Meeting of the Parliament 24 February 2026 [Draft]
I thank Sue Webber for her explanation of her amendments. I wish to speak to amendment 42. The member obviously received different advice from that which I received, but I am glad that she lodged the amendment. It is important that we recognise that the voyage into the chamber for members is different and that parity occurs once we come within it. The journey for regional or list MSPs is made on the basis of an internal political party decision on where people sit in the list.
The purpose of the list was to occasion a balance across Scotland of the vote of people outside this Parliament, so that political parties with fewer votes would potentially have a seat here to reflect their proportion of the total vote that was cast. That is important, but it also underpins a reality that there is a different way out of this chamber for regional and constituency MSPs.
The member’s bill that has been introduced is fitting. It addresses the question of cost, but it also retains in the chamber the balance of the parties as it stood at the point of the election. Concern has been expressed that any system might upset the balance across the whole chamber, but this step—it allows regional MSPs to come in in accordance with their party affiliation and by choice of their party, however that choice is arrived at—would allow a maintenance of that balance throughout the process.
The other important element, which Sue Webber rightly picked up on, is that our constituency MSPs arrived in the Parliament because their name appeared on the ballot paper. They were chosen as individuals—many will have been chosen because of their political affiliation, but voters knew who they were voting for specifically. On the list vote, they choose a political party. On that basis, Sue Webber will find that there is support for amendment 42, but she will not find such support for amendments 42A to 42C, the subsequent amendments that relate to it, because there is disagreement over the criminality element, which will be discussed later.