Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Meeting date: Thursday, October 31, 2024

Official Report 1154KB pdf

Point of Order

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. At decision time last night, Parliament was tied 62 to 62 on my colleague Alexander Burnett’s motion to annul the Local Services Franchises (Traffic Commissioner Notices and Panels) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. With Deputy Presiding Officer Liam McArthur in the chair and the other Deputy Presiding Officer voting according to her party’s whip, the Scottish National Party was already granted an artificial boost in its voting numbers, compared with what the situation would have been if you had been in the chair, Presiding Officer. I also raised an eyebrow at the exact number of SNP MSPs voting, which was one more than I had thought there would have been, considering the pairing arrangements.

That aside, the Deputy Presiding Officer cast his deciding vote against the motion to annul and stated that the reason was to protect the status quo. As Alex Cole-Hamilton pointed out in his point of order yesterday, preserving the status quo would actually have been achieved by voting in favour of the motion. That is because a negative instrument—which is still a new law—is subject to less democratic scrutiny and can only be stopped by a motion to annul it.

If the vote had been on an affirmative Scottish statutory instrument, a legislative consent motion, an amendment at stage 3 of a bill or even the final vote on a bill, the Deputy Presiding Officer would have cast their vote against creating the new law. On this occasion, the Deputy Presiding Officer cast his vote to pass a new law and, in doing so, created a majority in Parliament where one did not exist.

I seek your guidance as to whether parliamentary protocol was followed correctly in the chamber last night. From where I am standing, it seems as if the SNP has passed new regulations against the clear will of both the relevant committee and the Parliament, with the backing of the casting vote from the chair.

Thank you, Mr Lumsden. The Parliament was asked whether the instrument should be annulled, and it was unable to decide that matter. Therefore, the Presiding Officer in the chair cast a vote against that change. Last night’s vote means that the motion to annul fell, and it means that the negative SSI stays in place.

We will now suspend business to enable the chamber and the public gallery to clear before we move on to members’ business.