Labour promise to end SNP 'culture of secrecy, sleaze and cover up' with Holyrood reforms

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Scottish Labour is promising to clean up Holyrood by giving voters the right to sack MSPs mid-term and banning double jobbing.Party leader Anas Sarwar said the suite of reforms would end the “secrecy, sleaze and cover up” he claimed had marked the SNP’s time in office.The changes, announced at a press conference in Edinburgh, follow claims Holyrood needs an overhaul after two decades of devolution.Part of the package includes electing committee conveners and beefing up the ministerial code of conduct, both of which could be pushed through by MSPs.Other measures, such as giving MSPs almost effective legal immunity from raising issues in the chamber, are legally more problematic.This plan is based on giving MSPs ‘parliamentary privilege’, as is the case at Westminster for MPs, but Sarwar conceded a change of law would be needed to bring it into effect.Another element of his ‘Stronger Holyrood’ package is backing a so-called ‘recall’ law to enable voters to bin MSPs if their behaviour had fallen below acceptable standards.He specifically cited a Westminster recall law which empowers voters to act if an MP has been convicted of an offence and sentenced, or suspended from the Commons for at least 10 sitting days.The idea has gained traction at Holyrood after former SNP finance secretary Derek Mackay clung on as an MSP despite being found to have pestered a 16 year old boy with texts.Other measures include extending freedom of information law and banning second jobs, the latter of which had been pursued by former Labour MSP Neil Findlay.He said: “We have allowed ourselves to get into this grip of an exceptionalism that somehow says 'UK structures are broken, the UK Parliament is broken, democracy is broken, Westminster is