Chamber and committees

I will back up what Doreen said. The process gives Government the opportunity to look at complex and difficult problems and to make decisions on those, once the public has considered them.

I will ask Doreen Grove to answer that.

Doreen Grove brings up a valid point, which is one of the points that I brought up earlier about the make-up of citizens assemblies and various organisations. From my time in local government, I remember that, a lot of the time, the usual suspects turned up at absolutely everything. David Torrance is nodding, because he remembers that from those days as well.

In relation to the young people’s assembly that we were talking about, one of the first things that I asked Doreen was, “How do we get the young man and woman from Ferguslie Park?” I used the term “the hard-to-reach people”, and Doreen, quite rightly, corrected me at that stage and said, “That language is part of the problem, because you are saying that they are hard to reach.” That is just shorthand that we use as politicians.

How do we make those assemblies valid and get those people involved? It goes back to ensuring that that requirement is enshrined as part of the process of how assemblies are delivered, and making sure that the question that we are asking means something to the individuals. I am not saying that it will be easy, because it is challenging, but it is one of the things that I want to make sure of. I do not want to have a room full of people for whom it is yet another organisation or thing that they have got involved in, because I do not think that we would get the value that we really need.

Doreen Grove has sharp elbows, right enough.

Best practice in regard to what?

Well, it works for me.

As I said previously, I cannot give you a timeline at this stage, because I want to ensure that we get things correct right from the start. I am a strong believer in public participation in the political process, but we need to ensure—exactly as the convener said at the beginning of the meeting—that people’s expectations are correct. I cannot commit myself at this stage. I am not being difficult; had I an idea in my head about a timeline, I would tell you. I want to ensure that we get things correct.

Yes.

Thank you, convener. If you will indulge me, I will make a brief statement on the bill. As members will recall, it is a limited, single-purpose bill. It seeks to ensure compliance with treaties that the United Kingdom Government has agreed in relation to candidacy rights in local government elections.

I welcome the Scottish Parliament’s unanimous support of the bill at stage 1 and the committee’s continuing scrutiny of it. As no amendments have been lodged for consideration at stage 2, I have nothing further to add.

There is nothing to add to the letter, apart from to say that it was our intention to lodge an amendment but, in discussions with the UK Government, we found that it would create problems and difficulties on the UK side as opposed to ours and that the UK Government did not consider the matter to be a problem. Rather than have an argument with it about something that neither of us considered to be a serious problem, we decided that it would be best not to lodge an amendment. That is a simple summary of the position.