Holyrood wasting time on ‘banal debates’, say MSPs

Politicians spend too little time holding the Scottish Government to account and too long on “banal” and “irrelevant” debates, a cross-party panel of MSPs has said.

Holyrood’s procedures committee is considering remodelling the parliamentary week, with proposals to extend parliamentary hours, or reform the timetable to allow committees to sit for longer.

However, three veteran MSPs all agreed the parliament is not making the best use of its time.

Hugh Henry said: “We need to learn to use the time more effectively before we start to look at extending our time.”

The audit committee convener said parliamentary business managers throughout the years had “filled their time with nonsense simply to fill the schedule”.

He said: “Business managers are scrambling about at times trying to get topics for debate.

“And, frankly, if we extend the time the parliament meets, then we will fill it with even more irrelevant and useless and meaningless debates, and instead of enhancing the reputation of this parliament, it will attract more ridicule upon us.”

Conservative MSP Margaret Mitchell, former convener of the equal opportunities committee, said too much time was filled with “happy-clappy-type motions, which are so general and banal in content and often just there to fill in some time”.