Achi news desk-
They are seeking the opinion of all 129 MLAs and have recently sent an email to them and to decision-making bodies in the body including the parliamentary office which includes business managers or political party whips.
“The standards, procedures and appointments committee is looking into the possibility of introducing a system of elected conveners for committees,” the committee’s convener, Martin Whitfield, told MLAs.
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“As part of that work, the committee is trying to gather the views of MSPs, the group of conveners, the parliamentary centre, the SPCB, and other political parties.”
This comes after concerns that some SNP Members of Parliament are not holding the Scottish Government to account sufficiently – an issue identified last year by former Cabinet minister Alex Neil who said there was too much ‘donkey nodding’ in all parties at Holyrood.
Under the current system the allocation of assemblies is allocated to parties on a proportional basis and the largest party has the most.
Party whips and the leader then give the jobs to individual assemblies – often in return for being loyal and non-judgmental.
But there are concerns that outspoken MLAs are losing out under this process.
Critics also argue that the current system of appointing conveners also encourages backbench MLAs from the governing party to hold back on strong criticism of policies presented by ministers.
This in turn can mean that ministers are not properly held to account by assemblymen who intend to protect the government, which can then lead to shortcomings in government legislation.
Westminster brought in a system of elected committee chairs in 2010 and since then some notable strong-minded backbench MPs have come to prominence.
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They have included Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin who, as chairman of the House of Commons privileges committee, led the investigation to see if former Conservative Boris Johnson had misled parliament over the party’s ‘gateway’ claims.
Mr Johnson announced his resignation as an MP in June last year after he received the committee’s final report, which found he had misled parliament.
Mr Neil, who stood down from Holyrood in the 2021 election, criticized some of his colleagues in the party for what he believed was insufficient scrutiny of the gender recognition reform bill.
MLAs passed the bill in December 2022 but it was then blocked by Scottish Secretary Alister Jack with the Scottish Government later losing a legal challenge against the UK Government’s veto.
Mr Neil disagreed with the way the bill was examined in parliament, especially by some of the SNP’s backbenchers as he called for reforms.
“Party leaders want people yes, they want to nod donkeys – people who will do as they do on TV,” he said at the time.
“We have very few people in parliament, in any of the parties, who (are) prepared to stand up and act independently of their party’s leadership.”
Former MSP Airdie and Shotts praised the SNP and other MSPs who spoke out against their party during the highly charged debate on gender identity laws last month.
He said: “I believe that any parliament worthy of the name must encourage people who disagree with their voices, they must have their say.
“It was good to see the nine people ready to challenge the whip on the Gender Recognition Amendment Bill. I am not saying that I agree with their argument.
“What I’m saying is that they at least have the guts to stand up for their principles. There aren’t enough people like that in either parliament—Holyrood or Westminster—Too many careerists.”
Mr Neil, a cabinet minister under Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, also called for the abolition of the practice where party whips pass lists of speakers to the President of Holyrood, deciding which politicians speak and when.
He said: “I would like to see the President tell the party whips to give them [the lists] where the sun doesn’t shine and tell them that the President will decide who will speak, when he will speak and for how long he will speak.
“And the President’s job is to ensure that everyone, even those who have fallen out with the leadership of their party, get fair play from the whip.”
James Mitchell, pictured below, professor of public policy at the University of Edinburgh, said having elected conveners should encourage more independence of mind among backbench Members.
He said the role change would also offer aspiring MSPs another way to have a major influence over policy and an alternative career path to becoming a minister.
He also suggested that an additional payment could be given to the conveners of the elected committees to take into account their increased responsibilities which would see them answerable to parliament and not their party.
Asked by the Herald if having elected conveners would encourage more MSPs to be independent-minded and not “nod donkeys”, he said: “Absolutely. That’s been the experience in the House of Commons. It’s a system where MLAs would have an alternative way of increasing influence without having to become a minister.
“At the moment the most direct way to influence policy is to become a minister. Back benches are relatively powerless but it would create another source of authority, not dependent on showing loyalty to the leader to gain promotion to the front bench, is a positive development.
“This would help redress the current imbalance in the relationship between the government and parliament. It should encourage many MLAs to be more independent. It would make sense to offer an additional allowance to serving elected assemblies, although not as much as ministers are paid.”
Professor Mitchell added that having elected committee conveners should strengthen parliament’s ability to hold the government of the day to account.
“The founders of the Scottish Parliament envisioned a strong committee system as a key element in order to ensure a better balance in the relationship between the government and the Parliament compared to the experience in the House of Commons at the time,” he said.
“Simply that has not happened. Elected Chairs of the House of Commons Select Committees introduced elected chairs in 2010. This has helped to rebalance the relationship between the executive and the legislature.
“Scotland is behind. There are issues that would need to be addressed although they can be overcome. The most important thing would be to avoid whipping and the leadership to continue to decide who should be conveners. It can be learn lessons from the House of Commons in this regard.”
He added: “Elected convenors would become accountable to those who elect them. Convenors appointed in the current manner are accountable to those who appoint them.
“With the necessary safeguards in place to avoid whipping and leadership control, not too difficult as the House of Commons has shown, then the newly elected assemblymen would be able to be more independent of leaders. This would not affect on each MLA but with their own, elected mandate. the conveners would be in a stronger position.”
Former prime ministers Henry McLeish and Jack McConnell called in 2017 for committee conveners to be elected from backbenchers.
They made the case to the Scottish Parliament’s Commission on Parliamentary Reform.
Lord McConnell said at the time that committees were becoming “more and more partisan”.
Professor Mitchell said he had made representations to Holyrood in the past calling for committee conveners to be elected to appear before the conveners group to present the case for reform in 2009.
He added that he had written a paper to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee in February 2015 supporting the move.
The 12 chairmen of the Senedd Cymru committee are elected in a secret ballot. Nominees for chairman can only be from the political group allocated to that committee.
A spokesperson for the Scottish Parliament said: “Part of the Committee’s role is to look at how Parliament operates, this includes considering changes as elected conveners. This work is currently ongoing and the Committee will publish its findings in due course.”
