Take parliament on tour, says Presiding Officer
SCOTLAND’S politicians could go on tour at taxpayers’ expense as part of a radical shake-up by the new Presiding Officer.
Ken Macintosh, the former Labour leadership hopeful appointed to the speaker’s chair on Thursday, has disclosed that he wants to explore proposals for a temporary relocation from Edinburgh.
The last time the parliament moved was in 2002 when it went to Aberdeen University for a fortnight.
That was to allow the Church of Scotland to move back into the parliament’s temporary base on The Mound for its General Assembly, and cost an estimated £145,000 – excluding MSPs’ travelling expenses and hotel bills.
With inflation, and the extra responsibilities at Holyrood that are set to increase staffing numbers, a new tour could be considerably more expensive.
The Aberdeen trip – which was preceded by a similar relocation to Glasgow in 2000 – was treated as a junket by many of those who attended.
But speaking to BBC Radio Scotland, Mr Macintosh said: ‘I am very, very keen to remind the people of Scotland that it is their parliament: it’s not the MSPs’ parliament.
‘One of the most successful things we ever did was when we moved the whole parliament to Aberdeen and then to Glasgow.’
Mr Macintosh added: ‘These are the sort of things that I would like to explore.
‘It’s very easy for parliaments to become institutionalised. It’s already known as Holyrood, it has become an Edinburgh institution.
‘Well, it doesn’t belong just to Edinburgh. It belongs to everybody in Scotland so would you not like to see it in Inverness?’