Meeting of the Parliament 14 December 2022
As I indicated last week, the Scottish Conservatives seek to amend next week’s business programme to bring forward statements and debates that should have been scheduled before Christmas. I also hope that the Minister for Parliamentary Business corrects the Official Report of last week to accurately reflect the fact that the Parliamentary Bureau was not unanimous in its support of the timetabling of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill.
I thank the minister for agreeing to a statement on the Climate Change Committee report next Wednesday, but a week’s worth of business is being delayed for no good reason. Our alternative programme includes a statement on the strategic transport projects review 2 report, which was snuck out late last Thursday, and the update on national planning framework 4 that we were promised. It also provides for an update on the Scottish Government’s biodiversity strategy, which I am sure all parties agree is important.
On top of that, my colleague Stephen Kerr has tried to raise the curriculum for excellence achievement statistics in Parliament to no avail. There is no reason why an education statement should not be scheduled next week so that the cabinet secretary can answer questions from elected representatives.
We also seek to timetable two debates. One is on the Scottish budget, a subject that the Scottish Government had previously allocated only one minute of questions per £1 billion of spending—[Interruption.]—and the other is on the next steps for the agriculture bill, which NFU Scotland has been pushing for.
Those issues have been kicked into the new year by the Scottish Government in its unrelenting quest to pass the gender bill before Christmas. The bill has been accused of lacking the Parliament’s usual scrutiny process—[Interruption.]