 2022. I would like to remind virtual Members to place an hour in the chat function on blueJeans if they would like to come in on any of the issues. Agender item 1 is a decision to take some business in private. Did the committee agree to take agenda item 3, which is the consideration of the evidence that we're going to hear today, in private? Are we in agreement? I'm very grateful for that. Now move to agenda item 2, which is based on the inquiry that we're doing on to future parliamentary procedure and practice. For this evidence session, we are joined by Dr Ruth Fox, who is a director of the Hansard society. With the society, Ruth is responsible for the strategic direction and performance of the society and leads on its research programs. In this first panel, we're also joined by Professor Meg Russell from University College London. Meg Russell is Professor of British and Comparative Politics and also a director of the Constitution Unit. Hopefully, I will be able to say remotely, welcome to the committee. Oh, I can see Dr Ruth Fox. Good morning, Dr Fox. We can hear you now, Dr Fox. Thank you. I'm just waiting to see whether Professor Russell can join us. Good morning Professor Russell. Thank you for joining us this morning. I hope you heard the introduction. I would like to do really because, as always with these evidence sessions, time is always quite tight. The committee has a number of questions, but I hope that from these questions we can develop a discussion, which will aid us in the evidence that we're collecting for our inquiry. I'm going to kick off as privilege of convener, which is grab the good questions. My first one really is about the flexibility and the participation of members where we've had virtual participation. I wonder whether or I'm looking for your comments on whether or not that you feel that MSPs, whether it should be routinely acceptable or allowed for them to join in a hybrid format, and what the sort of cautions are that sit around that. I don't know which of the panellists would like to start. If I come to you Professor Russell, would you have a comment on that? Sorry, I'm getting delayed by the fact that we were told that our microphones would be controlled by somebody else. I'm waiting to be switched on, but I'm now switched myself off. The microphones will be controlled by other people, but you are switched on and we can hear you very clearly. You can hear? Okay, great. If I may, I'd just like to preface my remarks. This is not an opening statement or anything, but I would just like to preface my remarks by saying I'm not a close follower of events and developments in the Scottish Parliament, so I honestly don't know what, how far you've got with experimentation with hybrid and virtual proceedings and what your current thinking is. I'm also not in general very familiar with your procedures, so excuse me if I talk in a rather sort of general text, but I've been watching this at Westminster and I have a little bit of familiarity with what's been happening in other places around the world. My basic answer to your question is that I think that parliaments are places that need to include people who are actually present, and so I would be very cautious in how far you adopt long-term virtual arrangements. I mean, my own work has shown, and I think anybody who's worked in a legislature knows that, while they're very public places and very formal places, with lots of rules and procedures, a great deal of what matters in legislatures is what goes on informally and behind the scenes. If people are not present, they're actually not able to participate in all of those kinds of informal communications, negotiations and so on. I think that Ruth is broadly on the same page as me on that, while there can be good reasons to facilitate virtual participation. Obviously, in the case of a large-scale problem like the pandemic, where that needs to apply to everybody or perhaps in short-term specific individual cases, we might talk about that later, but in the later stages of pregnancy or having an extremely young child or some sort of temporary arrangement, it's worthy of consideration. However, as a long-term arrangement, as a blanket arrangement that might apply to everybody, I would be very cautious about going down that road, because I think that it would basically cause a Parliament to malfunction in very important ways and break down essential communication mechanisms that Parliaments and Policymaking rely on. That's very interesting, Professor Russell. Not in the formulaic way that legislation is created or the way that committees sit, the problem doesn't lie with that, but it lies with those softer, almost very challenging to measure interactions that happen face-to-face and in person that actually facilitate the greater ideal of producing legislation and getting work done. Yes, you put it very well. I think that there are some problems that we might talk about with respect to the formal proceedings as well. There are technical problems about how you get spontaneity in debates, how you indicate to the chair all of those kinds of things that we've been grappling with in legislatures as well as in other events and meetings in other parts of our lives as well. However, the fundamental problem that cannot ultimately be solved by technological fixes is that—you mentioned legislation—I've written a book on the legislative process at Westminster based on a very close study of both amendments and talking to people through interviews. You can learn a lot from the formal record in terms of what people say in debates and the wording of amendments and the votes and what gets passed and what doesn't get passed, but having collected data on nearly four and a half thousand amendments on 12 bills in the Westminster Parliament going through both chambers, the interviews that we did with people about the process were much more enlightening in terms of the true dynamics of what was going on. That's because we were talking to people about the behind-the-scenes meetings that backbenchers had had with ministers, that backbenchers had had with each other across party, the alliances that get built in support of amendments and the gentle behind-the-scenes subtle pressure that is put on. I'm quite fascinated by what's going on at Westminster today. Obviously, we've got this vote on whether the Prime Minister should be referred to the Privileges Committee and we've seen a Government amendment go down last night, which is trying to see off a rebellion. Those things are not happening because of what's happening on the formal record. Those things are happening because of people going along in groups or individually to each other's offices to put pressure on the minister. All of that cannot happen virtually. You can try and approximate to it with phone calls and WhatsApp messages and maybe one-to-one video calls, but the sense of what the dynamic is in a legislature, even in the chamber itself, I would suggest, the sense of, certainly at Westminster, the mood in the chamber being very important. The subtle noises that are coming from members, the looks that people are giving each other, the gestures, all of that is missing virtually. Without that, if you reduce a Parliament just to its formal on-the-record proceedings in a fairly rigid and unspontaneous way, a great deal of politics—perhaps most of politics—is gone from that dynamic, I would suggest. So there is a risk with hybrid that the relationship politics—I'm going to use this word carefully and then regret it immediately—the reality of how Parliament's work that perhaps are not transparent to constituents outside of the place are actually so important and that, certainly at this stage, technology is unable to provide anything near that equivalent. Would that be fair? I would say that, yes. When I talk to my students, I teach, I've talked for years on not just the British Parliament but the Parliament's comparison. One of the first things that I say to them is that there are some fundamental principles of how Parliament's work. One of them is equality, which we might come to, because there is a problem about if some people have the face-to-face access and others don't, you create inequalities. You then get some people being listened to more than others and so on. One of the most fundamental principles of Parliament's, in many ways, is openness. It is one of the things that distinguishes them from other aspects of Government and other public institutions. There is so much going on on the public record, it is transcribed, it is televised, etc. However, there is a paradox because, while they are fundamentally open institutions, they are like icebergs. So much of what matters is going on beneath the surface. You have to understand both of those things to understand Parliament's properly. The importance of their openness and things being on the record and ministers explaining themselves in a public place and all the parties making declarations of their positions and so on publicly on the record. However, if you only look at that, you're not understanding the place. It's all the stuff that goes on beneath the surface that gets to those positions that make politics work, I would say. Professor Russell, just before I bring you in, Dr Fox, I think that Edward has a question that he would like to raise. Edward? Yes, I'm finding that really interesting and I'm sat here, only able to be a person talking about this. I can't see the reaction of any other committee member because she, when she's talking, is the only person on the screen. It is no way that I can see what you're all feeling, whether you're agreeing or whether you're not agreeing. Is that the fundamental point that you're making, mate, that, as a politician, you cannot interpret other people's opinions and the way they're swinging when people are talking? Well, I think that's part of it, yes. I think that reading the room—we're all going through this whether we're parliamentarians or not—we're all having virtual meetings and feeling that frustration. I've chaired a lot of meetings and it's quite hard, with apologies to the chair, it's quite hard to shut people up if they're talking for too long. All of those little dynamics where you raise an eyebrow, you raise a pen, all of those interactions are really important. The reading of the room is really important, but I'm making a different point as well, a separate point, which is that what goes on outside the room is often at least as important, if not more important, as what's going on in the room. Thank you, Professor. Dr Fox, would you like to comment on this? Yes, good morning. I largely agree with everything that Meg has said. I think that the core of the discussion from the perspective of the Parliament is do you want to have permissive or restrictive criteria for virtual participation? Do you want virtual participation to be a short-term solution to a particular logistical or operational problem? Members who can't travel to the Parliament, for example, because of weather or travel breakdowns, transport problems, or do you want it to be a longer term option that some or all or a significant number of members might take up? It's a way of engaging involving members who might otherwise not be able to be Parliamentarians, so people who've got caring responsibilities, for example, and those are long-term propositions. Therefore, they're not going to be present in the Parliament a lot. They're going to be predominantly working from home and engaging virtually. To that extent, you have to then ask the question from a point of principle what is the problem that you think you have and what is it therefore that you are trying