Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 03 February 2021
I really do not have time.
Crown Office investigations must not, of course, be motivated by political pressure, and trying to influence the Crown Office would be inappropriate. I did not find Mr Harvie’s differentiation between political pressure and seeking information to be particularly persuasive. On the contrary, I found the cabinet secretary’s response to the earlier intervention to be well founded.
Although it is not for the Conservatives to answer on behalf of the Scottish ministers—the cabinet secretary has set out and will, no doubt, set out in closing the reasoning for choosing to use or not to use any powers that they have—it does not feel wise for the Parliament to seek to require the Crown Office to pursue what some might feel to be a politically motivated investigation, particularly in the context of the recent challenges over malicious prosecutions that we heard about in the chamber only yesterday.
I will conclude with a simple observation. We are in the middle of a pandemic that has taken a terrible toll on the people of Scotland. Parliament needs to be 100 per cent focused on our economic recovery and rebuilding Scotland from that pandemic. We should be working together—as I look forward to doing—in the national interest to manage the crisis and rebuild our country. For that reason and the other reasons that I have set out, I shall vote accordingly at decision time.
16:49