Meeting of the Parliament (Virtual) 18 February 2021
Like other members, I add my thanks to the participants in the citizens assembly—the people whose names came of out the hat to serve on it, the people who organised the meetings, the experts who provided evidence and the secretariat and stewarding team who made it all happen.
People gave up a huge amount of time to work together, listen and learn. The report is a testimony to the efforts that were made and the clear impact of the work on those who took part. We should remember that they were strangers—people who had never met before—yet, within a short while, they were working together.
On the recommendations, I found it reassuring that, when 100 people sit in a room together and consider the evidence, they come up with a package of proposals that reads in many places very much like an extract from a Liberal Democrat policy document. Like the cabinet secretary, I hope and expect that the proposals will influence what emerges in my party’s manifesto ahead of May on mental health, homelessness, the climate emergency, the living wage for all, a basic income, health care hubs, mental health officers in every school and investment in renewables.
I thank the assembly members for drawing up that list, and I congratulate them on doing in a year what it has taken my party colleagues a decade or more to do. We all know how difficult it is to start with a blank sheet of paper, so it was an impressive and thorough process that the assembly members undertook to start with that, to consider and reconsider, to prioritise and to finalise.
My colleagues and I were disappointed that the assembly was brought into being by ministers announcing it as part of a package of measures to smooth the journey to independence. That was not the aim or intention of the people who were involved in the assembly.
Despite those misgivings, I very much welcome the way in which the cabinet secretary chose to describe the work and achievements of the citizens assembly in his opening remarks. There was nothing in what he said with which I would or could disagree, and I think that the motion and all three amendments are worthy of support and perhaps reflect the sort of approach that members of the citizens assembly would expect us to take.
As others have observed, the recommendations challenge us. The demands for greater openness from the Scottish Government—whatever its political complexion—are unequivocal. There is a growing recognition of the need for that in Government but also in the Parliament.
On freedom of information, it is clear that greater openness is required. I do not want to make this a party political point, but we seem to have reached a juncture at which a renewed, refreshed and revitalised commitment to freedom of information is badly required. Yesterday, we debated education and again heard concerns about delays and ministerial involvement in the publication of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s independent report on Scottish education.
Looking further ahead, beyond whatever commitment each party makes to taking forward some or all of the recommendations in the report, I wonder whether there is a continued role for a citizens assembly in realising those ambitions. When a citizens assembly was established in Ireland, it was, as Patrick Harvie said, given the task of sorting out legislation on abortion. That worked well for examining evidence, building consensus and making a recommendation. As Patrick Harvie observed, it lifted the issue out of the entrenched position of party politics and vested interests.
However, with the time-bound work of our Citizens Assembly of Scotland, there was an inevitable limit on what could be done in a year—particularly the year just gone. For example, there is no recommendation on social care, even though that affects hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland and has dominated our deliberations in the Parliament during the pandemic.
I hope that the learning from the citizens assembly can be used to enable similar exercises to help to solve problems that we face. A climate emergency assembly is currently at work, and members of that assembly are getting to grips with some of the big questions about how we can fundamentally change our way of life. I hope that it will come forward with ideas and solutions to those big, complex and profoundly important issues. Having witnessed some of its deliberations to date, I am confident that it will.
Assemblies do not need to cover 100 things, but it is good for public life and good for the future of our country that we can draw on the committed and thorough work of a group of citizens working in an assembly to add to the work of our democratically chosen Parliament for the benefit of us all.
I again thank all those who were involved in preparing a very thorough report—particularly the assembly members, who have shown what can be achieved when people come together with the aim of sharing ideas and identifying ways forward.