to solve? If parity of participation of underrepresented groups is a significant problem, then virtual participation might offer you a solution. However, there's a very significant trade-off on all the things that Meg has talked about. The culture of the institution would change considerably. It wouldn't necessarily change considerably if it was a short-term stop-gap measure for a few members from time to time in order to enable members not to be able to participate or to vote, for example, if they got Covid and had to isolate for a week, or if they had a particular short-term illness, which meant that they couldn't travel to the Parliament. It avoids them being disenfranchised from proceedings and also from voting if you provide a virtual or a proxy voting option. The cultural loss for the institution will be smaller. I would also add that, if you think about it, it's true of Scotland, it's true of the other devolved legislatures, it's true of Westminster, that some of the problems have possibly been exacerbated in terms of communication and have appeared sharper because the pandemic either happened shortly after an election or continued through an election. Therefore, what you've had, where you've had turnover of members, you've actually got quite a significant number of new members who've not got experience of anything other than pandemic procedures for quite a considerable period of time. That inevitably affects socialisation. We don't know yet whether the kinds of things that Meg is talking about, the building of political alliances, the relationships between members across parties, the functioning of committees in person, whether that will immediately revert to a pre-pandemic model or actually it will prove to be slightly different. Members' experience in their early months and years has been so different to what their predecessors would have experienced. To pursue that slightly, Dr Fox, do you think that being a member who came in during Covid to this Parliament here, so never saw it in its, somebody described it, it's golden time, although I think it's golden time is still to come. Do you think that there's, that human beings don't have the ability to overstep that communication problem which was meeting and talking in person straight away? Do you not think that we are capable of creating a different culture that would still facilitate the creation of laws through the outside of chamber discussions, however that does happen? Do you not think, or do you have, should we have a confidence that the human being in themselves, their ability to communicate and articulate will find ways even when the ability to sit in the same room doesn't exist? I think we could and that may well be with technology where we're headed if perhaps certain companies have their way. I agree with you that the idealisation of plenary proceedings, for example, was something that certainly came out at Westminster during the early months of the hybrid virtual proceedings and was a reason why the then leader of the House used the argument about this idealisation of debate and participation to turn off the virtual proceedings for a considerable period of time. I think that some of the problems that you see virtually are also replicated in debate just in a different form and it may well be that as technology develops and moves on and as we all become more accustomed to that, then forms of communication and the way we engage will naturally change. I think that there is a risk for parliaments that if all the parliaments around the world take a view to restrict or turn off virtual proceedings, it could hinder technological development and we won't see the possibility of improvements that we might have done that had things continued. I know at Westminster, for example, that they thought that it was going to be possible to come up with a model to allow greater interventions and supplementaries during debate to improve legislative scrutiny proceedings, for example, but there was no commitment to invest and to test and to trial that. I think that until parliaments commit to doing that, we won't see those kinds of developments. I think that it's slightly harder in terms of what Meg was talking about in terms of the informal space and the informal communications and inevitably harder at the start of a new parliament with lots of new members who simply don't know each other. The question is to what extent should the institutional parties seek to orchestrate forums or environments online in which that kind of communication can take place, but which are not necessarily formal proceedings? To what extent do you just simply leave it to members and say, if you've got a particular legislative matter that you want to pursue an amendment or you've got a policy concern at committee level, leave it to members to pick up the phone and talk to each other and engage that way, but inevitably those social cues that you've gone from in-person engagement are lost? It's interesting that you should raise the question of interventions because here within the Scottish Parliament much work has been done to allow the hybrid system to start to take interventions and hopefully we'll be able to investigate those between now, Edward shaking his head, investigate those between now and summer recess, but if I can pick up that point from you Dr Fox and also Professor Russell on this, is there a responsibility or where do you think the responsibility should be to help develop this communication? Should it rest with the political parties? So if we take a simple example of who should be able to use a hybrid facility, should that rest with the chamber, in our case the presiding officer of the speaker, should it rest and be facilitated by the political parties, and is there anybody who's disadvantaged by hybrid proceedings or indeed advantaged by the opportunity for a hybrid contribution? Professor Russell? Yeah, I would be quite firmly instinctively at least until I've had more time to think about this. I would be quite firmly opposed to this lying in the hands of the parties and I think that one of the things that we've seen in legislatures around the world under the pandemic with reduced participation is that it really matters who gets to participate and who doesn't get to participate and actually it can suit the political parties for their members to be absent. It can make the whips lives easier if awkward people are not around and particularly, I don't know if you're going to come on to the topic of proxy voting but I think that what happened at Westminster was quite appalling to be honest in terms of hundreds of proxy votes lying in the hands of party whips. I was horrified by that. I had seen something similar in the New Zealand Parliament but I never thought that we were going to get there at Westminster. I also think that it was totally unnecessary because there was an electronic voting system that had been rapidly set up and seemed to be very efficient and yet the Government prevented its continuation. I think that it goes back partly to this point about equality that I raise, that equality is fundamental to democracy and parliaments as democratic institutions have equality as a core principle that everybody should have equal rights to participate. If some people are encouraged to stay away, I think that those people are not fully included in some of the most important aspects of politics and there are very severe risks. I put it very nicely in terms of the long term and the short term and the fundamental trade-offs that we face here. I believe that you have Sarah Childs on your next panel, who is a real champion of improved participation, particularly for women in legislatures. She is hugely respected. I would count her as a friend as well as an excellent colleague, but I think that the pressure to increase virtual opportunities in order to improve participation for certain groups who may currently be excluded from legislatures—women, carers, people with disabilities and so on—is an awkward trade-off with being fully part of the decision-making process. I think that there is this sense that virtual participation is essentially a second-best kind of participation. As Ruth has said, in certain circumstances, if somebody is isolating with Covid or whatever, second-best is better than nothing at all. However, if you have some people who are locked out long term, then you have those people who are second-class members. They have a second-best kind of participation. If that means that, although you are excluding groups who have traditionally been excluded from legislatures and it looks on the face of it as if they are included but their participation is not equal to that of others, you are in a way perpetuating the problem. I am straying away from your question a bit, but, in terms of who makes the decisions, I would say that those need to be institution-wide decisions. I do not know enough about the Scottish Parliament to know quite where the right place is, but when you say presiding officer, that feels about right to me. I think that those things need very careful thinking through cross-party basis, close involvement of officials and experts and the presiding officer. Even then, there is a risk of—you can come up with things that suit all the parties but do not necessarily suit democracy as a whole. I think that we saw a bit of that at Westminster with the proxy voting. The Conservative whip had hundreds of votes in their pocket. The Labour whip had hundreds of votes in their pocket. The Conservative and Labour members did not mind, frankly, letting the whips vote for them, but democracy suffers in that situation nonetheless. I think that you have to be very careful of party interests colliding with the interests of broader democracy and of advantaging whips and party leaders, perhaps against some of their more awkward backbench members who might gently be eased out of some forms of participation. Thank you, Professor. Collette Stevenson has a slight follow-up question on that. Thank you very much in good morning, Professor Russell. You touched upon equality being one of the key principles in terms of politics. I just want to touch upon the actual makeup and logistics of Westminster. There are 650 MSPs and there are 427 seats. In terms of equality, it does not seem to be very equitable in that respect. I wonder if you want to comment on that. I would be the first to accept that equality is not perfect. We are not there, that is what I mean by that. In many respects, I am completely on the same side as there are childs in terms of wanting to see a broader range of people standing for Parliament facilitated to be members of Parliament and participating in Parliament. What I mean is that that participation, the quality of that—to really respect the principle of equality—needs to be equal. We had a case during the pandemic when some people in the House of Commons were able to vote in person and other people who were required to stay away for health reasons could not vote. That was another appalling incident during the pandemic in the UK Parliament. You have to be very careful that you do not set up a situation where, on paper, it looks like you have a nice broad spread of participation. However, the people who are really at the heart of things taking the decisions are not a representative group. Maybe they are more male, maybe they are the non-parents, maybe they are people who are of a particular age or a particular wealth band or whatever. That would be a retrograde step. You need full participation of everybody on an equal basis. The risk with the virtual participation is that you slip into some people who are not present, not really