Chamber and committees

Yes.

I know that. Some of the things that have been said over the past couple of weeks about that seem strange to me because, in my time in Government, basically every decision has gone through the Government’s SCOTS information technology system on my Government laptop. If I have a meeting with Jill McPherson and I say, “You’ve given me three options. I’m taking option B,” she will send me an email that will say, “Minister, at our meeting, we had this discussion and you decided to go for option B. Is that still your thought?” That is a simplistic way of saying—Mr McKee, as a former Government minister, will back me up on this—that it ain’t going to happen if it’s no in the SCOTS system. Nothing will get done unless it is done in that way.

It is funny, because one of the disagreements that you and I have had—for two and a half years—is about how we make Parliament—

Yes—and that tends to be in the process as well. Obviously, in the old days, we referred to a ministerial box. The minister used to go about with a box full of papers, but there is now an inbox. In effect, all that information will be captured digitally in the system. As I have said, it will go down to the meetings that we have had, the decisions that were made and the discussion. Those will be captured in the system.

As always, it is a case of personalities and individuals talking to one another and having a conversation as a starting point. You and I have done that on numerous occasions, and the convener and I have, too. Ivan McKee approached me about something not long ago, too. I am generally someone people can talk to or approach, and I am happy to encourage that as a starting point, so that we can then develop some ideas. You and I may find out that we disagree on some points, but we will find common ground, as always.

I will just caveat that point—it is up to the Parliament, as always, to make the decisions. We are a major part of it, but we all need to talk to one another.

On that point, if you will indulge me, convener—

I still believe that it will achieve what I hoped it would achieve. At the same time, some interesting things came from the consultation—and I have hinted at the point about 16 and 17-year-olds, which was a shock to me.

On the whole, we should be okay in relation to the timescales. The proposed bill is workable, which we should all be happy with. As I have said right from the beginning, members here will be the first to know and I will be in touch with you. As I am sure you know, there will be “no surprises” for you—to quote the Bute house agreement.

That was one of the issues that came up during our consultation on the election reform that we are considering. You brought up that point in the debate early on when we were talking about the consultation. Interestingly, one of the issues that we also discussed—you have not mentioned this, but it is one of the ideas in the consultation—was about having 16 and 17-year-old candidates, which you clearly did not think was a good idea.

When we spoke to young people during the consultation, they came up with a very similar point to the one that you have just raised. I spoke to one woman, in particular, who said that she was politically motivated and had written a national newspaper article about her political beliefs but was attacked on various social media platforms by middle-aged men who told her that they knew better than her. Her request to me was that we need to get politics sorted before she would consider standing, and she is politically motivated.

It is a valid point that there is a level of abuse. I know many female colleagues who have left and gone on to other careers because of the way we do our politics and what has happened online. Again, it comes down to how we interact with one another in the chamber. That is reflected in society as well, and it is where some of the issues might come from in certain cases.

Social media does not help—it is like football, where one crowd supports one team and the other crowd supports the other team, and there is nothing in the middle. As we all know, in order to get anything done in the political world, we need to meet at one point and agree on something.

You have highlighted many of the concerns. We have been looking at the issues arising from the consultation, and we are now going through the detail. I will engage with you and some of your colleagues as we go through the process for the new electoral reform bill.

As members will know, my wife and I are a package in the political world of Paisley. My wife has had abuse just for being my partner. There has been talk about her disability and the fact that she is a wheelchair user. Unfortunately, that is the world that many of these keyboard warriors inhabit, but it is not the real world. We need to show leadership and say, “This is how we actually do politics.”