Meeting of the Parliament 22 February 2017
I would love to—I would love to have a debate about the matter.
Even if SNP members think that our current ministers are benign, they cannot be sure that the next lot will be.
It is not good enough for the minister to say—as he might do in a moment—that the legislative consent motion is necessary in order to combat fraud. The ends never justify the means.
This is far too important an issue to be left to a simple legislative consent motion that will give power to Westminster to act on our behalf and transfer Henry VIII powers to Scottish Ministers. We are not doing our job as MSPs if we allow that to happen. What is the point of having a Scottish Parliament if we allow the matter to go through without any real scrutiny?
It is still not too late for the cabinet secretary to withdraw the legislative consent motion and let us deal with the issue ourselves, here in this Parliament. It is perfectly possible for him to do that, so I urge him to do so right now.
16:56