 Good morning and welcome to the ninth meeting in 2017 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. I remind everyone to switch their mobile phones to silent as they may interfere with broadcasting. A giant item 1 today is an invitation to Emma Harper, who joins the committee to do it in a very warm welcome. It is an invitation to Emma to declare any relevant interests. I am parliamentary liaison officer for Fergus Ewing, who is the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Connectivity. A giant item 2 is an agreement to take business in private. Our second item today for the committee is to review the format of the code of conduct from members of the Scottish Parliament and its decision to take our deliberation on that at future meetings in private. Members will be aware that we ask clerks to look at simplifying the code with a view to make it more accessible and readable whilst not changing any of the existing rules. So can I have the agreement of the committee to review the code in private at future meetings? Thank you very much. A giant item 3 is on cross-party groups. The first group that we have to consider today is the proposed CPG on Waspie. It is Women Against State Pension Inequality, and I would like to welcome Richard Leonard to MSP to the meeting this morning, and I would invite Richard as co-convener of the proposed group to make an opening statement. Thanks very much, convener, and thanks very much for the invitation and the time this morning. The cross-party group on Women Against State Pension Inequality has two formidable conveners in the shape of Jackie Baillie and Sandra White. The group arises from a grassroots campaign that was sparked off in 2015 in response to the implications of the 1995 and the 2011 Pensions Act, which accelerated the state retirement age for women from 60 to 65 and then to 66 and 67. The controversy was sparked because there was little or no individualised notification of these changes, because there were considerable concerns that there was an acceleration in the time from the original timetable and so that many women had little time to prepare. It is estimated that there are around a quarter of a million women in Scotland alone, born in the 1950s, who are affected by these pension changes. There are 24 local groups right across Scotland from Sutherland in the North to Berwick Roxburgh in the South, and the secretariat for the cross-party group would be provided by one of the activists in the Lanarkshire group and Potter. The cross-party nature of the group is represented in the submission that we have made. It includes Patrick Harvie and Alison Johnstone from the Scottish Green Party, three Scottish Labour members and four MSPs from the Scottish National Party. We do not think that this cross-party group will especially overlap with any other already existing cross-party groups. There will, I think, be occasions when cross-fertilisation would be helpful. Both Sandra White and I, for example, are on the cross-party group on older people age and ageing, and maybe there will be some shared interests there. I suppose, in conclusion, the main purpose of the group is to raise awareness both inside Parliament but also outside. There are still women out there in Scotland that do not know that they are affected by these changes, and so we would see ourselves as having a role in trying to raise awareness. The demands of the Wasby campaign are pretty straightforward. They are demands for fair transitional arrangements to be put in place for all women born in the 1950s who are affected by these changes. In short, it is a demand for justice and equality. We think that this Parliament is close to the people, it is in touch with the people. This is an issue that is of grave concern to a large number of women in Scotland, and it is precisely the kind of cross-party group that we think the Parliament should initiate. Thank you very much, Mr Leonard. Are there any questions from the committee about doing this group? Daniel Johnson? It is a very important issue, and I think that it is well worth the focus of our CPG, so I think that I will look forward to looking at your future work with interest. Thank you, convener. I think that this is a great idea as well. In addition, I think that there is a Dumfries and Galloway Wasby group, so they might not be aware of the fact that they need to connect up with everybody, so I think that I will certainly be happy to make them aware if this is going to go ahead. Thank you very much for your attendance this morning. The committee will consider whether to approve the application for recognition at agenda item 5, and you will be informed of our decision as quickly as possible, but thank you very much for your attendance this morning. Thank you very much indeed. I will suspend slightly until I witness this to change over. The second cross-party group that we have to consider today is a proposed CPG on inflammatory bowel disease. I would like to welcome Colin Smyth MSP to the meeting. Colin is a member of the proposed group, and I should declare an interest. It is also being a proposed member of the group. I invite Mr Smyth to make an opening statement on the proposed group. Thank you very much, convener, and thank you to the committee for the invitation this morning. Inflammatory bowel disease is a collective term that we use for Crohn's disease and ulcerative disease. Those are lifelong conditions that can develop at any age, but usually in the early teens and early twenties. IBD affects approximately 300,000 people in the UK. That is 1 in 210, with 18,000 new cases diagnosed every year, and in Scotland 26,000 people are diagnosed with the condition, the highest rate of IBD in the UK. The reason I say this, convener, is that one of the main reasons why the CPG was proposed is the fact that few people are aware of the number of people affected by what can be an incredibly debilitating condition. A core aim of the group is to raise awareness of the high incidence of IBD and the impact that living with IBD has on sufferers' lives. As well as raising awareness of IBD and its effects, the CPG aims to be a forum for third sector organisations and health professionals to share best practice in the diagnosis, research and treatment of IBD. A major focus of the group's work would be on promoting and monitoring the implementation of the national blueprint for inflammatory bowel disease in Scotland, which was produced through a collaboration between Crohn's and Colitis UK NHS health professionals and patients in the Scottish Government. The blueprint is key to delivering the Scottish Government's commitment that those in Scotland living with IBD are able to access the best possible treatment and support. Currently, there are no other groups in Parliament looking at the issues that are specifically faced by people with IBD. Lifetime treatment of IBD per individual affected is comparable to the cost to other major diseases such as diabetes and cancer. However, at present, it is a condition that does not receive a great deal of attention. We therefore feel that the CPG is very much in the public interest and that it will make a useful and practical