Plenary, 08 Jan 2004
Meeting date: Thursday, January 8, 2004
Official Report
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Point of Order
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Have you had notification from the First Minister to correct an inaccurate statement that he made in response to my question during First Minister's question time on the matter of the December meeting of the fisheries council?
As you will be aware, Presiding Officer, paragraph 1.1(c) of the Scottish ministerial code states:
"It is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to the Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity."
Although I have received a written apology from the First Minister in the past 30 minutes, do you agree that it would be in order for him to deliver a statement to Parliament, given that his statement was inaccurate? Indeed, his letter of apology further muddies the waters by stating that the reason why Scottish vessels have more restrictions than other nations that fish the same waters for the same stocks is that we were the only nation that asked for more haddock quota. That is plainly wrong.
To err from time to time is human. In my judgment, the First Minister has acted entirely honourably and expeditiously in this case by issuing a letter not only to me, but to Mr Swinney and to you. He did so at the first possible moment and I regard the matter as closed.