Chamber and committees

I still believe that it is more of a political tension, but that is my personal view. Mr Balfour, you and Mr Mundell have expressed your view on that point. I think that we are going to have difficulty agreeing on it.

I ask Steven MacGregor to answer that.

Indeed.

I have said, convener, that I am looking at the section 5 powers to enable us to consider other organisations that we can bring into the fold. It is a work in progress. As soon as I have further detail, I will get back to you and the committee. There are a number of issues, and we are talking to a number of organisations.

To say that we agree in principle is to say that we want to move forward, that we accept that there are issues that we need to sort out and fix and that I am willing to do that. With the greatest respect, Mr McKee, I think you are reading too much into the language.

Indeed.

It is an on-going challenge. I make the point at the Parliamentary Bureau and with the Presiding Officer that, although my group has a majority of women, that does not necessarily mean that all the women want to join specific committees. They might have interests and other things that they want to do. To put them in a committee just because they are female would take them away from what they actually want to do. I am also aware that I have a responsibility for the Parliament and its committees to reflect Scotland. It is one of those matters that we will have to move on with.

We created a mechanism within the SNP to ensure that we ended up with a majority of female MSPs, so my argument to other political parties—including yours—is that they need to look at doing that as well, if we are serious about the Parliament being reflective. It is not just a question of balancing male and female representation; it is also about looking at disability and race. We need to look at other ways of making sure that we are reflective of the people of Scotland and that we move away from having only pale, middle-aged men like Mr Kerr and me involved.

As always, it is for the Parliament to decide how the Parliament goes forward. As a major player within that Parliament and the Government, I am happy, as always, to listen to ideas that others have to find a sensible way forward to deal with the challenges before us. I might not necessarily agree with every idea that everyone comes up with but, on the whole, we will have a good chat and we will kick it down the road a bit to see how we can get things sorted.

The Parliament has always evolved in the time that I have been here. Topical questions did not exist when I was first elected, in 2011, and we now have more portfolio questions than we had when I was first elected. The Parliament now sits on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; when I first came here, it just sat on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The Parliament has constantly evolved during that period, and I think that that is to be encouraged.

I get that. We need to embrace the gender sensitive audit and go forward with it as a whole Parliament. This committee’s convener pulls me up from time to time when we change a committee’s structure. For example, if I remember correctly, the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, which Jackson Carlaw convenes, is all male.