Holyrood Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone has confirmed rules to clamp down on public gallery protests – including six-month bans for those who interrupt proceedings.
First Minister’s Questions and other key meetings of the Scottish Parliament have been marred by protests in the public gallery, namely from climate activists.
Ms Johnstone had announced tighter rules would be introduced to halt the protests taking place.
In a letter to MSPs, the Presiding Officer has unveiled rules to “protect the integrity of chamber business”.
Read more: Mobile phones to be banned from Holyrood's public gallery
The new arrangements “will come into force immediately”, Ms Johnstone added.
Anyone booking tickets for First Minister’s Questions will now need to provide their name and postal address while group bookings will need the details of everyone in the party to be handed over. Currently, only a lead name is required.
Every person picking up their ticket for FMQs will need to show identification that confirms their name, while all mobile electronic devices will be stored in a secure locker prior to entry to FMQs after many of the protests were filmed by others in the public gallery.
Ms Johnstone said that “anyone wilfully disrupting business will face a six-month exclusion from the gallery”.
Read more: Serial protesters disrupt Humza Yousaf's debut FMQs
But she added that “school groups booked through MSPs, education or visitor services will, however, be exempt from these requirements”.
The Presiding Officer added: “It is deeply regrettable that the Parliament has had to take this action.
“Over the past 25 years, we have prided ourselves on our openness to the public and the ease with which visitors have access to parliamentary business.
“However, a small, but persistent number of protesters have brought us to the point where increased measures must be introduced.
“I will review the effectiveness of the new arrangements with the SPCB after next week’s FMQs and, if necessary, consider the implementation of further measures to continue to protect parliamentary business from disruption.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel