Meeting of the Parliament 14 December 2022
As always, Mr Bibby is reasonable in his requests, and I am quite willing to come to the points that he made. The timeline that we have set for the gender recognition bill is set out in the Parliament’s standing orders and in the convention that has been agreed by the Government and the Parliament.
In addition—and this will help Mr Bibby out—I am pleased to say that we are accepting all the requests for statements from business managers, and those include every single one in the Conservative amendment that is before us. I will get back to the bureau with dates for them as soon as possible.
Finally, in response to the Conservatives’ attempt to add a debate on the budget, I have one thing to say: the Scottish Government would relish such a debate. I think that the Deputy First Minister would also relish such a debate, because it would allow us to outline just how disastrous the Tory budget is for Scotland. However, I am likely to come back to that at a later date, so I propose the business as agreed yesterday by the bureau.