Chamber and committees

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I have two points to raise. First, will you accept a motion without notice for the First Minister to be able to update Parliament on whether he still has confidence in his justice secretary, and whether she has offered her resignation to him?

Secondly, Presiding Officer, can you confirm that if there has been no update to the Official Report, as requested in Sharon Dowey’s question, that is a breach of the code of conduct for MSPs, given that MSPs must update the Official Report with any corrections as soon as they are made aware of their error?

Will the member give way?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will release all correspondence between the Scottish Government and Professor Alexis Jay, and what mechanism will be used to provide this information to MSPs and Parliament.

It should be the focus of the Parliament, but it is not, because we have been misled. Ministers have not been truthful. They have had to be dragged to the chamber to provide the information that they have been sitting on, not for weeks but for months.

This goes right to the very top, to John Swinney, and it is now a test of his leadership. I believe that, when he leaves the chamber tonight, he will be asked by the media whether he fully supports his justice secretary—and he cannot, because these documents make it very clear that she misled Parliament and that she did not take the immediate opportunity to correct the record.

I will go through that timeline again.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Before we get to the urgent question, I will quote your words from yesterday:

“The ‘Scottish Ministerial Code’ states:

‘The Scottish Government should be accountable to the Scottish Parliament’.

As a matter of courtesy and respect, I would expect that, when a minister cannot provide information in answer to a question in the chamber, and when the minister has committed to providing that answer in the chamber, they should undertake to provide such detail to the member as soon as it is available.”—[Official Report, 9 December 2025; c 95-6.]

Five minutes ago—at 1 minute past 5—I received the information that I had requested back on 25 November. Half an hour before that, the Scottish Government published the information on its website. I ask for your understanding of and reaction to what I believe is a discourtesy not just to the Parliament, but to you personally, given your ruling last night.

On 26 September, Alexis Jay sent an email to the Government. On 8 October, there was a meeting of the national strategic group. On 18 November, the minutes of that meeting were published. On 19 November, there was a request for the correspondence. On 25 November, Angela Constance denied misrepresenting Professor Alexis Jay. However, the emails that we have now seen show that the professor said that the “current position” was “unsatisfactory” because the Government would not publish her letter.

Where is the justice secretary and why is she not here in the chamber? Does the minister believe—as I think most people will now—that the justice secretary’s position is untenable and that she should resign tonight or be sacked?

That is shocking, and I am glad that the First Minister is here, because he has serious questions to answer. Not only was it discourteous to members—I say “members” because people across the political spectrum have been asking for that correspondence for months—but, just yesterday, 24 hours ago, the minister said that she could not provide the information, that it would go through the freedom of information process and that it might be published by the end of the year. The Government had to be shamed into publishing it today. However, it could not even do that right. It could not even give the Parliament the courtesy of providing that information to the members who had asked for it. It released it early under FOI, then came to MSPs after 5 o’clock. I do not know the reason or the explanation for that. The Presiding Officer has asked the Government to reflect. I think that we need a statement from the Government about what it was doing.

Here is the issue: we know why the information had to be dragged out of the Scottish Government. John Swinney is staring right in front of him—he cannot look at me now—because I am about to say that he is going to lose his justice secretary.

Angela Constance is either going to have to resign or be sacked for misleading Parliament. In black and white, it is clear that the justice secretary did not tell the truth to the chamber. In black and white, it is clear that Professor Alexis Jay wanted the correction to be made.

I will read out the full quote from Professor Jay’s letter. It says:

“I have expressed no views on Mr Kerr’s amendment, but I am of the opinion that the Scottish Government should urgently take steps to establish reliable data about the nature and extent of child sexual exploitation by organised networks, of which so-called ‘grooming gangs’ is only one component. In the context of the national strategic group, I have had discussions with officials about how this might be achieved.”

Her final line is:

“I would appreciate my position being clarified”.

That letter was sent to the Scottish Government—to the justice secretary—on 26 September. It was 8 October when the Government put the information into minutes. On 18 November, the minutes of the meeting were published. On 19 November, we got the Scottish Government’s first response, replying to my colleague Russell Findlay. It has been trying to hide this because it is trying to protect its cabinet secretary. Is that not right?

Daniel Johnson mentioned rest stops. There is a rest stop on the A9 that provides a useful food van, but Transport Scotland will not allow a sign to be put up to tell drivers to go in there. Does he believe that that should be looked at? It would help drivers to get the rest that they need, and food and drink to keep them alert while driving.

I congratulate my friend and colleague Sue Webber on securing this important and, I believe, timely debate. I place on record my entry in the register of members’ interests, which notes that my wife is a police sergeant in Moray.

I want to focus on the impact that the issue has had, and continues to have, in Moray. However, I must start with Christine Grahame’s proposal. If she believes in any way that there is consensus in the chamber on her proposal, she should count me out.

My local police divisional commander disagrees with Christine Grahame. Chief Inspector Mike McKenzie, who is the local area commander for Moray, wrote:

“E-scooters cannot be legally registered by the DVLA, which means they are illegal to use on public roads.”

He is very clear—[Interruption.] If Christine Grahame wants to come in, I will give way to her in a second, but—[Interruption.] In a second. I am sorry. I will give way once I have made the point that I want to put to Christine Grahame, which is that—I say this with the greatest respect—even if she disagrees with Chief Inspector McKenzie, it is naive in the extreme to say that licensing, taxing and registering the vehicles will solve the problems. The people who will do all of that are not the ones who are currently using those vehicles on public roads. They are the ones who are buying them to be used off road, in fields and so on. The ones who are causing the problems will not suddenly, overnight, start registering their vehicles, which will then solve the problems. I am sorry, but I do not agree that that is the solution.

I respectfully give way to Christine Grahame.

Shamefully, during the tribunal, the cabinet secretary expressed confidence in the senior leadership of NHS Fife. Now he must have come to the conclusion that most of us reached months ago—that they do not deserve that confidence. If the current chief executive does not do the right thing and resign immediately, will he do the right thing and sack her?