Hansard

I do not have a long time left in this Parliament and I want to use my remarks this afternoon to reflect on the state of our politics. I hope that I will not completely break this afternoon’s consensus, but I will be candid and say things that might make some members uncomfortable.

The report of the citizens assembly urges that we should do our politics differently and, in particular, that our politics should be more firmly rooted in the values of

“integrity, honesty, humility and transparency”.

Why do we not do our politics differently? Why do our citizens, when they examined Scottish politics—as they have, in the form of the assembly—conclude that we lack integrity, honesty, humility and transparency?

What are the forces that have driven us to a politics that lacks integrity, is dishonest, proud and self-satisfied rather than humble, and is opaque and secretive rather than open and transparent? Well, it is the goddamn constitution, isn’t it? Our politics has become corrosive and toxic because of its obsession with the constitution. It is corrosive because it erodes trust and toxic because it puts people into artificial, binary camps where, instead of working with one another, we just shout at one another.

Democracy rests on the fundamental point of trust that the people’s representatives care about the same issues that the people they represent care about. The people of Scotland care about jobs, skills, housing and schools. They care about the impact of the pandemic on our mental health and wellbeing and they care deeply about what kind of economy we will emerge into when we finally get out of lockdown. Are those the priorities of SNP ministers? No, I do not think so. Is this a Parliament that has been consumed, as it should have been, by debates about jobs, skills, housing and schools? No. Even when we debate schools, as we did yesterday, we do not argue about how to improve them or how to raise educational standards; we talk about how to drag and force SNP ministers, against their will, to publish the results of an international review of what has gone wrong in schools on their watch.

Is it any wonder that our citizens conclude that our politics lacks transparency? We should not have to debate SNP secrecy and cover-ups; we should be debating the real issues of substance that matter to people’s children, as our school standards slide down the international league tables.

Therefore, I agree with the citizens assembly that our politics needs integrity and honesty, but anyone who looks at the way in which the governing party has treated this Parliament’s inquiries into the Government’s handling of complaints of sexual misconduct would search in vain for a glimmer of integrity or honesty.

I agree with the citizens assembly that our politics lacks transparency. The SNP is the only Government in Europe that sought to use the pandemic as an excuse to insulate itself from freedom of information rules. Just last week, we were treated to a “Through the Looking-Glass” moment, when the Lord Advocate tried to explain away the disgrace that innocent men were maliciously prosecuted, by pretending that, somehow, it was a malicious prosecution in which no individual acted with malice.

The citizens assembly that produced “Doing Politics Differently” ended much better than it began. It was announced as part of a package of measures that was designed by the SNP to accelerate a second independence referendum. That was a pity, as I think that the minister would now concede, at least privately. The idea of citizens assemblies has merit. As an experiment in shining light in dark corners and on stubborn problems of public policy, it should be repeated, but not, I would urge, on the goddamn constitution. Why not a citizens assembly on the national shame of Scotland’s drugs deaths? Why not a citizens assembly on the mental health crisis that we now face or on the future of social care? All are problems that we talk about in the Scottish Parliament from time to time but which we have manifestly failed to resolve.

In the end, “Doing Politics Differently” turned out to be not very interested in the idea of independence. As Dean Lockhart pointed out in his opening remarks, the vast majority of the citizens assembly’s recommendations fall within existing devolved competence. The message seems clear: let us have a politics that focuses on the things that make a meaningful difference to people’s lives.

I have voiced my criticisms in my remarks, but let me end on a much more positive note. As we know, this is a Parliament of minorities. None of us can get anything done on our own. Unless we build bridges with colleagues in other parties, we can pass no law, make no change and win no vote. Of the four values that are set out at the beginning of the citizens assembly report, the one that we need to bring to those attempts to reach out and build bridges is humility.

The Parliament’s best legislation bears the hallmarks of genuine cross-party collaboration. I think of the Child Poverty (Scotland) Bill, and members from across the Opposition parties working together in the Social Security Committee to improve a bill that in its first iteration lacked the ambition that we thought it needed. That was near the beginning of the current session. Now, at its end, I would cite the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill as an example of members of the Government and Opposition coming together, not to trade blows but to fix problems in the legislation.

The way in which we dealt with the bills on child poverty and hate crime meets the four tests championed by the citizens assembly: integrity, honesty, humility and transparency. When we act with those values in mind, it brings out the best in us all. We can do it—we can do politics differently. When we choose not to do it, it is exactly that—a choice.