On Wednesday afternoon in the chamber, all eyes were on the First Minister, as she made a statement on the implications for Scotland of recent Brexit developments.

On the issue of when she thought that people in Scotland should be offered a new choice on independence, she had this to say:

“To rush into an immediate decision before a Brexit path has been determined would not allow an informed choice to be made. However, if we are to safeguard Scotland’s interests, we cannot wait indefinitely. That is why I consider that a choice between Brexit and a future for Scotland as an independent European nation should be offered later in the lifetime of this Parliament.”

She set out the steps that the Government now intends to take, including the introduction of legislation

“to set the rules for any referendum that is, now or in the future, within the competence of the Scottish Parliament”,

which the Government aims to have on the statute book

“by the end of this year.”

In committee considerations, too, Brexit was prominent, with the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee focusing on the implications for the waste and chemicals sectors; the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee receiving an update from the Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy, Fergus Ewing, on various agriculture and fisheries matters; and the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee hearing from the Government’s Michael Russell on the article 50 withdrawal negotiations.

On Wednesday morning, the Education and Skills Committee held its second session in its subject choices inquiry. Some of the evidence that was presented on the reduction in parts of Scotland in the number of subjects that pupils can study at secondary 4 level was cited by Jackson Carlaw at Thursday’s First Minister’s question time, who set it in the context of Reform Scotland’s report, “National 4 and 5s: The accidental attainment gap”. The First Minister responded by pointing out that the senior phase in school does not consist only of S4 and highlighting statistics that show improved performance at level 5 and above. You can read the exchange in full here.

Revoking article 50 was the subject of a topical Green Party-led debate in the chamber last Wednesday afternoon, in which the Parliament accepted amendments to Patrick Harvie’s motion from the SNP and Labour, while on Thursday morning, the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee took evidence on a specific aspect of the article 50 debate—that of international agreements. The wide-ranging discussion that ensued, which you can read in full here, is a good illustration of the fact that reporting parliamentary committees can involve a fair bit of research.

Part of the process of producing a substantially verbatim report of what is said in such circumstances involves conveying the knowledge of the assembled experts—in this case, David Henig, Dmitry Grozoubinski and Professor Alan Winters. As numerous treaties, regulations and conventions can be mentioned, it’s important to correctly identify and keep track of exactly what is being referred to, particularly when shorthand can be used and there is scope for ambiguity. As reporters, we need to know whether “the partnership” is a reference to, say, the transatlantic trade and investment partnership or the trans-Pacific partnership. When someone says “DG1”, we need to look up which directorate-general of the EU they are referring to.

In most cases, a combination of an understanding of the context and a spot of googling throws light on the situation but, occasionally—when, for example, a witness drops an obscure term of art rapidly into the discussion, recalls one fact rather than another in the heat of the moment or is simply inaudible—it’s necessary to go straight to the horse’s mouth, as it were. That happened at this meeting when the subject of e-commerce came up and Dmitry Grozoubinski mentioned a place in France near the border with Switzerland where people in Geneva get their Amazon parcels sent to. To several pairs of ears, the town in question sounded like “Yverdon-les-Bois”, but research on Google Maps showed that the likely candidate—Yverdon-les-Bains—was in Switzerland, suggesting that it couldn’t have been the place that Mr Grozoubinski had in mind.

How to solve the problem? A quick Twitter exchange, in which Mr Grozoubinski clarified that he had been thinking of Divonne-les-Bains, so that’s what appeared in the Official Report.

 

Those who were in the public gallery for Thursday lunch time’s members’ business debate on men’s sheds—who, included, appropriately enough, people from men’s sheds across the Borders, from Peebles to Eyemouth—were treated to a vintage performance from Christine Grahame, the member for Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale and one of the Parliament’s Deputy Presiding Officers. After describing the evolution of the men’s shed movement, she went on to reminisce about the importance of her father’s shed to her family life when she was a child:

“My late father, with five children corralled in a small council house, took refuge and sanctuary in his small green wooden shed at the bottom of the garden … With the door open, he would sit admiring the growing vegetables, with the Sunday papers—he always had to read them before the rest of us—and his cup of tea, rain or shine, taking a moment away from the hurly-burly of his five children indoors. My late mother was happy to leave him to it. Domestic friction was reduced.”

