Chamber and committees

The final issue is the operation of proxy voting. You might want to lead off on that, convener. I would be interested to hear your views on the mechanics of how it would work. I am sorry—I have reversed things. After hearing from you, I will be able to give my views.

In my mind, for a normal decision time, that absolutely works. However, when we have the complicated procedure of a stage 3 debate, in which we could have amendment after amendment, it might be useful for members to have a duty to forewarn the Presiding Officer—or the person in the chair—that they will have a proxy vote. We need to work out a way that means that members do not have to pop up every 30 seconds after every vote to make a point of order. I do not know the answer to how we do that, but it is a matter of courtesy that, at some stage, for each vote, the member who holds the proxy should remind the Presiding Officer that they hold the proxy for that individual.

I like to feel that the relationship between each member and the Presiding Officer should be such that members have the confidence to speak about that to the Presiding Officer. An initial four-week period for the proxy, which can be extended if the member speaks to the Presiding Officer again, allows the Presiding Officer to exercise their pastoral care of the individual. I really believe that that is important and I also think that it is important for the member to continue to feel engaged and wanted by the Parliament. I am keen on a four-week period, but it should not be limited. For example, maternity leave is 26 weeks, and members can extend that by another 26 weeks to 52 weeks if they have been employed for a certain amount of time beforehand. I do not believe that the proxy vote should be limited in that way. We should trust the Presiding Officer and the members to behave in a way that is appropriate, and I am sure that they will.

I find unhelpful the suggestion in the letter from the Parliamentary Bureau that pairing might be used as an alternative to short-term proxy voting. Last year, when I was paired for a good proportion of time, I felt that my vote did not count. If a member wants to exercise their vote, I do not think that pairing is an acceptable option, because the member is there to represent their constituency and it is unhelpful if they cannot vote and are only paired. That is why we came to look at proxy voting in the first place. I think that that suggestion from the bureau is unhelpful and I hope that the committee will consider it irrelevant to the proposal that we are putting forward.

I agree with Bob Doris on that. I took my oath remotely because I could not come into the Parliament. I had a discussion with the then Presiding Officer about that beforehand. He was aware of the situation but no one else knew about it. We need somehow to get across to members the point that the Presiding Officer has a pastoral duty to MSPs and that they should have the confidence to speak to her.

I noticed something in the letter from the Parliamentary Bureau. I know that it is not going to happen, but I am a great one for making preparations in case a thing does happen. The bureau talks about the possibility of a proxy vote being incorrectly used and about whether we ought to have some sanction for that. I believe that that will never happen. However, if it does, that will be a serious breach of standards of conduct. If possible, I would like the clerks to think about whether that is covered by the “Code of Conduct for Members of the Scottish Parliament”. Personally, I think that we ought to write something in there to say that a breach of the use of the proxy will make a member fall foul of section whatever-it-is in the standing orders. I have not looked it up—I apologise.

Absolutely.

We could say that the committee believes that that part of the code of conduct would be breached if the person knowingly did that.

It would also be helpful if the clerks could keep a record for the first year of the number of times that proxies are used. That would inform decisions about how to do that. I know it will be difficult to get that record retrospectively; it would be easy to do so at the time.

Convener, I accept take your point, although I dispute that there is ever chaos in the Parliament.