Scots shun pomp and jewels for a more `modern' parliament

GILDED COACHES and playing-card characters will have no part in the opening of Scotland's home rule parliament next year. Though the Queen will make the opening speech, she is unlikely to be decked in ermine and jewels, or wearing a crown.

The radical departure from the Ruritanian-style opening of the Westminster parliament to a "simpler, but dignified" ceremony is emerging from a cross- party group making plans for the working of the Edinburgh parliament.

As well as a more modest role for the monarch, the group is also proposing to drop the Mother of Parliament's exaggerated courtesies and to work more family-friendly hours.

Instead of addressing each other in the debating chamber as "the honourable member" as MPs do at Westminster ("honourable and gallant" in the case of former military officers and "honourable and learned" for QCs) members of the Scottish Parliament, or MSPs, will refer to each other as plain "Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms".

The parliament is likely to sit five days a week from 9.30am to 5.30pm in a mix of committee and plenary sessions - avoiding the Commons practice of legislating late into the night.

Henry McLeish, the devolution minister chairing the group, said procedures should be "pragmatic, practical and modern". The proposed hours were "family- friendly and will hopefully allow more women to participate", he said.

Most interest, however, is focused on the opening ceremony, probably on 1 July, as Scotland marks its first parliament for almost 300 years. A consensus is emerging for a procession from Parliament House - home of the pre-1707 legislature - to the Church of Scotland Assembly Hall where the MSPs will sit temporarily.

The Queen will make an opening speech but it will not be one written by the Prime Minister, as is the case at Westminster when she reads out the Government's programme. That job will be done later by the First Minister - probably Donald Dewar.

A suggestion that the Queen should wear the Scottish crown, last worn for the coronation of Charles II of Scotland in 1651, has not found much favour.

"We don't want the flummery of the Westminster opening," said George Reid, one-time MP and Scottish National Party member of the group.