being there when the decisions are being taken, because if the real decisions are taken behind the scenes and they are just logging in for the formal meetings, their voices are not fully being heard. I think that we will have a question and then take the conversation forward. Yes, it has been a really interesting discussion. Thank you to both our witnesses. I was worried about the things about virtual meetings of which this is a kind of hybrid version. When I make my facial expression or twist uncomfortable in my chair, you cannot read my body language. I got a lot of the commentary through a Westminster lens and a Westminster culture. I think that things are very different in the Scottish Parliament. First of all, there are 129 members of the Scottish Parliament. I think that across parties it has been understood that it is much easier to get access to ministers and to feed things in very quickly. For example, we are in a hybrid meeting but I could see Edward shaking his head so there is a positive thread for a hybrid meeting because he read Edward's body language there. I suppose that the follow-up question that I wanted to move things on a little bit was in relation to equality, as was mentioned by Professor Russell. There are various strands that say that there is equality of opportunity as well as equality of access. If some women can never get into the Parliament because they are deterred because they do not see it as family friendly, then they do not have the opportunity in the first place to be elected representatives on the same basis as men. Equality of opportunity for carers, equality of opportunity for a young child in the house, for dads to still have contact with their young children from time to time. This Parliament is talking about a hybrid Parliament rather than a virtual Parliament. I think that there is a cross-party will not to put this hybrid Parliament back in its box but to get the balance right between inclusion in the parliamentary campus and that dynamic that I think that Professor Russell explained very well and Dr Fox. We are not denying the opportunity to under-represented groups and the opportunity to support members. Can I ask Dr Fox and Professor Russell to briefly comment on whether they think that for opportunities for people to be elected representatives in the first place or to sustain their incumbencies in elected representatives, i.e. would some women give up being MSPs in the last term because they did not see it as family friendly enough that hybrid is important that we endure the strength of hybrid rather than throw it out? Professor Russell, in the first instance? It depends what you mean by hybrid, does it not? Maybe we need to look into that term a bit more closely. If what you mean by hybrid is that everybody is participating some of the time in person and sometimes virtually, that is a much more defensible position than a hybridity where some people are always there and some people are always online. I would say that the people who are online are not being heard to the extent to which the people in the room are being heard and that would be a bit of a false picture of participation that you were creating. Professor Russell, I do not think that I was creating any form of false concept of participation. This is a hybrid meeting that we have just now. We are having that interaction at the moment. The question that I was asking took me a long time to get there, Professor Russell, but the question that I was asking is whether the advantages of hybrid Parliament for opportunity for underrepresented groups far outweighs some of the limitations that you mentioned, which I would note seems to be through a Westminster lens and culture. What I am saying is that it depends on your definition of hybrid. To give a clear example, I think that it is absolutely fantastic that myself and Ruth are able to be here with you today. It is a great deal easier to do that the way that we are doing it now than through us travelling up to Edinburgh and being there in person. Maybe the trade-offs of being able to see your body language and whether you are all glaring at each other because you think that I am talking rubbish. Maybe that is a trade-off worth making in this case. What I am saying is that hybrid could mean one of several things. One of them is that everybody, one day a week or one week a month or something, works from home and dials in via video link. That would be a very, very different arrangement to one where, say, half of the members are always present and the other half are never there. The second of those models would become particularly problematic if the half who were there were, say, the men and the ones who were staying at home with the caring responsibilities were the women. I think that you have to go beyond the word hybrid and ask what the rules are for this hybridity, how exactly it is going to work. That is all that I am saying. Dr Fox, what are your comments on this? I draw a distinction between recruitment of candidates to be members and retention of members once they are in the Parliament. There are lots of reasons why women, people from disabled groups and people with caring responsibilities, the underrepresented groups in our Parliament do not necessarily stand for public office. I suspect that there are other factors, toxicity of public life, social media and the threats to people in politics, way heavily, as much as how I manage my caring responsibilities and the work-life balance. There is a complex mix of factors. For potential candidates, if you are talking about recruitment into the Parliament, there is a stage before getting there, being a candidate. If the Parliament is more family-friendly, if it facilitates a better work-life balance and an ability to manage things such as caring responsibilities, that is clearly attractive. However, if party political activity does not facilitate that at the recruitment level, I am not sure that it is necessarily the solution that you are hoping for, to the extent that you are perhaps hoping for it. Having said that, if you are talking about retention of members, I know that the four female MSPs said that, prior to the last election, they were explicitly standing down because of the work-life balance issue and caring responsibilities for sick relatives and children. Virtual proceedings or hybrid proceedings enable them to balance out those responsibilities even if only on a short-term basis—from time to time, rather than having it on a permanent, long-term basis for the reasons that Meg has alluded to—may well be helpful. If you think that retention of members is a problem, it could provide a possible solution. As Meg has said, there are important trade-offs that go with that. I am pleased that I pushed on that, because I think that there is some really valuable evidence from Professor Russell and Dr Fox here, so thank you for your responses to that. A more general question now, clearly some form of hybrid parliament will remain in this committee's task force, trying to touch fuel, smell what that would look like and make recommendations to the Presiding Officer and Parliament in relation to that. I am guessing that that has been an iterative process. Whatever this committee comes up with and the Parliament agrees to, it would not be the end point. Professor Russell has been very helpful about monitoring some of the dynamics at Westminster, and one of the things that we want to do in the Scottish Parliament is whatever reforms we recommend and implement initially, we want to monitor some of that. My question would be how we can monitor hybrid and virtual proceedings going forward to measure how interactions have changed and whether that has been beneficial, what the benefits have been, what the drawbacks have been, because whatever we recommend, we are going to want to monitor that on an on-going basis. That will not be the end of the story, so any suggestions you could have on how we monitor the quality of those interactions and the negatives, as well as the positive, would be very helpful. Maybe Dr Fox? Having inquiries like that is useful. Westminster has not done properly. It has not reflected on what aspects of fully virtual and hybrid proceedings members like and what they did not, and it has come up with a proposition about how proceedings might be improved. Having an inquiry through a committee that can monitor that on an on-going basis is extremely valuable. There are obvious things that you can do in terms of surveys of members. Participation levels are always an issue. You have to think about what are the data points that you want to monitor. Is it the participation levels in terms of speaking time? Is it interventions? Are there issues for members if they are operating virtually for a period of time? Do they have equal access and opportunity to participate in certain types of proceedings? If the interrogatory aspects of proceedings question time, for example, as opposed to legislative scrutiny, you can more easily monitor that, but it really depends upon how the business is managed and therefore what aspects of the business you are looking at in detail. Obviously, a lot of the parliamentary data that I am sure the officials, the clerks and the librarians are producing would enable that to happen. Dr Fox, I am not sure if your finish or your connection was intermittent. I lost you for a short moment there, Dr Fox, in the middle of it. I think that what you are saying is that collecting and analysing the data is very important, but what we should do is choose what data points we want to reflect the information that we need. Would that be fair? Thank you. I am just slightly conscious of time, but would it be all right if I passed over to Edward? I think that some of the other questions were pretty much covered. Edward, can I pass over to you, please? I am going to limit my questions, but I will just refresh what it is to hear from our two witnesses and put on the record that, for the last year, through no choice of my own, but for medical reasons, I have had to be virtual or hybrid for nearly every session of the committee and for every session of the Parliament. I long to get back, and I think that it is relevant to hear how important it is to make connections with people. In my week back in the Parliament, I was able to have off-the-record conversations and coffees with Cabinet secretaries to discuss things that were difficult to do online, virtually impossible, and those relationships had been built up over the previous session, so I got to know them, and that is so important. I think that that is a point that both witnesses have brought out. I just want to ask two very quick questions. One is, do both witnesses think that there should be different arrangements for ministers who are giving evidence not only to the Parliament but also to committees? Do they need to be present so that we can see what they are saying and see how they are reacting, or do they think that they should just be allowed to do it online, where they have a habit of talking the time out? I would be happy to go to Meg first and then Ruth, if that is what you want to say. Yes, thank you. I am very interesting to hear about your own experience there. Ruth referred to this, and I think that there is a difference between people who have been in the Parliament for a long time and then have to do a period of virtual participation, because you have already got the established relationships and people who may be arrived virtually. I think that there would be a bit of a danger in opening up the possibility that you can stand because you do not ever actually have to go. I feel that myself in my