 We should not be complacent by the fact that there have been no scandals, and there are no revelations in the media, that actually everything is fine in Scotland, Having said that I think actually it's a really good time to consider these proposals. I think you know in terms of good governance and kind of an even look at these things best to do it, not in a crisis moment when you're reacting to something but to actually look across the field and think what can we do here to improve the transparency and accountability of this Parliament, I think there are various sound principles and I think proposals ar how lobbying transparency are completely aligned to the founding principles that institution, I think it would make a real concrete contribution to actually advancing that. The CIPR approach over the last decade or more has been to pursue a joint approach of transparency and of signing up to the UqPAC register, which all CIPR members are required to do, and also a voluntary code of conduct, which we think sets a very high bar in terms of professional standards of CIPR members. In addition to that, there is a swit o'r traenig ac edrych yn gyfrifio ar EICIPR a cyfwrapeth i gfynodol a oeddiad aeth yma sy'n strategiaeth ar y Loiwg Llywodraeth ac yn gyfer yr YUK, mae'n bobl sy'n cyhoeddwyr yn meddwl. Mae'n gwybod dda i ddweïddio yn ei dweud o ddod o gydag o ddod. Mae hyn yn myth i gydag o ddod is demonstrating that that approach is working in the fact that there hasn't really been any issues in Scotland over the course of the last 14, 15 years. It captures the lobbying activity. The one that's proposed in Westminster at the moment is a list. It's a list of names and clients. It doesn't show any information about their interaction with government bodies, so it needs to have what people are lobbying on and whom in government they are lobbying. Otherwise, you just have a list of names. If you're going to have transparency in lobbying, it needs to capture the lobbying activity, not just who. The democratic access and tradition in the Parliament is one of its, the processes are one of its strengths. As I said earlier, we do have a problem with democracy in Scotland because we've got a million people nearly disengaged from politics, actually mostly in our poorest communities. That's where people are not voting at a local government election or a national government election, and that's where the disengagement is. Now, I don't think a lobbying register is going to make any difference to that. We need to be careful about just being realistic about the difference between an organisation whose prime purpose is to lobby. It's well resourced. It's very able to comply with a regime because it is someone whose job it is to do so and a very small charity or community group or grassroots group that might forget or that might not get the paperwork because they don't have an office, or that might be acting in the very best of faith but actually not keep up to date with the register. We maybe have to have some way of trying to distinguish whether there's been administrative oversight or change of staff, that kind of thing, or whether there's some kind of deliberate evasion going on. I think that's important. Sanctions, I would really ask you to think long and hard about that because I come back to the principle lobbying is a legitimate democratic pursuit. The fact that scandal only becomes scandalous when one is given access to secret information doesn't mean that there aren't things that might be exposed going on. I think for the Electoral Form Society all the research that we've done through focus groups and our Democracy Max Inquiry shows us that the general public feel that there is an opaqueness and a secrecy going on behind politics and they would like more transparency which would improve their confidence in the process and therefore potentially increase their involvement in the political sphere, which is something that we are very worried about. I suppose from the society's point of view certainly we've detected no particular problem with what lobbying is carried out in the Scottish Parliament or with the Scottish Government. I think, though echoing what Juliet has said, in terms of maintaining public trust and confidence in the system, the system has to display that it is free from any suggestion that there might be a lack of transparency. Therefore, I think that we're in a position where we agree that theoretically, although there might not be a problem, that doesn't mean to say that additional transparency wouldn't help to prevent that from being a problem emerging in the future. Lobbying I think is one of the most contested definitions of any concept in political science. Rarely get two scholars that are going to agree with what is meant by it or what's meant by the term lobby group. Now, generally I think an accepted definition would be to the effect of a lobby group as an individual or organisation which would have shared or vested specific interests that tries to seek to influence political decisions. That's a very important distinction to make between influencing and seeking to influence. A lobbyist isn't necessarily successful but they seek to influence. My starting point is that I don't think that a register or legislation is the right way to go. I think that it would be a real displacement of energy and activity and, frankly, taxpayers' money to spend a lot of time doing that. I think that there's a number of other things that you could be doing to address the fundamental issue, which is about confidence and trust in politics and good decision making. The aim and aspiration of this Parliament is to encourage openness and access and a free flow of information and to build understanding. The last thing that you want is people worrying away about how they're labelled and whether they've complied with the rules before they come and speak to politicians. Obviously, it's important for decision makers to be transparent about who they are meeting with and I absolutely agree that MSP diaries should be made public. Equally, those who are seeking to influence need to bear in mind their responsibilities to be as transparent as they can be also. I would certainly say that I think a lobbying transparency register would make MSPs' needs to apply to the code of conduct a lot easier because you would have a basic piece of paper that told you who people were and who they were lobbying on behalf of.