Official Report 925KB pdf
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I seek your guidance in raising a matter that came to my attention around a quarter to 2. Journalists have advised that the Scottish Government representative admitted to them that significant errors were made in the course of yesterday’s budget statement and in the associated documents.
The error was that, in the course of her remarks, the finance secretary said:
“We will take forward the dualling of key sections of the A96”.—[Official Report, 13 January 2026; c 17.]
However, the wording of the commitment should have been, “We will take forward the dualling of the whole of the A96.” The mistake is compounded by annex B of an associated document, the “Infrastructure Delivery Pipeline”, making no reference to the whole of the A96, only to
“A96 Dualling Inverness to Nairn (including Nairn Bypass)”.
I sought to bring the issue to the Presiding Officer’s attention shortly before today’s plenary meeting in order to give notice of this point of order. I seek guidance, under chapters 13 and 14 of the standing orders, on whether the cabinet secretary—given that she is present—can personally make a correction to what appears to have been a series of, if I may say so, schoolboy howlers, despite the fact that Transport Scotland, Government officials and ministers should have been all over the detail of that vital document. Will she issue a correction now, correct the Official Report and take whatever action is required to correct the Government’s official document?
Lastly, I apologise to everyone, not least the readers of The Press and Journal, which, quite rightly, as the “voice of the north”, reported that the Government is no longer committed to fully dualling the A96. In raising this clarification, I might, perhaps unusually, be doing the Government a favour.
That is obviously not a point of order, but your contribution is noted, Mr Ewing. Members will of course be aware of the various ways in which the record can be corrected. As far as Scottish Government ministers are concerned, that has to be done as soon as practicable after becoming aware of the relevant question.
In response to Mr Ewing’s point about the cabinet secretary’s presence in the chamber, I note that the cabinet secretary has pressed her request-to-speak button to seek to raise a point of order, but that was after another member pressed their button to seek to raise a point of order. I therefore first call Douglas Ross.
Fastest finger first, it seems, Presiding Officer.
This is an extremely important issue, and I am pleased to be able raise my point of order before the cabinet secretary, who I see is ready to read out a pre-prepared script.
This has been a monumental failure by the Government. The pledge and commitment are ones that it has apparently held for a decade and a half, and we are supposed to believe that nobody noticed—not a single person realised—that the Government had omitted to include the dualling of the A96 in its budget document.
Worse still are the words that were used by the cabinet secretary in the budget statement yesterday—a statement prepared and read out exactly by the cabinet secretary. Are we supposed to believe, and will the cabinet secretary confirm in responding to these points of order, that despite having read and practised her statement a number of times, not a single MSP, special adviser or minister said to her, “Hold on, cabinet secretary, you are changing our pledge to dual the whole road by saying that you will dual only key parts of it”?
Can the cabinet secretary also confirm which ministers have failed most here? Is it the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government herself, given that the supporting documents come out in her name? Is it the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, who is sitting next to her and who did not look at the elements of the statement that related to her brief, or does it go right up to the First Minister, as we know that the budget was his budget? They have all failed, and they have let down the north-east. Had it not been for today’s front page of The Press and Journal, we might still be in the dark.
I thank Mr Ross for his contribution. That, too, is not a point of order. I have nothing to add to my response to Mr Ewing.
I now call the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, Shona Robison, to make a point of order.
Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank Fergus Ewing for the opportunity to say that the “Infrastructure Delivery Pipeline” sets out our commitment to dualling the A96. It lists the Inshes to Smithton section and the Inverness to Nairn section, including the Nairn bypass; it should also have listed the entire A96 corridor, as that is our commitment. That is what ministers agreed when the draft document was sent to them—[Interruption.]
Members!
That is what ministers agreed when the draft document was sent to them for formal ministerial approval. So, there has been one error, and we are still looking into exactly how it happened. My understanding is that it would appear to be a production error in the document.
I can say absolutely definitively that the document has already been corrected online, and the full A96 is now included. Ministers remain absolutely committed to that project, including the Elgin bypass. I can see from my copy that that has indeed been corrected. I hope that that will reassure members across the chamber.
I thank the cabinet secretary for her contribution. Again, that was not a point of order, but I would imagine that it has been helpful for those members with an interest in the matter.
I see that there is a further point of order from Douglas Ross.
Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is enlightening to see that the process that the Scottish Government goes through is such that that major error was missed by every single minister.
There is a point that the cabinet secretary has not mentioned regarding the words that she used in the chamber yesterday. The words that came out of her mouth when she was delivering her statement were that
“key sections of the A96”—[Official Report, 13 January 2026; c 17.]
would be dualled. Is she now saying that she was wrong to say that? What measures will she take to correct the Official Report? As Fergus Ewing says, that must be done at the earliest opportunity, and it was earlier this afternoon, at 2 o’clock, when the Government admitted its mistake.
I thank Mr Ross for his further contribution, which, again, is not a point of order. The cabinet secretary is present in the chamber and has obviously heard what Mr Ross has had to say, which will be in the Official Report. I therefore now plan to move on to the next item of business, as I have nothing further to add on the matter as chair of these proceedings.