working life. The lockdown was much easier amongst colleagues who had known each other and had been working with each other for a long time. You can pick up the signals even through online communication, whereas the new members of staff who joined it is much harder to read them. I think that the long-term and short-term thing is very important. In terms of your talking to cabinet secretaries and all that, I should throw into this meeting what I thought was a wonderful line from Philip Norton, who is a member of the House of Lords, but also one of our foremost scholars on both Westminster and Parliament comparatively. He talked very much about the importance of informal politics, and he said that it is impossible to bump into a minister on WhatsApp. Those spontaneous meetings that you have in corridors, where you end up having conversations that you were not even planning to have but which actually can change the course of events sometimes, are completely missing in the virtual environment. I guess that takes us to ministers. That is a really difficult one, I think. It is really hard to set the rules. It was mentioned that the rules have to be set and kept under review, and there are always risks in precedence being set, and inventions getting stretched and so on over time. It would not surprise you that I would generally say that it is far better for ministers to be there, because they ought to be able to read the room, you ought to be able to read them, there ought to be the potential to bump into them afterwards and all of the things that usually happen. Ministers, of course, are very busy live. Sometimes they might be in India or somewhere, like today. Maybe there are some times when, particularly people with briefs that are likely to take them far from Edinburgh, there might be good reasons for them to join by video link, but I would be inclined to keep that restricted. However, how you draw those lines is a really difficult question for everybody. If we say that some virtual participation is allowable and healthy, where do you draw the line and how do you prevent those lines constantly getting stretched, because I am sure that a lot of ministers would love to never show up in Parliament because it is quite a tough environment and you do not want to be able to slip to that position. Thank you, Dr Fox. One of the things that members often say is that they want to be able to see the whites of ministers' eyes in the chamber or in committee and have that in-person engagement. You have to think about, again, going back to short-term, long-term implications and criteria and whether criteria are permissive or restrictive. Ministers are also members of the House of the chamber and they too can get ill, they too may have to isolate, they too may have worked life balance issues and so on. The question is whether the principle of equity of treatment applies to them in the same way as it applies to other members or whether that is superseded by the advantages derived from in-person scrutiny. It is a delicate balance and I do not think that you can reach a perfect solution. Apologies, Dr Fox. We seem to be losing the line, so I think that we are going to try with just audio. Do you want to try now? Can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you now. I am not sure at what point you lost me, but I think that there is a rather prudent point about some of the difficulties. I am not sure where you lost me, but I was saying that ministers are also members and they too can get ill, they can have to isolate, they have worked life balance issues as well as other members. What would come into play as the principle of equity of treatment? Do you treat ministers differently to other members? Is there a pragmatic solution where, as a normal practice, ministers have to be present but, in exceptional circumstances, leave will be granted by a committee convener or the Presiding Officer for them? Is there a consensus among members of what would constitute, if you like, a reasonable excuse on whether or travel problems? Yes, perhaps family responsibilities, illness and isolation, but clashing ministerial duties or clashing constituency commitments, would that be sufficient? A debate would have to be around what would be an acceptable reason for the minister not to be present. I think that I took you on equity for full members and for ministers. I think that the point that I was trying to make is that ministers and cabinet secretaries are adept at knowing, because the clerks tell them when they are going to have to start at the committee and usually when they are going to end. They therefore can judge the amount of questions they can. They will take a long time to answer a specific question that they want to and try to talk the other questions out. I have seen it as a convener in the committee and at one stage, as a convener, I had to cut off the microphone of one cabinet secretary who would not shut up so that the other members of the committee could speak. That is the point that I was trying to make. My second point was just that I want to push back slightly and I want to understand slightly more about the party aspect of it. I will be perfectly clear that I am a deputy whip for my party and it slightly concerns me and I was interested to hear about why it should not be parties that control speaking slots, because they do, because we are given a certain amount of slots for every debate, and how we would get round that to make sure that those people who are virtual all get equity, because there is no doubt about it if you are virtual in the Scottish Parliament, when you have a speaking slot, you cannot intervene, you cannot do anything. I know that a convener would say that it is going to happen, but I will believe it when I see it. I would quite like to make views on that, if I may please. I think that there is another interesting trade-off here, which Ruth alluded to. If you do not continue experimenting with the technology, you are never going to find the solutions to allow the spontaneity that we are currently lacking. Of course, there was some phenomenal development by people behind the scenes in Parliament, in the UK and around the world to get those arrangements up and running, but it was only done through pure necessity. If we do not need it, maybe we are not going to prioritise making it work in quite the same way, which is really quite a conundrum. When I come back to what I said at the beginning, I do not know enough about the standard day-to-day working of the Scottish Parliament, to know to what extent the parties have control over who gets to speak, et cetera, now. Certainly, at Westminster, the parties have very little control, because the speaker chooses people in debate. However, we saw in the House of Common Speaker lists, for the first time ever, being a much more fixed and preordained list of who is going to intervene in the debate by necessity because of the virtual arrangements. Some people have been pressing for that for years, but we should move to that kind of system that exists in other parliaments. To me, it is a shame if you lose the spontaneity of people being able to stand up and respond to each other. Debates are always a little bit artificial. People clearly do arrive with pre-written remarks and so on, but you remove any hope that it is a proper debate, where one person will stand up and respond to what a person before has said if you have these preordained lists. Certainly, I have been present at Westminster when somebody has seen something in their office and wants to rush to the chamber to leap into the debate. You lose that with some people being guaranteed that they have involvement from not being on site. It is very difficult to move towards the kind of spontaneity that we are used to in parliaments and that is part of their lifeblood. Professor, the quality of the debate in the Scottish Parliament is as loud and vociferous as it is in Westminster. Doctor Fox, have you got any comments about Edward's question? I think you can think about the management of the system, if you like, at different levels. If you deploy restrictive criteria, who manages that, who certifies it, if some form of certification is required? Should that be the parties or should that be the Presiding Officer, a cross-party body? For political parties, I can imagine for members that might be quite difficult if there are personal reasons or health reasons that they do not want the party whips to know about, but there could be an issue there. That might naturally rest better with the Presiding Officer or if you have a system of self-certification. Which proceedings apply to hybrid participation? Does it apply to all proceedings or does it apply to any particular types of proceedings? The forms of proceedings that work best on a virtual model—questions, statements and so on, but not perhaps legislative proceedings. We have that at Westminster for a time. Who decides that? It was decided in effect at Westminster by the Government and it led to a fairly toxic atmosphere, because it moved from an approach of consensus through representatives of the parties and the Speaker through the House of Commons commission, the Government deciding what should happen and that was problematic. The Parliament has procedures and powers of the Speaker or the Presiding Officer, whoever is in the chair. Certainly, at Westminster, there have been issues about with the best will in the world, the need to orchestrate proceedings to a degree through call lists has limited the powers of the Speaker to adjust things during the course of a debate. If somebody does not turn up online to participate, they drop off the system altogether. If a debate finishes early, what do you do about finishing it? You are using up the time at the end of the debate that has been set aside. Do you have the option to offer that speaking time to other people? There, in terms of actual activity in the chamber, enhancing the powers of the Speaker more flexibly managed business would be helpful. That is not something that has been true of all parliaments. There has not been an adjustment of procedures sometimes and the rules on the powers of the Speaker to take account of that. Thank you, Dr Fox. I am very conscious of time, but to sort of err back to one of the Professor's earlier comments, both of your contributions have been incredibly useful and valuable as contributions are. Can I thank you both for your attendance today? I hope that you follow our inquiry. If simply to learn a little bit more about the Scottish Parliament, perhaps to find a way a different legislature is looking at the hybrid Parliament and how we move forward, but can I once again express on my behalf and the committees my thanks for your attendance this morning? Thank you. I will now suspend the meeting briefly so that we can change over for witnesses. Thank you. Can I welcome people back to this, the 10th meeting? This is our second evidence session based on future parliamentary procedure and practice inquiry that the committee is undertaking. I would like to welcome Dr Sarah Childs from the Royal Holloway University of London and Dr Andy Williamson from Democracy who is joining us online. Can I thank you for your attendance this morning? My intention is just to sort of move into questions from the committee with the hope that we can develop a sort of conversation about certain themes that have come from the committee's evidence that we've received so far. So I'm going to pass you both into the more than capable hands of Collette Stevenson. Good morning, Dr Childs. Just to give you a bit of insight when we were talking earlier in the earlier committee, I