Chamber and committees

That is a point well made.

It is worth noting that MSPs will also have that conversation with their parliamentary parties. Discussion has to take place within parliamentary groups, and agreement reached there. However, a proxy vote is different; it is an individual arrangement between an MSP and the Presiding Officer.

Perhaps I used the wrong expression when I spoke about “parental leave”. A lot of new parents—myself included—want that leave in order to devote themselves completely to their children. Others want a balance. There will be days on which they wish to make alternative arrangements to allow them to be more actively involved in the life of the Parliament. Sometimes, that will not be possible. I echo your comments about flexibility, convener. Every case is individual; everyone has their own home circumstances.

That draws attention to the responsibility on the person who casts a proxy vote. They will have a responsibility not only to cast it as directed. There are situations in which business in this place changes quite quickly as events change, and there will be times when the fact that someone has asked someone else to be their proxy puts time constraints and burdens on that person to keep the relationship with the person for whom they are voting going and to make sure that it is not a case of out of sight, out of mind, and that they do not assume, “I know how my colleague would have voted, so I’ll cast it that way.”

Therefore, when we draw up guidance or rules and regulations on the matter, perhaps we should say something about the responsibility of the person who casts a proxy vote, because it could be a burden on them time-wise to make sure that, on appropriate occasions, they check with the person for whom they are casting the proxy vote that they have accurately gathered their views on how they wish to vote.

I think that the issue of whether someone should be able to have a proxy vote for more than one person is also worth considering. Although nothing has been put in place to prevent it, ideally it would not happen, because we would not want there to be a perception of block voting. I do not think that that would be the perception, but although there might be nothing to preclude one person holding more than one proxy, it might not be ideal.

Yes, absolutely, convener. When I made my comment, it was not about trust—I hope that that is implied. However, yes, let us put something more formal about that in the guidance. My comment was more about reminding MSPs who hold the proxy vote about their responsibilities to stay in contact and have that on-going relationship with the person whose proxy they hold. Edward said that the Presiding Officer should make sure that people who are away from this place for a period of time do not feel forgotten and that on-going support is offered. The person who holds the proxy also has an important role to play in that.

Yes, absolutely.

During the chamber debate that we had last week, I spoke about further consultation with members on proxy voting. I am not sure that I made it clear in the chamber, but I mean that there should be further consultation following a review of how the temporary rule change has worked, rather than that there should be another period of consultation before we make that move. I think that that is the situation. I want to be clear about that in my own head.

If that is the case, I wonder whether we should offer members the opportunity to give feedback on how it is going. That need not quite be in real time, but a year is quite a long time before we start engaging with MSPs about how that has or has not worked. I think that we should start to do some consultation work after a period of time, almost as an interim review.

I am conscious that, during the debate in the chamber, I spoke about further consultation with members. I am sure that members are keen to see the change happen, but we must ensure that we are taking all members with us and doing that as clearly and openly as possible.

Edward Mountain raised an interesting point, because there is also a discussion around how we define “illness” in the first place, as well as “short-term illness”. The Parliamentary Bureau makes a reasonable point in relation to proxy voting not being brought in for a day here or there, but as a planned approach to supporting members to exercise their democratic vote by using a colleague as a proxy in the Parliament. With a pre-planned or predicted absence, it is reasonable to assume that a person might not necessarily be absent for four weeks or so, and it seems perfectly reasonable for a proxy to be put in place. The idea of having a proxy for months is too unwieldy.

We also need to think about fluctuating health conditions that mean that, due to illness, someone is unlikely to be able to effectively perform all their parliamentary duties. However, people have good days and bad days, so I think that, when someone agrees a proxy, they should be able to take back ownership of their vote from time to time, when they feel that they can. There might be a particular debate that they have a specific interest in and for which want to make every effort to be there, whether remotely or otherwise, and cast their vote.

I think that proxies have to be a two-way process, where a member is not just giving up their vote for a set period of time. There should be a mix. Of course, how we codify that is the challenge, convener, but I think that a member who has been given a proxy for a period of months should be able to cast their vote in a specific debate if it is particularly important to them and they feel able to do so.

That is a fair point.

This will sound a bit counterintuitive. There are some good stories to tell about widening access, which could, of course, be under threat because of the cost of living crisis and the financial constraints. However, I will put a couple of those on the record.

We are ahead of our target of getting 20 per cent of those in higher education to be from the most deprived areas, as measured by the Scottish index of multiple deprivation. The interim target of 16 per cent was exceeded ahead of time. I know that we are talking about universities, but I think that colleges were the biggest contributors to that. Some 40.9 per cent of the progress came through the college pathway. Record numbers of young people from the most deprived backgrounds are at university.

Without putting words in your mouth, are those young people under more financial pressure than students more generally? I see that the minimum income guarantee for the most deprived students is £8,100 a year, but there will be other students out there who do not get those guarantees. Do you have any comments on how universities are taking steps to improve widening access to education, despite the current financial climate? What are the dangers to ensuring that that is sustainable and that we build on that progress?

I will come on to funding, but I am interested in Karen Watt’s reflections on that success story and how that important support is offered through the learning journey. Her comments on that would be welcome.

What monitoring might take place through the course? I am sure that, in four years’ time, our successor committee will want to know what percentage of those young people from SIMD20 entering university this year successfully graduated in comparison with average graduation levels. We will want to look at that to see whether there has been actual success.