Never mind kids, MSPs should face mobile phone ban

Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. The idea of banning school pupils from using their phones in class has near universal cross-party backing in Scotland. It is generally a good idea to put your phone away during important meetings or when you should be giving a task your undivided attention. That, it would seem to The Scotsman, is common sense. Which is why the comments in IPPR Scotland's Scottish Parliament 'exit interviews' report today are all the more astounding. They spoke to seven ex-MSPs from the SNP, Labour and Conservatives, including those who had held senior Cabinet roles. All left Holyrood at the May election. One former minister told researchers: 'If you go as a minister to be interrogated by the opposition or backbenchers, the greatest disappointment is always how rubbish their questions are because they're all sitting on their phones, you get to their shot, they ask a pre-prepared question. 'It's either political or general most of the time. And then they go back to scrolling on Twitter.' When did it become normal for MSPs – who let us not forget we are paying to scrutinise legislation and government decision-making – to be so disinterested in proceedings that they play around on their phones during committee hearings? Even without the much-trumpeted school phone-ban legislation, a pupil who starts scrolling social media during a lesson can still expect detention. If you were in a work meeting where others began looking at phones rather than listening then, you would surely walk out. Why is this allowed to happen in our parliament? If we really want to improve the quality of the Scottish Parliament and its work then surely demanding the complete attention of members is the first step. Perhaps then they may actually listen to the answers, take an interest and be able to come up with something to ask other than 'pre-prepared rubbish'. Is it too late to include the parliament in the school phone ban legislation?