Alison Johnstone steps down as Presiding Officer

On Thursday a new Presiding Officer will be elected by MSPs at Holyrood, thus bringing The Rt Hon Alison Johnstone’s time in the role to an end.

On her way out of office, Ms Johnstone took time to reflect on what might be changed in Holyrood to improve the parliament – and she is keen for a daily questions session to be introduced rather than just one weekly session on a Thursday when First Minister’s Questions takes place.

All 129 MSPs will be sworn in throughout Thursday morning, paving the way for their first task – to elect a new Presiding Officer.

Ms Johnstone will preside over the nominations for her successor and the voting in the secret ballot. All MSPs have the opportunity to stand, although it depends on party numbers whether any particular party is willing to relinquish a member – who then becomes non-political and unable to vote in parliamentary business except in certain circumstances.

At present SNP have 58 MSPs, Scottish Labour and Reform UK have 17 each, Conservatives 12, Scottish Greens 15 and LibDems 10. Although the SNP do not have an overall majority they are in the lead by some way, and three SNP MSPs – Kenny Gibson, Stuart McMillan and Claire Haughey – have thrown their hats in the ring.

The other candidate is a Scottish Liberal Democrat, Liam McArthur, who has experience as he was one of the Deputy Presiding Officers during the last term.

The new Presiding Officer will be voted in by simple majority, and more than a quarter of MSPs must take part in the vote for the process to function properly.

Sole candidate

When it was Ms Johnstone’s turn in 2021 she was the sole candidate and was supported by 97 MSPs, with 28 who voted against, two who abstained and one who spoiled their ballot paper. She became Presiding Officer when the meeting was a hybrid one respecting the requirements of Covid.

The Edinburgh Reporter met with Ms Johnstone before the dissolution of the last parliament – and although she has remained in office until Thursday, she had already decided not to stand in the Scottish Parliamentary election last week.

Instead she will step back from a political career which began when she became a staffer to Robin Harper who was the first – and at one point the only – Green MSP in The Scottish Parliament. She has now served three parliamentary sessions as a staffer and three as an elected representative for the Scottish Greens.

Talking about her most recent role as Presiding Officer, she said: “It has been incredibly interesting, and there is never a dull moment being at the heart of democracy in Scotland, but it’s challenging too. I just want to have some time to step back and catch up with all the family and friends that I’ve neglected who’ve been, hugely supportive to me throughout.”

Ms Johnstone oversaw the 25th anniversary of parliament – an institution which is still relatively young. During that year the parliament went on the road which she felt was a good thing and engendered “great conversations”.

Demands of family life

While Ms Johnstone is married with a daughter she has managed to keep her family out of the limelight, but asked if that was a deliberate move, she said that they are indeed interested in politics. She explained that they have been to watch some debates from time to time, but there has been something quite nice about “going home to people who are outwith the bubble, who have a different sense of perspective”.

She is mindful of the demands of having a home life at the same time as being a parliamentarian. She said: “I’m well aware of the demands of juggling working full time. And obviously that conversation about how parliamentary life and the other demands of life impact us all has continued, and it will continue to do so.”

She claimed a little progress however saying: “If you’re a representative who has several hours of travel every week and an expectation that perhaps you’re going to leave home on Monday to be in parliament for Tuesday and you’re not going to get home till Friday. So just think about that impact week on week where you are not with your family. That is a challenge.

“We’ve done a lot of work this session with the corporate body to look at how we can best address that. We just recently, I think in the last week of the session, finalised a paper – we’ve probably left no stone unturned into how we increase that offering.

“So certainly, progress has been made, but there’s always going to be that fundamental challenge about the requirements of work that requires you to be somewhere else all week.”

Ms Johnstone also hoped that creche facilities in parliament might be expanded but said that the Care Inspectorate enforce a maximum of three hours a day over a maximum of three days a week. She said that any flexibility on this by using some other accommodation in parliament has proven “very difficult indeed”.

Commonwealth audit

Her role has meant stepping back from party politics and maintaining a strict impartiality. She said that is a really important aspect, as also is being chair of the parliamentary bureau which decides the programme of business for the next fortnight, representing parliament at home and abroad – as well as meeting school pupils who come to visit the parliament.

During the last term The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association asked all Commonwealth parliaments to undertake an audit to determine how gender sensitive the ruling bodies were, and determine what barriers existed to having a truly inclusive parliament. Ms Johnstone was pleased that the work was carried out, explaining it took a year and involved contributions from all political parties as well as academic experts.

This audit resulted in 34 recommendations to make parliament as representative as it can be – and some of these recommendations have already been put into the standing orders which govern the processes at parliament. For example the Presiding Officer team is always a mix of men and women. There will no longer be single sex committees.

One of the “bad boys’ of the last parliamentary term, Douglas Ross, a former Scottish Conservative Party leader, was thrown out of the chamber on two occasions for his behaviour. But asked about this and whether she maintained any cordiality with Mr Ross (who has since stepped down from parliament) Ms Johnstone offered a simple answer: “My relationships with members across the session have been very very positive.”

She said that as a Green MSP – and councillor before that in Edinburgh – she has always been a member of a minority party. For that to work, and to get anything meaningful accomplished there was always a need to “work collaboratively”.

Change

Part of the Presiding Officer role is to travel, and Ms Johnstone has made visits to Tartan Day in New York followed by side trips to Ottawa to learn from other democracies. She said that one of the many things she has learned during these trips was that in Ottawa the parliament has a daily question session which she feels “would be well worth exploring”.

Ms Johnstone said: “I have written to the procedures committee throughout my session and asked that that they have a look at this. There are things that are within my power to change, and I’ve certainly worked hard this session to encourage concise questions and responses.

“And at the heart of that, very much want people to be able to “bottom out” issues, but that is all about making sure that more members have an opportunity to put questions to the government on a daily and on a weekly basis.”

One of the criticisms of the SNP in particular during the last session was that too many questions were already committed to paper. But that in itself is not something the Presiding Officer has control over. Ms Johnstone said: “The chair is not generally responsible for the content of members contributions. The chair must be aware of getting involved in any political debate – and making sure that members are abiding by our standing orders.”

But the Presiding Officer did confirm that she and her deputies liked debate to be as “free-flowing” as possible – and “courteous and respectful”.

Now that job will be down to someone else from Thursday afternoon onwards.

And as for her own future Ms Johnstone said it will be nice to thave the time to catch her breath. She said: “It’s fair to say there’s a few organisations that I’ll I’m looking forward to doing some some work with, and I’ll continue to be involved with campaigns that brought me into politics in the first place, but very much looking forward to catching up with friends and family.”

Alison Johnstone was previously councillor for Meadows/Morningside and first decided to run for political office when developers threatened to build on pitches at Meggetland.