Plenary, 19 Jun 2002

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 19, 2002

Official Report 405KB pdf

---

Points of Order

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Before we begin the main business, I want to raise a point of order, which I have already spoken to your office about. It relates to the interim report of the expert panel on school meals, "Hungry for Success", which was delivered today to all members of the Parliament.

The problem is that yesterday I received a detailed analysis of the document from the Labour resource centre, briefing on stage 1 of the School Meals (Scotland) Bill. It would appear that the Labour party got hold of the report at least one day, if not more, before the rest of the members of the Parliament, which is grossly unfair and represents a contempt of the Parliament, particularly as it has occurred on the eve of an important debate on school meals. I ask you to rule on whether that represents a serious contempt of the Parliament.

I am grateful to the member for giving me notice. However, I received notice only about a minute ago, so perhaps he will forgive me if I look into the matter and come back to him at the end of the day.

On a separate point of order, Presiding Officer. Tomorrow's debate on free school meals has been allocated one and a half hours. The present structure of debates means that the front benchers will have a total of nearly an hour and the back benchers will have only half an hour. Will you examine the allocation of times and attempt to re-establish what was intended in the consultative steering group principles by ensuring that the back benchers have at least as much time in the debate as the front benchers?

I do not have the power to alter the timings. That is a decision for the Parliamentary Bureau. We have the same problem every time that there is a short debate. If the member would like to write to the bureau, I will ensure that the matter is drawn to its attention, but it is not a matter for me to deal with.