Jackson Carlaw: Powering Change Award 2022

Having previously been the recipient of individual awards, it was a genuine pleasure to accept the Powering Change Award in 2022 on behalf of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee.

Throughout my 16 years as an MSP, I have believed that the potential and importance of this committee has largely been unappreciated. Interestingly, every former MP to become an MSP and to then be appointed to the committee has done so at first with little enthusiasm based on their experience at Westminster, only to find that at Holyrood we have created and evolved one of the finest Public Petitions Committees anywhere in the democratic world.

A bold claim, perhaps, but the Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee can cite free personal care for the elderly, the extension of care for those with dementia to age 50, the world-leading role we achieved in the exposure and resolution of the transvaginal mesh scandal, together with progress on so many other issues as well as hosting the youngest every petitioner, Callum Isted.

It is also the one committee where all MSPs leave their party affiliation at the door, partly I suspect because the respective party whips cannot cope with the breadth of our agenda! It’s that extraordinary breadth of issues that also makes the committee both fascinating and challenging; as my predecessor as convener, Johann Lamont, put it, we are there uniquely to represent real individuals with an issue of huge importance to them and not the usual party-political agenda. That gives the committee a moral authority to relentlessly pursue the issue raised.

What is less appreciated is that any MSP can attend the committee and will likely find me sympathetic if they wish to contribute and associate themselves with a petition and perhaps make some running with it as well, potentially changing their constituents lives for the better.

I don’t ever lose sight of the debt the committee members owe to our team of clerks and the extraordinary range of subjects for which they prepare briefings to each committee. Winning the award was a tribute to them and rest assured they each received a bottle of champagne with my thanks to celebrate their achievement!