Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, February 1, 2018

Official Report 969KB pdf

Point of Order

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. During yesterday’s stage 1 debate on the budget, I intervened on the closing speech by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Constitution, Derek Mackay—[Interruption.]

Order, please.

—to ask a specific question on the significant cuts to the education budget proposed by the Scottish National Party-Labour coalition in South Ayrshire. [Interruption.]

Order, please. Let us hear the point of order.

Mr Mackay replied:

“As a consequence of our decisions and the local government order that will follow, that local authority will have an extra £9.4 million to spend”.—[Official Report, 31 January 2018; c 71.]

However, according to the Scottish Parliament information centre and South Ayrshire Council, the figure is, in fact, £3.37 million, which I am sure you agree is significantly different from the cabinet secretary’s claim.

I seek your advice and ask whether it is appropriate for you to ask the cabinet secretary to advise the chamber whether SPICe and South Ayrshire Council are right or wrong. Will he now apologise for misleading the chamber in his response to my question?

Thank you for the advance notice of your intention to ask a point of order, Mr Whittle. It is not a matter for me to rule on. I am sure that the cabinet secretary will have heard your remarks and will decide for himself whether it is appropriate for him to do as you have asked. Your remarks are now on record. Any member who wishes to do so may use proceedings to ask a question or write to ministers. I remind everyone that there is a procedure to allow members to correct the Official Report.