Meeting of the Parliament 06 January 2026
I can certainly endeavour to do so—but I have no intention of stepping across the First Minister’s responsibility for the Scottish Government and the ministerial code of conduct.
Noting the way that I have articulated the proposal in the motion today, along with what is in the committee’s very full report, I draw attention to the fact that, as a committee, we do not follow precedent in a strict form, but we do of course look at previous incursions. We also look at the circumstances of the very specific case that is before us because, under natural justice, that is not only what we are expected to do, but what we should do.
I draw the member’s attention to paragraph 26 of our report, which says:
“The Committee considered a number of factors in what it considered to be the appropriate period of exclusion”—
which appears in the motion. The report continues:
“This included whether there were any mitigations that could be taken into account.”
The report and the sanctions that are proposed in today’s motion were unanimously decided by the committee. I hope that that assists the member in his thinking.
With that, I move,
That the Parliament notes the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee’s 9th Report, 2025 (Session 6), Complaint against Ash Regan MSP (SP Paper 945), and agrees to impose the sanction recommended in the report that Ash Regan MSP be excluded from all meetings of the Parliament and its committees for two sitting days, with those sitting days being the next Wednesday and the next Thursday following the agreement of this motion.
17:53