Scots Churches are warning MSPs against proposed changes to their own rule book, intended to guard against corruption, which are being voted on today.
DOUGLAS FRASER and ROBBIE DINWOODIE
SCOTS Churches are warning MSPs against proposed changes to their own rule book, intended to guard against corruption, which are being voted on today.
The joint parliamentary team representing most Scottish denominations, though not the Catholic Church, yesterday took the unusual step of telling MSPs they are failing to live up to the principles of openness on which the Scottish Parliament was founded.
The Churches were strongly influential in the political deals that led to devolution.
MSPs will vote today on revisions to their Code of Conduct, which remove some of the obligations they have had over the past eight years. The churches' chief representative at Holyrood, the Rev Graham Blount, said this is being done with little public consultation.
He said that key principles are being removed from the code where they are obligations, and are now only to be seen as "aspirations".
MSPs will still have to declare interests that could conflict with their work at Holyrood, links with lobbying and relations between MSPs.
However, the churches are concerned that the proposed code of conduct only once mentions an obligation to constituents, and that is to require a duty of confidentiality.
Mr Blount has told MSPs: "It is surely an obligation, and more than an aspirational ideal, that MSPs should act in the interests of the Scottish people and the Scottish Parliament, be accessible to the people of the areas for which they have been elected to serve, and represent their interests conscientiously, be accountable for their decisions and actions to the Scottish people, consider issues on their merits, taking account of the views of others".
He said that not only would these principles be diluted by today's vote, but they can be changed in future by Holyrood's standards committee, without a vote of the whole Parliament being required.