In passing, Ms Grahame extolled the usefulness of the Scottish Men’s Sheds Association website, jokingly suggesting that the Parliament’s retiring assistant chief executive, Ken Hughes, might want to look there for something to do with his time. Her conclusion was humorous, too:

“to allay any rumours that, as a single woman of a certain age, I am frequenting men’s sheds with romantic intent, I assure the gentlemen in the gallery and beyond that my interest is purely professional.”

As someone who has been a member since 1999, Ms Grahame has a particular interest in this year’s 20^th anniversary of the Parliament. It was with that in mind that, later the same day, during Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body question time, she asked how the organisation planned to

“mark the contribution to the Parliament of staff past and present who were here in 1999.”

Liam McArthur, representing the SPCB, replied:

“our intention is for the Parliament to celebrate its 20th anniversary at an event on 29 June. All members of staff, past and present, will be encouraged to attend the event, and further announcements will be made later in the spring.”

Thursday was an especially busy day for Ms Grahame, who was also in action at that morning’s meeting of the Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee, at which the committee continued its post-legislative scrutiny of the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010, which she took through Parliament as a member’s bill—although, as she acknowledged, Alex Neil, now a member of the committee,

“did all the heavy lifting”.

She defended the act as “good legislation” and said that the problem lay with practical aspects of implementation. When asked by Alex Neil to give an overview of her proposed responsible breeding and ownership of dogs (Scotland) bill, she explained that it was about

“welfare of the animals and good relationships between dogs and owners.”

Another member’s bill that was discussed last week was Mark Ruskell’s Restricted Roads (20 mph Speed Limit) (Scotland) Bill. The Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee was holding its fifth and final evidence session on the bill at stage 1, and it heard directly from Mark Ruskell as the member in charge of the bill. Various aspects of the proposed legislation were explored in detail. In his opening statement, Mr Ruskell drew on personal experience in setting out a powerful argument for his bill:

“When I was at school, a classmate of mine was struck down and killed while out playing on his bike. He was not killed outside the school gates; he was killed in the residential street where he lived, like four fifths of child casualties on our roads.

Speed limits of 20mph make a big contribution to the safety of everyone on the streets where we live, especially children. They reduce speed, prevent deaths and injuries and encourage choices to walk and cycle. Public support for them continues to grow year on year.”

 

On Tuesday, the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee took evidence from Marine Scotland representatives on regulations concerning the conservation of salmon. The background to the regulations, as Keith Main explained, is the

“continuing downward trend in salmon returning to Scottish waters.”

When John Scott asked about how the expected introduction of beavers might impact on salmon numbers, the “beaver deceiver” was mentioned, which is a method of managing the effect of beavers on the fish population that involves the use of a pipe to allow smolts and salmon to migrate through beaver dams. The name comes from the fact that, because the entrance to the pipe—which reduces the water level behind the dam—is some distance upstream of the dam, the beaver

“cannot figure out why that is happening and it tries to repair the damage rather than block the pipe.”

On Wednesday, the Finance and Constitution Committee considered the highly complex issue of Scottish VAT assignment. At times, the answers of the panel, which included the director of the Fraser of Allander institute and the chief executive of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, had members of the committee scratching their heads. For example, when it emerged during the discussion that the methodology used in the assignment model relied heavily on the living costs and food survey, the sample size for which struck several members as small, Adam Tomkins asked:

“Why should we not be thrown by it? Why should we feel reassured that 720 respondents is a big enough number?”

John Ireland’s response—

“You should feel reassured because the statistical properties of samples do not vary in size with the sample size; they vary in size with the inverse of the square root of the sample size”—

prompted laughter and bemusement in equal measure.

Anyone taking a stroll in the environs of the Parliament on Thursday will have been able to see the Black Arrow, the UK’s only rocket to successfully launch a British satellite into orbit, which, until recently, had remained where it crash-landed in the Australian outback 48 years ago. The occasion for its appearance in front of the Parliament was Thursday afternoon’s chamber debate on Scotland’s strength as a space nation, which Ivan McKee, the Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation, opened by declaring:

“These are exciting times for the space industry in Scotland … At a time when Scotland aims to be the first place in Europe capable of launching small satellites into orbit, it seems fitting that the Black Arrow is now here in Edinburgh, and I congratulate Skyrora—one of Scotland’s rocket manufacturing businesses—on successfully bringing it back to the UK.”

Another exciting happening outside the Parliament last week was the school strike for climate that took place on Friday morning, which was trailed by several members in Wednesday afternoon’s debate on the year of young people 2018. It was also mentioned in Tuesday’s fair work debate by Alison Johnstone, who argued:

“there cannot be fair work unless our economic model is fair to the planet. This Friday, hundreds of our young people will gather outside the Parliament to ask us to take action to address climate change, which is not an unconnected issue”.

