Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, January 24, 2013

Official Report 820KB pdf

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Point of Order

There is a point of order from Jim Hume.

Presiding Officer, this morning the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing announced an emergency care action plan in response to the well-reported difficulties that are being experienced at accident and emergency units across the country. That announcement comes after repeated assurances from him that those were isolated incidents and that no action would be taken. Unfortunately, the announcement was made in a press release and not, as it clearly should have been, to the chamber, which would have allowed members to scrutinise the plan in detail.

The announcement comes two weeks after I was told, at topical question time, not to paint the picture that I was trying to paint, and 24 hours after the cabinet secretary accused the BBC of dishonesty and of broadcasting factual inaccuracies. A complete policy reversal has occurred in the past 24 hours and members of the Parliament will not have the opportunity to question the cabinet secretary in detail.

Mr Hume, could you tell me your point of order, please?

Do you agree with me that, in the first instance, such important announcements must be made to the chamber? Can you confirm whether time exists in next week’s business programme for a ministerial statement on the matter?

I thank the member for indicating to me his intention to raise a point of order. Decisions on when and how to make announcements are judgments for the Scottish Government. There are, of course, a number of ways in which the Government can keep Parliament informed.

The member asked about the business programme. The Parliament’s business programme and, indeed, requests for ministerial statements are matters for the business managers in the first instance, so I suggest that Mr Hume raises the issue with his representative on the Parliamentary Bureau. As we have often said, the Presiding Officers cannot require the Scottish ministers to make statements to the chamber.