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I do. I cannot speak for everyone, but, having observed political parties—and not just the two that I have been on—I think that, instead of having a member put into the chair by their party, having them put there by the Parliament would add a layer of strength, because they would feel that they were doing the job for the Parliament rather than for their party.

I think that it would add legitimacy, yes. It is not that conveners are not legitimate. It goes back to Karen Adam’s point: we are all elected, and we are following a system that is proportional. I think that everybody understands that. However, from what I have seen during this session, I would argue that the balance of scrutiny is off. As a Parliament, we need to think about how we do better on that. We could use a secret ballot, and there have been some good suggestions about excluding certain people from voting. Some parties favour loyalty over competence. That is not true in all cases, but I have observed that myself, and we perhaps need to think about that as a Parliament.

I agree with some of that. I just want to address the point about the smaller parties. It is a fair point, but if there is a party with five or six seats, that party does not have the capacity to sit on every committee anyway. There would be an understanding that the smaller parties would not be represented on every committee.

As I said, I am currently sitting on a committee of five, which is the first time that I have ever done that, and I am surprised at how effectively we work. In that instance, the only party that is not represented is the Lib Dems.

We have talked a bit about how party representation in the Parliament might be quite different after the next election. Does the Parliament need to reflect on what it will do with independents, or with somebody like me, whose party only manages to get one, two or three people elected? Those members would not be a political party for the intents and purposes of the Parliament—they would not be entitled to a place on a committee, just as I am not entitled to one. Expertise or capacity might not be brought into the committee system if we stick strictly to the proportionality basis. I think that smaller committees are more effective.

In general terms, it is clear to me from the committees that I have been on that the witnesses are usually those who we would call the usual suspects—you can almost predict who will appear. I agree that we are hearing too much from certain people.

I also beseech committees to recognise that not every witness who appears is a professional witness in a paid role. Some of them are volunteers, as we saw with the women’s rights campaigning. They were volunteer groups; they did not have the capacity to respond and to turn around a written statement in one or two days, which they were asked to do. We need to take that into account.

The conveners are instrumental in the process. During the passage of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, the selection of witnesses who were chosen appeared to be skewed towards those who supported the legislation. It was felt that some of the other groups were not given the same time to speak and that, when they did speak, they were closed down much more quickly. There were other groups that wanted to come and speak—for instance, there was a group of women who would very much be considered to have lived experience because they were victims of male violence. They wanted to give evidence but were told by the committee that they were not welcome to do so. Then, about 12 weeks later, they were told, “Well, you can put in a written statement.”

As a Parliament, we need to be sensitive to volunteer members of the public who want to engage in democracy and about how we treat them. That was not a very good representation—

I am not sure that I am going to be good at answering that question, because my experience of that is based on what I saw in the SNP. Parties should choose someone who they think is going to be effective and independently minded and who will do a good job. I am not sure that that is always the case.

I agree with much of what has been said by colleagues. The performance of committees can be excellent, and this committee has carried out some really good work. When it comes to inquiries—I was on the other end of one, because I was a minister at the time—last session’s Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee’s post-legislative scrutiny of the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 was very hard hitting. It had a high level of buy-in from the public and made a good impact.

I have been on a bit of a journey through the Parliament, as I have sat on eight committees and have been in different political parties, so I have seen both sides and I possibly have a slightly different view of things now than I had previously. Generally speaking, it seems to me that there is a strong correlation between a committee having a strong-minded, independent convener and the performance of that committee. We see that during this session as well. Some committees stand out as doing excellent work in holding the Government to account while others do not. We have had some examples of very poor practice in committees. During this session, the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee failed, in my view, in its scrutiny of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. I can go into that in more detail, but to do so might not be appropriate for this question. I can come back to it, convener, if that would be useful to the committee.

We are all very busy, and the Parliament as a whole delegates the responsibility for scrutiny to the subject committees, particularly when it comes to important pieces of legislation. If the Parliament does not feel confident that that scrutiny has been carried out effectively—I believe that to have been the case in the instance that I just referred to, in which the reputation of the Parliament was tarnished both internally and with the public outside—there is an opportunity. We need to have a better way of assessing things whereby we go back and look at whether they worked and, if they did not, at how we can make sure that such things do not happen again.

I agree with the comments that have been made about the need for committees to be smaller. When it comes to the committee that I sit on at the moment, many of our witnesses have said that capacity is an issue. I am talking about commissioners who are doing important work and writing reports, which the public pay for and which have an impact on the public life of Scotland. They say that no committee has scrutinised their report or called them in to talk about it. The way to address that is to have fewer members on committees. The committee that I sit on has five members and is considered to be quite small, yet it is working very effectively. None of us really knew each other before, but we are getting stuck in. I therefore agree with what Rhoda Grant said on that issue.

When I was in the Scottish National Party, I was on three committees at one point. I do not think that any member of the Parliament should sit on three committees—that is far too many.

I think that it has, for that very reason. If the committee that I sit on was set up in the same way as others have been, the main parties would want proportionality. That is fine, but there may be other instances where that requirement could be relaxed. The committee has been set up for six months to conduct a focused inquiry. As Ross Greer noted, the finance committee suggested that the committee be set up to conduct a short-term inquiry with a focused outcome. Perhaps much smaller committees are better at doing that, because they can work faster and are more agile, and because conveners do not have to ensure that 11 people have asked a question, which can get a bit much at times.

To go back to your initial question, convener, I would say the complete opposite to Douglas Ross: yes, yes and yes.

I have a different view on this now. I completely understand why the Government and party leaders want to control who leads the committees that they are entitled to run. However, if we look at it from a strength-of-scrutiny perspective, we might perhaps do things differently.

Whether or not we agree, it can be argued that there is a perception out there that party appointees are overseeing scrutiny. We just did a quick calculation; it looks like, in this session, around 75 per cent of the legislation going to committees is Government legislation. The Parliament, I believe, needs to think carefully about the balance between the executive and the legislature. I would argue that we have not got that balance right; indeed, I gave a couple of examples of that earlier.

Ross Greer is quite right. The conveners get away with such decisions only if the committee allows them to.

I agree with what Rhoda said about the Public Audit Committee. It is a key committee. Obviously, all the committees are important, but the big ones are generally considered to be the Finance and Public Administration Committee, the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, the Education, Children and Young People Committee and the Criminal Justice Committee. I would say that there is perhaps a role for a post-legislative committee. If one were set up, it would probably be seen as one of the most important ones.