Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 25 November 2020
Now we know. We know from today’s speeches, from the briefings to the SNP group and from the reports to their meetings by John Swinney that the Scottish Government has no intention of releasing the legal advice. It has utter contempt for the Parliament and for the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints. It is likely that the Parliament will again vote this evening for the advice to be released, and it looks like that will be completely ignored.
I remind the SNP that, when the UK Government refused to reveal its legal advice on Brexit, the SNP supported a motion tabled by Labour to have that legal advice revealed. It then went on to support a contempt of Parliament motion, which demanded that the UK Government reveal its legal advice on Brexit. That motion was won and the Cabinet Office published the full legal advice the following day. Will the Deputy First Minister publish the legal advice—at the very least the written opinions from the senior counsel, Roddy Dunlop QC?
Rumours abound that senior counsel threatened to resign in the latter stages of the judicial review, so bad was the Scottish Government’s case, yet the civil servants were determined to plough on regardless. I have given the example of the SNP’s support for the release of legal advice in the UK Parliament, but it does not support that release in the Scottish Parliament where it is in control—a clear-cut case of double standards.
Of course, there is precedent. The Scottish Government has released legal advice to the UK bloods inquiry, the child abuse inquiry and the trams inquiry. I should point out that the trams inquiry is not even a formal public inquiry, so why is a parliamentary inquiry a lesser consideration? Why are the women at the centre of this matter, and those who might come forward in the future, not considered more important than trams?
It is essential to understand what went wrong, the grounds on which the policy was challenged, and when it was conceded, in order to learn lessons for the future. The committee needs to see the legal advice in order to do just that. It is central to the committee’s remit, which the SNP agreed with when the committee was established.
I will talk again about the obstruction that the committee faced. I raised the issue previously but will do so again, as it perfectly illustrates how bad things are with the Scottish Government. Early letters from John Swinney said that the Government could not share any information from the judicial review as that was a matter for the Court of Session. That simply was not true. It took the attendance of the Lord Advocate, giving evidence under oath, and a letter from the committee to the Court of Session to expose the Scottish Government’s complete lack of candour. That was not ignorance of how the courts operated, but deliberate obstruction.
I do not know why I continue to be surprised. By its every action, the SNP demonstrates the secrecy and the lack of transparency and openness at the very heart of Government. If John Swinney ignores the motion, he is quite deliberately holding the Parliament and the committee in complete contempt.
I was never a believer in conspiracy theories—they are just a tad too far-fetched for my taste—but the more the SNP refuses to co-operate with a parliamentary committee, the more I think that there might just be something in them. The one thing that one can be sure of is that, despite Mr Swinney and the Scottish Government’s best efforts to dissemble, obstruct and hide everything under a veil of secrecy, we will get to the bottom of this, and the truth will out.
17:32