Holyrood wraps up for summer recess as MSPs keen to see back of tough year

From the Supreme Court ruling in November that the Scottish Parliament did not have the legislative competence to hold an independence referendum without Westminster's permission, to the announcement that controversial Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) will be scrapped just before Holyrood closed its doors for summer, the 2022-23 session has been, quite literally, non-stop.

There was the brief February recess which saw the shock resignation of Nicola Sturgeon from the role as first minister, triggering an intense and sometimes bruising leadership contest for the SNP, the first played out in public in decades.

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Humza Yousaf took over the top job with just three months of the parliamentary year left to go, notching up a number of historic firsts as he did so, appointing a new Cabinet and tipping the gender balance of the ministerial team to a majority of women for the first time.

In April, former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell was arrested, and later released without charge, just four days after Yousaf won the contest over fellow MSPs Kate Forbes and Ash Regan.

MSP Colin Beattie, then the party's treasurer, would also be arrested as part of the finance probe Operation Branchform, followed by Sturgeon on June 11. Both were released without charge. 

While very few people in Scottish politics saw the resignation of Sturgeon coming, or the extent to which the SNP’s finance probe and the arrests made would dominate the headlines, MSPs were quite visibly happy to see the end of the term and to head off into their constituencies over summer.

“It feels like it did when I used to teach at the end of term, and not only are we sort of like cleaning up our offices and getting ready, but obviously it's a time of reflection, looking back, and taking stock,” Kaukab Stewart, SNP MSP for Glasgow Kelvin told this week’s episode of the Holyrood Weekly podcast.

Elsewhere, one Cabinet Secretary could be seen pumping his fists in the air when asked if they were looking forward to six weeks of summer, while a backbench MSP excitedly told The National: “It’s recess!”

However, one less optimistic minister pointed out that “it just never stops” when asked if they were looking forward to a break in the coming weeks.

The chamber closed just after 3.30pm, and the Queensberry House Lounge in the parliament opened early as staffers and politicians finished clearing out their offices.

“Most of the MSPs were straight out the door,” one politician said, adding that many were desperate to have a break after a year of change and tension.

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Even the First Minister appeared relieved that there was no media scrum to greet him after FMQs, as quite a few of the reporters were on holiday already and attention was focused on Sturgeon and John Swinney's appearance at the UK Covid-19 inquiry.

Instead, he congratulated Glasgow MSP Bill Kidd on winning an award for his support for a blood cancer charity in the Garden Lobby.

This parliamentary year was a long one - it saw the emergence of a group of SNP rebels following the vote on Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill, who have become more vocal in criticising the SNP leadership on a number of issues, such as HPMAs.

It also saw the UK Government block those reforms, which would have allowed self-identification for transgender Scots applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), and later Westminster would throw a spanner in the works of the deposit return scheme by refusing to grant an exemption for glass, which had been on the books for many years.

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Holyrood, of course, not only saw a change of first ministers, but a change of monarchs following Queen Elizabeth’s death at Balmoral in Aberdeenshire in September.

While a number of proclamations were held across Scotland ahead of King Charles's plush coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey on May 6, it also prompted a conversation on whether or not Scotland should have an elected head of state if it becomes an independent country.

The National’s front page on Charles’s big day didn’t follow the trend of fluff and pomp of every other newspaper in the UK, but proclaimed: “No, the Union is not happy and glorious.”

Let's not forget, former Tory prime minister Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget which almost completely crashed the economy in September last year, which led to Tory leadership contest loser Rishi Sunak being appointed to the top job in Number 10.

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And, despite that change in leadership in Westminster, relations between the two governments are more fraught than ever, with SNP ministers and Scottish Secretary Alister Jack rowing in the press over repeated attacks on devolution.

Jack, of course, blocked Scotland’s gender reforms from being given Royal Assent, and would later put certain conditions on the deposit return scheme, leading ministers to delay it until at least 2025. Circularity Scotland, the industry-led firm set up to be in charge of the scheme, appointed administrators shortly afterwards.

The final weeks of the term saw the sad death of legendary SNP politician and independence campaigner Winnie Ewing at the age of 93, with the flags lowered at half-mast and emotional tributes paid to her in the chamber.

It came shortly after reports that her son, MSP Fergus Ewing, could face losing the SNP whip after voting against the Scottish Government and Greens minister Lorna Slater during a no confidence vote.

We also saw the fourth white paper in the Building a New Scotland series published, with a focus on a written constitution, with a fifth document expected over the summer. 

“I think everyone is just excited for recess and to see the back of this year,” a government source said.

With a changing of the guard at the top of the SNP and a looming General Election, where the SNP's independence strategy will be put to the test, the next parliamentary term is certainly one to watch.