Seòmar agus comataidhean

That was the entire quote. I did not truncate it.

It ends with:

“they will see that a lot of it goes some way towards explaining that”

—close quote.

Yes. It is from the Official Report.

I am sorry, Mr Findlay, but that is from the Official Report.

You do not know.

I will definitely press it. I want members to be accountable for their votes.

As the member will appreciate, late sittings are a matter not for the corporate body but for the Parliamentary Bureau, over which we have no control.

I will provide some context. Between January and June 2023, six events were cancelled due to the Parliament sitting late. However, from September 2023 until this week, only one event had to be cancelled—that was this week. That is a total of seven out of 324 events. Of the seven events that have been cancelled since January 2023, three have been rescheduled. We always try to give priority to events that we have had to reschedule.

However, I hear what the member says. I am sure that the corporate body will consider whether improvements can be made.

That is a very kind invitation, but it is not the practice of the corporate body to meet any individuals. We will discuss the point that has been made at our meeting. Such decisions are not taken based on a blank canvas. The SPCB has a number of relevant policies, including the memorial policy and the Scottish Parliament’s art collection development policy, which we will take into account when we come to a decision on whether to establish a memorial to Mick McGahey.

I duplicate my answer to Mr Leonard: if the member makes an application to the corporate body, we will consider it, against the backcloth of the memorial policy, the Parliament’s art collection development policy and other representations.

As my written answer to the member’s question in November said,

“To enable all Members to take part in events and recognising that parliamentary business needs to take precedence, events do not take place at the same time as parliamentary business in the chamber.

However ... when business runs late, parliamentary officials will”—

when appropriate—

“work with the event organisers to ensure refreshments are served to event guests and they can go to the room where the event is taking place and meet with Members, where possible ... speeches should only take place once parliamentary business is concluded so all Members have the opportunity to hear them.

This pragmatic approach appears to be working but we continually keep this under review.”—[Written Answers, 23 November 2023; S6O-02790.]