Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 23 March 2021
This situation began with an extremely serious issue: the mishandling of an investigation into sexual harassment allegations. I honestly wish that everyone’s focus had remained on that issue.
What we have seen since then has been the deliberate, systematic and entirely cynical exploitation of that issue to suit motives that are all too apparent today. The media in Scotland and throughout the UK are awash with speculation about the Sturgeon-Salmond psychodrama. The coverage of it is dominated by one question: what does it mean for the independence cause, when we should be asking what it means for the treatment of harassment or the position of those who want to call it out. Sadly, we already know the answer to that question. Since the original committee leaks months ago, through multiple instances of MSPs on that committee prejudging the evidence and announcing their political motivations to the world, and then to the disgraceful betrayal of trust of the original complainants during the past weekend, what should have been a serious inquiry has descended into farce.
I believe that that has been the deliberate choice of those who have nothing to offer the people of Scotland. They looked at the devolved institutions, saw a high level of public trust in them and could not bear it, so they set about trying to drag everything down to their level. They will fail, but, as a direct result of their actions, the women who complained about sexual harassment in the first place had to put out a statement via Rape Crisis Scotland to complain about the violation of their trust.
So, here we are: in one hand, we have an independent report by someone with enough professionalism not to go hawking quotes to the press in advance, which clears the First Minister of any breach of the ministerial code; in the other hand, we have a report by a committee of the Parliament whose members have prejudged the evidence, called for resignations before listening to it, betrayed the original complainers in the sexual harassment case and leaked their conclusions to the media. Their actions are a betrayal of the trust that we all placed in them when we appointed that committee.
Calling out that behaviour does not, as Anas Sarwar suggests, reflect on the rest of our Parliament—our Parliament is better than that—but they have clearly destroyed the credibility of their own work and advertised their partisan motivations for all to see. Far worse than that, they have sent a chilling message to anyone else who is considering complaining about harassment by powerful men that, if they do so, their lives can be turned into tawdry political theatre for months or even years.
The only resignations that I have any interest in debating today are those of the committee members who have so systematically broken our rules, abused the trust of witnesses and played childish games with the serious issue that they were asked to examine. They are the ones who should be resigning, and any political party that wants to come out of the episode with a shred of credibility will do whatever it takes to identify the culprits and ensure that they are not able to stand for re-election in six weeks’ time. They have shown contempt for the serious issue of sexual harassment, for their witnesses and for the rules of the Parliament. Having failed in their attempt to drag Scottish politics down to their level, they should just go.
15:42