Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Official Report 908KB pdf

Point of Order

On a point of order, Presiding Officer.

This is the third time that I have had to raise the use of Government initiated questions by the Scottish Government to announce significant and substantive policy. Today, the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport published a draft hydrogen action plan that is backed by £100 million of public spending commitments. The announcement for the publication was made via another underhand GIQ—S6W-04328.

The Presiding Officer has previously stated that the Scottish Government should

“reflect on the use of GIQs when Parliament is sitting.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2021; c 12.]

It has not. From the chair, the Presiding Officer has also stated on multiple occasions that all significant and substantive announcements should be made to the Parliament, whenever that is possible. That has been ignored.

I will tell members about the arguments that the Scottish National Party Minister for Parliamentary Business has made in meetings of the Parliamentary Bureau. The minister has said that he has encouraged ministers to attend the chamber to deliver statements and submit themselves to the scrutiny of members’ questions, and he appears to be uncomfortable when they do not do that. I take the minister at his word. Well, Presiding Officer, we have no platform to scrutinise the action plan this week.

A clear pattern of disrespect has now been shown by the Scottish Government, and I see no indication that it will change its ways. What course of action is open to us, as parliamentarians, if everything that we do, including our scrutiny of the Executive, is continuously controlled and constrained by the Scottish Government? Will you ensure that formal guidance is issued to the Scottish Government on the use of GIQs?

I thank Stephen Kerr for his point of order. GIQs are a recognised mechanism through which the Government can make announcements. As the Presiding Officer has previously set out, significant announcements should be made in the chamber to Parliament whenever that is possible, but there will, of course, be instances in which that is not possible. I have not had the opportunity to study in detail the GIQ that the member referred to, but I remind him that there is guidance in place and that GIQs can be followed up with debates. The member might wish to raise that with the Parliamentary Bureau.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer.

Last week, the Scottish Government agreed to provide a statement on incineration and the much-delayed deposit return scheme, but the topic for next week’s statement in the business motion is “Towards a Circular Economy”. I seek your guidance on how we can have full scrutiny of those incredibly important topics, and I would welcome an additional statement on the circular economy.

I thank the member for his point of order. The Parliamentary Bureau discussed the matter and Parliament agreed to the subject matter of the statement that is proposed for Wednesday 17 November. I understand that that is the current position. The member’s party’s business manager has the opportunity to seek further clarification on the matter at the bureau on Tuesday 16 November, but my understanding is that the substance of the statement that is proposed is as was agreed by the Parliament last week.

As I said before the points of order, and should say for the record, the debate on Scotland’s approach to the 2021 coastal state negotiations has been concluded.