Debating Chamber Of Scottish Parliament Building On Visit To Edinburgh Scotland

Tour Scotland travel video, with Scottish music, on ancestry visit to the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh. In the Scottish Parliament, the inhabitants of Scotland are represented by 129 members of the Scottish Parliament, who elected are elected by the additional member system, a form of proportional representation, by the Scottish Parliament constituencies and electoral regions. The Scottish Parliament Building , Scottish Gaelic: Pàrlamaid na h-Alba; Scots: Scots Pairlament Biggin, is the home of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood. The debating chamber contains a shallow elliptical horseshoe of seating for the MSPs, with the governing party or parties sitting in the middle of the semicircle and opposition parties on either side, similar to other European legislatures. Such a layout is intended to blur political divisions and principally reflects the desire to encourage consensus amongst elected members. This is in contrast to the adversarial layout reminiscent of other Westminster style national legislatures, including the House of Commons, in London, England, where government and opposition sit apart and facing one another. The most notable feature of the chamber is the roof which is supported by a structure of laminated oak beams joined with a total of 112 stainless steel connectors, each slightly different, which in turn are suspended on steel rods from the walls. The connecting nodes were fabricated by welders for Scotland's oil industry. Such a structure enables the debating chamber to span over 100 feet without any supporting columns. In entering the chamber, MSPs pass under a stone lintel, the Arniston Stone, that was once part of the pre 1707 Parliament building, Parliament House. The use of the Arniston Stone in the structure of the debating chamber symbolises the connection between the historical Parliament of Scotland and the present day Scottish Parliament. All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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