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Presiding Officer

Presiding Officer to give Scottish citizenship lecture

087/2006 | 19 November 2006 

The Presiding Officer George Reid MSP is to deliver the Stevenson lecture at the University of Glasgow on Thursday 23 November.

The lecture is his first following his appointment as an Honorary Professor with the School of Law in the University’s Faculty of Law, Business and Social Sciences.

He brings to his Glasgow professorship almost 40 years of “hands on” experience as a politician at Westminster, Holyrood and the Council of Europe; as a print and broadcast journalist and producer; and as an international civil servant working in wars, disasters and post-communist countries.

In the lecture Mr Reid will address the issue of “Citizenship in Scotland ”.

He recalls that, eight years ago, the Consultative Steering Group (of which he was a member) claimed that the parliamentary procedures and practice which they recommended would “set the tone for the future of Scottish politics”.

He concludes that institutional change does not, by itself, bring cultural change.

"The CSG did not fully appreciate the extent of social-economic change in Scotland over the past 30 years. We were all shaped by the ‘democratic deficit’ of Scotland having a government imposed on us by a government for which we did not vote. We looked for institutional answers.

"Today we have a highly educated, less deferential, electorate living in an internet age. They are deeply engaged in issues but disconnected from political institutions shaped in an older, more leisurely age.

"The two things politicians desire most are trust and turnout.

"That means returning real power both to the people and to the Parliament. Devolution was never meant to stop at Edinburgh .”

Mr Reid will review the progress made by the Scottish Parliament over its first and second sessions — “a time of getting the Parliament set up, of getting a grip on the Holyrood building, then moving in and moving on” — and will outline his ideas on how, in its third session, it may turn towards the “sharing of power” identified by the CSG as one of its fundamental principles.

Mr Reid’s new advisory and teaching role with the University starts immediately and will expand once he retires as MSP for Ochil and Presiding Officer for the Scottish Parliament in May next year.

The Presiding Officer’s lecture, which is free, will be held at 6pm on Thursday 23 November in the Sir Charles Wilson Building, on the corner of Gibson Street and University Avenue, and will be followed by a discussion session.

Background Notes

The Presiding Officer’s lecture will be the fourth in a series of five citizenship lectures organised by Professor Andrew Lockyer and leading British political theorist and Stevenson Visiting Professor of the University of Glasgow , Sir Bernard Crick.

The series was launched by Professor Crick on 5 October with a lecture on ‘Civic Republicanism and Citizenship: the challenge for today’. Professor Crick called for a more active citizenship to counter what he describes as the passivity of the consumer society and warned that: “we are in danger of losing the desire and ability to be active citizens...”

All the lectures focus on the theme of ‘Citizenship: the concept and principles of active citizenship in history, law, education and community identities’. The last Stevenson lecture in the current series, “Islam and Citizenship”, will be delivered by Professor Mona Siddiqui on Thursday 7 December.

Stevenson lectures are free and open to all without ticket. Each lecture will be followed by questions and discussion and there will be an opportunity to informally meet the speakers at a reception after the lecture.

For further information, the Scottish Parliament media contact is:

Richard Holligan: 07879 253130 RNID Typetalk calls welcome
email: richard.holligan@scottish.parliament.uk

For further information on the lectures, please contact:

Martin Shannon, Glasgow University Press Office on 0141 330 8593.

For public information enquiries, contact: 0131 348 5000 or 0845 278 1999 (local call rate)
Text phone: 0131 348 3415 RNID Typetalk calls welcome
email: sp.info@scottish.parliament.uk

Visit our website at: www.scottish.parliament.uk