Tomorrow's World

In just a matter of weeks, all of our lives have changed in unimaginable ways. We have had to adapt to the challenges facing us by moving much of how we socialize, how we work and even our businesses online.

We have seen nursing, midwifery and students to step up at this unprecedented time when they have already experienced significant disruption as they come to the end of their courses. Their skills and experience will be vital in the coming months as we work to save as many lives as possible.

We have seen thousands upon thousands of volunteers offering support across all areas of health and social care. We see parents homeschooling their children, while teachers continue to support the most vulnerable. The commitment and enthusiasm of these volunteers, as with all of our NHS workers, deserve recognition and the gratitude of every one of us in Scotland.

Politics is no different from this, and we need to see the same innovation happening in politics as the way democracy is performed changes. Not invention, but the adoption of technologies new to our political institutions. The Welsh Assembly held a virtual meeting last week, and this week we were able to watch online First Minister's Questions, on this occasion only from Party Leaders. This definitely is not new technology being used here, although it is cheaper and of better resolution and lower latency than in years gone by.

It’s warmly welcome news that the parliament has moved online to ensure we are maintaining our democratic traditions in accordance with social distancing. I think we have shown that we can work remotely while holding the government to account for the decisions they make.

People up and down the country have made huge behavioral changes in a matter of days, and so it is of central importance that as politicians, we show that we are capable of it too. The parliament has had to achieve in just a few weeks what they thought they might have several years to do, and that’s not a bad thing. If tech is the future and we can work smarter, more intelligently and more productively using technology, it’s good to see the parliament adapting fast.

When our political system is as central to our lives and futures, more so today than at any point in our recent past, we must be utilizing the technology readily available. This will mean we are able to perform the parliamentary aspect of our roles more easily during the crisis and put constituency concerns directly to ministers without putting people at risk.

My hope is that when we come out of this, we don’t lose some of that good work. Having proven that people can work smarter using technology, we might opt not to revert to all the old ways of working when the emergency is over.