contribution to the development of treatments and services for those suffering from IBD, as well as raising awareness of the condition across Scotland. Thank you very much. Can I invite any questions from members? Thank you, convener. Good morning. You have hit the nail on the head when you are saying that in an attempt to raise awareness for the whole process, I think, is what the group will do. How will you manage to get that across the various sectors? You have indicated in the report that you will have a number of organisations participating. Is any one of those organisations going to take a lead on the process to ensure that it is covering geographically across the piece? Certainly. The secretary will be provided by Crohn's and Klytys UK, who have increased their work in Scotland. I will have a member of staff funded through the Alliance. One of the key roles is to raise awareness across Scotland. One of the opportunities and one of the first pieces of work that we want to do is to raise awareness across health boards in Scotland. For example, we have invited the chair of the chief executives of health boards in Scotland to come to a future meeting and to make him aware of concerns around, for example, a postcode lotter, if you like, in terms of treatment in Scotland and to make him aware of the concerns of people who suffer from this condition and the fact that we have different treatments in different parts of Scotland. One of the key things for the group is that it has individuals who suffer from this condition in their stories, where I have to say at the first meeting, very harrowing, and we really want to raise awareness of how that impacts on individuals and their lives, and that would be a key part of the role of the group. I wish you well. Any further questions? Thank you. I thank Colin Smyth for his attendance at the committee this morning. We will consider whether to approve the application for recognition at agenda item 5, and you will be informed of our decision as quickly as possible. Thank you for your attendance this morning. Thank you, convener. I suspend. The final group that we have to consider today is the proposed CPD on freedom of religion or belief. I would like to welcome John Mason MSP to the meeting and John is the proposed convener of the group. I invite you to make an opening statement. Thank you very much, convener, and thanks to the committee for considering that CPD for approval. As members may know, there was a similar cross-party group on religious freedom previously led by Dave Thompson, but we deliberately did not carry it on and wanted to restart in a slightly different format, but there will obviously be similarities with that. We considered different options and discussed that at our inaugural meeting, but we came up with the phrase freedom of religion or belief, which is somewhat wider than the previous one, which only mentioned religion. I think that members have the registration form, and I can only apologise that we did not properly notify the clerks about that inaugural meeting, so that was an oversight, I am afraid, on the part of myself in my office. I also realised that when I was looking at the form this morning, Alec Cole-Hamilton is down as a Conservative, and obviously he is not. I apologise to him. We have at least one MSP from every of the five parties, which is quite encouraging. The vice convener is to be Murdo Fraser, and we now have a secretariat in place, which is Interfaith Scotland, which was not at the time we completed the form. Religion is a major part of many people's lives, both in Scotland and around the world, and it is a major reason why people around the world are having a difficult time in quite a number of countries. There is no other CPG that specifically looks at religion, although I agree that it can touch on many areas. Just to take one country, for example, North Korea, it would be at the top of most people's list for being a repressive regime, and people within that, and certainly religious people, but anyone who basically does not agree with the regime has an extremely difficult time in a country like that. A cross-party group cannot solve those problems, but I think that we can air them, we can discuss some of the situation and what people are suffering and what they are going through in these countries like that. I would very much hope that the committee would approve the group, but I am very happy to take any questions. Thank you very much, Mr Mason. I invite any questions from the committee this morning? Good morning. Just looking at the new title compared with the previous group that covered that area, I think that the previous group was criticised, to some extent, for being focused on freedom of religion in a narrow way, not encompassing freedom from religion, which the phrase religious freedom should cover both. Can you say something about how you expect the work of that group to differ, whether its rebate is intentionally broader? Also, in relation to its membership, I notice that there are no non-religious belief organisations yet listed. How do you anticipate that changing? First, we are certainly open to anybody being part of the group and attending if they want to. We can encourage and we have in fact been in touch. I think that the humanist society was invited to the first meeting and declined to come, if I remember correctly. Obviously, it was only at that first meeting that we decided exactly what the remit would be. I think that some people had maybe thought that it would just be religion, so as you have noted, we specifically are widening it out and would be happy to take anybody who wants to be a member of MSPs, individuals and organisations. However, I suppose that I would also say at the moment that religion can be overlooked in some circles. I think that there will be a focus on religion, but not exclusively on religion. Within religions, there clearly are different experiences. Muslims in Myanmar, for example, are facing a very difficult time, Falun Gong in China and so on. However, the main religious group being persecuted around the world are Christians, so, inevitably, I think that there is likely to be a focus on that. Regardless of whether any particular organisations choose to get involved, you would say that the remit covers not only the freedom of people to practice religion, but also the right of people to be free of having religion imposed on them. Absolutely, because both leaving a religion for another religion or leaving a religion for no religion are both areas of real concern. I have had one. I see that most of your focus is expected to be on the international aspect, but we could look at issues in Scotland and the UK. I wonder whether you could outline what some of those might be and whether you anticipate any difficulties around conflicts or tensions between religion and other equality strands. That raises a whole range of issues. We have left it deliberately open, but my thinking is that the main emphasis—in fact, I think that with the previous group as well—was on the overseas situation. However, I have mentioned the Equality Act and, as it happens, I was involved in that act going through at Westminster. There