was newly elected in May last year and prior to that I still am a councillor within South Lanarkshire. The reason why I wanted to touch on that was because of my own experience of working at a hybrid virtual and being here in person as well. It was all I'd ever known, so it was like the Marysillese basically when you came in here and it's a shame because it's a public building so there should be people in here and it's lovely to have them back in as well. Obviously as well having the experience of being a councillor was great because I didn't have that peer support when I came in as such. Having drawn on the experience from being a councillor was great so I don't know what it would have been like for other newly elected members who didn't have that experience. I just wanted to explore with you more the sort of challenges and the opportunities of having a digital Parliament as well. Just to maybe explore how successful the Scottish Parliament's transition to the hybrid virtual working methods is and also if you could touch upon how we measure that success as well and any sort of mitigating factors as well that have maybe presented themselves and as I say that could include the examples of the limits in terms of technology and maybe people gasping that technology as well and so I'll leave it to you to touch upon that. Dr Charles, if we can come to you first. Yes thank you and I should say that I'm drawing on research that I also undertook with Jessica Smith from the University of Southampton just to make that clear and also my work is predominantly based on Westminster and through a gender sensitive and diversity sensitive Parliament's approach. So I think much of what you said I would agree with. I think very few people are advocating for completely virtual institutions that are empty of people. I think from a diversity perspective it's about exploring the possibilities to perhaps better balance the difficulties some people will have in participating in a completely physical institution and weighing up what advantages one can get from enabling hybridity from a diversity perspective enabling people perhaps who cannot travel for whatever reason or who cannot necessarily be in an institution five days in a row or the number of days that you're present in any one week. So I think for me that's the really central point that really one needs to be clear about whether there's any meaningful detriment and that might be at the individual level but it also might be at the institutional level. So it could be that there are individual advantages of hybridity notwithstanding what you said and I think you're absolutely right. I think it would be disingenuous to suggest that the in-person and the informal is not acutely critical to how well one can do the job. At the same time it might be at the institutional level that the quality of scrutiny and advocacy would be enhanced by some members being able to participate in a hybrid way so that they are actually present. So there's that tension between inclusion and a diverse inclusion and those voices not being present if one closed down hybridity. So I think that is what institutions need to explore and you talked about measurement and I think that can be through surveys of members and I've seen some of the results but I think it's also about exploring possibilities because the technological abilities of institutions rapidly and again I'm no technological expert but from what I've read about many parliaments the technology happened very quickly and it seems to me that parliaments should be thinking about future proofing their technology so where some of the concerns around socialisation and the informal and spontaneity and debate have been linked to a lack of technological ability. It seems to me that increasingly the argument is that that could be enhanced in the future so maybe an institution looking to the future should be exploring those potentials so maybe there could be new moments of informal interaction between individuals. So I take all of what you're saying but I want to bring in that alternative reading to see what can be advanced through technological solutions but also to recognise that it's a balance between the individual participation and the institutional efficacy effectiveness representation and the quality of all of those so I'm very much in favour of a permissive situation where some of those questions are explored technologically to see what could happen. Dr Williamson I understand that there's slight problems with your connection so it'll be an audio contribution which hopefully we'll be able to hear clearer. Dr Williamson. Thank you Mattenvar and joining you from the Isle of Skye so sometimes our broadband infrastructure isn't quite up to par. I apologise for that it was working fine earlier but I mean I think as we pointed out earlier and Ruth Fox said in the earlier session this is the classic example of when we're trying to do things in hybrid mode that technology gets in the way you can always guarantee it. A couple of things I want to say around Collette's question first of all is with four people giving evidence in the session and three are experts in Westminster and we have to stop in Scotland looking at Westminster as a model for the Scottish Parliament it's so different it's so substantially different that there are better Parliaments that we can look at to learn from and I think that's an important point moving forward the Scottish Parliament is a very different thing to Westminster. Also when we're talking about the future of Parliament and what Parliament looks like we've spoken so far today about the members in the chamber but we are ignoring the wider aspect here which is that the technological revolution that we've experienced and which has accelerated massively in the last two years as a result of the pandemic and things that Parliaments have to do actually changes the fundamental fabric of how Parliament works it transforms Parliament into digital first institutions where our legislative management systems are better our communication systems are better our ability to be open and to connect with the public is enhanced there are opportunities as well as challenges but Edward made a very strong point in the previous session the technology removes the human interaction and that's a real challenge so you know we don't want to go to a purely digital Parliament we need that face-to-face and I was in the Australian Parliaments a number of years ago with the clerk there and she said Parliament happens when we come together and my response was yes but what about when we can't what about the points in between what about members who live in more remote constituencies I mean for me to get from Sky to Edinburgh is a significant drive it would take an overnight stop I wouldn't want to do that drive there and back in a day and give evidence much easier than I can do it this way if I want to to talk to my member of Parliament or MSP how are they going to spend time in the constituency if they have to be in the Parliament all the time so I think we can look at balances there looking at access as well what we see we've seen over the pandemic I've worked with about 50 Parliaments in the last two years but primarily about pandemic response but actually that shifted from the enforced innovation of the first three to six months into a settling down period and the identification of strategic opportunities to modernise Parliament and where we're at now is very much looking at the strategic opportunities how do we strengthen Parliament and how do we do it differently and Norway for example moved to virtual committees and hybrid committees and the response from their civil society sector was that this was great because it actually improved access to committees for civil society groups who were not based in Oslo not based close to the parliaments and had to travel considerable distances and that was a barrier to giving evidence a barrier to being heard so I think if we look at this whole thing holistically we can see there are some challenges because we're still looking backwards at how Parliament used to work we're still coming to grips with the technology and I think killer asked about how the Scottish Parliament has responded as I say I've worked with around 50 parliaments and the Scottish Parliament has done very very well you've moved very quickly you've modified procedure to be flexible you've now got a continuity plan in place if you have to you can switch to a virtual model and you're running hybrid committees I think that's excellent I think you should be very pleased with what you've done but we can do more and we are just at the base of the mountain we're learning new ways of doing Parliament if you like so I think this is the place to start this conversation is what does Parliament look like in 10 years time what do we want it to be do we want to be more representative do we want it to be more open and accessible and do we want it to be more co-creative and collaborative with citizens they're all big questions thank you Dr Williamson I'm going to do that sensitive convener moment by reassuring you that we are taking substantial amounts of evidence both from other legislatures and indeed other people who hold expertise in the Scottish Parliament I think as a committee in every MSP recognises that the privilege of the Scottish Parliament is not measured by the fact that it's not Westminster but by the fact that it is the Parliament for the people of Scotland and that's why we're here but thank you for that contribution Is that a kind of answer to my next question to a degree in terms of what other legislators are doing and what learn lessons can we pick up from that as well and maybe what mistakes we've made as well and in terms of a digital Parliament and it means working more in hybrids for proceedings and things like that what related issues should the Scottish Parliament consider and do you think for the future you mentioned it as well about in 10 years time and we talked about spontaneity and also I'm very big on tone as well and I actually mentioned it last night at the engender event that we had in person and in terms of how we learn more from and I'm going to be quite controversial here and talk about misogyny and the tone in particular will be men especially in our chamber as well and how we can actually maybe tone that down if you like because it can be quite intimidating for a lot of women MSPs sorry just sorting out my technology and which has nothing to do with hybridity just me I mean I absolutely agree I'm unfortunately I think I found myself being zoom bombed or something with misogynistic drawings last week so I think there are concerns that we must make sure don't happen when we when we go online but I absolutely feel that the tone of politics needs to be much more respect respectful and inclusionary and that we need if we're in a hybrid mode to be able to moderate behaviour as we do and perhaps need to do more so in person too so I think the sort of violence against women in politics which is increasingly recognised globally is something that all parliaments need to take seriously and I think there are efforts to do that and some of that is about training and some of that is about a culture of an institution and signalling and leadership and ultimately sexual harassment and bullying procedures and processes of accountability so I think all of those kind of issues need to be taken seriously as well in terms of some of the concerns around hybridity I think the question of the extent to which moving to hybridity raises issues of executive dominance and the ability for governments to control