Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, June 20, 2019

Official Report 1183KB pdf

Business Motion

The next item of business is consideration of business motion S5M-17883, in the name of Graeme Dey, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, setting out a revised business programme. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press their request-to-speak button now.

Motion moved,

That the Parliament agrees to the following revision to the programme of business for Tuesday 25 June 2019—

delete

5.00 pm Decision Time

and insert

7.00 pm Decision Time—[Graeme Dey]

I wish to make a comment on the motion rather than speak against it.

As you will be aware, Presiding Officer, Labour’s whip is unavoidably not here today. In her absence, I express concern about the 7 o’clock decision time next Tuesday. Recently, this has not been a family-friendly Parliament. I ask that time management be controlled. This week’s contributions seemed more akin to speeches, rather than the previous approach, which was about a maximum of two minutes to move amendments at stage 3. Scottish Labour will reluctantly vote for the business motion, but we do so in the sincere hope that decision time can be brought forward from the 7 pm proposal that is in this evening’s business motion.

Thank you. Minister, do you wish to respond?

I will respond briefly on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau.

I assure the member that members of the bureau always seek to have decision times that are in keeping with the established pattern. On behalf of the bureau, I also associate myself with her remarks about concise contributions, which would go some way towards avoiding situations such as those that we are encountering.

Motion agreed to.