Meeting of the Parliament 15 November 2023
I am grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I will be careful.
However, I believe that this was deliberate, because those statements were not a simple slip of the tongue. They were the product of a concerted effort to confuse and muddle the timeline to make it seem as though the SNP Government was not dragging its heels in getting evidence to the inquiry.
As I have shown, the facts are clear. There can be no doubt that the ministerial code was broken and that the information given by Humza Yousaf and Shona Robison on the timing and scope of requests from the UK Covid inquiry was false.
However, there is a due process that can be followed, and I urge Parliament to vote for our motion to launch an independent investigation. If the Government does not believe that there has been a breach of the code, why would it not want that to be investigated? The UK Covid inquiry exists to give bereaved families the answers that they deserve on the motivations for the decisions taken during the pandemic. They should be given all of the information that they need to find those answers—they should not have to call out the two most senior SNP members to do so.
If members in this Parliament do not stand up for honesty in this chamber, this Government will always feel able to keep us and our constituents in the dark. It is past time that members of all parties stood up for the truth in the Parliament in which they serve.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister should refer themselves to the independent adviser on the Scottish Ministerial Code for a potential breach of paragraph 1.3(c) of that code, which requires ministers to give “accurate and truthful information to the Parliament”, on account of their statements misleading the Parliament on 31 October 2023 and 2 November 2023, relating to the date of requests for information from the UK COVID-19 Inquiry.
14:58