time and to control space and interaction I think those are very very important I also think it really matters that the public feel that they are part of any process rather than observing what happens to an institution so things change and they're not aware of what's going on so I think public engagement around developments about where the parliament in 10 years might be going it seems to me should include public discussion so that they feel it's development or parliament is developing with them as opposed to them merely being subject to what's decided and of course in a pandemic situation those decisions have to be quick have to be in many ways not with the public but I think moving forward that really when I'm sorry didn't mean to use that phrase is really really important it matters also I think that I'm going to use the term the ordinary member of an institution also feels that they are party to discussions and developments I think sometimes parliaments can leave people behind and feel that some people in in whether that's in a bureau or by the speaker and I think that really matters too so that people don't feel that an institution is leaving them silent the biggest thing I think about hybridity is to really take on that question of opportunities committee witnesses of course fantastic we do need to see evidence that in your first question I'm not sure that either of us necessarily addresses I think we need monitoring and I think we need data and if you look at the United Nations Covid 19 parliaments checklist actually really ensuring that we see how whatever changes is subject to review monitoring update revisions and I think you need a process to capture the difference this makes because if we find that some of these new ways of working end up being discriminatory against certain types and we create second-class MSPs or we find that geography is meaning that some MSPs are not having the same opportunities I think all of those are really important so I would also really stress the importance of review monitoring and reform because some of the practices that may look at on first blush as positive may over time not be and I think it also matters and this will be my final point on this that we think of the institution as a total institution and recognise the impact of whatever happens on the staff and that we also need to be very aware of what the implications might be for them as well and their opportunities to excel and to have fair and just working conditions thank you dr Charles um dr Williamson I think I'll leave there as and sustaining that's her area of expertise rather than mine but I completely agree with that and the only thing I will say is we know from experience we know from research that digital makes abuse and discrimination worse and we do have to overcome it but that's not just an issue for parliament that's an issue at the societal level that's very helpful dr Williamson Collette um I've got no further questions that's excellent um Edward can I pass over to you yes thank you convener and can I just say at the outset I have some sympathy with Andy driving from sky to parliament in one day which I've done on numerous occasions because I cover it is quite a flog um especially if you get behind a timbalory and um and I think that Sarah's point about government control of time is is actually valid but let's be clear the government do control the time because they control the bureau and they can today exactly how long each debate is going to be whether there'll be a ministerial statement and none of the members have any say in it and it's something I think that we ought to do a little bit more because we had a situations on Tuesday this week when the bureau met and the debate was scheduled for Thursday was pinned by the government and and they just changed it unilaterally so I think it's disrespectful to the parliament having programmed it in three weeks ago or two weeks but my question my question really is is is twofold is that I take Sarah's point and I think Andy's point that the both made about witnesses giving evidence at committees and I think the hybrid system is really really good for that so I want to go to the chamber system where and I want to ask you both whether you think the way the chamber comes across in a hybrid system is open and transparent so perhaps uh Sarah you'd like to leave off on that and then Andy come in on it. Again I wouldn't want to speak beyond my experience of Westminster on this issue so I'll leave I'll leave that to Dr Williamson but I but I do think we need to measure public perceptions but also member perceptions on this because it kind of goes back to Dr Williamson started is that that he was having some technological issues but he was still here and actually we would have lost his voice if he wasn't able perhaps to get in that car and drive so I think it's about a public conversation as well as an institutional conversation about what makes for an effective chamber moment and to recognise there might be different ways different performances perhaps varied to the actual business in hand and to recognise that sorry perhaps the historic way we might imagine what makes for a good chamber moment can be enhanced critiqued or just be done differently I think we sometimes imagine that the good parliamentarian wherever they are has a particular style and actually we can we can transform that and we transform that by having different people interacting in different ways so of course again I'm not in favour of you know very long speeches for example where people aren't able to to interrupt or you feel that you're being spoken at rather than it being discursive or a dialogue deliberation I think all of those are really important principles of chamber moments but I do think we can recognise that members in any parliament can do their job differently and be good parliamentarians and I think that's something that perhaps we haven't talked about as a as a society because we have those very traditional views of the speech making elder statesmen of an institution and I'd like to think in your institutions we can be more diverse in the way that that the good parliamentarian is recognised as taking many forms thank you professor Williamson I think it's an interesting question and we first of all we have to go back to what's the culture of the chamber a few months back I was speaking to the Bundestag and this subject came up and I made the point that one of the criticisms in Westminster has been that the debate loses spontaneity and the Germans thought this was fantastic because they don't want spontaneity they want to be the next one on the list to be called to speak and you don't interrupt and you don't heckle and the same in Spain in Scotland we have a system of of debate we have a responsive interactive debate and I think for all my promotion of digital transformation and I think hybrid is a great idea and certainly in an emergency situation it's absolutely vital it does not replace the plenary around the world we saw in the research that I've been doing with inter-parliamentary union the centre for innovation in Parliament so 66 per cent of parliaments using hybrid or virtual tools for committees only 33 per cent for plenary and one of the reasons for that is it just does not replicate it's too difficult to have spontaneous debate interactions as already mentioned in this session are immensely challenging so it only really works in a parliamentary system where you have speaker lists and a very ordered structure with no interruption and then it just it's business as usual in effect so in brazil for example the hybrid system is working very very effectively in fact it's almost a virtual system apart from a couple of people almost everybody is attending virtually in the plenary in the chamber of deputies so that's great but I think in the Scottish Parliament I don't think it's a it's an effective replacement I think it's a it's a business continuity tool that we have in case of an emergency now if a member wishes to participate and can't physically participate then there is an opportunity to do that the house of Lords has allowed I think 20 members to participate remotely in that in the plenary but it's a second class experience for the member and I think we have to be clear about that I think it's a second class experience with democracy as well because if we're in a in a in a discursive chamber without the ability to have dynamic interventions it can't function so I think we have to reserve largely the plenary for exceptional circumstances in hybrid mode but actually committees are very different and I think we have to separate plenary and committee I think committees are much more suited to the hybrid mode than the plenary is I think thank you doctor Vincent Edward yeah I just I'd say and if I may it's not a second class experience having done it for a year it's a fourth class experience because I I just don't feel that I've been given any chance to get into the parliament as much as I would like to as far as talking in the chamber no interventions no chance of interventions no into reactions with other members can't see what anyone's saying I see a clock or my face on the screen there are so many things wrong with it that this parliament I think would be at a loss for it my next question though is is to both of you is that we I think you're both saying that the hybrid system for committee works for chambers it might not work what pressure does it put on the rest of the parliament though the hybrid system as far as if you're not there and you can't ask questions in the chamber as far as asking written or write written questions to the government or questions to the government do you think it the hybrid system puts a pressure on the parliament out with the chamber and committees because it's hybrid that's my question I don't know Andy if you want to head off on that and then Sarah or the other way round if Sarah you're on the screen it's probably easier okay thank you and and I would just like to follow up if it's okay on on your previous comments and I think you know I don't want to dispute that it feels very secondary or fourth class as you say but I but I would want to go back to the fact that it the alternative might be that you're absent and that your voice isn't heard and that the people you represent aren't heard and I think that's for me the bottom line and and it's that balance between effectively being excluded from certain parts of a parliament because the format means that you cannot be present and it might be that for a period of time that actually having a fourth class or a second class experience is still better for yourself and those you represent and I think it's about exploring the technological possibilities because in the research that I'm reading on parliaments and their responses I think there is a concern that the immediate technology shouldn't be where we think the future might be and actually the ability to interact with others may well be better and perhaps we should be trialling some of this I think that's the other thing because it is a public institution and you want to ensure that the best is in place we perhaps a little bit risk averse and we don't try in certain plenary sessions modes of more spontaneous interaction because we risk and we're concerned about a public perception of a failing institution or a or a poor quality debate but maybe we should actually trial some of these and actually see what is possible um and then then that then obviously needs sorry more directly to your question about the stresses and strains I think again from from the interactions I've had with with parliamentary clerks