Scottish Parliament: Does Holyrood need a revising chamber to perform a function similar to House of Lords? – Murdo Fraser

Holyrood can self-identify as anything it wishes but the passage of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill would prove to any independent observer that it doesn’t function as a mature legislature.

Railroaded through by the SNP/Green government in the week before Christmas without proper consideration of evidence being presented, it is a law passed without regard to its unintended consequences. These consequences have now led to the UK Government to consider blocking the Bill due to its impact on the reserved legislation that is the Equality Act 2010, and the protections that provides to women and girls.

Last week, my Conservative colleague Stephen Kerr MSP highlighted his concerns about the poor quality of debate at Holyrood, and the lack of scrutiny of both government and legislation. He was joined by the former SNP Cabinet minister Alex Neil, who hit out at “nodding donkey” MSPs who simply saw their role at Holyrood as supporting SNP ministers no matter what, and voting through bad legislation without appropriate scrutiny.

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Neil highlighted the lack of independence of Holyrood committees in contrast to the situation at Westminster where they are elected by MPs, not hand-picked by party leaders. When a distinguished nationalist like Neil cites Westminster – usually the SNP bogeyman – as an exemplar of good practice, you get an idea of how bad the situation must be.

There has been a succession of bad laws passed by the Scottish Parliament in recent years which has brought into focus the need for a review of procedures. Before the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, we had the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act, which was ridiculed by members of the judiciary and repealed as soon as the SNP lost their parliamentary majority in 2016, and then the equally risible Hate Crimes Act which, years after parliament passed it, has still not been implemented.

The concerns highlighted by Stephen Kerr and Alex Neil, amongst others, relate to both cultural and structural failures. The cultural issue derives from a pro-independence movement whose members, including parliamentary representatives, are instructed to “wheesht for Indy”, and therefore not challenge any weakness on the part of the SNP/Green government, because the independence prize is deemed greater.

At Westminster, we will regularly see MPs from the government party challenging their own ministers, and rebelling on regular occasions, standing up for their constituents’ interests. In contrast, the number of rebellions we have seen at Holyrood during the period of SNP government since 2007 could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Indeed, the fact that nine SNP MSPs voted against the Gender Recognition Reform Bill highlights just how controversial this legislation was, given it was the largest by far rebellion in 16 years of SNP government.

We may now be able to identify as any one of a myriad of genders but rarely does an SNP MSP seem prepared to identify as having a mind of their own and rebelling. We have, in the Hoyrood chamber and on parliamentary committees, SNP MSPs whose job it is to scrutinise and hold to account the government, simply asking patsy pre-prepared questions, more often than not focussed on the Westminster government rather than on a minister’s own responsibilities.

There seems little appetite for a full-blown 'House of Lairds' to suggest changes to Scottish Parliament legislation, but a cross-party committee of former politicians could provide valuable advice (Picture: Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA)There seems little appetite for a full-blown 'House of Lairds' to suggest changes to Scottish Parliament legislation, but a cross-party committee of former politicians could provide valuable advice (Picture: Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA)
There seems little appetite for a full-blown 'House of Lairds' to suggest changes to Scottish Parliament legislation, but a cross-party committee of former politicians could provide valuable advice (Picture: Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA)

A change in culture will only come about if SNP and Green MSPs develop enough of a backbone to start taking their own ministers to task. Whilst we await the prospect of pigs flying over the Holyrood building, there are changes in processes which undoubtedly would improve the scrutiny function in parliament.

I have written previously about the need to change debating times at Holyrood, to end the ludicrous situation where, in most debates, backbench contributions are capped at six minutes, and sometimes even less, meaning there is little time to develop an argument or accept interventions from other members. The consequence of this is that too many MSPs appear at debates with pre-prepared statements, often written by a researcher, which they then simply read out with no attempt to engage with the wider debate or what has been said before. We have even had occasions when SNP MSPs read out the wrong speeches without noticing or caring.

The case for electing committee convenors has been well made by others in the past, and certainly would help afford a degree of independence to the committee system that presently is sadly lacking, but would only work if we were to see genuine contests and not ones engineered by the party whips.

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The whole process of scrutiny of legislation also needs to be addressed. At present, substantial amendments can be lodged just a few days before stage three of a Bill, be discussed and voted on very quickly, with very little opportunity for detailed discussion or indeed for evidence to be taken. As we have seen in too many recent cases, this results in bad law.

There is certainly a case to consider whether some sort of revising mechanism is now required at Holyrood. I doubt whether there would be much public enthusiasm for yet another tier of politicians to form a “House of Lairds” in a fully fledged second chamber. But it would be possible, for example, to create some sort of standing committee of part-time, unpaid appointees with suitable experience who could consider a Bill after stage three and recommend whether it be passed back to the parliament for further consideration in the event that there were serious weaknesses in it.

A body bringing together former MSPs from across the political spectrum, the likes of Johann Lamont, Robin Harper, Jim Wallace, Roseanna Cunningham, Michael Russell and Adam Tomkins, could certainly perform this function effectively and, hopefully, without partisan bias. It would fill a much-needed gap in the scrutiny of the poor-quality legislation we currently see being passed.

For now, the sad reality is that Westminster provides a far better model for passing effective legislation than is the case at Holyrood.

Murdo Fraser is Scottish Conservative MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife

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