Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, June 1, 2023

Official Report 1057KB pdf

Point of Order

On a point of order, Deputy Presiding Officer.

I am aware that, under rule 13.1 of the standing orders, it is permissible for members to make personal statements, conditional upon your agreement and, of course, subject to scheduling by the Parliamentary Bureau. So, in the interests of checking that parliamentary procedures are followed correctly, I ask whether you would grant the First Minister a personal statement, if he asked you for one, to allow him to correct the record and to explain why he used misleading language.

Speaking in response to my colleague Douglas Ross on 27 April, the First Minister, when discussing scandalous bonus payments at Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) Holdings Limited said:

“We—and I—share that anger at the fact that bonuses have been paid. Those bonuses relate to a decision that was made by Ferguson Marine’s remuneration committee, without consultation with the Government, in November 2022. I asked for those bonuses not to be paid, but the advice that has come back is that they are a contractual obligation. With regard to any future discussion about or consideration of bonuses, I have made it clear that bonuses should not be paid in relation to vessels 801 and 802. The chair of Ferguson Marine will take forward that work. It is my expectation and the Government’s expectation—the chair of Ferguson Marine knows this very well—that there should not be bonuses in the current financial year, 2023-24, in relation to vessels 801 and 802.”—[Official Report, 27 April; c 9-10.]

However, at this morning’s meeting of the Public Audit Committee, Andrew Miller, the chairman of Ferguson Marine, confirmed that bonuses would indeed be paid this year. He stated that that is because they are contractual. He said, “They are points of law and they do exist and it is very difficult to say to somebody that we are just pulling that from your contract.”

When I pressed Mr Miller to respond to Humza Yousaf’s comments that bonuses would not be paid this year and that the chair of Ferguson Marine knows that, Mr Miller said, “No, he’s making a statement, but we have to pay due regard to the contractual obligations under employment contracts set up many, many years ago.”

So, despite the assurances of the First Minister in this Parliament that there would be no bonuses, there clearly will be.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I seek your advice about how Parliament can get straight answers to straight questions from a Government that is increasingly seeing the truth as an optional extra in this Parliament. Can you say whether the First Minister has sought your permission to make a statement so that he can set the record straight on this vitally important issue?

I thank Mr Hoy for his point of order. First, I advise that there has, as far as I am aware, been no such request made. Secondly, obviously, the chair is not responsible for the content of contributions that are made by members, including ministers, as I think you are aware. Thirdly, there is, of course, a well-known and well-established corrections mechanism, should the member wish to pursue that route.