and officials that clearly this was an immensely stressful period people were working very long hours at distance to create solutions and I think we have to recognise the ongoing difficulties of working remotely as house staff in providing the support and the relocation of people for different jobs that they're doing perhaps the other aspects of the work of a parliament may have been slightly parked in order to support hybridity so I think there are questions on the organisation and the funding of particular services within a parliament that would need to be reviewed I think we also need to explore the potential for their being inequalities in terms of those who come into a parliament and or who work remotely and where we might want to see post the pandemic situation flexible working and remote working for parliamentary staff I'd be very concerned that we that we don't we we miss the opportunity to monitor what's going on so we again don't create inequalities between those who are present and those who are absent as well so I think there are issues around technology around personnel and their own career possibilities if you like that might be hung over and I think I would also and perhaps this is I hope this is appropriate actually the stresses and strains of the of parliamentary staff and actually it's been a very intense period for those and to recognise that that emergency mode cannot go on forever so I think those are the kind of points I would really stress to you on those issues. Thank you Professor Charles. Dr Williamson can I just add slightly to Edward's question about whether the whether strains are out with the chamber by saying is there also a need for perhaps MSPs to learn different skills in taking or obtaining information from the government and will technology make that easier? I think that's a great additional question could be answered in a number of ways. Come back to Edward's question I think what we're seeing here is a change of process and a change of culture we do have to find different ways of doing things if we're working in a different environment I think the reality is we're going to go back to something that looks 80% like it did and then there'll be some other things that we've learned along the way that are beneficial. Sarah made a really good point about supporting staff and I think this is again one of the things that gets lost under the water at the bottom of the iceberg is this has been a massively traumatic time for staff as well having to work remotely. At one point the Brazilian chamber of deputies had about 90% of its staff working remotely including its IT staff who had to run the systems that were in the Parliament building and so it had to do major structural and cultural changes to make these things work. In South Africa what they found is they've paired up their IT staff with members a lot more closely because members have had to be supported to get up to speed with using the tools that are available to them and so they've developed much stronger relationships and the spin-off has been actually they've overcome issues of trust and one of the big issues we've seen with Parliaments in the last two years is trust in the technology. I don't know how to use it, I don't know what these tools are, are they safe, is this conversation confidential, can it be hacked, is someone going to hack what I'm doing and the parliamentary IT staff around the world have worked very very hard to reassure members to train them and to build their levels of confidence and the reaction to that that we're now seeing is much higher levels of understanding of the technology and much higher levels of trust in the tools that they have which is very very positive. Do we need to learn different ways of doing things or maybe we do, maybe we need to rethink? The parliamentary system is not perfect and it's not static so we always have the opportunity to iteratively redesign parts of it and perhaps the two sides of this is Parliament's relationship with itself, so how does it function itself, what are the tools and systems and practices and cultures that are going on internally, what is its relationship with the public, how does it interact, how does it share open data, how does it open the published, how does it convene co-creative events or do more deliberative events that involve the public in decision making and the third aspect is what is its relationship with the executive and that's both holding the executive to account but also the background correspondence that goes on, the communication etc etc and I think we're not sure what that looks like yet, I think we're still in a way coming out of the crisis so we've still got that post viral situation where we're still trying to get our heads around it, what it will look like in five or ten years time, I don't know, I'm not sure but I think it is an opportunity for some conversations about how we remodel those communication channels and those networks and those tools and what is the most effective way for Parliament to hold the executive to account in the modern digital age? Thank you and thank you Edward, I'm going to pass over to Bob now. Thank you, you've been a really interesting discussion that was taken with the Dr Charles talking about the technology that we have today, the immediate is not the future, I think Dr Charles and Dr Williams have been very strong about looking forward where we want Parliament to be, one of the things that we want Parliament to be is more accessible for existing MSPs, I'll come on to look, people may stand for election in the future, a whole list of groups we could talk about, it could be women, it could be carers, it could be parents, it could be disabled, it could be those remote and rural, it could be members of the community, so I suppose that I'm keen to get a flavour of what both witnesses think that opportunities are in relation to making those MSPs we currently have who may have those characteristics to get that better balance in their life and greater accessibility to Parliament as things stand or perhaps in the future and I should note because my briefing here talks about unintended consequences as well because with every upsender could bend down the sides, so any comments from both witnesses in relation to that would be very helpful, maybe Dr Charles. I mean I think there's a huge opportunity if you transform the conditions under which Parliamentarians can undertake their work, it can transform perceptions of an institution being open and facilitating presence and effective participation, so I think that really matters and it can be both symbolic as in signalling that this is a role model institution, that it is leading society by being a place that is for everybody, but I think it also as you suggest can have really substantive benefits so about how effective you as an MSP can do your job given your particular circumstances and one of the things that I think is really important about enabling individuals to participate as elected members is that we don't look for individual solutions or we don't look to have informal opaque solutions but we actually think as an institution what is required and how do we work from a basis that one is entitled to undertake work differently without that being seen as substandard or off-putting to others. I mean historically women have had to juggle motherhood and it was dealt with privately with your own party and that raises questions both of parity if you're not favoured by the whips will you be able to get this kind of arrangement but more than that it's really patronising to have to go and ask for an individual solution whereas the institution should be an enabling institution so I think hybridity a permissive hybridity enables the sort of a right to participate that we would see in many other places of work and I think that matters because this is a public place of democracy really signalling that whatever your circumstances the institution will do its best to be open to you and I think that is very much about all of the groups that you said but I think it's really about creating that parity that fundamental right to participate in politics and that should be an equality that's really essential to a healthy democracy. That's helpful and Dr Williamson your response would be helpful and perhaps whether going forward we have to conduct equality impact assessments in whether that's before we evolve our hybrid parliament or whether as you mentioned and there's an iterative process where we measure these things in real time Dr Williamson. I think you do have to look at the impact on different groups in society we have to look at representation. The Scottish Parliament is not the worst in any sense in terms of its representativeness but it's not very good. Not many parliaments are, this is not a unique challenge for Scotland. There are major challenges and anything that we can do to make Parliament more accessible to more people it's that thing that we want our representatives to look like us but they don't unless you're a white middle aged male or I am but they don't and that has to change so how can we make that change we can enable people and Sarah's summed it up really well we can enable people to work more in their ways around their lives around childcare around caring responsibilities around where you live right now we're in the middle we're just coming to the end of lambing so here's a two-week period here where it's flat out with lambing that you know it's a very unique situation for someone that lives in an across how do you do that well hybridity is one way of doing it being able to join the session where you are when without having to travel is good also hybridity by the way is good for the environment if we're in if in Scotland we're a big country with a lot of rural people and having to travel from from and say enough to an agent for a meeting is crazy oh where should I have to travel to Edinburgh when I can do it remotely I'm getting the amount of of co2 I'm emitting just getting to the meeting never mind what I'm saying in the meeting so it's not just hybridity it's also its access to the information how do I get access to the information for this in a timely way if the time that I have to read the papers for the session tomorrow is at 11 o'clock at night when the kids are in bed and I finally got a bit of time to myself then I want to be able to access it I don't want to have to go to a print office and collect it I want it on my laptop or my ipad I want it in front of me I want the agenda in a timely way so I want to know that these are the sessions that I need to be at and I can schedule my time around them and know where I can physically be present because that is important but also know when it's beneficial because of family commitments because of health because of constituency work or something else that actually it's more effective for my job as a representative not to be physically present thank you I'm sorry I was going to say and there's also the big issue of the communication beyond that how how do we have parliament seen you know it's not just about being more open and accessible on the inside it's about being more visible on the outside so how do we make parliament more visible on the outside so it's it's less of a barrier to people who want to get involved but don't feel it's for them thank you doctor I'm sorry I'll do one final question on this I had asked about unintended negative consequences of hybrid as well I'm minded that I was at a hybrid conference and we used a platform called RIMO which we won't go into but it was fantastic and allowing people to table hop and mingle with each other so it's