On Tuesday afternoon, Nicola Sturgeon opened a debate on a motion that reiterated the Parliament’s opposition to the UK Government’s European Union exit deal, set out that a no-deal exit would be “completely unacceptable” and called for the article 50 process to be extended. Later the same afternoon in the National Assembly for Wales, Jeremy Miles, the Welsh Brexit minister, opened a debate on the same motion.

Nicola Sturgeon pointed out that it was

“the first occasion in 20 years of devolution when the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly have acted in unison in this way.”

Scottish Parliament debate on EU withdrawal negotiations (5 March 2019)

Welsh Assembly debate on EU withdrawal negotiations (5 March 2019)

The motion was agreed to in Edinburgh at 18:04 by 87 votes to 29, with one abstention, and in Cardiff at 18:09 by 37 votes to 13.

That decision was followed, in the Scottish Parliament, by a heavily subscribed members’ business debate on mesh implant removal, led by Labour’s Neil Findlay. The debate concerned the widely reported offer of the American obstetrician-gynaecologist, Dr Dionysios Veronikis, to come to Scotland to help patients by using his pioneering surgical methods to fully remove transvaginal mesh and other implants that are causing life-changing pain and disability, and to train other surgeons in how to perform the procedure safely.

Several mesh survivors were in the public gallery for the debate, including Mary McLaughlin from Ireland, who had full mesh removal carried out by Dr Veronikis in the US in January. She had travelled to Edinburgh, Mr Findlay said,

“as living proof of what the procedure can mean.”

Members’ business debate on mesh implant removal (5 March 2019)

At Thursday’s meeting of the Social Security Committee, the committee took detailed evidence from representatives of Citizens Advice Scotland and Age Scotland on the forthcoming changes to pension credit that were announced by the UK Government in January, which will mean that new claimants who are mixed-age couples where only one person is of state pension age will cease to qualify and will instead have to submit a claim for universal credit.

When Alison Johnstone of the Greens put to Adam Stachura of Age Scotland his organisation’s stated view that,

“While the UK Government says that Pension Credit was not designed for working age claimants, Universal Credit was certainly not designed for pensioners”,

he said that the new policy would have a “devastating impact”, while Rob Gowans of CAS agreed that it had the potential to increase the workload of citizens advice bureaux.

Following the evidence session, committee members decided to discuss in public what course of action to take. You can read what transpired here:

Social Security Committee pension credit discussion (7 March 2019)

 

On Thursday, the Equalities and Human Rights Committee held its first formal evidence session on the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill, a member’s bill introduced by John Finnie of the Green Party, which the Scottish Government has said that it will support, to end the physical punishment of children by parents, or those with a caring responsibility for a child. The bill aims to remove the defence of reasonable chastisement or justifiable assault, which, at present in Scotland, a person who is charged with assault of a child can claim when they have used physical force to discipline the child.

Members of the committee began the meeting by reporting back on various informal engagement sessions they had had by way of preparation for consideration of the bill, before moving on to take evidence from two panels. The four members of the first panel set out their stalls early on. Professor Jane Callaghan of the University of Stirling said:

“The ending of the reasonable chastisement justification is long overdue, and the balance of evidence in both psychological research and research on domestic abuse and other forms of family violence suggests that this is the right choice.”

Dr Anja Heilmann of University College London said:

“Our report on the evidence on physical punishment shows very clearly that such punishment has the potential to harm children; that it is not effective as a parenting strategy, because it tends to increase problem behaviour and children’s socioemotional difficulties; and that it carries the risk of injurious abuse.”

Diego Quiroz of the Scottish Human Rights Commission said:

“there is consensus internationally and certainly in Europe that the corporal punishment of children is unacceptable, and that view is supported by broad scientific and medical evidence.”

The sociology and criminology lecturer Dr Stuart Waiton of Abertay University, on the other hand, said:

“it is a tragic, depressing bill and yet another one that appears to represent the aloof, elitist nature of politics and professional life that treats parents in a very patronising and degrading way … The claim that all the evidence proves that any level of smacking of children damages them is absolutely untrue and the opposite of the truth”.

