Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 09 February 2022
I am delighted to have the opportunity to close the debate. I will address the one and only discordant issue first, before I get on to my usual generous way of drawing such matters to a close.
The discordant note is the Conservatives’ persistent line of argument warning me of the troublesome journey of the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill, which is before Parliament. Of course, that is not the subject of today’s debate, so I hope that the Presiding Officer will allow me one moment to continue. I always follow the direction of the Presiding Officer, unlike Mr Whittle.
One of the issues—the point was made by the convener of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee, Siobhian Brown, and Mr Mason has made it repeatedly in earlier debates—is that we must have a statute book that is appropriate to deal with the circumstances that we face. Siobhian Brown made the point that, in 2020, we did not have a statute book that was capable of allowing us to take the measures that we had to take to address the impact of the pandemic. We did not have the power to undertake the closure of educational facilities that was required in March 2020—that is beyond dispute.
The point of the legislation that I am bringing to Parliament is to enable Parliament to have a statute book that is fit for purpose when there are utterly exceptional circumstances. I hope that the Conservative members will engage constructively on that point. This is, perhaps, the start of either the constructive engagement or the dogged opposition of the Conservative Party.