can be a tension between the different protected characteristics because they were not ranked and neither did the act say that they were all equal. I think that when the act was written, that was an inherent flaw in it, that they should either have said that everything was equal or that there was some kind of ranking. I accept that there can be tensions. I doubt very much that this group will get into that kind of thing because we are focusing on the religious side. If the situation did arise that there was some problem with people being religious, I think that one of my colleagues was criticised for having Ash on her forehead at Ash Wednesday. Those things are obviously of interest, but I do not think that they will be the main focus of the group. Finally, in the last session, the previous group had an organisation appointed to provide its secretary. I do not see a decision on that in the current paper. Have you considered the criticisms that were made of the organisation that was chosen in the last session, which cites its founder as saying that its purpose includes to heal the wounds inflicted by atheism and whether you have considered that and reflected on whether that was appropriate? Maybe that is one of the reasons why we have said that we are starting a new group rather than continuing the previous one. I do see it as a new group. We discussed the secretariat at the initial meeting, which, unfortunately, Interfaith Scotland had not been able to attend, so it could not decide on the day. However, everybody felt that they would be a very appropriate group because, by their very name, they are Interfaith. When we asked them, they considered that it had to go through their board, and they have now agreed to provide that to the secretary of support. I think that that would be an improvement. I will let you judge that. Any further questions from the committee? John Mason for his attendance this morning. The committee will consider whether to prove the application for recognition at agenda item 5. You will be informed of our decision as quickly as possible, but thank you for your attendance this morning. Thank you. I am going to suspend shortly just to allow witnesses to change over. We now move to agenda item 4, which is an evidence session with the Commission on Parliamentary Reform. We are delighted to welcome to the committee this morning John McCormick, chair of the commission, and John Finnie, MSP commission member. I would like to invite Mr McCormick to make an opening statement to the committee. Thank you very much, convener. John and I are delighted to be here and thank you for inviting us. Just a brief statement from me, and then hopefully we can cover other ground in questions. The last time I spoke to you when Fiona McLeod and I were here, we talked about the three stages of our work on the commission for parliamentary reform, first the planning stage, then the engagement stage and now the reporting stage. So we have completed the planning stage and the engagement phase, and we are just in the early stages of considering all the evidence before us and before we agree our recommendations. We are still on target to provide our report to the Presiding Officer and Parliament by the end of June. Since we last spoke, we have had 12 formal meetings at which we have taken evidence from some 55 witnesses. We have travelled across Scotland, taken part in workshops and meetings and conferences and seeking views on how people feel the Parliament is working. We have met some 1,200 people at over 50 events. We have included, of course, those who have deep experience of working with the Parliament but, as well, those who might not think of becoming involved and would not think that the Parliament was for them. We have met representatives of the Black and Minority ethnic communities, homeless people and disability groups, for example, and we can talk more about that afterwards if you want to know more detail. We have had 104 written submissions, and they are all available for you to read on our website from half a page to 52 pages, and we have provided a very helpful summary. We have appointed Professor Paul Kearney of Stirling University to act as our adviser. We have also undertaken a range of research looking at what we might learn from comparator legislatures across the world. We have a very strong paper assessing the impact of new deliberative engagement techniques in different parts of the world. Spice have provided a very, very helpful analysis of the four sessions of this Parliament, and the data makes very interesting reading. We are going through that at the moment to see what trends there are and what lessons we can learn from that. I would have to say at the outset that the impression from the engagement across the country is very positive. I have been very struck by how people value the Parliament, and with many seeing the MSP as their key link to those who make decisions on their behalf. The fact that each of the individual MSPs bring the feeling and experience of their community into this Parliament at Hotherwood, even if people have met and said, well, I am not too interested in the detail or whatever, I will just trust my MSP to go on with the job and that is fine with me. However, the overarching feeling of the Parliaments of great value and great respect for the Parliament is held in high esteem. We are now at the stage of reflecting on all this evidence, setting priorities and emerging recommendations. I hope that you said that you are still on track to present to the Presiding Officer at the end of June. I was wondering if events this week in the general election would have any impact on your ability to meet that deadline? I cannot think that it will have any impact at all. We are determined to, if it is to be helpful at all, we want to stick to our timetable and presenting it to the Parliament before the session. I think that it will put an extra burden on my colleagues, the political nominees on the commission, who will be engaged in all the things that I will not be engaged in. No, we are on track. Thank you very much. I invite questions from the committee. Mr Stewart. Thank you, convener. I think that you are to be commended and congratulated for the extent that you have done so far. It was only a few weeks ago that you came here and you now have had an opportunity to go out there and experience and have dialogue, and I think that that has been very positive for what I can see from what you have given back. My question would be about how you managed to get involved with those people who were less or perceived as being less involved with the Parliament and saw their role in life as being part of that process. It would be good to have an indication as to how that came about, because that is the market and the groups that we are trying to engage with. You took that challenge on, and I would like to hear a little bit more about that. We both responded on this issue. We contacted a lot of groups when we were at the outset and explained what we were about and asked for their help. For example, we asked people if they were holding conferences or workshops. Could we take part? Could they give us some time in