Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Official Report 675KB pdf

---

Point of Order

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Today the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Mike Russell, made a statement to the Parliament on higher and further education governance reports. I draw your attention to an article in the most recent edition of the Sunday Herald, which contained a large number of specific proposals that the cabinet secretary announced today. I seek your assistance in ensuring that we condemn such unacceptable practice and discourtesy to the Parliament, and I would be grateful for an assurance from the cabinet secretary that the proposals were not leaked prior to today’s statement being made.

I thank Mr Martin for giving notice of his point of order and refer him to the good practice guide on announcements by the Scottish Government.

I examined the article that he mentioned and the cabinet secretary’s statement. As far as I could see, a number of important issues in the statement were not covered in the article and I was content to allow the cabinet secretary to make his statement to the Parliament.