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Good afternoon.
On a point of order, Deputy Presiding Officer. Yesterday, the Presiding Officer, Alison Johnstone, refused to suspend standing orders to allow me to lodge an urgent question on the document that the Scottish Government produced in its case against For Women Scotland to allow it to continue to house male prisoners in the female prison estate. In response, Alison Johnstone told me that she would not suspend standing orders yesterday because there would be further opportunities this week to try to question ministers.
To me, it was very clear that one of those options was an urgent question that was submitted on time, which I did first thing this morning. The question that I wanted to ask was whether the Scottish Government would update Parliament on the written case for Scottish ministers and the Lord Advocate in the judicial review of the Scottish Prison Service’s policy for the management of transgender people in custody, including how many times women’s rights are mentioned.
I say this choosing my words very carefully. Disgracefully, the Presiding Officer has not accepted that urgent question.
Mr Ross, I ask you to resume your seat for a second.
I understand the strength of feeling that there is around the decision, but I urge you, Mr Ross, not to challenge the chair. You can resume your point of order.
The Presiding Officer, in making her decision, asked officials to tell me this:
“The question is not sufficiently urgent to meet the criteria for an urgent question today”.
What is more urgent than the Government saying that male prisoners should be in the female prison estate or the bizarre arguments that it published yesterday? Surely, that is urgent enough to hear from ministers about today.
Again, I thought very carefully about how I phrase this: it just looks like we have a Presiding Officer who is shielding Scottish National Party ministers and preventing them from being brought to the chamber to answer questions.
Mr Ross, please resume your seat.
You may have thought very carefully about the words that you would use, but I think that you have gone ahead and still used them in ways that go beyond challenging the chair. You have made your point. I urge you to be sensible in the language that you use. You can resume your point of order.
I would be sensible in the language that I choose to use if we had sensible rulings from the Presiding Officer. It is a nonsensical ruling for the Presiding Officer to make.
Mr Ross, resume your seat.
You have made your point, which is not a point of order. As you know well, the selection of urgent questions is up to the Presiding Officer. As has been intimated to you, there will be opportunities during the course of this week for you to make those points. I understand that you were encouraged to press your button during First Minister’s questions tomorrow. On that basis, there is not more that I can add to what you have already been told.
On a point of order, Deputy Presiding Officer. If the argument is that I can ask one question to the First Minister, who repeatedly refused to answer questions from his own back benchers and from Labour and Conservative MSPs last week at FMQs, why not have the urgent question, so that multiple questions on the same subject can be put over a 10-to-20-minute period? Now, we are going to get maybe 30 seconds to question the First Minister tomorrow, when ministers should be put under the cosh on this. They should be challenged, repeatedly, by MSPs across the chamber. That is what our urgent questions are for, and this is not allowing it. I think that that is a disgrace.
Mr Ross, that is not a point of order. I have responded to the substantive point that you made.
It is now time to start portfolio question time.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I believe that this is an important matter. I am sure that you agree that we want the Scottish Parliament to be a welcoming place for our guests and visitors. However, earlier today, a guest of mine was asked to remove his Doddie Weir lanyard and snood, neither of which included large campaign messages. The core policy explicitly states that
“Banners, flags and political slogans are forbidden”,
and that that includes clothing that displays large or overly political branding or campaign messages. You can see that the Doddie Weir lanyard that I am wearing has no political messaging.
Presiding Officer, can you advise whether your office has changed the visitor policy without our knowing? Will you personally undertake to investigate this affront to a guest who had absolutely no political branding on his being?
I am not aware of the circumstances of the case that you have raised, Ms Hamilton. For clarity, the policy is a Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body one, but I am concerned to hear what you have described. I will ensure that it is looked into and that a response is provided to you and to members, who I am sure will have an interest in that.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I realise that people want to carry on with rural questions, and please believe that I want to do that, too, as the points that will be raised are critically important. However, I cannot help but rise to speak at this point.
Rule 13.7 of the standing orders deals with portfolio questions, the item that we are just coming to. My understanding is that, by convention, when members enter their names into the ballot to be picked to ask a question, they will submit a question. However, today, three SNP members have decided not to lodge their question. There are rows of people on the benches behind me who want to ask a rural question, so I seek your guidance, Presiding Officer. Will you ensure that those of us in the chamber who want to ask a rural question will get selected today, rather than members of the SNP who have not lodged questions?
As I and the Presiding Officer have made clear in the past, when members are picked out of the ballot to ask a question, they should make sure that they are available to do so. I think that it is disappointing to see in the Business Bulletin that a number of questions have not been lodged. I simply reinforce the message that the Presiding Officer has previously put out. She has spoken to the Minister for Parliamentary Business about these specific cases, but all that I can do is emphasise the importance of members taking care, when putting their names into the ballot, to ensure that they will be available to ask questions.
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Portfolio Question Time