Public Petitions Committee Summing Up

Speech delivered on Wed 23rd Sep 2009

Thank you again presiding officer.

I think that this debate has highlighted the importance of openness, transparency and accountability within the Scottish Parliament but also the need for people to hold organisations, democratic processes, ministers and the parliament to account. And we can truly say that the Scottish Parliament is totally accessible because of course there is no need for MSP sponsorship attached to a petition which makes the whole process entirely fair and equitable. It's therefore welcome that the committee recognised the need for constant review and I congratulate members on their work. But it's even more key that this review was effectively given a kick start by Young Scot with their petition on ways to enhance the engagement of more young people in the democratic process.

I particularly applaud the committee's commitment to hold external meetings, not least in Duns in my region, because this is crucial in bringing the parliament to the people. And key in achieving this is to reach young people in particular and I look forward to seeing how that aspect of the committee's work develops in conjunction with education and community partnerships. Having spent half an hour with Dunbar Grammar this morning and as anyone else who sees a school group in session with the Education Service will see at first hand the value of this work in opening up the democratic process to young people at an early age.

It's vitally important though to extend that work further and I wholeheartedly welcome the committee's research into who actually uses the petition system, general public awareness and what can be done to extend that to all communities across Scotland to ensure that all demographic groups are represented.

I believe that work can be undertaken with local groups and organisations including for example community councils which play a huge role in communities. People can often be put off coming to the Scottish Parliament to make a representation because it's somehow seen as this huge inanimate organisation they can't relate to. To use my own experiences, for the last two summers I've conducted a tour of all the main rural shows across the South of Scotland including some of the local festivals. There isn't the time to do every single one, sadly, but when I embarked on this, now yearly schedule of shows I was enthusiastic but at the same time went into it with a feeling of the unknown; will people visiting an agricultural show be interested in talking to an MSP; will they be interested in learning about the Scottish Parliament or my individual work across the South or indeed how they can lobby for changes in policy? Will anyone actually stop by my stand to say hello or ask a questions about what I do and what the parliament can do? And the answer to all of these has been a resounding yes. People are interested, they're out there and it's our job to make ourselves available to them. Which is why what the petitions committee is doing is so important.

Using technology to reach people is important and keeping up with that technology is essential, but it has to be targeted and the benefits as the report remarks should be established before it happens. My view however is that face to face contact is absolutely the best way to engage people - in schools, with local groups, community councils, voluntary groups etc. It would be good to see the public petitions committee conducting some kind of summer roadshow each year - whether there would be time in the year for this, I don't know, but my summer show tour experiences as a fresh MSP have given me, are invaluable for information about the people I represent, what they want from an MSP and most important, it has given constituents a link to their MSP and it's broken down that perception of not quite knowing what the Scottish Parliament means.

Presiding officer in closing I would reiterate that what we have in Scotland is a good, thorough and accessible public petitioning system. But as recognised by the committee, improvements can always be made and we must always strive to ensure that all communities in Scotland are aware of this tool available to them; that they as individuals or groups can hold people to account.

And in turn, we as MSPs, should also acknowledge that we should never rest on our laurels. This committee report was focussed on the public petitions system, but I believe that the conclusions about reaching your audience can surely be applied to all of us as individual elected representatives. The Scottish people need to be - and I hope are - proud of their first parliament in 300 years, but we also have to give them reason to be proud by serving them as we were elected to do.

Thank you.