an event that was already in the calendar? Or could we arrange an event? With the SEMVO, we had a conference in Easterhouse, a meeting in Easterhouse, where people were representing different aspects of diversity. We had a commission for racial equality political mentoring scheme. We had a meeting here in the Parliament of people who were on that scheme. The Syrenians helped us to meet people who had suffered homelessness or had been in care. We went through a range of organisations, and they were terrifically helpful to us across the whole country. We met from Arakir to Skye to Easterhouse, even in Burness John. We also thought that it was important to engage with people where they would be comfortable. For instance, the commissioners went in groups, sometimes individually. I met a group of looked after children in Falkirk at their normal meeting place on a Wednesday night. I very much enjoyed the pizza that they laid on. It was important to engage with people like that. Similarly, and again to be parochial in my area, we met Lachaber Disability Forum at a location where they would ordinarily be meeting Highland Senior Citizens Network. All ranges in all sectors of the community were keen to get all the views. By doing that, you will have a real flavour of what is out there and what people's perceptions and beliefs are of the organisation that we have here. As I say, it is good to hear that there is a good high level of respect and value from all across the sector. I thank you for that. This is my first meeting of the Standards Committee. I was reading information ahead of the meeting. In discussions around parliamentary reform, a lot of people are interested in how we market the work that we do here versus Westminster, for instance. A lot of what is seen is First Minister's questions on a Thursday, when there is a lot happening in committees and things like that. Just yesterday, one of the local farmers referred to this place as the Scottish office. I find that quite a challenge when people are still referring to this Parliament and the Government as an office. I am interested to know about how we explore the work of the Parliament and get the information out there. Certainly, part of our remit is to look at the identity of the Parliament as distinct from the Government and the role of the individual parliamentarian. We are looking at a whole range of issues that have been raised with us about strengthening the role of the individual parliamentarian, strengthening the role of the committees and their conveners, the relationship between the committees and the chamber when issues are being discussed here, what is the relationship to what is happening in the chamber. We are looking at a whole range of issues across the board, John. Indeed, an identity is key to that, to enhance the role. We all use shorthand when we are guilty, and sometimes the term hollywood is used to refer to Government, to the building, to the committees, to the whole political structure. It was to try and understand that. There is a level of knowledge out there. For instance, one of the groups that I met with initially said that we do not know anything about the Parliament. We did that in primary school, and a third of them had visited. That was the group in central Scotland. There is a lot of knowledge out there, but you are right. A key element is to try and break down the components of what is clearly the party of Government, the Government, the Parliament and the civil support as well. The parliamentary staff that support and the Government staff have the clear distinction between them. Are occurring the most that the term hollywood was a shorthand that confused? We did have a session with the media where we discussed the very issue about the reporting of the Parliament and how it distinguished within its guidelines between the different areas of Government, civil service, the Parliament, the committees and so on. We are hoping for some positive feedback following those discussions. The evidence from around the world, and people have said to us from different legislatures, that one of the most difficult things is to identify the role of the Parliament as distinct from the Government, because the Government gets all the publicity and is making the decisions. We are very aware of it, but it is not an easy solution. I remember when we had an ice-breaking quiz that we gave to people about the role of the Parliament and what they did and who was responsible for what. Quite a number of people said to me at a different time. I remember a lady in Kilmarnock saying to me when I was back in my home territory, saying, well, it doesn't really matter to me, son. I knew I was back in the issue, and nobody said that to me for a long time. She said, because I trust my local MSP and I'll go to him and he'll help me and he'll work it through for me and direct put me in the right direction. As someone else put it more succinctly in Glasgow said, it's not going to make it compulsory that I've got to understand who's responsible for what are you. There's a whole range of the bit. Most people get the gist of it. The things that domestic legislation that matters to their family and to the people they care about is the responsibility of this Parliament and they work out from there. If I could ask a supplementary on that question. I know that you have visited other devolved areas and other parliaments as well. Have you found a digital strategy that works perhaps in a more modern way than the one that we have in this Parliament? Have there been any representations about the use of digital media on the Parliament websites, for instance? It's a very basic contact sheet that we have as parliamentarians and we can't put multimedia on there or have control of what we can put on there. Have you seen other areas that have been better or differently? A lot of the legislatures that people we spoke to are dealing with this very issue at the moment because of the pace of change that they have established a set up and now it needs to be improved or enhanced and a lot of them are discussing it. We are particularly interested in developments in Wales and the Wales Assembly where they have introduced a number of areas of change to engage people through digital media and they have a review team at the moment sitting to report helpfully in May before we put in our report about how they can report on the issues of the assembly to the people of Wales in a more attractive way, in a more engaging way. We have been keeping in touch with them and they have been keeping in touch with us since October. We are working in parallel with each other and we had a very helpful session with some digital experts in Gallashields where we also had a great team support from senior pupils from Gallashields academy. We spent the day there and we had terrific evidence from Nesta and other colleagues, including from the Wales Assembly, about developments in digital. We will have something to say about digital engagement in our final report. That is very helpful. Is that a supplementary or a new idea? We are just picking up on a point that you made, Mr McCormick, regarding people who are aware that the issues that