Hansard

Politics is not supposed to be a spectator sport; it is supposed to be about broadening participation and bringing more perspectives to bear in our political life. That is hugely important.

One or two of the opening speakers have spoken about the level of trust in politics at the moment, about the need for us all to recognise that trust is not at the level at which it should be and about finding new ways of restoring public trust and a feeling of accountability in politics. For me, that comes down to the idea that too many people feel that politics is something that is being done to them rather than something that we, as a society, are doing together.

Voting, campaigning, electioneering, volunteering, joining political parties and questioning and challenging elected representatives are all fantastic ways of getting involved in politics, but they are not for everyone. There will always be some people—perhaps many people—who are, quite reasonably, too busy living their own lives to get involved in the political process in those active ways, so it is important to introduce new measures and ideas about deliberative democracy and to invite people to participate through random selection in order to broaden participation in politics and ensure that a wider range of voices is heard in our democratic system. Such steps are not an alternative to, or instead of, political parties, elected Parliaments and the formal politics that we are used to; they are a different strand to our political process.

There are different strengths and weaknesses of such an approach. Some people criticise and challenge the idea of citizens assemblies on the basis that, once an individual is randomly selected, they might not feel accountable to the wider public. A person might not have been chosen on the basis of any expertise and, because their participation in the assembly might be short lived, they might not build up that expertise through the experience.

I am not sure whether those are strong criticisms, but it is fair to air them. However, there are weaknesses in our formal parliamentary process, too, and, if we are honest, all of us in political parties recognise that sometimes we cherry-pick the arguments, listen to the people we have already decided to trust and listen less to those we have decided not to trust. As we group together in political parties, we do not always listen with an open mind to ideas that come from outwith our own parties. A citizens assembly is a way of ensuring that ideas are thought about in a deliberative way, in which people without a party political axe to grind consider the evidence, hear from the experts and express a thoughtful view. That is what has happened in this case.

Not long after I was elected to my first session of the Scottish Parliament—session 2—we had a presentation about work that was happening in Canada, where a citizens assembly was looking at voting systems. Voting systems are an ideal example of a question that is not easily resolved by party politicians, because party politicians all have a vested interest. There are different ideas about what is important in a voting system. Is it about strong Government? Is it about a local elected member link? Is it about fair proportionality? Whatever system is arrived at will have to strike a balance between those priorities. A citizens assembly is a really useful way of cutting through the party political vested interests that are too often heard.

A few years later, we heard about the work that was happening on the constitutional revisions in Ireland and about very long-standing, difficult issues such as the legislation on abortion, which were difficult to resolve in the parliamentary process because of the continued strong influence of organised religion. That influence was perhaps stronger on the parliamentary process than on the population as a whole, so a randomly selected citizens assembly was again able to cut through some of that in a way that the parliamentary process could not.

I very much welcome the work that is being done by the Citizens Assembly of Scotland. Like others, I thank everyone who participated in its work, whether as a selected member or as one of the people who helped to facilitate its work. Obviously, I welcome some of its recommendations with particular enthusiasm, such as the call for strong leadership on climate and sustainability.

I will finish by reflecting on one question that perhaps I still have doubts over. Perhaps the remit of our citizens assembly—simply to look at what could make Scotland a better country—was too broad. Perhaps, if we have more deliberative democracy in Scotland, we will learn in time that having a citizens assembly ask specific questions might be more likely to result in more tangible proposals coming to the public realm for debate. I mean that not as a criticism of the people who took part, but as a suggestion that the broad remit could bear some questions.

I move amendment S5M-24165.2, to insert after “pandemic”:

“; welcomes the desire shown by the Assembly for Scotland to be a leader in environmental policy and in particular its recognition that climate change is increasing the risk of further pandemics”.