Hello and welcome to the Political Party. Today's guest is Jackie Bailey, who's been on the show before, she's a brilliant guest, but she's here today specifically to talk about her role on the Scottish Parliament Committee on the Scottish Government handling of harassment complaints.

That Committee published its report the other day. They concluded by majority decision, and we talk about that, but the First Minister Nicholas Dungeon did mislead the Scottish Parliament.

I've put a link to that report in the blurb or the show notes, what have you want to call them. So wherever you get your podcasts, click on the no element of this show and the link is there.

I've also placed a link to the other reports that came out this week. This is the report by Mr Hamilton QC, the independent advisor on the Scottish Ministerial Code.

He is completely independent. He's nonparticle, political. That report is there. Should you wish to read that as well. And he concluded that the First Minister did not breach the Ministerial Code. Now there are loads of other conclusions that run through both reports.

So they're both worth reading in full, although I am aware that last week I put the strategic defense intelligence and foreign policy review up.

And that was a heck of a read. So well done to any of you that did that. I don't want this show to become one that's got homework and a reading list and you feel that you need to read that to understand it.

You don't need to read those things because Jackie is here to take us all through it. Now, of course, you can't take politics out of these discussions, but Jackie served on that committee.

I think it's fair to say that she was one of the more impressive members of the committee. Certainly, if you watch some of the televised proceedings was very good at holding people who came to that committee to account and interrogating them and getting answers.

So I'm interested in her personal experience of being on that committee. What runs through both reports is a real frustration of the Hamilton report and of this committee report of not being able to get the information they wanted.

So we talk about that. How hard is it to read your conclusion on such an important thing on a committee that this is the most scrutinized committee in the history of the Scottish Parliament, probably, when you can't get the information you need.

So how hard is it to do that job and the reality of doing that job, especially as on a committee.

There's a group of you, you probably broadly get on, even though you're split along party lines and how those divisions play out what sort of conversations you have, how do you prepare for those big sessions with people like Alex Sammond, Nicholas,

and if you watched any of the exchanges, you'll have seen the relationship or the interaction between specifically the first minister, Nicholas, and Jackie Bailey's a member of that committee.

The first minister interacted with him in a way that she didn't interact, and seemed to interact with other members of that committee. So we talk about that.

So this is a really good in the round analysis. Well, and Jackie just sharing her personal experience of being really close to the central all this stuff, trying to get the information, trying to reach conclusions on the best available evidence and the frustrations with the whole process.

Now, obviously Jackie is a Labour politician and the Labour Party do not agree with the SMP on a number of things, one big thing in particular.

And we talk about the politics of that of how hard it is for all science to discharge their duties in a situation like this without being tempted towards the politics of it.

Now, how much you can ever truly honestly say hand on heart, you can enter into this without any political motive or without your politics somehow coming into it is a is a moot point, but Jackie is really, really good at talking us through the experience been on the committee, the committee's experience and a fair summary really of

have relationship with other members of the committee and everything played out so the whole load of things going on.

Typically, with this issue with these individuals, this doesn't look like it's the end of it because just as we hit record, it emerged that Alex Hammond has announced he intends to take the permanent secretary to court and the daily record court.

So that broke just as we started talking. So we talk about that a bit at the start, we also addressed the fact that it wasn't that long ago that has spoke to Jackie, but so much has happened since.

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