Blog: The new Parliament is not business as usual

Blog by Lucy Higginson, David Hume Institute

May 2021

With sanitiser stations, record postal votes and social distancing stretching queues to vote long into the distance, the Scottish Parliament 2021 election was very much not business as usual. The next term of Parliament won’t be either.

The 2021 Scottish Parliament election was billed as being one of the most diverse yet. History was made twice in Glasgow with Pam Duncan-Glancy being the first wheelchair user and Kaukab Stewart and Pam Gosal being the first two women of colour to be elected to the Scottish Parliament. Also striking was the number of international perspectives from candidates who had left Scotland as young children but returned to settle as adults.  

Pam Duncan-Glancy’s 45-minute wait outside of the counting hall when security didn’t believe that she was a candidate brought home the level of change still needed.  In the last session, Jeremy Balfour was the only MSP with a physical disability.  Pam, Jeremy and Kaukab are trailblazers but Parliament is still not representative of wider society. 

In our 2020 analysis of Scottish Parliament less than 2% of MSPs were from a minority ethnic background and of these, all were educated at fee-paying schools. As we analyse the 2021 intake there is a shift, but there is still more to do. 

There is other good news: turnout and engagement in the election was high. There were big changes at Holyrood this year as a number of longstanding MSPs stood down. Many of their replacements only entered politics in recent years and come with a wide range of life experience which will help add to diversity of thought.

As we welcome new and returning MSPs, Scotland must unite to build forward better from the pandemic. Our latest research shows that 3 in 4 people want to take action by being kinder to one another. People are helping neighbours and making more conscious choices with money. Through research conversations apathy with politics and constitutional arguments was passionately voiced. Despite that apathy, high turnout in this election shows high engagement.

Community featured strongly in acceptance speeches, along with sign language from one candidate to send a message to her dad. Listening and learning from the communities they serve will be critical for politicians of all persuasions and they will need to work together for Scotland’s future.

As we emerge from Covid, it leaves us with stark inequalities. Diversity of thought will be critical to recovery.  New decision makers at Holyrood are an indication of progress but much, much more needs to be done for Scotland’s economy to benefit from increasing diversity in the labour market and wider society. There is a clear link between high levels of equality and high productivity in countries like Denmark and this should not be ignored.

We will be publishing a full briefing on diversity in the Scottish Parliament later in the week, once all the data is analysed. (Update: read the briefing here).