Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 24 March 2021
I, too, congratulate Emma Harper on introducing the bill. It will be good to get it passed before the session ends. It will be at the last minute, but that will still be good.
My one major concern about the bill has been addressed. It centred on the initial intention to give the police the power to search non-domestic premises without a warrant. That was the second time in this parliamentary session that that idea had appeared in legislation; the first time was in the Government’s UEFA European Championship (Scotland) Bill. I thank in particular the minister, Ben Macpherson, for looking at that in this second bill. Thankfully, on both occasions it was recognised that the provision would have overridden historical safeguards in our common law that were designed to protect people by not allowing authorities to search people’s property without first obtaining evidence of a crime. Thank goodness that common sense prevailed, but it shows that vigilance is always required from MSPs when they examine legislation from the Government, from committees or from individual MSPs.
Presiding Officer, if you will indulge me for a moment, considering that this is my last speech in Parliament, I will make a general comment on the work of MSPs. Since I was first elected some 22 years ago, I have seen a marked change in, if I may say so, the independence of mind of my MSP colleagues—across the board; I am not leaving anybody out—when it comes to voting in the Scottish Parliament. We have collectively become far more tribal and more “My party, right or wrong”. I would urge those colleagues who are returned at the election to consider this. It is fine when the following three elements are aligned—your own values and beliefs, the interests of your constituents, and your party’s leadership decisions. Unfortunately, in politics, those do not always neatly align.
For me, the most important of those three elements is remaining true to the values and beliefs that brought you to Parliament in the first place, especially when considering which way to vote at decision time and it is everybody’s decision. The one example that I will give of what I mean is when we had the vote on closing our churches during the pandemic. Today’s judgment from Lord Braid ruled that the move was unconstitutional, disproportionate, and consequently unlawful, yet how many colleagues voted against their better judgment? Only five of us voted against our own parties’ position on it, and every party’s decision was to support the Government’s position on closing down the churches. Therefore, my message to returning MSPs is simply this: value your own judgment, and always do what you believe is the right thing.
Presiding Officer, you can see why my party leaders over the years—Jim Wallace, Nicol Stephen, Tavish Scott and now Willie Rennie—have not had an easy time from me. I thank them for their forbearance. On that point, I end my 17 years of contributions to parliamentary debate.