Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Meeting date: Thursday, September 28, 2023

Official Report 1032KB pdf

Point of Order

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. During a members’ business debate on 31 May, John Swinney intervened to say that I was incorrect in stating that United Kingdom swimming pool funding from the Treasury was in addition to the Scottish budget. Mr Swinney has now admitted to me that he was wrong, has apologised and has corrected the record, and I thank him for that.

On 29 June, I intervened on the Minister for Victims and Community Safety, Siobhian Brown—who is walking out of the chamber—to state the same basic fact. The minister responded that Barnett consequentials had already been added to the local authority block. She then wrote to me to apologise and corrected the record, and I thank her for that.

Yesterday, I asked the Minister for Local Government Empowerment and Planning, Joe Fitzpatrick, about the same UK swimming pool fund. In his response, he stated:

“As I said, the money has been allocated. It was allocated to budgets as part of £100 million of additional funding that went to local government at stage 3 of the budget bill.”—[Official Report, 27 September; c 20.]

Stage 3 of the budget was in February and, as John Swinney admitted to me in his apology, the money was allocated by the UK Government much later. For the SNP to make that mistake once was unfortunate. To make that mistake twice looks like incompetence. To make that mistake three times looks deliberate.

Presiding Officer, can you let me know if Joe Fitzpatrick has made any attempt to correct the record? Further, given the torrent of corrections that are now being issued by Scottish ministers, is there any action that you can take when such an important issue that affects our communities across Scotland has been obscured to such an extent?

Thank you for your contribution, Mr Lumsden. I am unaware of whether any attempt to correct the record has been made. All members will agree that it is of paramount importance that members, including ministers, give accurate and truthful information to the Parliament, correcting any inadvertent errors at the earliest opportunity. If a member has a question about the factual accuracy of another member’s contribution, they should raise it with that member. I am sure that, at this point in the session, members are well aware that the Parliament has a corrections procedure and of how that mechanism operates.

We will have a short suspension to allow members of the public who are leaving the gallery to do so.