Chamber and committees

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. This afternoon, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs has written to me, confirming that she is requesting a change to the Official Report of this Parliament for the meeting of 16 September. This came under questioning today at the Education, Children and Young People Committee, and that request has come after weeks and months of MSPs in the chamber asking for the record to be corrected. That was refused by Angela Constance, and it was refused by John Swinney. Now, Angela Constance has agreed to do so.

However, the advice on correcting information during proceedings is different from that for after proceedings. If a mistake is not notified during proceedings, there are different aspects that a member has to go through. The advice to members states that a

“member may ask to make a statement during the next available plenary session”

to explain the change in the Official Report.

First, can I ask you, Presiding Officer, whether you have received any requests from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs to make a statement? Given that we have only one sitting day until the festive recess, how will Parliament have the opportunity to review the change that the cabinet secretary wishes to make to the Official Report if it is not made in tonight’s Official Report? We will not get tomorrow’s Official Report until Parliament has risen.

Has a request to make a statement been made? That is supposed to happen in the next plenary session after the mistake was identified. We know that Professor Alexis Jay wrote to Angela Constance on 26 September, identifying the correction and clarification that she wished to have made. It is now being made on 17 December. In our standing orders, what remit is there for you, Presiding Officer, to deal with a member who takes so long to correct the official record?

I congratulate my friend and colleague Rachael Hamilton on securing this important and topical debate. We have just been through small business Saturday and, as every speaker has said, we should support our small businesses throughout the year, not just on that one Saturday in December.

I will focus my remarks on one small business and one small business owner in Moray. The minister and I do not agree on an awful lot, but I hope that, when I have concluded my remarks, he will agree with what I am about to say. I want to use this opportunity, on the penultimate day of the parliamentary year, to say a big thank you from our Parliament to a Moray businesswoman who has done so much, not just for her business but for small businesses in Moray, the Highlands, Scotland and across the UK. She is Pearl Hamilton of Pearl’s Pet Care.

Pearl is retiring on Christmas eve after 43 years in business. Pearl started work in her teens on the croft where she was brought up and she has worked throughout her life. When she made her announcement, I reminded her that I had been a regular customer of hers, and I should declare an interest because I have my order in for Christmas eve for chicken food and cider vinegar for the chicken water. When she announced her retirement, I said that she had been in business longer than I had been alive. I meant that as a compliment to show her durability in business through good times and bad.

Pearl has been a stable part of Moray business for so long, starting off in Kinloss and then becoming a stronghold on Tolbooth Street. Last Friday, other traders on Tolbooth Street used their annual Christmas party to throw a surprise retirement party for Pearl. I am told that there would have been some pretty sore heads after it, as it was a very joyous affair.

Pearl just has a way about her. She is great at customer service, whether someone is a regular customer, as I am, or a first-time entrant to her shop. She will find what the customer needs and deliver it with great style and enthusiasm. That is why she has built up such a strong customer base over many years.

Throughout much of her 43 years in business, Pearl was supported by her family. Sadly, her husband Jeff died earlier this year. When I was a councillor on Moray Council, Jeff was an independent councillor for Kinloss and the wider Forres ward. They were a double act. Whenever I think of small business Saturday, I will think of Jeff coming out with Pearl and me to go round the other shops in Forres and Moray, getting our picture taken with our blue boards and supporting the FSB and small business Saturday. Pearl did a power of work with the FSB in Moray and across Scotland. Indeed, she also held national positions with the FSB.

Pearl and Jeff together built up their business to what it became. Jeff has sadly passed away, but Pearl is keen to continue with the pet care element of the business, so she will continue to look after pets in Moray and the Highland area.

When I saw that the motion was about small business Saturday, I thought that it was an opportunity for me to use my four minutes to give my personal thanks to Pearl for what she has provided to Forres, Moray and the wider community, not just through the business that she built up with her family and the support that she has given her customers but through the knowledge and expertise that she was ready and willing to pass on to other businesses in the area. Other businesses in Moray are doing well because of the help and support that they received from Pearl Hamilton.

