Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament (Scottish Gaelic: Pàrlamaid na h-Alba [ˈpʰaːrˠl̪ˠəmɪtʲ nə ˈhal̪ˠapə]; Scots: Scots Pairlament)[1][2][3] is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. Located in the Holyrood area of the capital city, Edinburgh, it is frequently referred to by the metonym Holyrood.[4] The Parliament is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), elected for five-year terms[5] under the regionalised form of additional member system (MMP): 73 MSPs represent individual geographical constituencies elected by the plurality (first-past-the-post) system, while a further 56 are returned as list members from eight additional member regions. Each region elects seven party-list MSPs. Each region elects 15 to 17 MSPs in total.[6] The most recent general election to the Parliament was held on 6 May 2021, with the Scottish National Party winning a plurality.
This article is about the devolved legislature. For the national legislature before 1707, see Parliament of Scotland.
Scottish Parliament
- Pàrlamaid na h-Alba
- Scots Pairlament
- Pàrlamaid na h-Alba
- Scots Pairlament
12 May 1999
- Parliament of Scotland (pre-union)
- Parliament of the United Kingdom (pre-devolution)
since 13 May 2021
since 8 May 2024
since 8 May 2024
since 8 May 2024
- Douglas Ross, Conservative
since 5 August 2020 - Anas Sarwar, Labour
since 27 February 2021 - Patrick Harvie, Green
since 22 September 2008 - Lorna Slater, Green
since 1 August 2019 - Alex Cole-Hamilton, Liberal Democrat
since 20 August 2021 - Ash Regan, Alba
since 28 October 2023
129
Government (63)
Opposition (65)
- Conservatives (31)
- Labour (22)[a]
- Greens (7)
- Liberal Democrats (4)
- Alba Party (1)
Other (1)
- Audit
- Equal Opportunities
- Europe and External Relations
- Finance
- Procedures
- Public Petitions
- Standards and Public Appointments
- Subordinate Legislation
- Economy, Energy and Tourism
- Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture
- Health and Sport
- Justice
- Local Government and Communities
- Rural Affairs and Environment
- Scottish Parliamentary Pensions Scheme
- Transport, Infrastructure,
- Committee on The Scottish Government's Handling of Harassment Complaints against Former Ministers
- Climate Change
The original Parliament of Scotland was the national legislature of the independent Kingdom of Scotland and existed from the early 13th century until the Kingdom of Scotland merged with the Kingdom of England under the Acts of Union 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.[7] As a consequence, the Parliament of Scotland ceased to exist, while the Parliament of England, which sat at Westminster, was subsumed into the Parliament of Great Britain.[7] In practice, all of the traditions, procedures, and standing orders of the English parliament were retained, with the addition of Scottish members in both the Commons and Lords.
Following a referendum in 1997, in which the Scottish electorate voted for devolution, the powers of the devolved legislature were specified by the Scotland Act 1998. The Act delineates the legislative competence of the Parliament – the areas in which it can make laws – by explicitly specifying powers that are "reserved" to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Scottish Parliament has the power to legislate in all areas that are not explicitly reserved to Westminster.[8] The UK Parliament retains the ability to amend the terms of reference of the Scottish Parliament, and can extend or reduce the areas in which it can make laws.[9] The first meeting of the new Parliament took place on 12 May 1999.[10]
The legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament has been amended numerous times since then. The Scotland Act 2012 and Scotland Act 2016 expanded the Parliament's powers, especially over taxation and welfare. The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 is intended to constrain the capacity of the devolved institutions to use their regulatory autonomy[11] and restrict the exercise of devolved competences[16] by imposing requirements of market non-discrimination and mutual recognition.[20] Its effect is to undermine the freedom of action, regulatory competence and authority of the Parliament, limiting its ability to make different economic or social choices to those made by Westminster.[21]
Elections for the Scottish Parliament were amongst the first in Britain to use a Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) system.[94] The system is a regionalized form of MMP, known as the additional member system (AMS) of proportional representation in Britain. Under the system, voters are given two votes: one for a specific candidate and one for a political party.[95] The one vote is used to elect the local member; the other is grouped with votes from other districts in the region to compose party-proportional representation within the region. (There are no overall levelling seats.)
Of the 129 MSPs, 73 are elected to represent first past the post constituencies and are known as "Constituency MSPs".[6] Voters choose one member to represent the constituency, and the member with most votes is returned as a constituency MSP. The 73 Scottish Parliament constituencies shared the same boundaries as the UK Parliament constituencies in Scotland, prior to the 2005 reduction in the number of Scottish MPs, with the exception of Orkney and Shetland which each return their own constituency MSP. Currently, the average Scottish Parliament constituency comprises 55,000 electors.[96] Given the geographical distribution of population in Scotland, this results in constituencies of a smaller area in the Central Lowlands, where the bulk of Scotland's population live, and much larger constituency areas in the north and west of the country, which have a low population density. The island archipelagos of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles comprise a much smaller number of electors, due to their dispersed population.[96] If a constituency MSP resigns from Parliament, this triggers a by-election in his or her constituency, where a replacement MSP is returned by the plurality system.[94]
The remaining 56 MSPs, called "List MSPs", are elected by an additional members system, which seeks to make the overall results more proportional, countering any distortions in the constituency results. Seven list MSPs are elected from each of eight electoral regions, of which constituencies are sub-divisions:[97]
Each political party draws up a list of candidates standing in each electoral region, from which the list MSPs are elected. Independents can also stand in regions, in which case they are treated as a one-person "list". Candidates can stand for both a constituency and a list; should they be elected for a constituency, this takes precedence and they are skipped over when apportioning seats from their party list.[98] If a list MSP later leaves the Parliament, the next person on the resigning MSPs' party's list takes the seat.[99] Should a list MSP leave their party, however, they retain their seat and are not replaced. If an independent list MSP leaves the Parliament, they are not replaced and the seat is left vacant until the next general election.[100]
The total number of seats in the Parliament is allocated to parties proportionally to the number of votes received in the second vote of the ballot using the d'Hondt method. For example, to determine who is awarded the first list seat, the number of list votes cast for each party is divided by one plus the number of seats the party won in the region (at this point just constituency seats). The party with the highest quotient is awarded the seat, which is then added to its constituency seats in allocating the second seat. This is repeated iteratively until all available list seats are allocated.[98] As the allocation of seats to parties mirrors the popular vote, it is commonplace for the most successful party in the election not to win an outright majority of the seats, thereby requiring them to seek some form and level of cross-party support for their initiatives in government. Nonetheless, the 2011 election saw the SNP become the first–and to date, only–party to win a majority government.[101]
As in the House of Commons, a number of qualifications apply to being an MSP. Such qualifications were introduced under the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 and the British Nationality Act 1981. Specifically, members must be over the age of 18[102] and must be a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, one of the countries in the Commonwealth of Nations, a citizen of a British overseas territory, or a European Union citizen resident in the UK.[103] Members of the police and the armed forces are disqualified from sitting in the Scottish Parliament as elected MSPs, and similarly, civil servants and members of foreign legislatures are disqualified.[103] An individual may not sit in the Scottish Parliament if he or she is judged to be insane under the terms of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003.[103] There is no legal prohibition on holding a dual mandate, sitting in both the Scottish Parliament and the House of Commons. However, while several members of the original Scottish Parliament held seats at Westminster, it is now rare; since 2011, only one MSP has served concurrently as an MP for a significant period of time.[104][105]
