AS a young, disabled politician, I'm used to facing extra barriers when getting involved. Financial barriers are ones we don't often look at for politicians, after all, MSPs and MPs are well-paid.
My first day in the job, I'm in a lot of debt. I don't have the same clothes as the people I'm walking past TV cameras alongside, and my train tickets here earned me an overdraft charge.
Next month, I will have a salary I've never earned half of before. That is genuinely scary to me as someone who has been homeless and often struggled financially, so I plan to donate a chunk to charity every month.
My situation is not comparable to people who are not about to get paid in a month's time - a situation I've been in myself - and I don't pretend otherwise. However, this is a symptom of a larger issue.
For so often, politics has been a game for the rich. It is expected when you arrive here that you already have money. How else would you have managed to campaign?!
Especially in a region like mine - the Highlands and Islands - you're expected to attend branch meetings and campaign days before you are even selected as a candidate, and then again once you are, all the while having no idea if you'll have a job by the end of it.
If not for the fact this has all taken place on Zoom due to Covid, unlike previous elections, my sub-£18k salary couldn't have taken me to Orkney, Lochgilphead, Wick, Elgin, and all the other places I travelled to through a webcam this year.
Emma Roddick arrives for registration at the Scottish Parliament
Even the £500 deposit to appear on a ballot paper is a barrier for those without parties with big money behind them.
If these extra hurdles exist from the get-go, we can't expect working-class people to stand and, therefore, become legislators. And we desperately need more working-class legislators!
Without lived experience of poverty, how can you write laws which are poverty-proof?
If you've never struggled for money, can you truly empathise with those who have?
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We often talk about how qualified our politicians are, and certainly, as the youngest MSP, often hear I'm too young to have had "life experience". But I've had experiences in my life that most parliamentarians simply can't imagine, scraping through on Universal Credit while looking for a job without a fixed address.
This lived experience is vital - no amount of consultation and discussion with pressure groups can teach someone the constant fear and anxiety you feel every day when you're living with less than no money, or show them fully how degrading the Universal Credit and PIP application processes the DWP put us through are.
Scotland is currently taking over some social security powers, and this is a great step forward. Our own parliamentarians can finally make decisions relevant to workers in this country (though employment law is still, sadly, reserved).
I think it is worth discussing how expensive standing is, and what barriers exist for people like me influencing policy - then maybe, in five years' time, I'll hear fewer people tell me "politics is not for me - I can't afford it", and we'll have a Parliament which is truly qualified to make decisions about how we best protect those on lower incomes in our society.
Government by the rich is government for the rich, and I believe that Scotland - which doesn't vote for the Tory governments we get in Whitehall - wants something different.
Let's make sure we're not turning would-be parliamentarians, who would make the change that's desperately needed, away at the door.
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