I say to Pearl from the Scottish Parliament chamber that we are grateful for everything that she has done and we wish her a very long and happy retirement.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. This afternoon, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs has written to me, confirming that she is requesting a change to the Official Report of this Parliament for the meeting of 16 September. This came under questioning today at the Education, Children and Young People Committee, and that request has come after weeks and months of MSPs in the chamber asking for the record to be corrected. That was refused by Angela Constance, and it was refused by John Swinney. Now, Angela Constance has agreed to do so.

However, the advice on correcting information during proceedings is different from that for after proceedings. If a mistake is not notified during proceedings, there are different aspects that a member has to go through. The advice to members states that a

“member may ask to make a statement during the next available plenary session”

to explain the change in the Official Report.

First, can I ask you, Presiding Officer, whether you have received any requests from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs to make a statement? Given that we have only one sitting day until the festive recess, how will Parliament have the opportunity to review the change that the cabinet secretary wishes to make to the Official Report if it is not made in tonight’s Official Report? We will not get tomorrow’s Official Report until Parliament has risen.

Has a request to make a statement been made? That is supposed to happen in the next plenary session after the mistake was identified. We know that Professor Alexis Jay wrote to Angela Constance on 26 September, identifying the correction and clarification that she wished to have made. It is now being made on 17 December. In our standing orders, what remit is there for you, Presiding Officer, to deal with a member who takes so long to correct the official record?

I have the easiest job in the Parliament tonight, which is to open this debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives, because my Scottish Conservative colleague Liz Smith, along with her office and the non-Government bills unit, has done all the work—an incredible amount of work—to bring us to this stage. They have achieved something that, at some stages in the process, looked unachievable. However, at any point when there were challenges, Liz Smith got stuck in and overcame them, which has ensured that we, as a Parliament, can vote tonight for the bill to become law. I will be proud to do so.

I am not speaking tonight as convener of the Education, Children and Young People Committee, but as convener I was privileged to sit through the evidence sessions on the bill and to hear from people who are passionate about it, as Liz Smith is, and who wanted to share their experience about what it will achieve for so many others. I am delighted that so many of them are in our public gallery tonight to watch the final element of the bill’s passage.

I will always remember that, when we were constructing our stage 1 report—and this was included in it—a letter by Nick March was read out to the committee, and I want to use those words again tonight. The meeting was on 13 November 2024, so it was more than a year ago, but the words that Nick March read to us about a young pupil called Nevis stuck with me at the time and still stick with me now.

He said:

“Nevis has cerebral palsy. He is a full-time wheelchair user and he needs support with feeding and an adult with him all the time.”

Nick March wanted the committee to hear—and I want the Parliament to hear—the difference that outdoor residential learning made to Nevis. These are Nevis’s words being read out in Nevis’s Parliament as we are able to pass a bill that Nevis supports:

“Rock climbing was awesome! I got to defy gravity and abseil down a mountain at the speed of light! Kayaking was so cool literally. I sailed round an island with my school friends in a storm! I scored a gold at archery! And we all did drumming together at night, and it was really exciting and fun. I’d never done any of those things before ... I can’t do so many things like that at home because they don’t have spaces for kids with wheelchairs to join in ... I think every kid should get the chance to go to camp, have adventures and hang out together.”—[Official Report, Education, Children and Young People Committee, 13 November 2024; c 49-50.]

Nevis articulated very clearly why the bill was so important to Liz Smith, who has committed so much of her parliamentary career to getting it on to the statute book, and why it is so important that the Parliament agrees to the bill tonight. As a result of the bill, there will be so many opportunities for kids such as Nevis, now and in the future, to have experiences that will not only stick with them in their school career but remain with them throughout their entire life.

We heard at committee about the difference that outdoor education makes to classroom environments. People who have one view of a teacher before they go on a week-long residential course might have a totally different view when they come back, and that aids education and the atmosphere and environment in our classrooms.

The bill has so many positives. I was delighted when the committee could agree its general principles and the Parliament overwhelmingly supported it at stage 1, which is why the Parliament should—and will—support it to become law tonight.

Sometimes, there are divisions in the chamber and we strongly disagree with one another. At other times, an individual member is able to work across the political parties to bring a nugget of an idea to fruition. Liz Smith should be very proud of having done that, and the Parliament should be proud that an Opposition member has been able to work with the Government to enact a law that will make a real difference. I am delighted to speak in favour of the bill, and I will be very proud to vote for it.

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?