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That is partly what the citizens panel was doing. It had 19 people who had lived experience of their own and had not previously been engaged. I imagine that they were trying to get us to consider how to find a way to access that resource more generally when we pursue our work.

Interestingly, similar fly-on-the-wall documentaries have been done in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. They have been not about the party politics but about the clerks, the Speaker, the engineers and the maintenance and security crews. They have been about how the mechanics of Parliament operate, not about the political business that goes on in a party political sense. Even for people who are involved in politics, seeing the workings of other Parliaments is very engaging, because we get to learn how they work.

I am interested in the idea of a bus, which Ronnie Paterson mentioned. The report contains a couple of points in relation to that. I want to understand what its purpose would be. I do not want to call it a travelling museum, but the bus could be a travelling exhibit that was used as an educational tool to show people how Parliament works.

However, the report also says that the bus could be a place where the Parliament could

“talk to people about their issues”.

That presumes that there would be people travelling with the bus who could do that. Did you mean that people could talk in the sense of active political engagement and that MSPs from different parties would be part of that as the bus visited different communities, or do you see it more involving education officials from the Parliament who would be there to explain the function of Parliament and how it works? I am trying to draw a distinction between those two functions.

Alternatively, did you intend it to cover both functions? Would the bus be in a place for long enough to have some sessions about the mechanics of how the Parliament works and some sessions where it could be a focal point for the public, who sometimes find it difficult to engage with politicians, to come and do so? In the modern world, we are mindful, of course, of the need to consider the security aspects for both the public and the politicians and others who would be involved. What do you see the function of the bus being when it is out and about?

I am tempted to say that that might be how you do things in the Scottish National Party, but it is certainly not how we do things in my party. [Laughter.]

Okay—that is helpful. After that, there is a recommendation about a web page.

The third section is on public involvement in parliamentary business. Gillian Ruane has been sitting patiently. Gillian and John will lead on this section.

Thank you very much. Ronnie Paterson, Paul MacDonald, Gillian Ruane, John Sultman and Maria Schwarz, thank you all for joining us. I thank you and your colleagues for participating, and I know that your kind thanks to the many officials who were involved in assisting with the process will have been noted and appreciated. We look forward to discussing the report and to having further consultation and discussion on it with our colleagues. I hope that you will feel that, in due course, it produces results that you feel are worth while.

We will now move into private session.

Is Paul Sweeney or David Torrance prompted to ask any questions on this section?

Thank you. That brings us to the final section of the report, which is “Communication and Education”. Paul MacDonald and Gillian Ruane will lead on this section.

I am struck by the conflation of the Parliament and the Government. Sometimes, people in the Government might cynically think that the Parliament is part of the Government, but it is not.

It is interesting that, on reflection, most of the communications that people receive are from the Government—for example, they might be mailings to households relating to the pandemic, when the Government felt that it had to communicate, or national Government priorities—or from individual MSPs, potentially by way of an annual report. Such reports should not be party political, because the Parliament does not fund such things, but I know that some members find it difficult for those not to be just a collection of photos of things that they have done, given that there is a limit on what they can describe about their activities.

People also receive leaflets from political parties, which are, of course, much more pejorative. Given that we live in a United Kingdom with two Parliaments, those are often directed not at anything in particular in terms of institutions, but at politics elsewhere.

I am struck by the fact that, through the exercise that you were all involved with, you very much felt that the blurring of the lines between the Parliament and the Government affected how you thought about the Parliament as an institution, separate from the Government, with which the public can engage directly. Is that correct?

Welcome, everyone. This is our first opportunity to talk to you. I was very pleased to join the group when all its members looked rather nervously at one another over their first something to eat at the start of their work. However, I know that the work has been a tremendous experience in which everybody has really found their feet and that they have enjoyed it enormously.

Before we go into a discussion of all of that work, we will go around the table and allow everyone to introduce themselves.

I am Jackson Carlaw, and I am the convener of the committee.