Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Official Report 922KB pdf

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Point of Order

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. On 20 December, in response to a question that Kenneth Gibson asked about the closure of the marine field station at Millport on Cumbrae, the First Minister said:

“the station ... is not actually used by any Scottish university at present, although the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council contributes some funding to it.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2012; c 15033.]

Following that statement, I have had several emails from numerous academics at Scottish universities who use the station—most notably, Professor Harry Birkbeck, who has worked in marine biology since 1972 and still volunteers at the station. He pointed out that the University of Glasgow, the University of Edinburgh, the University of St Andrews, Edinburgh Napier University, Heriot-Watt University and the University of the West of Scotland have all used the station and are still doing so. In fact, 533 Scottish university students and 521 English university students used it last year. [Interruption.]

Order.

I checked the Official Report this morning to see whether the First Minister’s statement had been corrected, but it has not been. I believe that the First Minister made the statement in good faith and was simply misinformed. Will he correct the Official Report to reflect the fact that the station is used by Scottish institutions for research and training?

It is clear that such matters are for the First Minister. I know that members are aware that the Presiding Officers are not responsible for the veracity of what is said in the chamber, so the matter is not for me. However, members will also be aware of the recent revisions to the corrections process. If any member at any time inadvertently makes a mistake, there are procedures for correcting the record.