matter most of their lives are decided here. I just wondered if you could potentially comment if you have been able to pick anything up why you think that it would be the case that turnout for holiday elections is consistently lower than turnout for Westminster elections and how that relates to people's understanding of the Parliament and its role? I would not like to speculate on that at all. I have studied turnout over the years on my role as an electoral commissioner and it is certainly intriguing whereby local elections you would expect the turnout to be lower than here and for here you would expect it to be lower than the UK parliamentary elections, but there has been a change in the last few years where Scottish turnout has increased in a number of different electoral events. I would not like to speculate about it, except that people were very clear that, if they needed help, they would go to the MSP. It did not mean to say that they understood precisely everything that mattered, whether refuse collection or roads or transport or licensing were MSP responsibilities or local authority responsibilities. However, I felt a great sense of feeling that, because health and education were here, it mattered to the family and that would be their first port of call. I found that quite encouraging. I would hope that it would lead to an increase in the turnout. I find it interesting that people trust their MSPs to get on with their job, but is it perhaps a case to speculate that it is not that people are disinterested in the Scottish Parliament to explain their lower turnout but that people are content for the Scottish Parliament to get on with it and that they do not feel that they need to intervene by voting to the same degree as they do at Westminster? I could not speculate on that, John, could you? I think that it is fair to say that part of our work has been about how people have responded to what their understanding of the Scottish Parliament is at the moment. John is right to talk about the innovation that is applying in Wales about engagement. We want engagement, and that means across the range of things, not simply digital engagement. We know that a number of areas where that is not very practical. The more engagement there is, then hopefully that will reflect with a greater interest. I was keen to talk to you or ask you about the comparative work that you have been doing, looking at other legislatures, both devolved and national legislatures of comparable size, and just wondering what the emerging themes from that were. Where are the interesting points of comparing contrast in your view, based on your work so far? It is interesting that we find that, across the board, most are dealing with the sort of issues that we are dealing with—the identity of the legislature as against the Government. Capacity does not seem to be much of an issue. It would seem that, looking at the number of elected representatives, Holyrood is not out of kilter with similar legislators of similar size across the world. There is not a great difference in the number of people. Where there is a difference is there are quite distinct differences in the role of the presiding officer or speaker. There are some differences in post-legislative scrutiny and pre-legislative scrutiny. There are different ways of organising the chamber time and the committee time, so the allocation of a parliamentary week—we have learnt quite a lot from that and we have a lot of data about that that we are going through at the moment. Generally, it is about managing efficiency and, effectively, the time that is available from the parliamentarians to do their work both in the legislature and in their constituencies and balancing the two. One of the things that has been discussed in recent months among parliamentarians is that the role of the business managers and the bureau in managing chamber time, but also the selection of speakers. It is clearly one of the big points of contrast between Holyrood and Westminster, which is the role of the speaker in choosing speakers in the House of Commons compared to the Scottish Parliament, where it tends to be nominated by business managers. Are any of those procedural points going to form part of your work? Are there any emerging themes in terms of the way in which the process and procedure could be reformed to increase the spontaneity and increase the range of views that are heard in the chamber? Yes, we are looking at a whole range of issues relating to parliamentary time, parliamentary debates, the role of a presiding officer, but we are also looking at the whole range of ways that we are looking at it and the work of the committees in terms of engagement and scrutiny of legislation and the balance of work between their two roles as, for most of the committees, the legislative role and the select committee role and the balance between them. We are looking at the practice of various between legislatures as to whether the chamber can meet when committees meet in parallel and what are the unintended consequences of that and different legislatures have responded in different ways. Is there anything like that? There is a fairly recent experience in the Republic of Ireland regarding how they have gone about business. We have also looked at New Zealand and other places, but we have had a number of representations on the ability of the presiding officer—speaker called them what they were—and other parliaments to determine that they would select someone to speak on the basis of the known expertise that they might have or a background that they may have. Again, that is about the relationship between party, the individual role of the parliamentarian and the role of the person who is actually chairing the session. There is quite a range of information that I have had about that. I wanted to talk about two things. You may have said all you wish to say about structural change, but you may not have it in terms of making the parliament work better and more efficiently with the perceived at any rate increased workload likely to come in terms of post-Brexit and post the implementation of the Scotland bill at how committees can work better. Have you anything more you would like to add about that? We are looking in great detail at the balance of time in committees at the different stages, the time between the stages and when the bill goes into the chamber and the time before the decisions are made. We are looking at it in detail. We are working through it at the moment. I could not say much more than we are taking a very careful look at how the bills are scrutinised in each of the committees and how that relates to the decision time in the chamber. Is there anything else that I should add, John? I was particularly thinking of committees meeting on Thursday morning, for example, coming up against hard deadlines of general questions. That sort of inflexibility that I think some committees find pretty crushing in a way and the need to perhaps change the assisting times of Parliament to accommodate that. That point has been made very forcibly by a number of MSPs. The particular difficulty of the Thursday morning committees in the chamber and up to 11.30 and