Hansard

When I was nominated to speak in the debate, the first thing I did was look up the debate from four years ago so that I could see what it was all about. Having read the speeches from that debate, I thought at the start of George Lyon's speech that he had done exactly the same thing; I recognised the speech that Euan Robson gave four years ago. I quickly realised that George had chosen to deviate from Euan's tactic of simply explaining what the order is all about, but then I wished that George had just done what Euan did. George Lyon took the opportunity today—an inappropriate opportunity—to introduce a heated subject to a debate that Parliament should have handled relatively briefly.

In the debate four years ago, the criteria for why someone should be prevented from standing for election to the Scottish Parliament were set out clearly. It was explained:

"Those criteria are: offices of profit in the gift of the Crown or ministers; positions of control in companies in receipt of Government grants and funds; offices imposing duties that would prevent their holders from fulfilling parliamentary duties satisfactorily; and offices whose holders are required to be seen to be, and to be, politically impartial."—[Official Report, 9 January 2003; c 16792.]

That is a fair description of what we want to achieve. The fact that the list gets longer and longer—as was mentioned in the previous speech—is simply an indication that the number of people who are dependent on or beholden to the Scottish Executive gets bigger and bigger every year. That is a problem that we need to address over time.

The sad fact is that many of the people who are in the positions that have been specified are exactly the kind of people we need to be seeking entry to the Parliament. Although they are debarred from becoming members of the Scottish Parliament while in their current roles, I like to think that many of them would consider using the expertise that they have acquired in those roles to demit office and seek entry into Parliament at the next election or at a subsequent election. The one thing that I know we need is more talent.

The Conservative party will, therefore, support the order in the hope that it will lead to a stronger Parliament in the long term—one that will not suffer the criticisms that have rightly been levied upon it for the sort of mudslinging that we witnessed in the first two speeches in the debate.