Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, December 13, 2012

Official Report 831KB pdf

---

Point of Order

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I would like to raise a further point of order following the question that I put to the First Minister at First Minister’s question time earlier today and a subsequent question to the Deputy First Minister following her statement on European Union membership. I am in the unusual and, I have to say, unwarranted position of being accused of inaccuracy by both when I was neither. [Interruption.]

Order.

My supplementary question to Mr Salmond this afternoon was to ask whether he still supported the idea of a fiscal stability pact in an independent Scotland. Perhaps some of his back benchers may listen to find out whether we get an answer this afternoon. I believe that that is a fairly important point to establish ahead of the referendum, as such a pact would effectively empower someone else—

Can you just come to the point, Mr Macintosh?

—probably England, to place limits on Scotland’s taxation and spending.

Can you come to the point?

I want to clarify why the First Minister is wrong and I am correct in this matter. If I may, I would like to explain the quote—if that is all right.

Could you please come to the point of order, Mr Macintosh?

I think that it will take me about a minute, Presiding Officer.

Mr Macintosh, please come to the point.

Just to clarify, the First Minister said earlier in the year that he supported a pact. He then said, in September, at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs:

“I don’t believe that a monetary policy restriction would have to have a fiscal stabilisation pact.”

I have listened to the recording and can say that the quote is accurate. Members and others can read it in The Herald or on Tom Gordon’s blog, or they can listen to the recording themselves. It was not given

“in terms of the debate”,

yet the First Minister stood up at question time to reply:

“I said no such thing in Chicago.”

The Deputy First Minister then followed that up with a rather more gratuitous remark about my inaccuracy which, in the context of her own rather far-fetched claims and her willingness—

Your point is, Mr Macintosh?

—to dismiss the EU rebate, is more ironic than offensive. Presiding Officer, I have checked the Official Report, and the First Minister has not yet made his weekly correction to alter what he said. It is one thing to muddy the waters around the Scottish National Party’s plans for independence; it is quite another to disguise that bluff and bluster with an attack—

Mr Macintosh, is there something that you require me to do as Presiding Officer?

There is, indeed.

If there is, could you please get to it?

I ask whether there is a standing order under which you or the First Minister can clarify that I was correct, Mr Gordon was correct, the quote was correct and the First Minister was wrong.

Mr Macintosh, this is for you and for every other member of the Parliament. As I have said on numerous occasions—indeed, as recently as today’s First Minister’s questions—the Presiding Officers never have been, are not and cannot be responsible for the veracity of what is said in the chamber. This is a matter for the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister.

Perhaps I can help with my weekly affirmation—which is what I am going to do from now on with nonsensical points of order.

Tom Gordon’s report missed out a sentence. [Interruption.]

Order.

The point that I made in Chicago was that, in the context of a borrowing arrangement, Scotland would have a £2.7 billion relative surplus compared to the rest of the UK—£500 a head for every man, woman and child in the country. That is exactly the point that I made to Mr Macintosh at First Minister’s question time.

What troubles me is that, as Mr Macintosh must know that that sentence was omitted from Tom Gordon’s report, he cannot be under any misapprehension about that. Why does he pursue the point in full knowledge of that and not acknowledge that what I said to him this afternoon is exactly what I said in Chicago?