all of that. We have also found from the data that we are looking at that, of course, we are the best use of the time so that committees can get the work done in proper time and not rushing into the job, as a number of different people have said to me. We have also found some interesting stats. Sometimes you look at the stats and themes emerging and you are not quite sure where it takes you. We have got one here, for example. We have found that most bills are introduced in the last 15 months of a parliamentary session. This is analysis of the first four sessions. More chamber time is spent on bills in the last parliamentary year of the session. Also, interestingly, session 3 had the lowest number of bills but also the lowest number of committee inquiries. It may not just simply be a time of looking at the parliamentary week. It may be looking at the parliamentary year and where chamber time is at its most valuable and most necessary and where committee time is more valuable and more necessary. We are looking at all those things. As I said, we have not taken any firm decisions yet, but we are scrutinising it very carefully. The other point that I wanted to make was that I am interested in the places that you have been to and what impact does rurality, if you like, have on the feeling of not necessarily being connected with the Parliament? For example, I am surprised to see that you have not been to Dundee or Perth or, in my constituency, Eir, although I congratulate you on where you have been, but notwithstanding, without being too critical, it has seemed quite central belt focused. The people who feel most disconnected are often the people who are the furthest distance away. I never want to miss an opportunity to go to Eir, Mr Scott. We have been to Eirshire, at least I can take that box. We have made an attempt to get to around the country. Inverness, Aberdeen, Galeshields, Archer, Sky are a range of places to get a balance of rurality, island community life and the impact on the Parliament, as well as the central belt on the other cities. I am sorry that we missed out on Dundee, but we did Aberdeen. It was interesting, for instance, in my part of the world in Fyrrwoliam. There was certainly a view from the people that we met at the disability forum, that the disengagement was not so much with Lochaber and the Parliament in Edinburgh. Ironically, it was Lochaber with the council in Inverness 65 miles away. There is no doubt that people's experience, individual experience, will shape their views on the Parliament. By and large, I do not think that the distance was necessarily seen as a problem as regards awareness of what was going on, but rather the ability to perhaps come to the Parliament, and it certainly seemed to be the areas further from the Parliament were very appreciative that the Parliament went out. That was something that we have been looking at again in relation to how the week would be diverted and the ability of the committees to get out and meet people, because we found that that was very much appreciated. That is one of the key issues that has come through. For example, in Arafa, we piggybacked on the back of an all-day conference that was looking at the Community Empowerment Act. We had 70 or 80 people who were really involved in the community helping us and talking about it. They said that we understand that it is expensive to come here. We understand that a whole committee—you could not expect a whole committee to come to Arafa or parts of Argyll or the islands, but we cannot do it digitally. You can do some of it digitally, you can do some of it by telephone conferencing, but there will be occasions when we would want all the committees to at least consider one or two people from the committee coming to meet us face to face in a session like this, like you have done. We do not have the broadband that can allow us to do the digital engagement all across the country. When we can, it is a good substitute, but when we have had the local MSPs, when we have had people from the Parliament, it really makes a big difference to the democratic engagement and we feel that we can talk to them on our territory. A number of people have said that it is much easier for them to understand the difficulties. They are not polyannish about it. They realise that it is costly of time and resources, but it is so much better for them to meet them in the comfort of their community when they feel confident about talking about it and introduce you to their community issues than coming here. They feel that there are some barriers to coming here to learn the language and the procedures. I would, if I may, just like to develop that theme. So much of the parliamentary life is about the cross-party groups. It is about receptions in the evening and attendance at Parliament itself to witness debates. I am very aware that from my part of Ayrshire it is almost too far away for people to come to these events. That must be the case from similar distances in a radius from Parliament. I am not sure how you might address that in terms of engagement because that is so important to people's feeling of being engaged with our Parliament and so vital to the success. Involving certainly ties into the discussion earlier on about digital engagement. The use of digital to allow scrutiny of what the Parliament is doing is quite advanced in some democracies. In Brazil, for example, you can scrutinise a bill online and put in your comments and that kind of thing. There is an opportunity from digital to recognise across the country that not everybody can do it. It does not get to some of the more local rural areas that need involvement. We have a very interesting submission from the chief executives forum in the north-east in the Grampian region. They said that we deliver services locally here and we are responsible to our electorate for those. We also have services that are delivered nationally and we have around the table the police and the NHS represented and they are responsible to Hollywood. What they would like to see is that, because there is a regional list system here, we would like that to be brought to bear in a cross-party way to consider the issues in this case of the north-east of Scotland, so that the list MSPs and the constituent MSPs and the leaders of the local authorities could get together to discuss their issues in a sense of place, in the place where they are making the decisions. It is a very interesting submission. Good morning to both of you. I was interested in those last comments mentioning local authorities. I do not see much in the way of written submissions from local authorities. Have there been any or do you anticipate hearing more from local authorities at a formal submission level? We did take evidence from Councillor Anil at Coesla and, forgive me if I get this name wrong, the Highland Commission on Democracy, which is a body that has been set up to look and we had some interesting comments from them. We have had a local elected councillors along that event and MSPs as well. The north-east forum with the chief executives of local authorities came together to put in a submission. I think that the local authorities were doing