The procedure is deeply anti-democratic and violates the parliament’s founding principles. Here’s how it can be opposed
In 2002, as the Scottish parliament was debating a bill to provide the public with a groundbreaking new right to roam, the independent MSP Dennis Canavan spotted a provision that exempted the Queen’s private Balmoral estate from this statutory right. Canavan managed to remove this exemption – but why had ministers ever drafted it in the first place? Did walkers climbing popular hills such as Lochnagar not deserve the same rights as those climbing every other hill in Scotland?
Since then, as the Guardian revealed this week, other acts of the Scottish parliament have exempted the Queen’s personal estates from laws that apply to every other landowner in Scotland. At least 67 Scottish parliamentary bills have been vetted by the Queen over the last two decades, including legislation around planning laws, protections from tenants and property taxation.
