Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Official Report
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Point of Order
On a point of order, Presiding Officer.
It is good to have you back.
Members will have heard this morning that the Scottish Government has published a document that purports to be the plan for the transition to independence. The Government has released it to the press and sent it to other Governments without having the courtesy to take any of the available parliamentary routes.
This Parliament might have wanted to see the document before it was signed, sealed and sent. We might have wanted to correct the factual inaccuracies about Lincoln, press for a bit more than three paragraphs on transition and challenge the proposal that the Scottish National Party appoint itself to the new top posts of Scottish foreign and defence secretaries, even before an election.
There are fewer than 300 words to explain the complex task of unravelling a 300-year-old union, negotiating 14,000 international treaties and establishing a new defence force and security services.
We are promised yet more of this in the months ahead. Are we really expected simply to sit by our radios every morning to wait for the latest announcement?
The document fuels the suspicion that the SNP has not done its homework. Twenty pages of planning is not adequate.
Presiding Officer, under standing order 7.3, will you support a demand that Parliament has sight of such documents in the coming months so that we can scrutinise them and insist that the Scottish Government does its homework? If we do not demand a change of attitude now, we will have to continue to endure this shabby treatment.
I thank Willie Rennie for the advance notice of his point of order, which has enabled me to consider the important issues that he raises.
All members should be aware that the good practice guidance on announcements by the Scottish Government states that major policy announcements should in the first instance always be made to the Parliament and that the judgment on that rests with ministers. The guidance also acknowledges that decisions on whether and how to make announcements to Parliament on Government business are a matter for the Scottish Government.
Any question on the Parliament’s future business programme or a request for a statement should be raised by a party’s business manager. I note that Alison McInnes made points about this issue and capital infrastructure at today’s meeting of the Parliamentary Bureau.
Members will notice that I have selected a topical question on the capital infrastructure programme and I intend to allow as many supplementary requests from members on that issue as time allows.
Have you received any indication from the Government as to whether it wishes to make a statement?
The Government has made no such indication to me, but the Minister for Parliamentary Business is indicating to me at the moment.
I would like to be helpful to the chamber. On the point that Willie Rennie made just now and Alison McInnes made this morning, I can confirm that the Referendum (Scotland) Bill Committee was notified of the document and given the document this morning prior to its release. It is absolutely correct that the Referendum (Scotland) Bill Committee should look at the document, give it proper parliamentary scrutiny and decide what action Parliament should take.