it through Coesla and represent their views on the national level. I was going to ask a slightly wider question about the process. I am as keen as everybody else to get you to spill the beans on what your conclusions are going to be, but it is a wee bit early for that. Have there been any surprises in the process for you? Any unexpected problems that you have encountered or perhaps any groups or perspectives that have been harder than you anticipated to reach and hear from? We have done a fair bit of work on diversity. I think that a surprise to me as an individual might all be surprised by different things was that this Parliament at the beginning had a very strong representation of males and females, and that seems to have stalled. So it is in the early low 30 per cent, whereas it was higher than that initially. We have looked at the representation of those with disabilities and those in black and minority ethnic communities. We are looking at that. That was a bit of a surprise to me, because I thought that this was a leading Parliament in terms of gender balance. We have seen that in some legislatures it is the Parliament that sets the standards for representation in terms of diversity across the board, much more widely than the categories that I am mentioning. That has been an interesting area to explore to make sure that Parliament keeps ahead of that. The other area, too, is in the use of technology. Some other places, I would say individually, are making better use of digital technology to interact and engage in feedback to the communities than we have been able to do up to now. Whereas at the outset, the digital technology here was regarded as very advanced at the time, but a lot has happened since 1999. It is similar to Mr Scott's rural aspects of it. The commission's calls for views closed on 27 March, but you have been to Dumfries, Gallashale and Hoit, I think, and Peoples. The area that I represent south Scotland region is massively rural. Because of the challenges for our broadband and connectivity, are you able to track the online submissions by the rural areas, for instance, how many folk submitted from Strunrar, for instance, or are you able to tease out that kind of data? That is a good question. That is a technical thing to say. I mean, we are right to the committee about that. All the submissions that we have—you know, and the 1,200 people have met where they have come from, but we have not been able to track it quite in the way that you have been saying. The impact of engagement with the Parliament in relation to having digital technology at their fingertips and good broadband, I do not think that we have enough data on that to generalise from it. We have a lot of anecdotal evidence and individual evidence where people have said how important it is that they could engage with the Parliament and use digital technology to do it, but the broadband situation is frustrating and they cannot do it. So, a lot of anecdotal evidence, but I do not think that we will get anything that is statistically valid, but I will take away and come back to you if I can find that we do have anything if that is acceptable. Sometimes I find that, as information is rolled out from Edinburgh, the central belt, and then it gets to the rule, it just sometimes takes longer for people to hear about surveys and it is already closed, so by the time people will hear about it, it is too late. Certainly, it is a point that has been made to us in terms of consultations in general, that not all consultations are open for a requisite number of weeks so that people can prepare their submissions and get them in, and that is a point of frustration. And also ill-timed consultations over the summer months or Christmas or that kind of thing, a point that has been made to us in general terms. That is a plea from people to be able to give their views to a committee on a piece of legislation or on a particular issue that has been scrutinised by a committee. I think that it is fair to record that, on at least one occasion, the deadline for submissions has been extended for the very reason that we want to maximise the information that we do get. Mr Scott? On that subject, I am forgiving you for not knowing, are you still open to representations being made or has that date now passed? Well, I am always open, and I will keep it open as much as we can for the next couple of weeks, because once we get into May, we will certainly be doing the granular discussions around the table with somebody who described it to me as armoury or something, and I said, no, no, we are not like that. We work very corporally together, but once we get into May, I am very happy to speak to anyone and hear from anyone between now and then on additional representations, and we are grateful for the members of your committee convener who have already made submissions to us. Can I pick up on a couple of the points from earlier? If we go back to the issue of capacity, you said that the number of MSPs is not out of culture with other devolved administrations. Did you make a comparison on the powers and the devolved responsibilities in that comparison? I would say that the Scottish Parliament has far more responsibility than, say, the Northern Irelandish Assembly or Welsh Assembly in terms of devolved powers now. Did you make a comparison on that basis? Yes, we have that comparison, of course, in detail from Spice, but we also compared this Parliament to fully freestanding national parliaments of a similar-sized country, like New Zealand or Denmark, so we did not keep it just simply. We have not gone into the date. We have looked at the work that this Parliament does, compared with the assembly in Northern Ireland and Wales, and that is fine. However, with the others, the powers vary greatly. What we are aware of here is the great wave of powers that came in 2012 and 2016, and waiting in the lay by called Brexit that will, no doubt, bring more powers to the Parliament. We are very much aware of the fact that we have to be aware of the fact that this Parliament will have increased powers and how can we release the time for the proper scrutiny to be done relating to those powers and the engagement with outside bodies and specialist groups? We are very much aware of that and that it is a reality that it will get and that the responsibilities will get greater. We have to come up with a set of recommendations that are realistic about that, so that it is open when the next wave of responsibilities come to this Parliament that is ready to hear them on that. I hope that our recommendations will take account of that. Thank you. Obviously, the Parliament is an evolving institution and changes have been made in the past. I am interested in the comments about the committees being able to get out and about and make that representation. I sat in the last committee and I was able to when a committee visited Orkney for a piece of work that we were doing, which was invaluable in our understanding of the issues around that bill. One of the drivers for us sitting through plenary sessions seemed to be doing more work here in the Parliament, but the unintended consequence of that is that committee visits have