Meeting of the Parliament 08 October 2025
Parliament’s prime duty is to pass effective legislation. I know that members will agree that that can be done only if effective scrutiny is undertaken by the Parliament and its committees. The legislative consent motion that will be debated tomorrow is important, as it relates to fraud prevention.
As was intimated by the convener of the Finance and Public Administration Committee, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and David Wallace of Social Security Scotland were asked to appear before that committee on 16 September because of concerns about an article that appeared in The Scotsman in August, which implied that the Scottish Government was unwilling to chase up £36 million of fraudulent benefit claims. That is a substantial sum of public money, on which the Finance and Public Administration Committee rightly sought to challenge the Government.
Presiding Officer, I am sure that you will agree that it is right that additional scrutiny takes place, just as it is important that we do not wave through LCMs without scrutiny. We accept that, in this instance, there have been issues relating to the timescales for deliberation at Westminster and at Holyrood, and the impact of the October recess on those. However, we wish to put on record that we believe that there should be the fullest scrutiny of all aspects of legislation. For that reason, we will not support the proposed suspension of standing orders at decision time.
18:41