Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: Thursday, October 27, 2011
Official Report
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Point of Order
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I appreciate the opportunity to raise the point of order. We are 25 minutes away from the end of the item of business and we are rapidly running out of time for the First Minister to come to the chamber to provide clarity about a matter that has been raised in several points of order this afternoon.
At First Minister’s question time, the First Minister misled the Parliament when he referred to comments by Professor Qvortrup in the media about the Scottish National Party’s proposals for a two-question referendum. To mislead the chamber is, in itself, a fundamental breach of the code of practice; that it should be on such an important constitutional issue is of the utmost significance. It is bad enough that the First Minister should deliberately choose to mislead the chamber on his Government’s behalf, but that he should give a misleading representation of the views of an academic who has no recourse to answer that in the chamber is surely an abuse of the trust that the public place in us as parliamentarians.
The First Minister must explain why his official spokesman tried to nobble—that is the only suitable word—Professor Qvortrup this morning after the professor’s comments appeared in the media and why the First Minister deliberately misrepresented the professor’s views in the chamber.
It is evident that either the First Minister knowingly misled Parliament or that his official spokesperson knowingly misled him. Whichever explanation is true, one of those people must face the consequences and the Parliament must hear an explanation from the First Minister for his conduct earlier today. I therefore ask the Presiding Officer to reconsider the issue and to provide additional time this afternoon for the First Minister to clarify the position.
I thank Iain Gray for his point of order. Members are responsible for what they say in proceedings. As the previous session’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee noted, it would be inappropriate for me to have any role in ruling on questions of accuracy. I am not responsible for establishing the veracity of what is said, which is not covered by standing orders or the “Code of Conduct for Members of the Scottish Parliament”. However, I hope that all members will reflect on what they say in the chamber and that they will, if they think they have misspoken, take steps to correct that.