been curtailed. Is that a theme or something that you have had representation about? There is a theme. I am very much aware of the fact that all-day committees allow committees to do work out in different communities that a half-day committee does not and all of that, yes. When we have had the feedback from people who have met members of committees, it is very gratifying that it has been really appreciated within the communities around Scotland. It is the use of committee time where the committee meets and how it engages. We hope to make a number of very clear recommendations relating to that. I thank you particularly for your visits to diverse organisations, such as Look After Children. All of that is absolutely so important because part of the success of the commission will be an increase in diversity in the Parliament's representation. I wondered whether there were some of those evidence sessions, particularly the one in the media that was mentioned earlier, where the focus seemed to be about how it affected them and their day job, rather than being about the people of Scotland and your task of increasing scrutiny. How are you managing to balance those conflicting issues in your deliberations? A lot of it was connected with the promotion of the Parliament and the Parliament being seen as more than the building. Any inhibitor, there would be to that promotion because the media plays an important role. It was to understand the issue, because there are limited resources at the disposal and we understand that they will look at committees and see things that may be of interest. It was to understand what the implications of some of the changes could be. It is important to say that we have tracked the work of the Parliament over its entire period, as you heard earlier from John Lear. It is an evolving situation and it is right that there should be an on-going check made. That was our engagement with the media, because it was around that issue primarily to understand it. We also covered the issue of the use of the term Holyrood as well. I was a bit disappointed that it became all about them and how they could get better facilities and better access. There is something in there to allow the Parliament to be more open to others. I am hoping that we can use that when the reports are published to go back to them and they expect them to explain the role of the Parliament better. There are some positive signs on that front. In terms of being granular and also the risk of being parochial and declaring an interest as the convener of the DPLR committee, I have concerns, as you already highlighted, when you put all, join up the dots about the post-Brexit era, the amount of subordinate legislation that will need to be looked at. There are discussions around 1,000 statutory instruments coming at any rate to Westminster. We will get our fair share of those, whatever those turn out to be. When you add that to the fact of what you already said about the pipeline of legislation, all was coming through in the last two or three years towards the end of parliamentary sessions, I am worried about the capacity of my committee and others, which, in the size of committees, vary to cope with the workloads. If we think that we are busy at the moment, we have not seen nothing yet to be frank in terms of what is coming down the track. For some people who have spoken to us, as you know, the increased capacity meant an increase in the number of members of the Parliament or another chamber where there can be further scrutiny. We have got these issues on the table. My own view is that, before you can get to the stage of saying that you need additional members, you have to look at the way the parliamentary year is run and how it is organised to see if you can release more energy, more time, more scrutiny. Before you could then go with the argument that we need more members, a number of people who have suggested more members have also suggested a reform of the electoral system. I am very much aware with my background in the electoral commission that you cannot introduce a change in the electoral system without a full-hearted review that would take a long number of years. Frankly, you do not have the number of years before the extra powers are going to come if Brexit goes away, we think it will. I am not ruling anything out. We have got everything on the table at the moment, but we need to look at ways of releasing time, energy and within the 129 MSPs in the way that the Parliament does its work to cope with the extra powers that are coming. If there is to be an increase in MSPs, it will take some time before that could be realised, first of all agreed, then funded, then realised and then the electoral system would have to be modified for that. For a commission that has sat for eight months, that is a big ask to go through the details and the implications of all of that, but we may have something to say about it, we will have something to say about it, but that would be in the future. Just for the avoidance of doubt, I was not suggesting that there was a need for more MSPs, but it was how to better allocate. A lot of our work has been around, if you like, workload analysis. With the resources that you have got, how they might be configured differently, so people have talked about committee sizes and I know that the previous committee made a recommendation in respect of that. Whether being configured slightly different would be able to accommodate the workload, but as John says, we are looking at all the options that have been put to us. Thank you both for your work in this area and also for your attendance at committee, and we look forward to seeing the report towards Angel June, and I'm sure the committee will be returning to it in the session in the autumn. Again, thank you both very much for your attendance. I move to agenda item 5, which is consideration of the cross-party group approval. I would ask that the committee consider whether they have any comments on the WASP Women Against State Pension Inequality proposed CPG. Committee can tend to support that CPG. Thank you very much. I also have any comments on the infamote bill disease CPG. Happy content to approve that CPG, thank you very much. Lastly, the freedom of religion or belief CPG. No objection to creation of the group. I think that it's worth reflecting on some of the possible tensions that could exist between different equality strands within the group's remit. The Scottish Parliament has legal duties under the Equality Act, the public equality duty, and I assume that that would apply to cross-party groups. It's something that should be kept an eye on in the future. Is that something that you wish to seek for clarification from the clerks of the legal team? If the legal team were able to advise specifically whether the SPCB's equality act duties apply to cross-party groups, I think that would be helpful, but I think that for the moment it would just be something that we might return to at some point in the future. We are content to approve this CPG today. We will ask the clerks to seek that advice from the legal team. Thank you very much. We now move into private session on the Suspense Committee.