about what the unintended negative consequences might be but how those can be mitigated against and I'm conscious we've heard a lot about those informal chats that can't can't happen unless it's face-to-face and nothing replaces face-to-face but there are mitigations that can put in place anything in relation to unintended negative consequences what mitigations can be put in place and I was supposed to ask about whether these reforms will make it more likely that people from underrepresented groups will stand for election it was remiss of me not to ask that in my initial question and I won't come back and after that convener Dr Childs thank you and I think sometimes when you're reading members views on their experiences we need to sometimes think that you are those who have successfully negotiated the barriers that exclude others so sometimes when we look at evidence supporting particular modes of participation we might not be surveying the right people so I think that's also very important you have you're here you have your experiences but there's a whole swath of people out there who might think differently if they had been asked I think that's really important in terms of getting access to information about what might improve the institution the unintended consequences I remember a long time ago now when I sort of started looking at sort of recruitment is that you you know you can easily imagine a situation where you have actually the successful people rising up the ranks for political party with an institution as being those who are present all the time who still go to the bars in the evening and do all of the kind of historic um presentiism activities the informal the socialising who don't have to go home and do the caring or don't have to travel home a long way and so that is a that is a significant risk I don't think it's it's necessarily um one that should stop the practice but it must be monitored to see what's happening because what you could imagine is the young thrusting men getting all of the institutional leadership positions and the executive positions and anybody else staying perhaps more at home and not having those opportunities I think we have to think about rules and formal moments of informality and I know that sounds ridiculous but we know that members use WhatsApp a lot to communicate but that's not something that if you're not already included you're going to be able to participate in but it seems to me if you think about the moments that are critical to an effective institution whether that's the bumping in to ministers in a corridor or in party meetings we need to ensure that the moments that currently are really important in person can be artificially created so we almost need to plan for some of those so that online we might have a period where some ministers are sort of informally having coffee online if that makes sense that people could then phone into or participate in so again I'm not a virtual reality type expert but it seems to me that it shouldn't be beyond the wit of those who are to create those informal moments the happenstance the water cooler moment and they can I think be timetabled in academic conferences do exactly what you were talking about where you have those opportunities in some of the best ones to nip in and have a coffee with people to decide during a conversation you want to meet with a few people afterwards so it's about structuring days schedules creating those informal moments online because without that you will get exclusionary practices and patterns I think thank you and dr Williamson yeah I think everything that that Sarah just said I'm I'm slightly dubious about creating the artificial virtual spaces because I always find they're very contrived but you know let's let's think where we're going we're looking at the metaverse then either do we have parliament in the metaverse I mean it sounds horrific but maybe it does work I don't I don't know but there's a very very basic thing we've got to drop back to here is that in the real world the Scottish Parliament has spent a lot of time making it accessible let's not remove that by being digital and creating digital barriers we have to make sure that all of the digital tools are accessible so they work with screen readers so they work for people with with disabilities and we have to look at the digital deficit and we don't have the quality of broadband or 5g access across scotland as as I'm testament to today we have to make sure that if we're going to have universal participation in democratic process we have universal access to digital tools at the same level so we can't replace physical barriers to access with digital barriers to access thank you is that everything bob yes thank you I think that's a very useful note to put at the end there dr Williamson about ensuring that we don't artificially create barriers with an inevitable move to digital well with certainly an enthusiastic move to digital that we don't end up excluding other groups in that way which is very helpful I suppose my final question was written as what are the advantages of virtual proceedings but I'd like to change that slightly from listening to the evidence of both sessions today and ask both of you whether we should be afraid of virtual change or whether we should be brave enough to take risks which is in part why this parliament was originally founded and because of its closeness to the people of Scotland and to our constituents and the fact that they have such an important part of it that we find ways to bring them on so should we be scared of this change or should we embrace it and we may make mistakes but the end goal is more advantageous um Professor Charles I think we have to I think democracies around the world are under attack by authoritarian and anti-democratic forces trust in politics is a big issue I think we have to defend representative democracy and to defend it we have to design better ways of doing it and I think that has to involve technology for the reasons we've just all lived through but also because it has got those potentials to really fundamentally get at that question of political equality of access participation influence and that really matters to how a healthy democracy works and I think a successful parliament is a very good counterpoint to those who say representative democracy in decline and we should have authoritarian leaders if not despots so I think we have to embrace it and I think you're right a conversation about not always knowing how best to design but having a very clear sense of what you're trying to achieve and to recognise that some practices may be suboptimal and will then be left behind but I think that idea of not having a static institution but one that is prepared perhaps under conditions where you have time limited trials or trials in some areas so you don't have to be in revolutionary mode but you can be an incremental change mode that over time can really bring about strong changes in a much healthier democracy so I would really encourage the idea of thinking about institutions and we talked a lot about culture in the background today and I'm increasingly in the view that you have to design for changes in culture just talking about wanting a different culture I don't think culture just happens I think you have to intervene to bring about changes in institutions so I think signalling where you want to be what kind of parliament what kind of representative democracy you want here is a way of signalling that cultural change and then rule change and practice change can really be mutually conducive with that. That's helpful Professor Charles. Dr Williamson? I'm loving having Sarah go before me because she's saying everything I want to say and saying it so well that I can just add little bits on the end. I completely agree with all of that. Should you be afraid of virtual change? Well yes, because it will challenge you. Should you be brave enough to create change? No, you should be brave enough to lead change. You are our foremost democratic institution in Scotland and I'd like to see you be more radical. I'd like to see you make mistakes. Mistakes are the only way to learn. If you're not making mistakes you're not doing enough. Chile, the Chilean Chamber of Deputies is one of my favourite parliaments that I work with at the moment and they took the decision to be agile. So everything they do is now agile it's a minimum viable product that they roll out to get something working and then they test it and they play with it and they get members to use it then they do another bit and sometimes it doesn't work they roll it back sometimes it does they roll it forward and it's a different attitude but you as an institution have the big monolithic project management frameworks and procurement frameworks that will stop you being agile that will stop you being innovative and part of this being brave is challenge those. Challenge the way you procure technology, challenge the way that you run projects, do it differently, be prepared to take big goals and aim towards them but do it in small iterative steps and roll it back if it doesn't work when it doesn't work and learn from it. This is a conversation and as Sarah said there are huge challenges to representative democracy you are not a loved institution no parliament is and it's a fact of life and many of the reasons for that for people like myself who work in parliaments are frustrating because a lot of it is bad representation in a biased media and we have problems with the media we have problems with social media and disinformation lies spread faster than truth. We have huge challenges to representative democracy we already discussed this morning is it representative well no it doesn't look like us so we need to improve that but also the rise of deliberative methods and the demand for people that people now have to be more involved in what's going on affecting their lives so the Scottish Parliament needs to take all of that on board and change how it looks the digital society is real we are a digital society by and large so parliament needs to look like that you need to be a reflection a microcosm of the society around us a microcosm of modern Scotland and I think for me there's you know if I want to describe the Scottish Parliament I'm very proud to to have the Scottish Parliament represent me because when I go out around the world talking to other parliaments you are a great example in lots of ways you're doing really good things and you're dynamic and I think you're open accessible and robust in a way that a lot of parliaments are but the older you get the slower you get so don't lose sight of that we were here for we were set up for a reason and one of the things that we were set up to do was to be new and innovative and be part of a new nation now this is a new voice and I think you have to own that and you have to use that as the clarion call for innovation and being brave I think I think parliament can be brave but it has to jettison some of the old culture and the old ways to do it thank you dr Williamson and can I thank both our witnesses in the second panel session for a very very informative session and I hope you continue to follow our inquiry with interest and we will no doubt bombard you with questions in due course on various masses but can take this opportunity on behalf of myself and the committee once again to thank you um professor Charles for your attendance and dr Williamson who with technology allowing at the end the sheep and lambs being in the right place we managed to see you um very clearly at the end thank you very much indeed um I will now move this uh meeting into private