When Alex Cole-Hamilton asked about the practice of “back-up smacking”, which the American academic Robert Larzelere supports

“as a parenting tool that can be effective when other parenting techniques fall down”,

Professor Callaghan’s response was:

“The balance of evidence suggests that there is a strong correlation between parents who are willing to use smacking and who use smacking and parents who are likely to lose control in their disciplinary practices.”

Dr Waiton, in contrast, argued:

“The idea that there is proof or evidence that a light form of smacking damages children is not borne out. I make a plea to your common sense. If you think that smacking a small child on the wrist is a form of violence that harms them, you are living on another planet.”

The members of the second panel were supportive of the bill, although Amy-Beth Mia of the Who Cares? Scotland collective drew on her own experience of placements and argued that the bill raised “a grey area”. She explained:

“When a child is removed from their family home to be placed in care, the state becomes the child’s corporate parent, and it is suddenly okay for the state to restrain the child and to act in an almost assault-like manner that breaches human rights. However, the bill wants to take away parents’ ability to smack children. We should encourage such an approach and pass the bill, but we have left out a grey area.”

The committee will hear from two more panels of experts on the bill, including the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, this Thursday.

The headline items in the chamber last week were Tuesday’s debate on the Scottish rate resolution, which preceded the Parliament’s voting to set all rates and bands for Scottish income tax, and Thursday’s stage 3 debate on the Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill. As Kate Forbes, the Minister for Public Finance and Digital Economy, explained, under the Parliament’s standing orders, agreement to the motion on the rates resolution is a necessary precursor to the holding of the debate to pass the budget bill. The latter was a lively affair, with Pauline McNeill and Adam Tomkins being particularly exercised about the Government’s workplace parking levy proposal, while the finance secretary’s rejoinder to Willie Rennie’s remark about the Catalan flag flying on his “flagpole in Renfrew” was the source of much hilarity.

Scottish rate resolution debate (19 February 2019)

Stage 3 debate on Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill (21 February 2019)

The threat of closure facing the St Rollox railway works in Springburn—or “the Caley”, as the facility is affectionately known locally—was the subject of not one but two members’ business debates last week, and it followed last month’s late-night House of Commons debate on the same topic. Tuesday evening’s debate was led by James Kelly of Labour, and Wednesday’s was led by the SNP’s Bob Doris. While members learned of the historic significance of the works, which were built in 1856 on the site of the first railway in Scotland, the focus of both debates was on urging the current employer, Gemini Rail, to delay the running down of operations so that viable options for the future of the works, including the electrification of the line into the site, could be fully explored.

Members’ business debate on St Rollox railway works (19 February 2019)

Members’ business debate on St Rollox railway works (20 February 2019)

House of Commons debate on St Rollox railway works (14 January 2019)

On Thursday morning, the Social Security Committee considered various sets of regulations on new benefits for those at the start of life and those at the end of life that will be administered by Social Security Scotland, one of which is funeral expense assistance. In raising the possibility that people might not apply for the benefit, even though they would be entitled to it, Keith Brown gave a touching example:

“I am thinking of my granny, who was born in Inverness but lived all her days in Edinburgh. Her funeral was in Inverness, and she had bought everything—she had ordered the cakes and the tea; in fact, she had specified which cakes were to be eaten.”

He mentioned the desire of many older people “not to put a burden on others”

and the

“avalanche of adverts on television … encouraging older people to use their pension entitlement or the equity in their house to make provision for funeral expenses, which plays on that guilt about being a burden on others”,

and put it to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People, Shirley-Anne Somerville, that television advertising of the availability of benefits such as funeral expense assistance could be a way of addressing the issue.

Social Security Committee evidence on funeral expense assistance regulations (21 February 2019)

Also on Thursday, the Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee received some powerful evidence as part of its post-legislative scrutiny of the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010, hearing first from people who have been directly affected by dog attacks or who have knowledge of the impact of such attacks, and then from representatives of various organisations with an interest in how effective the act has been and what needs to change.

Representing the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Dr Judy Evans explained:

“It is a myth among the public that children scar better than older people. The situation is exactly the opposite. Those of us who are old enough know that we have facial creases that can hide scars. Children who still have to grow have worse scars, because their tissues are actively growing, which means that their scar tissue is actively growing, too.”

Dave Joyce of the Communication Workers Union, a staunch defender of posties and passionate advocate of reform of the law, didn’t hold back, describing the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 as “a stupid and ineffectual piece of legislation” and arguing that

“People need to realise that if they are bad owners, they will face the consequences in court.”

Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee evidence on control of dogs legislation (21 February 2019)