Meeting of the Parliament 11 September 2019
I will certainly come on to that point.
I have some experience in deliberative democracy. While I was leader of Fife Council, we held one of the first citizens juries in the country back in March 1997. Our citizens jury was established to examine what public agencies and local communities could do to create employment opportunities in Levenmouth. It was an incredibly positive experience, and at the end the jury made more than 50 recommendations, most of which, I am pleased to say, were implemented.
When we speak to people who have taken part in such juries or assemblies, one of the key messages that comes across is how positive the experience was. Here are some of the views that were given by participants in the recent Irish citizens assembly:
“It ... helped me ... to listen, understand and develop empathy”,
“It got balanced and truthful information out among the people of Ireland”,
and
“It took the debate out of the realm of fearful self-interested calculation”.
We could surely use all of that in our politics in Scotland at present.
I am told that one of the key messages to be learned that came out of the Irish assembly was about how to engage with the press and get it on board at an early stage. It can be too easy for the press to see citizens assemblies in a negative or sceptical light, so I believe that it is key to the success of the Scottish citizens assembly for the press to be fully engaged in the process at all stages. That also brings about much greater transparency.
I am pleased that it has been stated that the citizens assembly for Scotland
“will be independent, transparent and inclusive.”
Those objectives are good and I am sure that they will get widespread support throughout the country.
We are willing to go into this with an open mind, and I hope that the Government is willing to do the same. The questions that are proposed to frame the citizens assembly are:
“What kind of country are we seeking to build? How can we overcome the challenges Scotland faces, including Brexit? How can people be given the detail they need to make informed choices about Scotland’s future?”
Those are surely welcome questions, and Scottish Labour is willing to engage in the discussions.
Our country is undergoing a massive political upheaval, and we need to work together where we can to ensure that a level of stability is returned to the whole of the United Kingdom. The questions that frame the assembly are questions that I would like to be answered, and I believe that, through collaborative working and engaged discussions with the public, we can set out the kind of Scotland that we want to see flourish into the future.
We are not a party that stands for the status quo, so we will engage in the discussions on what kind of country we want to live in and what best meets the needs and aspirations of the Scottish people. I am clear that part of that will involve constitutional, social and economic reform across the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is far too centralised as a state—indeed, Scotland has become that way as well—and we would like to see reform of how our state operates at an economic, political and constitutional level. We hope that the discussions will take us in that direction.
I finish by saying to the Tories and the Liberals that we cannot stand still and we cannot go backwards. We should support this initiative and let Scotland move forward.
15:43